SOURCE: “What Did the Old Man of Restelo Mean?” in Luso-Brazilian Review, Vol. 17, No. 2, Winter 1980, pp. 139-51.

In this essay, Moser outlines the variety of interpretations of the speech of the old man of Restelo at the close of Canto IV of The Lusiads, observing: “Every intellectual who has reflected on the episode of the Old Man has seen it in the light of his own times and circumstances.”

The Episode

In his Lusiads, Camões took great care to enhance the historical truth—as verdades—which he chose as his subject. By superimposing a plot of apparently pagan gods upon real events, he elevated as well as complicated the meaning of his poem. A second device he used with the same intent was the insertion of symbolic episodes, of his own invention, three of which have always fascinated his readers: the episode of the titan Adamastor, the...