Luís Vaz de Camões (c. 1524-1580), the famous Lisbon poet, composed Os Lusiades in 1572 to glorify the expedition and exploits of Vasco da Gama in the Indian Ocean. It is a lengthy and epic poem, consisting of ten cantos, the portion relating to mainland Southeast Asia limited to a portion of the last of these. Only this portion is reproduced below. The chief utility of this information for the historian is that it helps us to understand how much, by 1572, Portuguese at home knew about the region. Some information is of special interest, such as the reference to the Gwe.
The following translation was made in 1655 by Richard Fanshaw and printed in London for Humphrey Moseley at the Prince’s Arms in St. Paul’s Church-yard. According to the translator’s preface, Fanshaw completed the translation on 1 May 1655 at Tankersley Park. The following text is derived from the British Library original (shelfmark g.11385). Other English translations include Vise Strangford’s version of 1804 (n.p.: Carpenter, BL shelfmark B28.a.31), Edward Quillinan’s version, with notes by John Adamson, of 1853 (n.p.: Edward Moxon, BL shelfmark x15/3449), William Julius Mickie’s 1877 edition (London: George Bell & Sons, BL shelfmark W53/4181), and others in the twentieth century. As the first English translation, the one most late seveneteenth and eighteenth century English travelers would have read, warrants special attention. Edited for the SOAS Bulletin of Burma Research by Michael W. Charney
