the term of his exile draws near, and in
one of them he wrote his prose letter to a "Lisbon friend." The octaves
on the _Discontent of the World_, which breathe a philosophic equanimity
and lift the reader out of the tumult of daily life, go to show that his
restless heart had found peace at last and that he had accustomed
himself to solitude.

In November 1549 the aged governor of Ceuta, D. Affonso de Noronha, was
summoned to court and created viceroy of India, and Camoens accompanied
him to Lisbon, intending to follow him to the East in the armada which
was due to sail in the spring of 1550. Reaching the capital in December,
the poet almost immediately enlisted, but when the time came for
departure he had changed his mind. His affection for Catherina and
dreams of literary glory detained him, and he lived on in the
expectation of obtaining a post on the strength of his services and
wound. But month after month passed by without result, and in his
disappointment he allied himself with a group of hot-blooded youths,
including the ex-friar Antonio Ribeiro, nicknamed "the Chiado", after
whom the main street of Lisbon takes its name, and endeavoured to forget
his troubles in their society. He took part in their extravagances and
gained the name of "Trinca-fortes" ("Crack-braves") from his bohemian
companions, while there were ladies who mocked at his disfigurement,
dubbing him "devil" and "eyeless face". In the course of his adventures
he had often to draw his sword, either as attacker or attacked, and he
boasted that he had seen the soles of the feet of many but none had seen
his. When the reply to his application came from the palace it was a
negative one, and he had now nothing further to expect. His stock of
money brought from Ceuta was certainly exhausted, and misery stared him
in the face, making him desperate. On the feast of Corpus Christi, the
16th of June 1552, he found two masked friends of his engaged in a
street fight near St Dominic's convent, and joining in the fray he
wounded one Goncalo Borges, a palace servant, with the result that he
was apprehended and lodged in gaol. This unprovoked attack upon a royal
servant on so holy a day constituted a serious offence and cost him
eight months' imprisonment. In a pathetic sonnet he describes his
terrible experiences, which made such an impression on him that years
afterwards he recurred to them in his great autobiographical Canzon 10.
When Borges' wound was compl