The Blazon of Venus
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Os crespos fios d'ouro se esparziam Pelo colo, que a neve escurecia; Andando, as lácteas tetas lhe tremiam, Com quem Amor brincava, e não se via; Da alva petrina flamas lhe saíam, Onde o Menino as almas acendia; Pelas lisas colunas lhe trepavam Desejos, que como hera se enrolavam.
The curling threads of gold were scattered over her neck, which put the snow to shame; as she moved, her milky breasts trembled, breasts Love toyed among, himself unseen. From her white stomacher flames streamed out, where the Boy set souls alight; and up her smooth columns there climbed Desires, coiling like ivy.
Venus, come before Jupiter to plead for the Portuguese, is described head to breast: gold hair, snow-shaming neck, and Cupid at play among flames and climbing desires.
This is a blazon: a slow, part-by-part catalogue of Venus's body as she comes to Jupiter to plead the Portuguese cause. The eye moves from the gold hair over a neck that outshines snow, down to the trembling breasts, the flaming bodice, the legs figured as smooth columns. Cupid ("Amor," "the Boy") is worked into the scene, hidden among the breasts and lighting souls afire.
What a first reader can miss is that the beauty is a tactic, not a pause. Venus is about to argue policy before the king of the gods, and Camões follows Virgil, whose Venus works on Jupiter through her body in Aeneid 1. The last image gives it away: "colunas" turns her legs into architecture, and the desires climbing them "como hera" (like ivy) are the reader's own, trained upward against the marble before a single word of her plea is spoken.
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Os Lusíadas 2.36 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/lusiadas/2.36/