Camões, the great Portuguese Poet, in his old age, is a sick man. Pained by syphilis, almost unable to walk. Incapable of taking care of himself or of standing the aches that make him suffer (his mother takes care of him). He is haunted by the memories of his youth and finds it hard to cope with his present physical weakness. Continuously harassed by creditors and by people who ask him to write things he doesn’t like, but has to do for his survival. Persecuted by his mother’s painstaking loquacity, the illness, the memories of an adventurous and bohemian past, he bares quiet. But when he is alone in the silence of the night, there is a greater voice that speaks from within, and imperiously dictates.