Be silent, captive · IV
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Cala-te, pobre captiva; Teos queixumes crimes são; E’ uma affronta esse canto, Que exprime tua afflicção. A vida não te pertence, Não é teo teo coração.
Be silent, poor captive; your laments are crimes; that song is an affront, which voices your affliction. Your life does not belong to you, your heart is not yours.
Final stanza — and the cruellest turn. She tells herself to hush: her very laments are counted crimes, her song an affront; her life is not her own, nor even her heart.
The last stanza turns the knife inward. She commands herself to stop — 'cala-te' — because even grief is not permitted her: 'teos queixumes crimes são', your laments are crimes; to sing your pain is 'uma affronta', an insolence toward those who own you. And then the two lines that hold the whole meaning of slavery: 'A vida não te pertence, / Não é teo… coração' — your life is not your own, your heart is not yours. It is the exact legal and human truth of her condition, sung by the person it is done to: to be owned is to have even your inner life claimed by another. That a voice this pure should have to silence itself is the wrong the entire novel sets out to undo.
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