The Two Afonsos at Tarifa
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Juntos os dous Afonsos finalmente Nos campos de Tarifa estão defronte Da grande multidão da cega gente, Para quem são pequenos campo e monte. Não há peito tão alto e tão potente, Que de desconfiança não se afronte, Enquanto não conheça e claro veja Que co'o braço dos seus Cristo peleja.
At last the two Afonsos stand facing each other on the plains of Tarifa, before the great multitude of the blind heathen host, for whom field and mountain alike are too small to hold them. There is no heart so lofty and so mighty that it does not quail with misgiving, until it knows and clearly sees that with the arm of his own, Christ does battle.
At the Battle of Salado (1340), the kings Afonso IV of Portugal and Afonso XI of Castile stand together on the plain of Tarifa, facing the immense Moorish host. The stanza weighs their courage against the crushing odds.
The two kings, Afonso IV of Portugal and Afonso XI of Castile, are finally in position on the field at Tarifa, and Camões makes us feel the sheer size of what they face: the enemy host is so vast that the whole plain and the mountain behind it cannot contain them. The stanza is a hinge before the great Battle of Salado, holding the armies a moment before the clash.
What a first reader can miss is the honesty of the middle. Camões does not pretend his heroes feel no fear. He states flatly that no heart, however high and strong, escapes a tremor of dread against odds like these. The courage the stanza finally offers is not fearlessness but conviction, and it arrives only in the last line, when the soldier grasps that Christ himself fights on his side. The dread is real; it is only faith, not bravado, that answers it.
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Os Lusíadas 3.109 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/lusiadas/3.109/