Inside the church at the Monastery is the Tomb of Luis de Camoes.
He wrote The Lusiads, one of the last great historical epics,
in certain respects modeled after the Aeneid and taking Vasco da Gama’s
voyage to India as its immediate theme.
Camoes died in 1580, around age 56.
As with many poets, death seemed to be a good career move.
His popularity has surged posthumously, and most sources now refer to him as the “national poet” of Portugal.
But perhaps he would not even have cared, judging from this line of his most famous work:
“O Glory of Commanding! O vain thirst / Of that same empty nothing, we call fame!”