The Left Wing and the Royal Standard
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E da outra ala, que a esta corresponde, Antão Vasques de Almada é capitão, Que depois foi de Abranches nobre Conde, Das gentes vai regendo a sestra mão. Logo na retaguarda não se esconde Das quinas e castelos o pendão, Com Joane, Rei forte em toda parte, Que escurecendo o preço vai de Marte.
And on the other wing, the one that answers to this, Antão Vasques de Almada is captain — the man who later became the noble Count of Abranches — and he goes commanding the left hand of the troops. Next, in the rearguard, the banner of the quinas and castles does not keep itself hidden: it is there with João, a king strong at every point, who goes eclipsing the very worth of Mars.
Still inside the order of battle at Aljubarrota (1385), as Nuno Álvares deploys the Portuguese army against Castile. Camões names the captain of the left wing, then turns to the rearguard, where the king himself stands under the royal arms.
Camões is still laying out the Portuguese line at Aljubarrota, wing by wing, the way a herald would read it off. Left wing: Antão Vasques de Almada. Rearguard: the royal standard with the quinas and castles, and the king standing under it. The stanza is almost administrative, and that is the point — it wants you to see a real army in real positions before the killing starts.
The thing a first reader slides past is the last line. Mars has not been a figure of speech in this poem; the pagan gods have been running the plot since Canto 1, arguing over Gama in council. So when João I "goes darkening the worth of Mars," Camões is putting a Portuguese king above one of his own machines — inside a catalogue of forces he borrowed from Homer and Virgil. The borrowed form is scaffolding; the history standing inside it is what he actually believes in. Note too that "depois foi" — he later became — is Camões writing in 1572 about 1385, quietly telling you these men's futures before their battle has begun.
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