CAMOENS, LUIS DE (kam'a-ens), a Portuguese poet; born in Lisbon, prob ably in 1524 or 1525. Disappointed in love, he became a soldier, and served in the fleet which the Portuguese sent against Morocco, losing his right eye in a naval engagement before Ceuta. An affray into which he was drawn was the cause of his embarking in 1553 for In dia. He landed at Goa, but, being un favorably impressed with the life led by the ruling Portuguese there, wrote a satire which caused his banishment to Macao (1556). Here, however, he was appointed to an honorable position as ad ministrator of the property of absentee and deceased Portuguese, and here, too, in what were the quietest and most pros perous years of his life, he wrote the earlier cantos of his great poem, the "Lusiad." Returning to Goa in 1561, he was shipwrecked and lost all his prop erty except his precious manuscript.
After much misfortune Camoens in 1570 arrived once more in his native land, poor and without influence, as he had left it. The "Lusiad" was now printed at Lisbon (1572), and celebrat ing as it did the glories of the Portu guese conquests in India, acquired at once a wide popularity. The king him self accepted the dedication of the poem, but the only reward Camoens obtained was a pittance insufficient to save him from poverty; and it is said that his faithful Javanese servant had often to beg food for them both in the streets. The "Lusiad" is an epic poem in 10 can tos. Its subject is the voyage of Vasco da Gama to the East Indies; but many other events in the history of Portugal are also introduced. The other works ofCamoens consist of sonnets, songs, epigrams, dramas, etc. He died June 18, 1579.