Portugal as <i>Nostos</i> Interrupted

In the present article, I examine the role of prophecy in Gabriel Pereira de Castro’s  Ulisseia (1636) and Antonio de Sousa de Macedo’s Ulissipo (1640), two pre-Restoration epics that center on Odysseus as the mythological founder of Lisbon. In both epics, a prophecy drives the hero to found Lisbon as a precondition for making his nostos to Ithaka while also speaking of a fabled warrior landing at the future site of Lisbon in order to found a great empire. is prophecy echoes others that predict the return of the Encoberto , yet they also tempt Odysseus into forgetting his nostos for the sake of Lisbon’s foundation. Insofar as forgetting one’s nostos is associated with a deathlike state ( lethe ) in epic poetry, the parallel between Odysseus and the Encoberto strongly suggests that the imperial enterprise itself is a hazard that leads the hero towards oblivion and death.