Two Convicts Sent Ashore
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E de alguns que trazia condenados Por culpas e por feitos vergonhosos, Por que pudessem ser aventurados Em casos desta sorte duvidosos, Manda dous mais sagazes, ensaiados, Por que notem dos Mouros enganosos A cidade e poder, e por que vejam Os Cristãos, que só tanto ver desejam.
And of certain men he was carrying, condemned for crimes and shameful deeds, so that they might be risked in doubtful cases of this kind, he sends two of the shrewdest and best-tried, so that they may observe the city and power of the deceitful Moors, and see the Christians, whom they so greatly long only to see.
Off the coast of Mombasa, wary of the friendly-seeming Moors, Gama uses the convicts he carries for exactly this purpose: he picks two of the sharpest and sends them ashore to spy out the town.
Gama does something a first reader can slide past as mere logistics. He keeps condemned men aboard precisely to spend them, and here he picks two of the sharpest and sends them ashore to scout the harbor town's defenses and its people. The convict-scouts, the degredados actually carried on the 1497 voyage, were the expendable instrument for exactly this danger.
The tell is the last line. The Portuguese do not simply want intelligence; they 'so much desire only to see' the Christians they hope to find in the East. That ache to meet fellow believers after rounding Africa is the very hope the deceitful Moors of Mombasa are baiting, and the stanza sets the trap and the longing side by side without comment.
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