Adamastor
Encyclopedia
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
poet Luís de Camões
Luís de Camões
Luís Vaz de Camões is considered Portugal's and the Portuguese language's greatest poet. His mastery of verse has been compared to that of Shakespeare, Vondel, Homer, Virgil and Dante. He wrote a considerable amount of lyrical poetry and drama but is best remembered for his epic work Os Lusíadas...
in his epic poem Os Lusíadas
Os Lusíadas
Os Lusíadas , usually translated as The Lusiads, is a Portuguese epic poem by Luís Vaz de Camões ....
(first printed in 1572), as a symbol of the forces of nature Portuguese navigators had to overcome during their discoveries. Camões gave his creation a history as one of the Gigantes
Gigantes
In Greek mythology, the Giants were the children of Gaia, who was fertilized by the blood of Uranus, after Uranus was castrated by his son Cronus...
of Greek mythology
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
who had been spurned by Thetis
Thetis
Silver-footed Thetis , disposer or "placer" , is encountered in Greek mythology mostly as a sea nymph or known as the goddess of water, one of the fifty Nereids, daughters of the ancient one of the seas with shape-shifting abilities who survives in the historical vestiges of most later Greek myths...
, now appearing in the form of a threatening storm cloud to Vasco da Gama
Vasco da Gama
Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira was a Portuguese explorer, one of the most successful in the Age of Discovery and the commander of the first ships to sail directly from Europe to India...
and threatening ruin to anyone hardy enough to pass the Cape and penetrate the Indian Ocean
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...
, which was Adamastor's domain. Adamastor became the Spirit of the Cape
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...
, a hideous phantom of unearthly pallor:
- "Even as I spoke, an immense shape
- Materialised in the night air,
- Grotesque and enormous stature
- With heavy jowls, and an unkempt beard
- Scowling from shrunken, hollow eyes
- Its complexion earthy and pale,
- Its hair grizzled and matted with clay,
- Its mouth coal black, teeth yellow with decay. —Camões, The Lusiads Canto V.
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
sailors faced when trying to round the Cape of Storms, henceforth called, in consequence of the resultant success in despite thereof, Cape of Good Hope
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...
.
Adamastor, both the mythological character and the sculpture, are mentioned several times in Jose Saramago's Nobel Prize winning novel, The Year Of the Death of Ricardo Reis.
Adamastor has figured in much poetry of the Cape. In The First Life of Adamastor, a novella by André Brink
André Brink
André Philippus Brink, OIS, is a South African novelist. He writes in Afrikaans and English and is a Professor of English at the University of Cape Town....
, the writer refashioned the Adamastor story from a 20th-century perspective.
A popular gathering place in Lisbon is also known by the name 'Adamastor' because of the large stone statue of the mythical figure which presides over the space, which is officially called the Miradouro de Santa Catarina. This vista point offers visitors some of the most breathtaking views of the Tagus
Tagus
The Tagus is the longest river on the Iberian Peninsula. It is long, in Spain, along the border between Portugal and Spain and in Portugal, where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean at Lisbon. It drains an area of . The Tagus is highly utilized for most of its course...
river, the 25th of April Bridge and the Cristo Rei
Cristo Rei
Cristo Rei is a town and subdistrict in the Dili District of East Timor. Its population at the 2004 census was 43,909.-Reference:*...
monument.
Adamastor is also mentioned in the opera L'Africaine
L'Africaine
L'africaine is a grand opera, the last work of the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer. The French libretto was written by Eugène Scribe. The opera is about fictitious events in the life of the real historical person Vasco da Gama...
(1865) about Vasco da Gama by the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer was a noted German opera composer, and the first great exponent of "grand opera." At his peak in the 1830s and 1840s, he was the most famous and successful composer of opera in Europe, yet he is rarely performed today.-Early years:He was born to a Jewish family in Tasdorf , near...
. The slave Nelusko sings a song about Adamastor while he deliberately steers the ship into a storm and it sinks.
It is mentioned by Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
in his Essai sur la poésie épique. It also appears in the works of Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
: Les Misérables
Les Misérables
Les Misérables , translated variously from the French as The Miserable Ones, The Wretched, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, or The Victims), is an 1862 French novel by author Victor Hugo and is widely considered one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century...
(III, Marius, chap III) and in a poem dedicated to Lamartine (Les Feuilles d'automne, chap IX). Alexandre Dumas, père
Alexandre Dumas, père
Alexandre Dumas, , born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was a French writer, best known for his historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world...
refers the giant six times: Le Comte de Monte Cristo
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Count of Monte Cristo is an adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas. It is often considered to be, along with The Three Musketeers, Dumas's most popular work. He completed the work in 1844...
(chap. XXXI), Vingt ans après
Twenty Years After
Twenty Years After is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, père, first serialized from January to August, 1845. A book of the D'Artagnan Romances, it is a sequel to The Three Musketeers and precedes The Vicomte de Bragelonne .The novel follows events in France during La Fronde, during the childhood reign...
(chap. LXXVII), Georges
Georges (novel)
Georges is a short novel by Alexandre Dumas, père set on the island of Mauritius, from 1810 to 1824. This novel is of particular interest to scholars because Dumas reused many of the ideas and plot devices later in The Count of Monte Cristo, and because race and racism are at the center of this...
(chap. I), Bontekoe, Les drames de la mer, (chap. I), Causeries (chap. IX) and Mes Mémoires (chap. CCXVIII). Gaston Leroux
Gaston Leroux
Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux was a French journalist and author of detective fiction.In the English-speaking world, he is best known for writing the novel The Phantom of the Opera , which has been made into several film and stage productions of the same name, notably the 1925 film starring Lon...
also mentions it in The Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera
Le Fantôme de l'Opéra is a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serialisation in "Le Gaulois" from September 23, 1909 to January 8, 1910...
(chap. VI).
Adamastor is also the name of a sauropod dinosaur, Angolatitan adamastor from Angola, named by the paleontologist Octávio Mateus
Octávio Mateus
Octávio Mateus is a Portuguese dinosaur paleontologist and biologist . He received his PhD at Universidade Nova de Lisboa in 2005...
.
Etymology
The name Adamastor may have been made as- An adaptation for the Portuguese language from the Greek word for "Untamed" or "Untameable" (Adamastos).
- An adaptation for the Portuguese language from the Latin word for "imitative rival of AdamAdam (name)-People with the given name Adam:* Adam of Ebrach , German abbot and historian* Adam , Spanish churchman* Adam , stage name of Mohd Aizam Mat Saman...
" (Adamaster).