The Siege of Silves
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Depois que foi por Rei alevantado, Havendo poucos anos que reinava, A cidade de Silves tem cercado, Cujos campos o bárbaro lavrava. Foi das valentes gentes ajudado Da Germânica armada que passava, De armas fortes e gente apercebida, A recobrar Judeia já perdida.
After he was raised up as King, having reigned but a few years, he has laid siege to the city of Silves, whose fields the barbarian used to till. He was aided by the valiant peoples of the Germanic fleet that was passing by, strong in arms and equipped with men, on their way to recover Judea, already lost.
Canto 3 recounts Portuguese history to the king of Malindi. Here the young King Sancho I, aided by a passing crusader fleet, besieges Moorish Silves in the Algarve.
The stanza turns to Sancho I, son of Afonso Henriques, early in his reign. He besieges Silves, a Moorish stronghold in the Algarve whose surrounding fields the "barbarian" farmed, and he does it with borrowed muscle: a northern fleet that happened to be sailing past lent him its armed and well-supplied men.
The last line quietly reframes everything. That "Germanic armada" was not sailing to help Portugal at all; it was a Third Crusade fleet bound for the Holy Land, Judea already lost to Saladin in 1187. Camões folds a local Algarve siege into the great crusade of its day, so that taking Silves becomes a way-station on the road to Jerusalem. The first reader sees a Portuguese victory; the line underneath says the real prize was elsewhere, and never regained.
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