increase. Many functionaries with families had less to live on, and
Camoens's subsistence was secure for the time being, and he could afford
an attendant, so that the legend of the slave Antonio may well be true.
Moreover, he was in the enjoyment of the fame his poem brought him.
Philip II. is said to have read and admired it, and the powerful
minister, Pedro de Alcacova Carneiro, echoed the general opinion when he
remarked that it had only one defect, in not being short enough to learn
by heart or long enough to have no ending. Tributes came from abroad
too. Tasso wrote and sent Camoens a sonnet in his praise, Fernando de
Herrera celebrated him, and the year 1580 saw the publication of two
Spanish versions, one at Alcala, the other at Salamanca. His pension
lapsed in 1575, but on the 2nd of August it was renewed for a further
term; owing, however, to a mistake of the treasury officials, Camoens
drew nothing for about a year and a half and fell into dire distress.
This explains the story of Ruy da Camara, who had engaged him to
translate the penitential psalms, and not receiving the version, called
on the poet, who said in excuse that he had no spirit for such work now
that he wanted for everything, and that his slave had asked him for a
penny for fuel and he could not give it.

On the 2nd of June 1578, just before his start for the expedition to
Africa which cost him his life and Portugal her independence, King
Sebastian had renewed the poet's pension for a further period. Though
Camoens had neither the health nor the means to accompany the splendid
train of nobles and courtiers who followed the last crusading monarch to
his doom, he began an epic to celebrate the enterprise, but burnt it
when he heard the news of the battle of Alcacer. Instead, he mourned the
death of his royal benefactor in a magnificent sonnet, and in Elegy x.
reproached the cowardly soldiery who contributed to the rout. On the
31st of January 1580 the cardinal king Henry died, and, foreseeing the
Spanish invasion, Camoens wrote in March to his old friend D. Francisco
de Almeida: "All will see that I so loved my country that I was content
not only to die in her but with her." A great plague had been raging in
Lisbon since the previous year, and the poet, who lay ill in his poor
cottage in the rua de Santa Anna, depressed by the calamities of his
country, fell a victim to it. He was removed to a hospital and there
passed away, unmarried and the last o