The Herald Returns with Good News
Read the full text in our reader
Isto disse; e nas águas se escondia O filho de Latona; e o mensageiro Coa embaixada alegre se partia Para a frota, no seu batel ligeiro. Enchem-se os peitos todos de alegria. Por terem o remédio verdadeiro Para acharem a terra que buscavam; E assim ledos a noite festejavam.
This he said; and the son of Latona hid himself beneath the waters, while the messenger, with his joyful embassy, set out for the fleet in his swift little boat. Every breast fills with joy, for they now hold the true means of reaching the land they had been seeking; and so, full of gladness, they made a festival of the night.
Proteus has finished his prophecy and the messenger-god departs. The joyful news reaches Gama's fleet: they have found the true guidance to the land they were seeking, and that night they celebrate.
The stanza closes Proteus' prophecy and turns the machinery of the gods back into human relief. Apollo (the son of Latona) sinks under the sea, and Mercury the messenger skims off to the ships: the divine council dissolves, and what reaches the sailors is not the vision but the practical thing, the true guidance to landfall. Camões keeps the two registers touching but separate, myth above and a small swift boat below.
What a first reader misses is how quietly the crisis resolves. This is the aftermath of a real danger, the treacherous pilot and the ambush plotted at Mombasa; the gods have just steered Gama toward a trustworthy course. So the word remédio (remedy) is doing more than it seems, it names a cure for a near-fatal trap, not just a happy discovery, and the festive night is earned rather than merely cheerful.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Os Lusíadas 2.89 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
You are reading a page of the Os Lusíadas — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Os Lusíadas 2.89 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/lusiadas/2.89/