Os Lusíadas
On the trip back to Goa, he was shipwrecked, as tradition says, near the mouth of the Mekong River, managing to save only himself and the manuscript of Os Lusíadas, an event that inspired the famous "redondilha" "Sobre os rios que vão", considered by António Sérgio the "backbone" of the Camonian lyric, as is repeatedly cited in the critical literature. The trauma of the shipwreck, in the words of Leal de Matos, had the most profound impact on redefining the themes of Os Lusíadas, this being noticeable beginning with Canto VII, a fact already noted by Diogo do Couto, a friend of the poet who partly accompanied the work as it was being written.