“Moderou-se o desejo, mas ficaram lembranças”: diálogos entre Os Lusíadas (1572) e a Malaca Conquistada (1658)

In 1658, in Lisbon, Francisco de Sá de Meneses, in this period known as brother Francisco de Jesus, published his epic poem The Conquest of Malacca for the second time (the first edition had been published in 1634). Poem praised by José Maria da Costa e Silva in the 19th century, translated into English in the 20th century by Edgar C. Knowlton Jr., had an unhappy fate as most of the epic poems in Portuguese Literature, with one known exception, The Lusiads, because this poem is conceived to occupy and fill the whole literary space, as well as time, perhaps, as wrote Hélio J. S. Alves, in O Cânone, “Luís de Camões 2” (2020). In this essay, in dialogue with the researchers that preceded us, we will try to demonstrate how the Sá de Meneses’ poem revises the Camões’ poem. So, it will be The Lusiads that will lead us to another text, in this case The Conquest of Malacca.