Up to the Radiant Palace
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Quando as fermosas Ninfas, cos amantes Pela mão, já conformes e contentes, Subiam pera os paços radiantes E de metais ornados reluzentes, Mandados da Rainha, que abundantes Mesas d'altos manjares excelentes Lhe tinha aparelhados, que a fraqueza Restaurem da cansada natureza.
When the beautiful Nymphs, hand in hand with their lovers, now in accord and content, were climbing up toward the radiant palaces adorned with shining metals — summoned by the Queen, who had prepared for them abundant tables of lofty, excellent dishes, so that they might restore the weakness of their tired nature.
On the Island of Love, the nymphs lead the sailors by the hand up to the palace of the goddess Tethys, where a banquet awaits. The feast is set to restore bodies spent in love — and will become the stage for the prophecy of Portugal's future.
This stanza is a bridge. The lovemaking on the Island of Love is over, and the whole company now moves indoors: the nymphs lead the sailors by the hand up to the metal-bright palace of Tethys, the sea-queen, where a banquet stands ready. Camões keeps the mood tender and easy — "conformes e contentes" — and lets the grand architecture do the work of raising the register from the erotic to the ceremonial.
The thing a first reader glides past is what that feast is actually for. The tables restore "a fraqueza da cansada natureza" — the weakness of a nature worn out. That tired nature is the body spent in love; the meal is plainly replenishment after sex. Camões plays it straight-faced, because this same banquet is about to become the setting for Tethys's prophecy of Portugal's future — the poem turns a lovers' recovery meal into the vehicle for its highest epic vision.
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