Information About

Adamastor




:"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.

Adamastor represented the dangers Portuguese 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 .

Adamastor has figured in much poetry of the Cape. In ''The First Life of Adamastor,'' a novella by André Brink, the writer refashioned the Adamastor story from a 20th-century perspective.


EXTERNAL LINK

  • [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/arquivos/artes/adamastormith.htm Cyril Coetzee, "Myth of Adamaster revisited"]




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''Adamastor'' was also the name of a Cruiser in the Portuguese navy. The ''Adamastor'' was built in Italy using the revenue of a national subscription made after the British ultimatum to Portugal in 1890 . It played an important role in the republican revolution of October 5 , 1910 , being one of the two revolting cruisers.
In 1934 it was decommissioned and sold to the merchant marine.


REFERENCES

J.C. Pereira ed., ''Dicionário Ilustrado da História de Portugal'' (Lisbon: Alfa, 1985).