The Cutting of the Cables
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Neste tempo, que as âncoras levavam, Na sombra escura os Mouros escondidos Mansamente as amarras lhe cortavam, Por serem, dando à costa, destruídos; Mas com vista de linces vigiavam Os Portugueses, sempre apercebidos. Eles, como acordados os sentiram, Voando, e não remando, lhe fugiram
At this moment, as they were weighing the anchors, the Moors, hidden in the dark shadow, were softly cutting their mooring cables, so that, running aground, the ships would be destroyed. But the Portuguese watched with the eyes of lynxes, ever on their guard. The Moors, the instant they felt themselves discovered, fled by flying rather than by rowing.
As the Portuguese haul up their anchors to leave the treacherous harbor of Mombasa, the hidden Moors try to sabotage them by slicing the mooring lines. But the sharp-eyed sailors catch them in the act.
The stanza turns on a single contrast: stealth against vigilance. The Moors work "mansamente" in the dark, sawing at the ropes so the ships will drift onto the rocks and break up. Camões keeps the sabotage almost silent, then answers it with the Portuguese watching "com vista de linces" — a proverbial image of the sharpest eyes in nature. The trap fails not through force but because it is seen.
What a first reader can miss is the sting in the last line. "Voando, e não remando, lhe fugiram" — they fled flying, not rowing. It is a small joke at the saboteurs' expense: caught out, they row so hard the boats seem to fly, panic turned into speed. The couplet closes the episode of Mombasa's treachery, one of the ambushes the pilot-god Bacchus keeps arranging against Gama, and the Portuguese pass it by staying awake.
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