After the Storm, Morning
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" Depois de procelosa tempestade, Noturna sombra e sibilante vento, Traz a manhã serena claridade, Esperança de porto e salvamento; Aparta o sol a negra escuridade, Removendo o temor do pensamento: Assim no Reino forte aconteceu, Depois que o Rei Fernando faleceu.
After a stormy tempest, after the shadow of night and the whistling wind, the morning brings a serene brightness, the hope of harbor and of safety; the sun drives off the black darkness and lifts the fear from the mind. So it went in that strong Kingdom, after King Fernando died.
Canto 4 opens after the long history lesson of Canto 3 has ended with the murder of Ines de Castro and the reign of King Fernando. Camoes begins the new canto with a weather image before naming the political crisis it stands for.
The stanza is a single extended comparison. Six lines describe weather clearing after a storm, and only in the last two does Camoes say what the weather stands for: Portugal after the death of King Fernando in 1383. He opens the canto with the resolution rather than the crisis, so a reader arrives at the political history already told how it turns out.
What is easy to miss is that the storm is what just ended in Canto 3 and the calm has not yet arrived. Fernando's death did not clear the sky; it began the 1383-85 interregnum, with a Castilian claim on the throne and Lisbon under siege. Camoes is promising morning to readers who are about to be given the worst night in the dynasty's history, and the promise is really about the Master of Avis, who is not named here yet.
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