A newly rediscovered vilancete by Luís de Camões

Abstract

A religious poem credited to Camões was recently revealed to the public: the villancico "Two Great Wonders / See if anybody has seen." This short devotional poem combines three Marian themes, popular in the literature and arts of the time: the Virgin Mary nursing the Infant Jesus, the pairing of milk and blood, and the lactation of the saints, which were transmitted in hymnals and liturgy, as well as in Bernardine and Augustinian hagiographies and iconography. These three motifs provided the poetic material with which Camões crafted this synthesis, which dialogues closely with another of his poems, “Elegy to the Passion of Christ Our Lord”, allowing us to better appreciate the poet as a composer of sacred hymns.