At the Grémio Literário, the Lyceum International Club of Lisbon honoured our best-known and most important poet on the 500th anniversary of his birth.
At the Lyceum’s invitation, we were joined by an illustrious personality, a connoisseur and scholar of the vate, and also a member of parliament. Edite Estrela gave what is considered a lectio on Luís de Camões, author of the Lusiads, the epic of the Portuguese nation, and also a great writer of sonnets and other literary categories.
A lectio, because Edite Estrela, in scholarly fashion, used a great work, Isabel Rio Novo’s book, a biography of the poet, to tell us about Camões. She asks, questions, doubts, enjoys and dislikes. She speaks of the poet, yes, but also of the man with an adventurous and daring life, of arms, of love and of much suffering.
And with Fernando Venâncio, and given the knowledge we have of this man, we can say ‘Homo sum; humani nil a me alienum puto’ – I am a man, nothing human is alien to me. That was certainly the glorious motto of this brilliant man, Luís Vaz de Camões.
Our member Solange Estevens also spoke about the poet, with fellow member Clara Cabral reciting some of Camões’ poems at the end of the lecture.