The Deeds at Cananor, Calicut, and Cochin
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Vereis a fortaleza sustentar-se De Cananor, com pouca força e gente; E vereis Calecu desbaratar-se, Cidade populosa e tão potente: E vereis em Cochim assinalar-se Tanto um peito soberbo e insolente, Que cítara jamais cantou vitória, Que assim mereça eterno nome e glória.
You will see the fortress of Cananor hold out with little strength and few men; and you will see Calicut routed, a city so populous and so powerful; and you will see at Cochin a proud and insolent heart distinguish itself so far that no lyre ever sang a victory that might earn such eternal name and glory.
Still in Jupiter's prophecy of Portugal's future in the East, the god foretells three feats on the Malabar coast of India: the fortress of Cananor holding out, Calicut routed, and a single proud heart at Cochin outshining any song.
Jupiter keeps unrolling the map of Portugal's future in India, and the verb that drives the whole stanza is "vereis" — you will see — hammered three times, one deed per repetition: the fort at Cananor holding on short-handed, mighty Calicut broken, and something at Cochin so great that no song can match it. The rhythm is a herald's, three blows of the same word building to the boast in the final couplet.
What a first reader misses is that the "proud and insolent heart" at Cochin is one specific man, Duarte Pacheco Pereira, who in 1504 held Cochin against the far larger army of Calicut's ruler. "Soberbo e insolente" sounds like blame but is praise here — the daring is so outsized that Camões claims no cithara, the poet's own instrument, has ever sung a victory worthy of it. It is a quiet admission that the deed outruns the poem meant to hold it.
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