Luís de Camões

Luís de Camões was born around 1524, probably in Lisbon. A soldier at Ceuta, he lost his right eye there; imprisoned in Lisbon in 1552 for wounding a servant of the king in a brawl, he was released only by agreeing to serve in the East, where he left in 1553. He spent seventeen years there, from Goa to Macao, was jailed for debt and was shipwrecked near the Mekong delta, from which he is said to have saved his manuscript by swimming. Returning poor in 1570, he obtained a modest royal pension and died in Lisbon in 1580, the year Portugal passed under the Spanish crown for sixty years.

In the catalogue 1

• EpicThe LusiadsOs LusíadasLuís de Camões · 1572Literature