The Nymph's Lament for Ill-Rewarded Valor
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Mas neste passo a Ninfa, o som canoro Abaxando, fez ronco e entristecido, Cantando em baxa voz, envolta em choro, O grande esforço mal agardecido. --" Ó Belisário ( disse) que no coro Das Musas serás sempre engrandecido, Se em ti viste abatido o bravo Marte, Aqui tens com quem podes consolar-te!
But at this point the Nymph, lowering her melodious sound, made it hoarse and grief-stricken, singing in a low voice, wrapped in weeping, of the great valor that was ill-rewarded: "O Belisarius (she said), who in the choir of the Muses will forever be exalted, if in yourself you saw brave Mars brought low, here you have one with whom you can console yourself!"
In Canto 10 the singing sea-nymph turns her prophecy into elegy, dropping her voice to mourn great deeds that went unthanked. She addresses Belisarius, Justinian's ruined general, as the classical model of the soldier repaid with neglect.
The stanza is a hinge. The nymph who has been chanting Portugal's future glories suddenly lowers her voice, roughens it, and turns from triumph to lament. What she now sings about is esforço mal agardecido: great effort that was badly repaid. Camões marks the shift acoustically, with the song going hoarse and drowned in tears before we even learn its subject.
The key a first reader misses is who Belisarius is and why he is summoned. He was Justinian's most brilliant general, and legend held that he ended blind and begging in the streets he had defended, the stock example of the servant of the state left to rot. By addressing him, the nymph is not really eulogizing a Byzantine; she is preparing to lament a Portuguese hero repaid the same way, and inviting the ancient wronged soldier to take grim comfort in a modern companion in misfortune.
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