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Apartment for sale in Campal/Miramar area, Panaji, Goa. Spacious 3 bedroom flat (3BHK)available for sale in upscale area near Miramar beach Contact: goaengineer...@aol.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Portuguese epic speaks of Kerala’s past * *The Hindu* *Manuel Ferro * Seventy-four years after Vasco da Gama’s fleet weighed anchor at Kappad in Kozhikode on May 20, 1498, a book that told the story of his voyage via southern Africa to India was printed in Portugal. Poet Luís Vaz de Camões wrote the book, ‘Os Lusíadas’ (The Lusiads), in Homeric fashion. It throws light on the voyage that changed world history and offers glimpses into life in Zamorin’s Calicut. Considered Portugal& #8217;s national epic, it is compared to Virgil’s ‘Aeneid’, and Homer’s ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey’. Camoes was one of the first major European writers to cross the equator. As a soldier, prisoner and ship-wreck survivor, he knew first-hand about voyages. ‘The Lusiads’ was printed three years after the author returned from the Indies. A series of lectures by Manuel Ferro of the University of Coimbra in Portugal, which began at St. Thomas College here on Monday, will refer to the historical and literary importance of ‘The Lusiads’. “The epic poem will be of great interest to Malayalis. Its descriptive passages tell us of the palace of the Zamorin. The poem has been translated into Konkani. It is yet to be translated into Malayalam,” said C. J. Davees of the Centre for Lusofone Studies, introducing the lecture series. The series is a part of promoting Portuguese studies in Thrissur. The Goa-based Oriental Foundation has donated 600 Protuguese books to St. Thomas College. “The only person in Thrissur who reads them is me,” Mr. Davees said. In his introductory lecture on Portuguese literature, Prof. Ferro explained how the literature of Portugal was distinguished by a wealth of lyric poetry and historical writing documenting Portugal’s conquests. He referred to the Cantigas or ancient love songs of Portugal. About 2,000 have been preserved in a collection, ‘The Vatican Song Book’. Prof. Ferro recited a song by King Denis, ‘Aye flowers, aye flowers all of the green pine, what tidings have ye of this lover of mine?’ The moral and allegorical Renaissance drama of Gil Vicente, the 19th-century realist novels of José Maria de Eça de Queirós and Fernando Pessoas poetry have taken the glory of Portuguese literature outside the boundaries of Portugal. There was a resurgence in Portuguese poetry and novel in the 1970s. The popularity of Portugal’s literature reached its height with Jose Saramago winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998. >From Tuesday through Friday, Prof. Ferro will lecture on ‘The St. Thomas episode in ‘Lusiads’, ‘Camoes’ colloquies with Lusophony’, ‘Manuel Alegre’s and Jose Saramago’s Camoes’ and ‘The Indian community in Portugal. K. Santhosh