Picture (from Wikipædia) is the statue of Adamastor in Lisbon -- it is on the bench across from here that our hero Ricardo Reis spends much of his time sitting. How lovely! Man, I could look at that for a long time.
Adamastor is a god from the poem Os Lusíades by Camões, which is Portugal's national epic . Adamastor also appears in Pessoa's poem "O Mostrengo" ("The Monster"), which is online here with a translation I can't vouch for*, and which inspired an animation you can watch on MeFeedia. "O Mostrengo" was the inspiration for D.S. Maguni's "O Gigante Adamastor", written for the Mozambiquan rebel cause in the 1970's.
 Another view of the statue is at Flickr. (Or possibly the Wiki pic is a cropped detail of that graphic -- they certainly look very similar layouts.) * The translator says, "This page is solely intended to entice the students of Portuguese who may, through it, be tempted to have a go at Mensagem." The page has links to the full text of Mensagem and notes.
posted evening of Wednesday, August 20th, 2008
➳ More posts about The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis
➳ More posts about José Saramago
➳ More posts about Readings
➳ More posts about Fernando Pessoa
➳ More posts about Poetry
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