Wines Above Falernian
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Os vinhos odoríferos, que acima Estão não só do Itálico Falerno Mas da Ambrósia, que Jove tanto estima Com todo o ajuntamento sempiterno, Nos vasos, onde em vão trabalha a lima, Crespas escumas erguem, que no interno Coração movem súbita alegria, Saltando co a mistura d'água fria.
The fragrant wines, which stand above not only the Italian Falernian but even the ambrosia that Jove so prizes among all his everlasting company, raise curling foams in the goblets where the file toils in vain, and in the innermost heart they stir a sudden joy, leaping up at the touch of the cold water mixed in.
In the goddess Tethys' palace, the banquet's wines are praised as surpassing even the earthly Falernian and the ambrosia of the gods. Part of the marvellous feast that crowns the voyage in Canto 10.
This is a wine-catalogue stanza, praise piled high. Camões ranks the banquet's wine above Falernian, the most famous vintage of Roman poetry, and then above ambrosia itself, the drink of the Olympian gods. The last lines turn physical: the wine foams, it gladdens the heart, and it leaps when cold water is mixed in, the ancient practice of diluting wine before drinking.
The detail a first reader slides past is the file that "labors in vain." The lima is the goldsmith's tool, and the goblets are so finely wrought that no further filing could improve them, yet the poet says the effort is wasted, because the foaming wine, not the metalwork, is what the eye follows. The praise of the cup quietly yields to the praise of what it holds.
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