The King Puts the Key in My Hands
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Eu, que bem mal cuidava que em efeito Se pusesse o que o peito me pedia, Que sempre grandes cousas deste jeito Pressago o coração me prometia, Não sei por que razão, por que respeito, Ou por que bom sinal que em mi se via, Me põe o ínclito Rei nas mãos a chave Deste cometimento grande e grave.
I, who hardly believed that what my heart was asking of me would ever actually happen — for my foreboding heart always promised me great things of this kind — I do not know by what reason, by what consideration, or by what good sign seen in me, the illustrious King puts into my hands the key to this great and grave undertaking.
Gama, telling his own story to the King of Melinde, reaches the moment of his appointment. King Manuel I chooses him to command the voyage to India.
This is the hinge of Gama's whole narration: the moment he is chosen. He tells it as a man who cannot account for it. Three questions in a row — what reason, what regard, what good sign — and no answer to any of them. The King acts; Gama only reports that he acted.
The thing a first reader misses is that Gama is not being modest. He has just told us the opposite: his heart had been promising him great things all along, and it was his own breast that kept asking for the voyage. So the astonishment in the second half sits on top of an appetite already confessed in the first. He wanted this, he expected it, and he still presents the King's choice as an unearned mystery. The key is handed to him; he takes care not to say he reached for it.
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