Alarmed by the shock of an earthquake as early as 1 52G, the court removed to Coimbra, where it remained until the pestilence, which devastated Lisbon and the border lands of the Tagus, had moderated ; the nobles and " fidalguia " followed the king and court. Simao Vaz de Carnoeris having house and possessions at Coimbra, would naturally follow the court there with his family ; the more so as his brother Bento had, prior to 1527, taken " the habit in the monastery of Santa Cruz," where he was often visited by the king. Evidently a man of culture, he was chosen, on the reforma tion of the university in 1529, "being then prior of his order," the first chancellor. The popularity of the training at the newly-reformed university drew within its walls most of the sons of the nobility and " fidalguia." Here Camoena was entered as one of "the honourable poor students in 1 537, remaining there until he had completed his eighteenth year. Of his manner of life during the period which inter vened between his removal to Coimbra and the commence ment of his university career, something may be gathered from his minor writings, from which it appears that he wandered by Mondego s banks, "careless and unfettered in the free licence of boyhood."
The position of the poet s uncle, Dom Bento de Camoens, as prior of Santa Cruz, in addition to his status as chan cellor of the university, naturally suggested the church as a career for Camoens. This seems to have found no favour with him, as he writes, " I felt the pulse of many states of life. The clergy, I see, take stronger hold of life than of the salvation of souls ; and the monks, although shrouded in hood and habit, expose some small tokens inconsistent with the profession that he who turns his back upon the world for God should desire nothing that the world can give." Freely and injudiciously expressed at an inoppor tune moment in the ardour of youth, such home truths would tend to mar his advancement in church or state ; while his honesty, culture, wit, poetic genius, and comely appearance would induce much jealous enmity at a court where he was the idol of the women.
During his studentship, and possibly at a vacation revel, or when some degree was conferred, the students acted his Amphitrio es in imitation of Plautus. The dramatic representations at the university had usually been of the tragedies of Seneca, or of original Latin compositions. This work of Camoens, in popular " redondilhos," and in the vernacular, was considered an attempt to popularize a poetic reaction which satirized the mode in which the grave doctors of the university desired that all instruction should be imparted. In a satire of E-esende s, " to Luiz Camoens, reprehending those who, despising the learned, waste their own time with jesters," he indicates Camoens " as a pitiful poet, an unlucky monster, boasting to be a Latin bachelor."
With reference to the precise period when Camoens removed entirely from his alma mater and became again resident in Lisbon, some speculations have been hazarded by his biographers. The one carrying the most weight is cited by the Viseonde de Juromenha, who founds it upon the statement made by the poet in his first letter from India : " Because, when I reflect that without sin, which would sentence me to thirteen days of purgatory, I have passed thirteen thousand caused by evil tongues." Upon this Juromenha observes : " These thirteen thousand days are equal to eight years and eight days, and deducting the two years Camoens passed in Ceuta, and the one year of banishment on the upper Tagus, this leaves 1542 as the year of his departure from Coimbra." Thus we find Camoens quitting college to return to the court at Lisbon in his eighteenth year. A French biographer has assumed, with some force, that " Corte " simply means Lisbon, and not the court ; for as Camoens was not of the titular nobility, he would not be received at court. Contemporary evidence, on the other hand, rather favours the assump tion that being of the " fidalguia," gentle born, and well cultured, he would be chosen as companion by many of the young nobles who were his fellow-students at Coimbra.
Gentleness of birth, classical attainments of no mean order, a cultivated intellect, and poetic genius, united to a pleasing personal appearance and witty manner, must have been good passports to the court of John III., in which resided at that time the Infante Dom Luiz, a man of considerable attainments and a fair poet ; a] so the Infanta Donna Maria, patroness of the Belles Lettres, surrounded by a bevy of fair damsels who could compose song, dirge, epigram, and roundelay, or jest with the quick wit of a Beatrice, and who, like her, knew many "merry tales " by heart. Statesmen, such as the Conde de Sortelha and the Conde de Vimioso, courtly poets, and fellow-students of Camoens at Coimbra, both in the full blaze of court favour, would gladly welcome to Lisbon so polished a youth as Camoens must at that time have been. Of this same court of John III. Gil Vicente writes, " It is a sea in which many fished, but found the pastime dangerous." Sa de Miranda also blamed " the economic error of herd ing together all the young nobility in Lisbon."
Here, no doubt, Camoens formed acquaintanceships if not friendships, and became quickly initiated into the mysteries of court life and manners. Precocious and born a poet, his facility in every style of versification, a mind stored with romances of chivalry as well as popular fiction, and the poetic lore then available in his own, the Spanish, Italian, and classical idioms, would, added to his youth and sprightly manner, render him popular with the gentler, and unpopular with the sterner sex. Aban doning in some degree the antiquated forms of composi tion in vogue, he introduced eclogues, songs, and sonnets, full of tenderness and beauty, after the manner of the Italian school. Montemayor and Sa de Miranda, botli Portuguese, residing in Italy, had already adopted and naturalized to some extent the Italian form of pastoral poetry.
Here we must speak of Camoens s romantic passion for a certain high-born lady of the court. "The sweet unwit ting cause " of so much detriment to his court advance ment, and, if we are to credit his muse, of anguish to his heart, was a certain Donna Caterina de Ataide in attendance upon the queen of John III. The anagram of Natercia for Caterina clearly indicates the lady s name, in addition to which an acrostic coupling the names of Luiz with Caterina de Ataide, said to be by Camoens, puts the matter beyond all doubt. The tradition is that, on a certain Good Friday, Camoens for the first time en countered the lady s eyes at her devotions in the Church of the Chagas, Lisbon. That the wound proved deep and permanent there is abundant evidence in his Rimas.
The lady s father, Dom. Antonio de Lima, held the office of chamberlain in the royal household, a certain Pero de Andrade de Caminha serving in a similar capacity the Infante Dom Duarte. Caminha was a poet of fair ability, and was probably jealous of the success of Camoens ; in addition to which tradition asserts that Caminha himself, favoured by her father, aspired to the hand, if not the heart, of the Donna Caterina. We may infer that the lady was not ignorant of the effect her eyes wrought upon the author of the Lv.siad ; at any rate Caminha was jealous, and revenged himself in weak splenetic rather than satirical verse, while the lady s father employed his interest to mar the poet s prospects.
from Lisbon is not clear. The principal reason, no doubt,
was his passion for the golden-tressed Caterina, but there
