The Lusiads (Oxford World's Classics)

Home > Other > The Lusiads (Oxford World's Classics) > Page 10
The Lusiads (Oxford World's Classics) Page 10

by Luis Vaz de Camoes


  In whichever towns he could harm,

  He advanced to Santarém to surround

  Dom Sancho, ill-prepared for what he found.

  79 The Emir launched a furious assault,

  Deploying a thousand tricks of battle;

  But his battering-rams, hidden mines,

  And catapults counted but little,

  For Afonso’s son lacked none of his father’s

  Strength, valour, and resourcefulness;

  On all sides there was the same persistence,

  The same resolve, the same stubborn resistance.

  80 Meanwhile, the old man, now compelled

  By years of labour to retirement,

  Was living in Coimbra, where the meadows

  Are made green by the River Mondego,

  But learning that his son was besieged

  In Santarém by the infidel,

  He rode out as when he first won his spurs,

  No less alert for his advancing years.

  81 With his famed men, all veterans,

  He went to his son’s rescue and, as allies

  They speedily laid waste the Moors

  With the customary Portuguese ferocity;

  The whole battle meadow was littered

  With caps and various mantles

  Of horses and bridles, helmets and swords,

  All now abandoned by their former lords.

  82 Those who survived did so in flight

  From the field and from Portugal too;

  Only Emir Al-muminin did not leave

  For life itself had abandoned him.

  To the One who permitted this victory

  They made thank-offerings without measure;

  In so great a triumph, visibly God’s

  Favour was decisive, and not the odds.

  83 Having accomplished so many victories,

  Aged Afonso,* the illustrious prince,

  Who had conquered all before him,

  Was at last conquered by time;

  Sickness with its chill hand

  Took firm hold of his weakened frame,

  And so his years, so many yet so few,

  Paid to the gloomy goddess Nature’s due.

  84 The high headlands mourned him

  And the tears of the forlorn rivers

  Swamped the newly planted fields

  With the floods of desolation.

  Eternally, so far had spread

  The story of his valiant deeds,

  His stricken land will call out in its pain

  ‘Afonso, O Afonso’, but in vain.

  85 Sancho, strong youth, who continued

  Matching his father’s bravery,

  As he had proved, while he yet lived

  When the Guadalquivir ran with blood,

  And when he destroyed the hosts

  Of the Muslim king of Andalusia,

  And again at Beja when those who laid

  Presumptuous siege felt the power of his blade,

  86 When later he was raised to the throne,

  And had reigned only a few years,

  He invested the city of Silves*

  Where the Moors tended the fields.

  He was helped by the valiant knights

  From German ships which were passing,

  Furnished with men and weapons, to reclaim

  The holy city of Jerusalem.

  87 They were sailing with reinforcements

  For red-beard Frederick Barbarossa,

  In his sacred venture to regain

  The city of Our Lord’s passion,

  After Guy de Lusignan with his people

  Had surrendered to great Saladin;

  For Guy had camped in a plain without water,

  And his men perished more of thirst than slaughter.

  88 But Sancho asked the splendid fleet,

  Already committed to holy war

  And driven to port by contrary winds,

  For support in his own campaign;

  Thus as had happened to his father

  When he took Lisbon, in the same crusade,

  With the help of Germans, Silves was reduced

  And its people tamed, or killed if they refused.

  89 Having taken from Mohammed so many

  Trophies of battle, he could not allow

  The Leónese to live peaceably

  In a land accustomed to fighting,

  Until the splendid frontier city*

  Of Tuy came under his firm yoke,

  And many neighbouring towns in that campaign

  Fell to you, Sancho, and to your domain.

  90 But struck down amid such triumphs

  By grim death, he was succeeded

  By his only son, esteemed by all,

  The second Afonso* and the third king.

  During his reign, Alcácer do Sal

  Was captured finally from the Moors

  Who paid due penalty for having dared

  To reconquer a town they should have spared.

  91 After Afonso’s death, there succeeded

  Sancho the second,* callow and remiss,

  Whose negligence was so extreme

  He was ruled by those he ruled.

  Putting favourites first, he lost favour,

  Forfeiting his kingdom to another,

  Because his sole concern in every crisis

  Was to pacify his court in all its vices.

  92 This Sancho was never so depraved

  As Nero, who bedded a youth as though

  A woman, and later committed

  Incest with his mother Agrippina;

  Nor so cruel to his subjects

  That he set his own city ablaze;

  Nor so evil as Heliogabalus;

  Nor effeminate like King Sardanapalus;

  93 Nor were his people oppressed

  As was Sicily by its tyrants;

  Nor did he devise like Phalaris

  New methods of inhuman torture;

  But the proud nation, accustomed

  To kings who were sovereign in everything,

  Would not obey him, nor indeed consent

  To a king who had not proved Most Excellent.

  94 So his brother,* the Count of Boulogne,

  Governed in his stead and became

  King, when in his customary,

  Leisurely manner, Sancho died.

  This one, named Afonso the Brave,

  Having secured the kingdom, set out

  To extend it, his appetite for glory

  Cramped by so confined a territory.

  95 Of the lands of the Algarve which were

  His by his marriage, he recaptured

  The greater part, expelling the Moors

  Who had lost their instinct for battle.

  So at last, his warrior virtues made

  The sons of Lusus free and sovereign;

  The Moors’ defeat was absolute through all

  The land assigned by fate to Portugal.*

  96 Then after him came King Dinis,* noble

  And worthy heir to brave Afonso,

  For with his fame he overshadowed

  The munificence of Alexander;

  With him the happy kingdom flourished

  (He presided over a golden age)

  With order, constitutions, and sound law,

  Beacons in a land reprieved from war.

  97 He was the first to make Coimbra

  A city devoted to Minerva,

  Tempting the Muses down from Helicon

  To tread the meadows of the Mondego.

  Great Apollo established there

  What Athens herself had most cherished,

  The evergreen gown and gold-embroidered hat,

  Those laurels of the baccalaureate.

  98 King Dinis rebuilt our noblest towns,

  Securing citadel and fortress,

  Reshaping, as it were, the whole kingdom

  With great edifices and high walls;

  But after harsh Fate had snipped
r />   The thread of his diminished days,

  He left a son, Afonso the Fourth,

  A disobedient prince, but a king of worth.

  99 In his heart he had always harboured

  Serene contempt for Castilian pride,

  For it is not for the Portuguese

  To tremble before those who outnumber them;

  Nevertheless, when an army of Moors*

  Disembarked to retake Iberia,

  And approached Castile, intending to invade,

  It was proud Afonso’s part to rush with aid.

  100 Never did Semiramis* with her Assyrians

  So choke the plains of Hydaspes,

  Nor Attila,* who terrorized Italy,

  Calling himself the scourge of God,

  March at the head of so many Goths

  As now, with stupendous forces,

  The fierce Saracens camped in the meadow

  Lying alongside the River Salado.

  101 Seeing this vast, unassailable army,

  The proud King of Castile feared

  Much more than his own demise,

  A second conquest of Christian Spain,

  And to beg support from the mighty

  Portuguese, he sent as envoy

  His dear consort, the beloved daughter

  Of the same king she needed to support her.

  102 As the ravishing Maria entered

  Her royal father’s splendid palace,

  Her countenance was lovely, but overcast,

  And tears welled in her eyes;

  On her shoulders, white as ivory,

  Her angelic hair tumbled loose,

  As encouraged by her father’s joyful tones

  She sobbed out this appeal, between moans:

  103 —‘The multitudes of Africa, as many

  As live there, strange and terrible people,

  Are brought by the great king of Morocco

  To take possession of noble Spain.

  Such a conjoined force has never been

  Since the salt seas first washed the shore;

  They bring such ferocity in their wake,

  The living tremble, and the dead quake!

  104 ‘He whom you gave me as husband,

  Trying to defend his terrified country

  With his tiny army, stands naked

  Before the full weight of the Moorish sword;

  And if you do not reinforce him,

  You will see me forfeit him and the throne,

  To be a widow, obscure and distressed,

  Unhusbanded, unkingdomed, dispossessed.

  105 ‘Therefore, O King, at whose name the very

  Rivers of Morocco freeze for fear,

  Delay no more! Help, and quickly,

  The wretched people of Castile.

  If it is a father’s clear, true love

  I read in your bright countenance,

  Go in speed, my father, go in speed,

  Lest you arrive too late for those in need.’

  106 Fearful Maria used just such a tone

  As Venus had used, when pleading sadly

  With Jove her father, begging favours

  For Aeneas her son, as he ploughed the seas,

  Stirring in the god such pity, he laid

  Down his dreadful thunderbolts,

  Acquiescing, as if it were as naught,

  In everything his weeping daughter sought.

  107 Then at Évora the squadrons gathered,

  The men’s armour, lances, spears,

  And swords flashed in the brilliant sunlight;

  Horses whinnied in their harness;

  Sonorous trumpets rang out

  To men long accustomed to peace,

  To seize their glistening weapons and follow,

  The summons echoing from every hollow.

  108 Proudly in their midst and escorted

  By every mark of royalty, rode

  Valiant Afonso, his neck towering

  High above all other warriors,

  Putting spirit, by sheer example,

  Into anyone fearful of the outcome.

  So he crossed into Castile with his serene

  And elegant daughter, its noble queen.

  109 United on the plain of the Salado

  The two Afonsos, at length, confronted

  Such a multitude of the infidels

  Plain and mountain could not hold them.

  Not a man was so strong or valiant

  As not to anticipate defeat,

  Did he not discern at every stride

  Christ was the comrade fighting at his side.

  110 The Ishmaelites* were as if laughing

  At the Christians’ puny forces,

  And were sharing out estates

  Between the factions of their army;

  In the same manner as they pretended

  To the illustrious name of ‘Saracen’,

  So already they were claiming title

  To Spain in their arrogant recital.

  111 As when the robust and brutal giant,*

  Whom King Saul judiciously feared,

  Seeing the harmless shepherd before him

  With stones as his only visible weapon,

  With proud, boastful words he insulted

  The slight youth, dressed in his rags,

  Who whirled the catapult, opening his eyes

  To the power of Faith, more potent than size;

  112 In the same manner the Moors insulted

  The Christian armies, not realizing

  They were backed by the might of Heaven

  To which Hell yields with its horrors.

  At this, the Castilian with good tactics

  Turned his fury on the King of Morocco,

  While the Portuguese, with reckless ardour,

  Charged point-blank at the King of Grenada.

  113 Then swords and lances clanged against

  Coats of armour, in a grim tattoo!

  Men cried out, following their faith

  Some to ‘Mohammed’, others ‘Santiago’.*

  Screams rent the skies from the wounded,

  Who created with their shed blood

  A filthy lake, in which others who had found

  Refuge from the clash of iron lay drowned.

  114 The Portuguese took the battle so

  Impetuously to the Moors of Grenada,

  That in a trice they routed them,

  Armour and numbers availing nothing.

  Pausing from such a cheap triumph

  The bold victors were not satisfied,

  But rushed to reinforce the brave Castilian,

  Who was himself fighting the Mauretanian.

  115 The molten sun was drawing near

  The home of Tethys* and just beginning

  His last descent when the evening star

  Brought to a close that memorable day,

  When the massed regiments of the Moors

  Were destroyed by the two kings,

  With greater carnage than any victory

  Yet recorded in the world’s memory.

  116 Roman Marius* did not kill a quarter

  Of those who died in this rout

  When he forced his army to drink water

  Running with the blood of the enemy;

  Nor Hannibal, from his cradle

  Ancient Rome’s most bitter foe,

  When triumphing at Cannae he gathered

  Six gallons of gold rings from the dead.

  117 Though you, Emperor Titus, dispatched

  To the underworld yet more souls,

  When you destroyed in Jerusalem

  The people stubborn to their ancient rite,

  It was Heaven permitted this,

  And not the might of your armies;

  For so was prophesied in the Ancient Word,

  And afterwards confirmed by Christ our Lord.

  118 Riding in triumph from such a victory,

  Afonso returned to Portuguese soil,

  To secure
as much fame with peace

  As he had gained in the rigours of war;

  But now the tragic history* unfolded

  Of her whom men disinterred from the grave

  And, in a pitiful and macabre scene,

  Only after her death was enthroned as queen.

  119 You alone, you, pure love, whose

  Raw power drives human hearts,

  You alone encompassed her murder

  Like some perfidious enemy.

  When they say, cruel love, your thirst

  Is never quenched by grief’s tears,

  The truth is it suits your nature more

  To drench your harsh altars in human gore.

  120 You were living safely, lovely Inês,

  Enjoying the sweet fruits of youth,

  In that soft deception of the soul

  That fortune never indulges long;

  In the Mondego’s responsive meadows

  With tears welling in your lovely eyes,

  To mountains and fresh lawns you would impart

  The one name that was written in your heart.

  121 Such yearning for your Prince was matched

  By his own heart’s vivid memories,

  Bringing you constantly to his eyes

  When parted from your beauties;

  By night, in sweet deceitful dreams,

  By day, in images which soared,

  Whatever struck his mind, or caught his sight,

  Became instant mementoes of delight.

  122 All matches, all alliances

  With princesses, women of beauty,

  He spurned, for pure love can accept

  No substitute for the adored face.

  Studying these effects of love,

  Aged Afonso, who took a king’s account

  Of the people’s muttering, and the strange life

  Of his son who refused to take a wife,

  123 Plotted to release the son held captive,

  By dispatching Inês from the world,

  Believing that only with innocent blood

  Could he quench the flames of desire.

  What cruel madness could contrive

  That a sharp sword which had borne the brunt

  Of the Moors’ onslaught should turn its weight

  On a lady, so refined, so delicate?

  124 They dragged her, the vile beasts,

  To the king, who was disposed to mercy;

  But the mob with false, passionate

  Arguments insisted on her death.

  She, with sad and piteous cries

  Of anguish, and of yearning,

  Less for her death than for leaving forlorn

  Her dear prince and the two sons she had borne,

  125 Lifted up to the crystal heavens

  Eyes that were brimming with tears

  (Her eyes because her hands were tied

  By one of the churlish warders).

  Then, gazing at the little ones

  She so loved, and held so precious,

  But whose destiny as orphans looked sealed,

  To their obdurate grandfather she appealed:

 

‹ Prev