Victory, and a Mother in Irons
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Mas já o Príncipe claro o vencimento Do padrasto e da iníqua mãe levava; Já lhe obedece a terra num momento, Que primeiro contra ele pelejava. Porém, vencido de ira o entendimento, A mãe em ferros ásperos atava; Mas de Deus foi vingada em tempo breve: Tanta veneração aos pais se deve!
But now the illustrious Prince had carried off the victory over his stepfather and his wicked mother; already the land, which had first fought against him, obeys him in a moment. Yet, his judgment overcome by anger, he bound his mother in harsh irons; but she was avenged by God in a short time: so much reverence is owed to parents!
The close of the São Mamede episode: the young Afonso Henriques defeats his stepfather and mother to found Portugal, then imprisons his mother in irons — and is punished by God.
The stanza seals the birth of the Portuguese kingdom. The young prince Afonso Henriques has beaten his stepfather and his mother, and the land that first resisted him now yields in an instant. Camões races through the victory in four lines, then stops it cold.
The turn is the point. At the height of triumph the founder-king binds his own mother in irons, and Camões refuses to let it pass: God avenges her in short order, and the stanza ends not on glory but on a blunt maxim about the reverence owed to parents. The poem that exists to praise Portugal here judges the very man who made it — anger (ira) overcoming judgment (entendimento) — and lets a stain fall even on the founding.
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