The Lusiads

At the centre of The Lusiads is Vasco da Gama's pioneer voyage via southern Africa to India in 1497-8. Camoes was the first European artist to cross the equator, and his narrative reflects the novelty and fascination of that original encounter with Africa, India, and the Far East. The poem's twin symbols are the Cross and the Astrolabe, its celebration of a turning-point in mankind's knowledge of the world uniting the old map of the heavens with the newly discovered terrain on earth. Yet it...