Love Unmans the Strong
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" E pois se os peitos fortes enfraquece Um inconcesso amor desatinado, Bem no filho de Alcmena se parece, Quando em Ônfale andava transformado. De Marco António a faina se escurece Com ser tanto a Cleopatra afeiçoado. Tu também Peno próspero, o sentiste Depois que uma moça vil na Apúlia viste.
And since a mad, forbidden love weakens strong hearts, it is plainly seen in the son of Alcmene, when he went about transformed into Omphale. The exploits of Marc Antony are dimmed by his being so devoted to Cleopatra. You too, prosperous Carthaginian, felt it, after you looked upon a base girl in Apulia.
Near the close of Canto 3, just before the tragedy of Ines de Castro, Camoes pauses to argue that even the mightiest men are undone by reckless love, citing Hercules, Marc Antony, and Hannibal.
Camoes steps out of the narrative to make a claim: a lawless, unreasoning love drains the strength of even the hardest men. He proves it with three cases. Hercules, the son of Alcmene, spun wool in women's dress as Omphale's slave; Marc Antony's military glory dimmed once he gave himself to Cleopatra; and a third man the reader has to decode.
That third man is Hannibal. "Peno" means Punic, the Carthaginian, and the "vile girl in Apulia" points to the aftermath of Cannae, when the conqueror who had wrecked Rome went soft among easy pleasures and never pressed his advantage. The catalogue is not idle moralizing: it is the poet clearing his throat just before Canto 3 turns to Ines de Castro, where love does not merely weaken a man but gets a woman killed.
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