Venus, Smiling and Sad
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E mostrando no angélico semblante Co'o riso uma tristeza misturada, Como dama que foi do incauto amante Em brincos amorosos mal tratada, Que se aqueixa e se ri num mesmo instante, E se torna entre alegre magoada, Desta arte a Deusa, a quem nenhuma iguala, Mais mimosa que triste ao Padre fala:
And, on her angelic face, showing a sadness mingled with a smile — like a lady ill-treated by her careless lover amid their amorous games, who complains and laughs in the very same instant, and turns aggrieved even while she is glad — so the Goddess, whom none can equal, more tender than sorrowful, speaks to the Father:
Venus approaches Jupiter to plead for the Portuguese fleet. Camões introduces her with an epic simile before she speaks.
The stanza is one long simile setting up Venus's plea to Jupiter for the Portuguese. Camões holds the goddess frozen for six lines — her face carrying grief and a smile at once — before the couplet finally releases her into speech. The comparison is to a lady half-scolding, half-flirting with the lover who has wronged her: complaint and laughter in the same breath.
What a first reader can miss is that the smile is a tool. The scene is lifted from the Aeneid, where Venus pleads with Jupiter for her son Aeneas; here she pleads for Gama's fleet. By casting her sorrow as a lover's coquettish reproach, Camões makes her charm itself the instrument of the diplomacy — the tears are real, but the way they are worn is calculated to move the Father who can grant what she wants.
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