'As you helped me here on earth'
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valei-me lá do céo, onde estais, como me valieis cá na terra.
help me there from heaven, where you are, as you helped me here on earth.
The prayer turns on a tender antithesis — 'lá do céo' against 'cá na terra', there in heaven against here on earth — that quietly maps Isaura's whole loss. The protection she once had on earth is now only available from heaven; the person who shielded her is dead, and with her died the last safety the house held for Isaura. There is faith in the line and grief inside the faith: she asks the dead to keep doing what they did living, because no one alive will. Guimarães lets the piety carry the full weight of abandonment. Isaura is, in the most literal sense, thrown back on the dead and on God.
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A Escrava Isaura 9.102 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/escravaisaura/9.102/