'Gifts that only embitter me'
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do que ter recebido do céo estes dotes, que só servem para amargurar-me a existencia?
than to have received from heaven these gifts, which serve only to embitter my existence?
The lament closes on its terrible logic: her 'dotes,' her gifts of beauty and grace, come 'do céo,' from heaven — and yet they 'só servem para amargurar-me a existencia,' serve only to embitter her life, because they are what make her desirable, and desirability, for a slave, is danger. It is the cruel inversion at the novel's heart: the very things that would bless a free woman are, for the enslaved, a curse.
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A Escrava Isaura 7.182 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/escravaisaura/7.182/