The descendants of Vasco Perez were of account, and married into the richest and most powerful families of Portugal. His second son, Joaõ Vaz, was the great-grandfather of the poet. He acquired glory by his military services under Alfonso V., and was named his vassal—a title of distinction in those days. He built a house at Coimbra, and there is a marble monument erected to his memory in the chapel of the cloister of the cathedral at Coimbra. Simaõ Vaz, the grandson of Joaõ Vaz, married Dona Ana de Sa e Macedo, of noble descent, and sprung from the Macedos of Santarem. Thus, in every way, Camoens was highly descended from nobles and warriors; but, springing from the younger branch, he inherited the blood and name without the estates of his family. As he never married this branch of the family became extinct.
Coimbra and Santarem have both contended for the glory of having been his birth-place, but without foundation; for he was born at Lisbon, most probably in the district "da Mouraria," in the parish of San Sebastiaõ, where his parents resided. The date of his birth has been disputed. A friend and contemporary, Manoel Correa, gave that of 1517; but a register, in the Portuguese India House, proves that he was really born in 1524.[129] This entry also is conclusive on another point. It was long believed that Camoens lost his father while a mere child. Simon Vaz de Camoens was a mariner; nearly all the biographers of the poet agree in stating that he lost a ship, of which he was commander, on the coast of Goa, and, escaping from the wreck, died soon afterwards in that city; though some aver that he fell in the combat in which his son lost an eye. Camoens himself does not mention his father as being with him on that occasion, nor during any of his adventures. This point, therefore, is left in obscurity.
Camoens was born at Lisbon; he celebrates with fondness the parental Tagus: "My Tagus," as he sometimes names the river. But most of his early years were spent at Coimbra, where, as has been mentioned, his father had a house. He often mentions the river Mondego in his verses. To a poet, there is something in a river that engages his affections and enlivens his imagination. Water is indeed the soul, the smile, the beaming eye of a landscape; and as Camoens' only happy days were those when he nourished hopes—hopes, as he says in a letter, which he afterwards cast aside as coiners of false money—in his youth, he might well record with fondness the hours he spent in the beautiful environs of Coimbra on the banks of its lovely river. Thus, in his poems, the nymphs of Tagus and of Mondego are both addressed; and in one remarkable and most beautiful passage of the "Lusiad" he exclaims, "What, insane and rash, am I about to do without ye, O nymphs of Tagus and Mondego, through so arduous, long, and various a way? I invoke your favour, as I navigate the deep sea with so contrary a wind, that, unless ye aid me, I fear that my fragile bark must sink!" and then he goes on to describe his misfortunes in India, turning to those streams that watered his native land, and whose very names were full of blessed recollections of life's prime, to give him fortitude and help.[130]
Camoens studied in the university at Coimbra. This university was founded by king Diniz, in 1308. Camoens introduces mention of this monarch in the "Lusiad," and alludes to the establishment of the university under his fosterage:—
From Helicon the Muses wing their way:
Mondego's flowery banks invite their stay,
Now Coimbra shines, Minerva's proud abode;
And fired with joy, Parnassus' blooming God
Beholds another dear-loved Athens rise,
And spread her laurels in indulgent skies.[131]
The university, however, fell off, and it was don Manuel who exerted himself for its re-establishment; and dom John, his successor, took equal pains to raise it to its former prosperity, and in the first place caused it again to be restored to Coimbra—for it had been transferred to Lisbon—and founded several new colleges. The date when Camoens entered it is uncertain. It has been supposed that he was twelve years old. In that case he must have attended it while at Lisbon; for it was only transferred in 1537[132] when Camoens was thirteen or fourteen.
Saa de Miranda had studied there, and Ferreira was also a student. He was younger than Camoens by four years, and that, at a boyish age, makes the difference of, as it were, a generation. There is no token that they were known to each other, nor, indeed, are there any traces of Camoens' life or pursuits at Coimbra, except such as we find in his poems; and these are in some sort contradictory—agreeing, however, in the love they express for the picturesque scenery in which this seat of learning was placed, and affection for its beautiful river.
Mr. Adamson quotes a canzone, in which he dwells with delight on the charms of the Mondego, and dates thence his earliest passion. Lord Strangford asserts that he had never experienced the passion of love while at Coimbra, and rests his assertion on expressions of the poet. Both of course are right, and the poet is wrong. Nor is this assertion paradoxical. When the heart of Camoens became susceptible to a master feeling, that filled it and awoke its every pulse to a sense of love, he would naturally wish to throw into the back-ground any boyish fancy; and comparing its slight and evanescent emotions with the mighty passion of which he was afterwards the prey, he might well say,—
All ignorant of love I pass'd my days,
Its bow and all its mad deceits despising,