The Daughter Castile Claims
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" Beatriz era a filha, que casada Co'o Castelhano está, que o Reino pede, Por filha de Fernando reputada, Se a corrompida fama lhe concede. Com esta voz Castela alevantada, Dizendo que esta filha ao pai sucede, Suas forças ajunta para as guerras De várias regiões e várias terras.
Beatriz was the daughter, married to the Castilian who now asks for the Kingdom, reputed to be Fernando's daughter, if corrupted rumor grants her even that. Roused by this claim, Castile says that this daughter succeeds her father, and gathers its forces for wars out of various regions and various lands.
King Fernando of Portugal has died leaving only a daughter, Beatriz, married to the king of Castile. Castile now uses her claim to press for the Portuguese crown, and gathers an army.
This is the legal case for the invasion, laid out in four lines. Fernando is dead; his only child Beatriz is married to Juan I of Castile; therefore, Castile argues, the Portuguese crown passes to her and so to her husband. Camões does not deny the descent. He states it, and then attaches a condition to it: se a corrompida fama lhe concede.
That one clause is what a first reader slides past. Fama means both fame and rumor, and corrompida can describe the rumor or the woman who is its subject. The line quietly repeats the court gossip that Beatriz was not Fernando's child at all but Leonor Teles's by her lover, Joao Fernandes Andeiro. Camões gives no verdict; he simply lets the doubt sit inside the enemy's title. By the end of the stanza the claim has stopped being a legal question anyway. Forces are being gathered, and Castile has fifteen lines to Portugal's four.
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