Purple Robes Like a Rainbow
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Nos de sua companhia se mostrava Da tinta, que dá o múrice excelente, A vária cor, que os olhos alegrava, E a maneira do trajo diferente. Tal o formoso esmalte se notava Dos vestidos, olhados juntamente, Qual aparece o arco rutilante Da bela Ninfa, filha de Taumante.
Among those of his retinue there appeared, in the dye that the excellent murex yields, the varied color that gladdened the eyes, and the different fashion of their dress. The lovely sheen of the garments, seen all at once, showed itself just as the glittering rainbow of the fair Nymph, the daughter of Thaumas, appears in the sky.
Still describing the reception at Melinde: the retinue that accompanies the friendly king is dressed in murex-purple cloth of varied colors, cut in a foreign fashion. Camões closes with a formal simile likening the garments' shimmer to the rainbow of Iris.
The stanza is pure description, and it stays at Melinde: the crowd around the friendly king wears cloth dyed in murex purple, its shifting colors pleasing to look at, cut in an unfamiliar style. Camões closes on a formal simile (Tal... Qual): seen all together, the shimmer of the garments looks like a rainbow arched across the sky.
What a first reader glides past is the last line. The "fair Nymph, daughter of Thaumas" is Iris, the rainbow herself, named only by her parentage, the epic habit of pointing at a god through genealogy rather than by name. And "múrice" is no filler word: it is the sea-snail that yielded Tyrian purple, the costliest dye of the ancient world, so the color that "gladdened the eyes" also quietly marks these Melindans as people of high rank, an African Muslim court shown with plain admiration.
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