A Mother's Curse, Long Delayed
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Mas o alto Deus, que para longe guarda O castigo daquele que o merece, Ou, para que se emende, às vezes tarda, Ou por segredos que homem não conhece, Se até que sempre o forte Rei resguarda Dos perigos a que ele se oferece; Agora lhe não deixa ter defesa Da maldição da mãe que estava presa.
But the high God, who holds the punishment far off from the one who deserves it, and who at times delays it so that the guilty may mend himself, or for reasons no man can know, had until now always shielded the strong King through every danger he ran into. Now, though, He no longer lets him have any defense against the curse of the mother who lay imprisoned.
Gama, recounting Portugal's kings to the King of Melinde, reaches Afonso Henriques, who imprisoned his own mother to seize the crown. Here the poem pauses on the divine patience that let her curse wait until its hour.
The stanza is a single suspended sentence that turns on its last word. God, we are told, keeps punishment in reserve for the guilty, either delaying it to leave room for repentance or withholding it for reasons past human reading, and that patience has until now carried the strong King safely through every danger he threw himself into. Only the closing couplet drops the other shoe: this time the protection is withdrawn.
The "forte Rei" is Afonso Henriques, Portugal's first king, and the "mãe que estava presa" is his mother Dona Teresa, whom he defeated and imprisoned to take the county for himself. She cursed him, and Camões's theology of the patient God is really the machinery that lets that curse wait and then come due, at Badajoz, where Afonso shattered his leg against the walls. A first reader hears piety; underneath, a son's political betrayal of his mother is being booked and collected on divine credit.
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