photo©luísa alves
THE MYTH OF CAMOENS AND JAU
I had a black crow who used to bring me food(Words attributed to Camoens by a German poet of the early 19th century)
The coat of arms of the city of Lisbon shows two crows guarding a boat. According to legend, our first king, Afonso Henriques (12th century) brought the body of the martyr St. Vincent from Sagres to Lisbon, and two crows accompanied the boat all the way. The body was buried in Lisbon Cathedral, but the crows remained there, nesting on the windows, and after those their descendants, throughout the ages. This is a very symbolic tale revealing the ancient significance of the crow as the messenger of the divine. The crow's connection with death was positive until the 17th century, when the symbolism changed and it became an icon of bad omens and death predictions. Crows are the most intelligent birds and they are also extremely faithful, although few people try to tame them. Moreover, they take care of their sick and elderly.
Today, nobody cares about the Lisbon symbolism anymore, but we still see the crows in the city flags. The same happens with the one whom I call "the third crow of Lisbon", who came from Asia, just like the crow species did in the beginning. His name was given to one of the streets in the old quarter of Alcantara, but nobody remembers his legend anymore. Very near the streets named after our greatest poet (Luís de Camões) and our greatest literary masterpiece (his own work, Os Lusíadas (The Lusiads) the epic poem of the Discoveries) there is Rua Jau (the street of Jau). If we ask anyone who lives there, or the many people who cross it everyday, who Jau was, they probably think Jau is a nickname for João (John) but I'm sure they cannot imagine who that man might have been and why he deserved to a have a street named after him.
In fact, Jau (or Jao or Iao) was the common name by which the Portuguese designated a native of Java in the 16th century, the time of Camoens. What is written in that street sign is not the name of the man, but the place he came from, his nationality: he was a man of Java and for that he was known. There were very few Javanese in Lisbon, so that might be the reason why he was so well known, although the main reason was because he was Camoens's servant.
Camoens was always a man of genius and had a passionate temper. That was enough to assure him the envy and hatred of those he bothered. He was arrested after a fight with a nobleman, due to his passion for one of the queen's maids, a lady he loved for the rest of his life, so it seems. His enemies asked for a fierce punishment, and he only managed to leave prison in exchange for exile and service as a soldier. He went to Morocco, where he lost his right eye during a siege, and then to India, where he confronted the Portuguese administration and was punished for that: instead of sending him back to Lisbon, as he requested, he was sent to the Moluccas to fight again. There he wrote a song, known as the Song of Ternate, where he laments his bad luck, criticises Portuguese warfare and expresses his wishes that the beautiful island will never suffer what he was suffering:
So never to you be known
Time's all-injurious blight,
Safe in your shelter dwell
The yearnings here I tell (...).
For two years he visited other islands in Indonesia under Portuguese rule and Macao. This is where the story of Jau begins. Legend says his master was beating him to death and Camoens tried to buy him out, to save his life. But the owner was determined to make him suffer and, therefore, demanded from Camoens the best thing he had, his ornamented sword. The poet accepted and exchanged his sword for Jau. A cheap sword would have to do in the future. On the return to Ternate, the story goes on saying that Jau chose to be baptised and was christened Antonio. The poet also granted him his freedom, but Anto chose never to leave him and so they went everywhere together.
This took place after 1558, the year when he was sent to Macao. There he lived inside a cave and complied with a public servant's job for a while. After more trouble with the authorities, he sailed back to India, but the boat sank near the coast of Cambodia. He managed to survive and saved the manuscript of The Lusiads. Again, some say Jau saved the book; others that he saved the poet. The next thing we know is that a friend of the poet had to pay the fare so he could return to Lisbon. When he finally returned, seventeen years had passed. The rebel was ruined and aged before his time. He fought a lot to have The Lusiads published, and here legend says that Jau one day prevented him from having the book turned into ashes, so deep was his desperation.
Unable to triumph in a society that didn't recognise his worth, Camoens survived with the help of a few old friends and painfully watched his creativity fading away and his health deteriorating. When the money wasn't enough to buy food anymore, Jau started to beg, first without Camoens knowing about it; afterwards, under the bridge of Alcantara, where people gave him alms and his fame spread all over Lisbon. He died before the poet. Some say he was a very old man and that was why he couldn't work and he had to beg and he died so soon. Others say he was a young man who worked very hard but, as his wages didn't suffice, he also had to beg during the night. Probably, he was the same age of Camoens, mid fifties, but due to his hard existence he looked much older and had a feeble health. At the time of Jau's death, the poet could hardly walk, and his first biographer says he simply gave up on living afterwards. He only survived him a few months.
The problem with this story, historians say, is that there is no proof Jau ever existed. True, but if he didn't, why did Camoens's first biographer invent him? The literary experts on Camoens say that if he was real, the poet would have written at least one poem about him, as he did for everyone else who was important for him. But who knows if he did? His poetry was published after his death and certainly was selected. His last poems must have been very critical pieces, with very strong accusations against his countrymen and the way the country was plunging into the abyss (he died at the time when Portugal lost her independence to Spain (1580); it took sixty years to get it back). If he ever wrote something about "his Jau", as he called him, I'm sure it was more than just a simple poem; surely it was an important work showing all his affection for the man who turned out to be his best friend. That work would have been seen as an insult and, therefore, not fit for publication. Jau belonged to another country, another language, another race, another religion at birth and, being from Java, certainly another army. He was the embodiment of the enslaved enemy, the prototype of the persona non grata. If the poet wrote this work, it was certainly destroyed after his death.
But let us stick to proof. Why then did the people of the streets of Lisbon and his biographer create a Javanese as his companion of suffering?
In The Lusiads, Camoens mentions the Jaus only once. He calls them "valiant Jaus", and that's it. We know that after the Portuguese conquered Malacca, in 1510, they went to the Moluccas and took control of the spice trade from the Javanese, the Arabs and the Chinese. The relationship with Java was always double-sided: on one side, peaceful trade and co-operation; on the other side, war for the control of the spice trade. Fights on land as well as on sea were common, there were enslaved fighters on both sides, but what Camoens does in his statement is to recognise the warlike spirit of the Javanese. Chances are Jau was a pirate or a soldier. That would explain the fury of the Portuguese Captain (his captor, according to some; the man who bought him from the Bugis, who had captured him, say others) against him in Macao, and also his relationship with the poet. Many authors see him as a grateful slave, but if he saved his master's life in the shipwreck that wouldn't apply anymore: he had already paid his debt of life. On the other way, the poet could not afford to have a paid servant. A great scholar said he was "exiled for love". For the love of his master, maybe; although, it is my belief, more for the love of his chosen leader.
Like the warrior to his lord in the Heroic Age or the squire to his knight in the Middle Ages, his dedication to the poet and the traits for which Jau was famous had to do with a martial code of behaviour: self-sacrifice, humbleness, endurance, patience, courage, generosity, loyalty till death and willingness to serve and obey. I suppose that if Jau was an invention, his character revealed the image the Portuguese had of the Javanese, which shows a high regard for the virtues of the adversary who lived on the other side of the world. This would certainly explain why the name Antonio was ignored and Jau remained: he was not an individual, but the representative of a foreign people; he was not the Jau, one Javanese, but Jau, the paradigm of his nation. Why not a Chinese, an Indian, an Arab, an African or a Malay? The Portuguese were everywhere then, they fought and knew them all. The only logical answer is that they considered the Jaus the most honourable enemies. A Jau would have been the ideal companion for the rebel genius. As an archetype, the relationship is also perfect: the poet who was forced to be a soldier and the soldier who was forced to be a slave, by the whims of Fortune became twin brothers in tragedy and unhappiness. Camoens was exiled for the love of the wrong woman and Jau chose the exile to be near the man he admired the most.
The legend prospered, and the romantic writers (not only in Portugal but also in England, France, Spain, Italy and Germany) developed the theme in various works. Later came the painters and the musicians. Finally, the name of the street appeared as a deserved homage.
There are lots of references to Insulindia in Portuguese manuscripts and books of the 16th and 17th centuries. We have many accounts of the Discoveries, as we were the first Europeans to get there: battles, shipwrecks, trade, geography, religion, ethnography, history and a bit of exaggeration as well. Some of these works have strong literary qualities and are considered a valuable part of travel literature (the best and most colourful example is The Travels of Mendes Pinto). But if we are looking for poetry, we have to turn to the above mentioned Song of Ternate to find one of the islands as confident of a Portuguese poet. And if we want a theme for literary creation, we have to consider Jau the most important reflection of Insulindia/Indonesia in Portuguese literature (of course, both cases are connected through Camoens).
The great Portuguese themes known abroad are the tales of Dona Inês de Castro (who was killed for love and became queen after death) and of Dom Sebastião (the young king vanished in the battlefield, whom people believed would return in the future). The story of the immortal bond between Camoens and Jau is part of the third great theme: the tragic life of the Nation's Poet, whose date of death would turn out to be the National Day (the 1oth of June), an unique occurrence all over the world. As we can see, the main trait unifying Portuguese mythology is triumph after death, which is again a reflection of the symbolism of the patron saint of Portugal and Lisbon, St. Vincent, protected by the crows that should have destroyed his corpse.
Most people will say Jau is of small importance compared to his illustrious companions in the Portuguese mythological pantheon. For me, he is the crow/messenger, radiating a very special light that fed Camoens's hope and kept the faith, just like the glow of that extraordinary flower of his native Java, the moonlight-orchid. Again, I quote words attributed to Camoens, this time by a Portuguese poet of the late 19th century:
Poor man of Java, soul of the East,
Where in Europe can be found a heart comparable to yours?
Further Reading:
- The latest translation of The Lusiads is by Landeg White, Penguin Classics, 1997.
- The Travels of Mendes Pinto, was translated by Rebecca Catz, The University of Chicago Press, 1990.
Drawing: Camões and Jau, by Bordalo Pinheiro, late 19th century.
The legend prospered, and the romantic writers (not only in Portugal but also in England, France, Spain, Italy and Germany) developed the theme in various works. Later came the painters and the musicians. Finally, the name of the street appeared as a deserved homage.
There are lots of references to Insulindia in Portuguese manuscripts and books of the 16th and 17th centuries. We have many accounts of the Discoveries, as we were the first Europeans to get there: battles, shipwrecks, trade, geography, religion, ethnography, history and a bit of exaggeration as well. Some of these works have strong literary qualities and are considered a valuable part of travel literature (the best and most colourful example is The Travels of Mendes Pinto). But if we are looking for poetry, we have to turn to the above mentioned Song of Ternate to find one of the islands as confident of a Portuguese poet. And if we want a theme for literary creation, we have to consider Jau the most important reflection of Insulindia/Indonesia in Portuguese literature (of course, both cases are connected through Camoens).
The great Portuguese themes known abroad are the tales of Dona Inês de Castro (who was killed for love and became queen after death) and of Dom Sebastião (the young king vanished in the battlefield, whom people believed would return in the future). The story of the immortal bond between Camoens and Jau is part of the third great theme: the tragic life of the Nation's Poet, whose date of death would turn out to be the National Day (the 1oth of June), an unique occurrence all over the world. As we can see, the main trait unifying Portuguese mythology is triumph after death, which is again a reflection of the symbolism of the patron saint of Portugal and Lisbon, St. Vincent, protected by the crows that should have destroyed his corpse.
Most people will say Jau is of small importance compared to his illustrious companions in the Portuguese mythological pantheon. For me, he is the crow/messenger, radiating a very special light that fed Camoens's hope and kept the faith, just like the glow of that extraordinary flower of his native Java, the moonlight-orchid. Again, I quote words attributed to Camoens, this time by a Portuguese poet of the late 19th century:
Poor man of Java, soul of the East,
Where in Europe can be found a heart comparable to yours?
Further Reading:
- The latest translation of The Lusiads is by Landeg White, Penguin Classics, 1997.
- The Travels of Mendes Pinto, was translated by Rebecca Catz, The University of Chicago Press, 1990.
Drawing: Camões and Jau, by Bordalo Pinheiro, late 19th century.
