A Catalogue of Heroes
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Por estes vos darei um Nuno fero, Que fez ao Rei o ao Reino tal serviço, Um Egas, e um D. Fuas, que de Homero A cítara para eles só cobiço. Pois pelos doze Pares dar-vos quero Os doze de Inglaterra, e o seu Magriço; Dou-vos também aquele ilustre Gama, Que para si de Eneias toma a fama.
In exchange for these I will give you a fierce Nuno, who did the King and the Kingdom such great service; an Egas, and a Dom Fuas, for whom alone I covet the lyre of Homer. And for the twelve Peers I will give you the twelve knights of England and their Magriço; I also grant you that illustrious Gama, who takes for himself the fame of Aeneas.
Still in the dedication to the young King Sebastião, the poet promises the heroes he will sing — medieval Portuguese champions and, at the last, Vasco da Gama himself.
Camões is still addressing the boy-king Sebastião, and here he lists the Portuguese heroes he will hand him in the poem to come: Nuno Álvares Pereira, Egas Moniz, Dom Fuas Roupinho, the Twelve of England with their Magriço, and last of all Vasco da Gama. The whole stanza is built as a giving of gifts — "I will give you," "I want to give you," "I also give you" — the poet offering his king a gallery of national champions to admire.
The weight sits in the closing line: Gama "takes for himself the fame of Aeneas." Camões has already named Homer's lyre and now Virgil's hero on purpose. He is measuring a real sixteenth-century sailor against the legendary founder of Rome, telling the reader plainly that this poem means to stand beside the Aeneid. The catalogue of medieval knights is the warm-up; the actual claim is that Gama — and Camões with him — has earned the epic itself.
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