Virtus est vitium fugere

Abstract

Based in Camões’s edition of the Rimas published by Costa Pimpão in 1973, this paper analysis two terms found in his lyric work, the words virtue and vice. Other expressions evolve around these two words, all of which involve in a semantic relationship centred in the meaning of the two terms. The study confirmed that if a word such as desire(s) is evenly represented in the different genres found in the Rimas, others, such as virtue, vice or affection, are especially congregated in the "major genres".