Give Sail to the Wind
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Dai velas, disse, dai ao largo vento, Que o Céu nos favorece e Deus o manda; Que um mensageiro vi do claro assento Que só em favor de nossos passos anda. Alevanta-se nisto o movimento Dos marinheiros, de uma e de outra banda; Levam gritando as âncoras acima, Mostrando a ruda força, que se estima.
"Give sails," he said, "give to the wide, open wind, for Heaven favors us and God commands it; for I saw a messenger from the bright seat above who moves only in favor of our journey." At this the stir of the sailors rises, on one side and the other; shouting, they haul the anchors up, showing the rough, raw strength that is so prized.
Emboldened by the messenger he saw in a vision, Gama gives the order to depart Melinde. The sailors spring to work and haul the anchors, and the fleet sets out for India.
This is the order to sail. Gama, still charged with the vision that visited him, tells the crew to spread canvas and take the open wind, and grounds the command in a sign from above: he saw a messenger sent to guard the voyage. The second half turns from speech to bodies at work. The sailors leap up on both sides of the ship, and the anchors come up to the sound of their shouting, muscle and noise answering the captain's words.
The messenger from the "claro assento" is Mercury, whom Jupiter had earlier dispatched to steer Gama safely to Melinde. Camões lets Gama name the sign as proof that "Deus o manda" (God commands it), quietly welding the pagan machinery of Olympus onto Christian providence. A first reader hears only piety; the seam is the point. The bright seat is at once the Olympian court and Heaven, and the poem keeps both open at the same time.
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