The Poet's Autumn
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Vão os anos descendo, e já do Estio Há pouco que passar até o Outono; A Fortuna me faz o engenho frio, Do qual já não me jacto nem me abono; Os desgostos me vão levando ao rio Do negro esquecimento e eterno sono. Mas tu me dá que cumpra, ó grão rainha Das Musas, co que quero à nação minha!
The years go descending, and already there is little of Summer left to pass before Autumn; Fortune turns my wit cold, and of it I now neither boast nor vouch. My sorrows are carrying me toward the river of black forgetting and eternal sleep. But grant me, O great queen of the Muses, that I may accomplish what I wish for my nation!
Near the epic's end, Camões speaks in his own voice, lamenting his age and failing powers, and begs the queen of the Muses for strength to finish the work he owes his country.
Camões drops the story and speaks as himself. He measures his own life against the year: the summer of his powers is nearly spent, autumn is coming, and Fortune has cooled the wit he once trusted. He asks the queen of the Muses, Calliope, for enough strength to finish the poem he owes Portugal before it is too late.
The line a first reader passes over is "the river of black forgetting." That river is Lethe, the classical stream of oblivion, and the "eternal sleep" beside it is plain death. So the prayer is not modest throat-clearing but a real fear: that he will die with the work unfinished, or that both he and it will be forgotten. This is the epic poet stepping in front of his own machinery, the way Virgil and Ovid do, to bind his mortal deadline to the immortal Muse.
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Os Lusíadas 10.9 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/lusiadas/10.9/