A Lion Among Sheep
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As bombas vêm de fogo, e juntamente As panelas sulfúreas, tão danosas; Porém aos de Vulcano não consente Que dêem fogo às bombardas temerosas; Porque o generoso ânimo e valente, Entre gentes tão poucas e medrosas, Não mostra quanto pode, e com razão, Que é fraqueza entre ovelhas ser leão.
The fire-bombs come, and with them the sulphurous pots, so harmful; but he will not permit the men of Vulcan to set fire to the fearsome cannons. For the noble and valiant spirit, among peoples so few and so fearful, does not show how much it can do, and with reason, since it is weakness to play the lion among sheep.
Gama's fleet lies armed off the East African coast, its gunners ready to answer the hostile locals with fire-bombs and cannon. Gama holds them back: there is no honor in loosing full firepower on a weak and frightened enemy.
The stanza turns on a refusal. The guns are loaded, the incendiaries ready, and the men who serve the artillery await the order to fire. Gama withholds it. The whole octave is built to arrive at the closing proverb, which reframes restraint not as caution but as a point of honor: to overwhelm a weak, frightened enemy proves nothing.
What a first reader can miss is how much work "de Vulcano" is doing. The gunners are not just soldiers but the servants of a god of fire, so the choice not to fire becomes almost a choice not to unleash something elemental. Camões keeps the epic register even while his hero declines the epic act, and the pointed line about the lion among sheep quietly measures true valor by the strength of what it faces, not by what it can destroy.
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