PLUS ULTRA AND LOVE IN THE LUSIADS

This article analyzes the centrifugal forces that organize Camoes' epic, ensure victory over the obstacles represented or referred to by Velho do Restelo, Gigante Adamastor and Baco, and crown the ending of the poem's narration. This outcome occurs on the "ilha namorada", when Vasco da Gama and their companions unite with the nymphs and consummate the symbiosis between men and "aquaticas donzelas", daughters of the Ocean. We propose a rhetorical-poetic reading of The Lusiads (1572) contrary to the romantic, psychological, bourgeois and enlightened criteria that naturalize taboos and paradigms incompatible with Portuguese literate practices of the 16th century.