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Luís de Camões Quotes

1520–1580 Portugal

Luís Vaz de Camões (or de Camoens) (c. 1524 – June 10 1580) is considered the national poet of Portugal and the Portuguese language's greatest poet. He wrote a considerable amount of lyrical poetry and drama, but is best remembered for his epic work Os Lusíadas (The Lusiads), the influence of which is so profound that Portuguese is sometimes called the "language of Camões".

Portugal
Playwrights
Poets

Also known as: Camões, Luis de Camoëns, Luis de Camõens, Luís Vaz de Camões, Camoens, Camoes

Random Luís de Camões quote

65 quotes

This is my happy land, my home, my pride.

Os Lusíadas (1572)

Nor do I sing for courtesy's sake
with a taste for praising, but to make
pure truths known about my former times.
Would to God they were mere dreams.

No star from above
nor flower in the field
seems to me as fair
as the one I love.

They now went sailing in the ocean vast.

Seven years Jacob served as a shepherd
for Laban, lovely Rachel's father,
laboring not for the father but
anxious only for her as his reward.

That more would he serve, if life
Were not so short for love so long.

O piteous lot of man's uncertain state!
What woes on Life's unhappy journey wait!

Os Lusíadas (1572)

Oh, thou dread sword, oft stain'd with heroes' gore,
Thou awful terror of the prostrate Moor,
What rage could aim thee at a female breast,
Unarm'd, by softness and by love possess'd!

Os Lusíadas (1572)

As when a rose, ere-while of bloom so gay,
Thrown from the careless virgin's breast away,
Lies faded on the plain, the living red,
The snowy white, and all its fragrance fled;
So from her cheeks the roses died away,
And pale in death the beauteous Inez lay.

Os Lusíadas (1572)

And you, fair nymphs of Tagus... come auspicious, and the song inspire...

Ever in this world saw I
Good men suffer grave torments,
But even more—
Enough to terrify—
Men who live out evil lives
Reveling in pleasure and in content.

Enfim acabarei a vida e verão todos que fui afeiçoado à minha Pátria... I am ending the course of my life, but the world will bear witness how I have loved my country...

To be a lion among sheep, 'tis poor.

Os Lusíadas (1572)

Right honest studies my career can show
with long experience blent as best beseems,
and genius here presented for thy view;—
gifts, that conjoined appertain to few.

Os Lusíadas (1572)

For these vain honours, this false gold, give price
(Unless he have it in himself) to none,
Better deserve them, and to go without;
Than have them undeserved, without doubt.

Os Lusíadas (1572)

The last words which I uttered on board of the vessel were those of Scipio—'Ungrateful country! thou shalt not even possess my bones'.

Letter written from India (1553)

O Mighty King! The perils of the sword,
Or fire, or frost, I nothing estimate;
But much I grieve that life must circumscribe
The limits of my zeal.

Os Lusíadas (1572)

Since it gives me so much bliss
to give you everything I can
The more I pay you, the more I owe.

[But] to sing of your face, a composition
in itself sublime and marvelous,
I lack knowledge, Lady, and wit and art.

The Collected Lyric Poems of Luis de Camoes (2016)

I am ending the course of my life, but the world will bear witness how I have loved my country; I have returned not only to die on her bosom, but to die with her!

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Luís de Camões (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.