Alexey Sklyarenko: Mascodagama’s performance, cf.Brian Boyd: "Van’s singular stage name first evokes the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama (c.1460-1524), the first European to sail to southern and eastern Africa and to India. He is the hero of the epic Os Lusiadas ("The Lusiads," 1572) by Portugal’s greatest poet, Luís Vas de Camões (Camoens, c. 1524-1580). There Camões invents a Greek god, Adamastor, as the Spirit of the Cape of Storms (now the Cape of Good Hope), whose domain is the Indian Ocean and who represents the natural dangers Vasco da Gama’s fleet had to face rounding the Cape." In Mémoires d'outre-tombe (Book Twenty Four, chapter 14) Châteaubriand calls Napoleon exiled to St. Helena "the new Adamastor:" ...Unlike Châteaubriand, Napoleon (who, like Vasco da Gama, seems to be unknown on Antiterra) is not mentioned in Ada. But he should not be completely neglected. Kim Beauharnais is a kitchen boy and photographer at Ardis; in her first conversation with Van Marina mentions Queen [sic] Josephine (1.5). Josephine Beauharnais was Napoleon's first wife. Kim Beauharnais was probably one of the arsonists who set fire to the barn near Ardis Hall (1.19); Moscow burnt down when Napoleon was in it.Mascodagama dances on his hands to the tango tune "Pod znoynym nebom Argentiny." It is the tango that Ostap Bender dances solo in "The Twelve Calf." Ostap has the tattoo on his breast: Napoleon in a cocked hat holding a beer mug...

39
Não acabava, quando uma figura
Se nos mostra no ar, robusta e válida,
De disforme e grandíssima estatura,
O rosto carregado, a barba esquálida,
Os olhos encovados, e a postura
Medonha e má, e a cor terrena e pálida,
Cheios de terra e crespos os cabelos,
A boca negra, os dentes amarelos.

40 (...)
C'um tom de voz nos fala horrendo e grosso,
Que pareceu sair do mar profundo.
Arrepiam-se as carnes e o cabelo
A mim e a todos, só de ouvi-lo e vê-lo.

(...) 44
Aqui espero tomar, se não me engano,
De quem me descobriu suma vingança;
E não se acabará só nisto o dano
(...)
Naufrágios, perdições de toda a sorte,
Que o menor mal de todos seja a morte.

(...) 50
Eu sou aquele oculto e grande cabo
A quem chamais vós outros Tormentório”

— Luís de Camões, Os Lusíadas, Canto V,