The Father Cleaves the Waves
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Eis vem despois o pai, que as ondas corta Co restante da gente Lusitana, E com força e saber, que mais importa, Batalha dá felice e soberana. Uns, paredes subindo, escusam porta; Outros a abrem na fera esquadra insana. Feitos farão tão dinos de memória Que não caibam em verso ou larga história.
Behold, next comes the father, who cleaves the waves with the remnant of the Lusitanian host; and with force and skill — which matters more — he gives happy and sovereign battle. Some, scaling the walls, do without the gate; others break it open amid the fierce and frenzied squadron. They will do deeds so worthy of remembrance that they will not fit into verse or into any long chronicle.
In the Nymph's prophetic song on the Isle of Love, she foretells the deeds of a Portuguese captain in India who storms a fortified enemy: some scale the walls, others break the ranks, and his exploits outrun what any verse or long chronicle could hold.
The Nymph moves down a family line, and this figure is marked as "the father" — the elder of a pair of Portuguese fighters in India. Camões stages his assault in two quick brushstrokes: one band goes up and over the walls, another simply cuts a hole through the defenders where no gate exists. The point of the last couplet is a boast in the epic manner: the deeds outgrow the poem meant to contain them.
The move a first reader misses is the two-sided claim in the closing lines. Saying deeds are too great for "verso ou larga história" flatters the men while quietly flattering the poet who found room for them anyway — the same paradox Virgil and Ovid use when they call a subject unspeakable and then speak it. "Força e saber" also carries Camões' recurring thesis: valor wins the wall, but it is knowledge, saber, that wins the war.
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