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!
Enfim acabarei a vida e verão todos que fui tão afeiçoado à minha Pátria que não só me contentei de morrer nela, mas com ela.
Original text (Portuguese)
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Source, in full
Letter to Don Francisco de Almeyda, 1579; written after "the disaster of Alcácer-Kebir when the mad King Sebastião's mammoth invasion of Morocco ended in his death and the destruction or enslavement of all but one hundred of his army of over 20,000. [Camões] died on 10 June 1580, just before the throne passed to Philip II of Spain", as reported by Landeg White in The Lusiads (Oxford World's Classics, 2001), p. x; quoted as Camões' last words in The Yale Literary Magazine, Vol. VIII (January, 1843), No. 3, "Luis de Camoëns", p. 115.