Madeira and the Isle of Love

Anyone moderately familiar with the work of Camões knows that the well-known episode of the Isle of Love (Ilha dos Amores) has given rise to many questions of a critical and literary nature, and that a sizeable Portuguese literature deals with them at length. Leaving aside the older authors, it is enough to name contemporaries such as Teófilo Braga, the Count of Ficalho, Epifânio Dias, José Maria Rodrigues, Ludovice de Meneses and others still to gauge the interest this subject has aroused among many commentators on The Lusiads (Os Lusíadas). One of the points most widely discussed is the ‘location’ or ‘geographical situation’ of the fantastic island. It is this point that is of particular interest to us here, because of the close or remote connection that may exist between it and the island of Madeira.

It is true that most critics and interpreters regard the episode as a product of pure poetic fiction, which Camões never deliberately placed at any particular point in the known world. On this view he either drew solely on the boldest flights of his ardent imagination, or sought inspiration in certain poems of universal renown, such as Homer’s Odyssey and Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, or in various Arab and Indian legends whose narratives resemble the Camonian description. There is no shortage, however, of writers of recognised authority who have maintained – not, we would say, with absolutely unanswerable arguments, but certainly with very weighty and acceptable presumptions – that on his long voyage to Africa, India, China and other Eastern lands Luís de Camões found fertile ground for inspiring the invention of his episode in the countless islands that his enraptured eyes beheld across the vastness of the two oceans.

Both hypotheses have been put forward, and both have found their fervent champions. ‘The poet,’ says a notable commentator on The Lusiads, ‘by a graceful effort of the imagination, took a mythological island with all its features and transported it from the regions of the Mediterranean – the homeland of ancient poetry – to the seas of the East... Its true geographical situation lies in the poet’s imagination, and it is not badly placed there.’ Some interpreters, however, no less illustrious and respected, allow that the islands of Anjediva, Ceylon, Zanzibar, Ascension Island, Terceira and Madeira may each have been a stage on which the glorious poet ‘rested’ his incandescent imagination and received the first motifs of inspiration for the design of his sublime and still unsurpassed creation.

In recent years, had a kind of plebiscite been held among those who have expressed an opinion on this subject, Madeira would have gathered the largest and most authoritative number of votes.

In a pamphlet of our own, entitled Camões e a Madeira, we also dealt with this subject at some length, and we have just (1938) read with particular pleasure another work on the same theme, which continues to attract the attention of new and fervent devotees.

A small pamphlet entitled Ilha dos Amores–Dados para a sua identificação has recently been issued by the ‘Tipografia da Liga dos Combatentes da Grande Guerra’ in Lisbon. It comes from the pen of Mr Henrique Manuel Terra Negra, who has already published several studies of the work of Camões. It opens with the following dedication: Á Flôr do Oceano–Pérola do Atlântico - Ilha Maravilhosa (‘To the Flower of the Ocean – Pearl of the Atlantic – Marvellous Island’).

It is a curious work of literary exegesis that deserves to be read with due appreciation and is of particular interest to scholars and devotees of these subjects. It is true that we did not find in it, nor could we have expected to, conclusive proof that Camões had in mind the fame Madeira already enjoyed in his day when his imagination devised that marvellous episode of The Lusiads. It would not, however, be too bold to suppose so, if we consider carefully the words of praise the poet set down in the 5th stanza of Canto V of his immortal poem. Here he became a great panegyrist of this island, and he was without doubt the precursor of all those who have extolled its natural beauties.

The pamphlet we are referring to cites many passages of the poem, whose interpretations serve as the basis for various hypotheses, presumptions and conjectures. Skilfully constructed as they are, however, they do not amount to arguments proving the thesis it seeks to demonstrate. Some of these interpretations contain excessively bold assertions, as the following passage shows, which does not even approach an apparent reality:

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The flora of the Isle of Love is the same as that of Madeira, because both are the same island. We shall say as much of the fauna, even though there are timid gazelles there (IX, 63, F), either to embellish the poetic style or because they existed on the island at that time. In Portugal there are no bears (we mean the zoological species), but there used to be. The Madeira of 1498 differs from the marvellous island of our own day. That is natural: more than 400 years have passed.

There are, however, other interpretations which, applied to the texts of Camões with greater critical rigour and more thorough analysis, might lead to hypotheses and conjectures of sound plausibility, and possibly even to the discovery of incontrovertible truths. Meanwhile, we consider some of these interpretations quite felicitous and even ingeniously constructed; besides revealing remarkable perspicacity, they also show a deep knowledge of our national Bible.

We are pleased to record the closing words of this interesting pamphlet, which now takes its place in the already vast bibliography of Madeira:

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As we conclude these brief notes on the fabulous episode of the Isle of Love, which is (like all fables) a mixture of truths and fictions, we joyfully salute and congratulate from here the