served at court, and there incurred royal displeasure by falling in
love with a lady his majesty chose to honor with his attentions.
During a period of banishment at Santarem, Camoëns began the Lusiad,
Os Lusiades, an epic poem celebrating Vasco da Gama's journey to India
in 1497[14] and rehearsing with patriotic enthusiasm the glories of
Portuguese history. Owing to its theme, this epic, which a great
authority claims should be termed "the Portugade," is also known as
the Epic of Commerce or the Epic of Patriotism.

After his banishment Camoëns obtained permission to join the forces
directed against the Moors, and shortly after lost an eye in an
engagement in the Strait of Gibraltar. Although he distinguished
himself as a warrior, Camoëns did not even then neglect the muse, for
he reports he wielded the pen with one hand and the sword with the
other.

After this campaign Camoëns returned to court, but, incensed by the
treatment he received at the hands of jealous courtiers, he soon vowed
his ungrateful country should not even possess his bones, and sailed
for India, in 1553, in a fleet of four vessels, only one of which was
to arrive at its destination, Goa.

While in India Camoëns sided with one of the native kings, whose wrath
he excited by imprudently revealing his political tendencies. He was,
therefore, exiled to Macao, where for five years he served as
"administrator of the effects of deceased persons," and managed to
amass a considerable fortune while continuing his epic. It was on his
way back to Goa that Camoëns suffered shipwreck, and lost all he
possessed, except his poem, with which he swam ashore.