So Few, So Much
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Mas, já chegado aos fins Orientais E deixado em ajuda do gentio Rei de Cochim, com poucos naturais, Nos braços do salgado e curvo rio Desbaratará os Naires infernais No passo Cambalão, tornando frio D'espanto o ardor imenso do Oriente, Que verá tanto obrar tão pouca gente.
But, once he has reached the far Eastern shores, and been left to aid the heathen King of Cochin with only a few native men, he will rout the infernal Nairs in the arms of the salt, curving river, at the ford of Cambalão — turning the immense blaze of the whole Orient cold with terror, for the East will see so much achieved by so few.
The Nymph's prophetic song looks ahead to Duarte Pacheco Pereira, who in 1504 will defend the King of Cochin at the ford of Cambalão, routing a vast Malabar army with a handful of men.
The Nymph is singing prophecy: everything here is in the future tense, deeds that will follow the voyage Gama has only just completed. The man she foretells is Duarte Pacheco Pereira, left behind to defend the friendly King of Cochin. With a tiny garrison of local men he holds a river ford against the Zamorin's army and scatters the Nairs, the warrior caste of Malabar, whom Camões brands "infernal" from the Portuguese side.
The hinge of the stanza is the last line's arithmetic: so much done by so few. That contrast is the whole point Camões is building toward — he will later call Pacheco a Portuguese Achilles and complain that history forgot him. The "salt, curving river" is not decoration either: Pacheco's defense worked because he fought at the narrow tidal ford where numbers could not tell, so the geography in line four is already the tactic that wins.
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