My Beloved Homeland
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Esta é a ditosa pátria minha amada, A qual se o Céu me dá que eu sem perigo Torne, com esta empresa já acabada, Acabe-se esta luz ali comigo. Esta foi Lusitânia, derivada De Luso, ou Lisa, que de Baco antigo Filhos foram, parece, ou companheiros, E nela então os Íncolas primeiros.
This is my beloved, blessed homeland — the land to which, if Heaven grants that I return without peril, this enterprise now accomplished, may my life's light go out there, with me. This was Lusitania, named after Luso, or Lisa, who, it seems, were sons of ancient Bacchus, or else his companions — and then the first inhabitants of the land.
Vasco da Gama, narrating to the king of Melinde, points to Portugal on the map and gives it a mythic origin — descended from Luso, companion of Bacchus.
Gama breaks off his survey of the map to point at one country and call it home. The whole sentence leans on a single wish: if Heaven brings him back safe and the voyage is done, let his life — 'esta luz,' this light — simply go out there, on native ground. Only then does he turn to say where the land came from: Lusitania, named for Luso.
The origin story is invented pedigree. Camões ties Portugal to Bacchus through Luso (and 'Lisa,' a half-pun on Lisbon), giving a small young kingdom an ancient ancestor the way Virgil rooted Rome in Troy. The quiet 'parece' — it seems — admits the genealogy is legend, not record. Calling the founders 'sons or companions' of a god is how an epic buys its country a seat among the ancients.
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Os Lusíadas 3.21 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/lusiadas/3.21/