Os Lusiadas, usually translated as The Lusiads, is a Portuguese epic poem by Luis Vaz de Camoes (Camoens). The heroes of the epic are the Lusiads (Lusiadas), the sons of Lusus or in other words, the Portuguese. Vasco da Gama. The initial strophes of Jupiter's speech in the Concilio dos Deuses Olimpicos (Olympian Gods Council) which open the narrative part, highlight the laudatory orientation of the author. Written in Homeric fashion, the poem focuses mainly on a fantastical interpretation of the Portuguese voyages of discovery during the 15th and 16th centuries. Os Lusiadas is often regarded as Portugal's national epic, much in the way as Virgil's Aeneid was for the Ancient Romans, as well as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey for the Ancient Greeks. It was first printed in 1572, three years after the author returned from the Indies. The poem consists of ten cantos, with a variable number of stanzas (1102 in total), written in the decasyllabic ottava rima, which has the rhyme scheme ABABABCC."