I have not found in [these ten cantos] anything scandalous, or contrary to the faith or to good customs; it has only seemed to me necessary to warn the Readers that the Author, in order to stress the difficulty of the navigation and of the entering of the Portuguese into India, uses a fiction of the gods of the Pagans ... However, as this poetry and mere invention, we have not regarded it as unbecoming for this fable of the Gods to be in the work, it being known to be such, and there being always safeguarded the truth of our holy faith, for all the Gods of the Pagans are Demons.

(approval notice of the censor who licensed os lusiadas for publication in 1572)