The Fleet Sights Melinde
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Quando chegava a frota àquela parte, Onde o Reino Melinde já se via, De toldos adornada, e leda de arte Que bem mostra estimar o santo dia. Treme a bandeira, voa o estandarte, A cor purpúrea ao longe aparecia; Soam os atambores e pandeiros, E assim entravam ledos e guerreiros.
When the fleet was reaching that region, where the kingdom of Melinde already came into view — decked with awnings and joyful in a manner that plainly shows it honors the holy day. The flag trembles, the standard flies, the purple color appeared in the distance; the drums and tambourines resound, and so, joyful and warlike, they came in.
Gama's ships approach the East-African port of Melinde, decked out for a holy day. Camões paints the welcome as banners, drums, and color — the voyage's first friendly harbor.
This stanza is a landfall. After the treachery of Mombasa, Gama's fleet reaches Melinde and, for once, the shore is friendly. Camões builds the welcome out of movement and noise: awnings, a trembling flag, a flying standard, purple seen from far off, drums and tambourines. The city is dressed for a feast, and the Portuguese row in ledos e guerreiros — cheerful and armed at once.
The detail a first reader slides past is o santo dia. Melinde is a Muslim city on the Swahili coast, so the holy day is an Islamic feast, not a Christian one — yet Camões reports its festivity approvingly, as a mark of a courteous and civilized host. In a poem that elsewhere frames the voyage as crusade against the Mouro, this is a quiet exception: the enemy label drops, and Melinde becomes the good harbor where Gama will finally find a pilot for India.
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