Gama Dresses to Meet the King
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Não menos guarnecido o Lusitano Nos seus batéis, da frota se partia A receber no mar o Melindano, Com lustrosa e lograda companhia. Vestido o Gama vem ao modo Hispano, Mas Francesa era a roupa que vestia, De cetim da Adriática Veneza Carmesi, cor que a gente tanto preza:
No less richly adorned, the Portuguese captain was setting out from the fleet in his boats to meet the King of Melinde on the water, with a shining, well-appointed company. Gama comes dressed in the Spanish fashion, but the robe he wore was French, of satin from Adriatic Venice, crimson, a color the people so highly prize.
Gama and his men leave the fleet in their boats to greet the King of Melinde on the water. The captain comes ashore in Spanish-cut clothes of crimson French satin.
The stanza is a costume close-up. Camões pauses the diplomacy to itemize what Gama wears: Spanish cut, French cloth, Venetian satin, crimson dye. Every layer is foreign, and every one is expensive, because the meeting is a performance and the clothes are the message.
What a first reader misses is that the layering is deliberate showmanship, not idle luxury. Gama is a captain at the far end of the known world dressing to look like the courts of Europe, borrowing Spain's silhouette, France's tailoring, and Venice's most prized red so that a king in East Africa reads him as a great power. The wardrobe does the arguing before Gama says a word.
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Os Lusíadas 2.97 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/lusiadas/2.97/