About the book

Camões places Vasco da Gama's voyage towards India within a larger poetic vision of Portuguese history. Classical gods intervene, narrated episodes interrupt the journey, and the sea becomes a setting for both extraordinary aspiration and danger. The poem celebrates expansion, but its changes of voice and moments of warning make its imaginative world more complicated than a simple record of triumph. Readers should distinguish that epic perspective from a neutral history of the peoples encountered. William Julius Mickle's English rendering is presented here in a revised edition with E. Richmond Hodges's notes and introductory material. The translation has its own literary character. Following the interplay between voyage, historical retrospect, and myth is more rewarding than treating every episode as literal documentary evidence.

Voyage and empire
National memory
Myth and ambition

Why read it

For an epic that combines maritime movement with myth, historical storytelling, and arguments about glory.

Mickle's English translation · revised by E. Richmond Hodges, 1877

Contents and reading sections

Section 1
Section 2
Section 3
Section 4
Section 5
Section 6
Section 7
Section 8
Section 9
Section 10
Section 11
Section 12
Section 13
Section 14
Section 15
Section 16
Section 17
Section 18
Section 19
Section 20
Section 21
Section 22
Section 23
Section 24
Section 25
Section 26
Section 27
Section 28
Section 29
Section 30
Section 31
Section 32
Section 33
Section 34
Section 35
Section 36
Section 37
Section 38
Section 39
Section 40
Section 41
Section 42
Section 43
Section 44
Section 45
Section 46
Section 47
Section 48
Section 49
Section 50
Section 51
Section 52
Section 53
Section 54
Section 55
Section 56
Section 57
Section 58
Section 59
Section 60
Section 61
Section 62
Section 63
Section 64
Section 65
Section 66
Section 67
Section 68
Section 69
Section 70
Section 71
Section 72
Section 73
Section 74
Section 75
Section 76
Section 77
Section 78
Section 79
Section 80
Section 81
Section 82
Section 83
Section 84
Section 85
Section 86

About the book

Why read it

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