Homer and Virgil
Read the full text in our reader
Esse que bebeu tanto da água Aónia, Sobre quem tem contenda peregrina, Entre si, Rodes, Smirna e Colofónia, Atenas, Ios, Argo e Salamina: Esse outro que esclarece toda Ausónía, A cuja voz altíssona e divina Ouvindo, o pátrio Míncio se adormece, Mas o Tibre, com o som se ensoberbece;
That one who drank so deeply of the Aonian water, over whom a strange quarrel runs among themselves — Rhodes, Smyrna and Colophon, Athens, Ios, Argos and Salamis: and that other one who lights up all Ausonia, at whose high and divine voice his native Mincius falls asleep while the Tiber swells with pride at the sound;
In the gallery of banners aboard ship, Paulo da Gama names the figures painted there; here the parade of poets. Two shades stand out before the Portuguese, unnamed but unmistakable.
Two poets, neither named. The first drank from the Aonian spring on Helicon and is claimed by seven Greek cities that cannot agree which of them bore him — that is the old riddle about Homer's birthplace, and Camões lets the quarrel itself do the identifying. The second is Virgil: born near Mantua on the river Mincius, he made his career in Rome on the Tiber. Camões gives each river a reaction, and the two reactions are opposite.
The thing under it is that the rivers are not decoration. Mincius falls asleep and Tiber puffs up: the small provincial water is lulled by the voice that grew out of it, while the imperial river takes the poem as its own credit. Camões is writing this as a Portuguese poet with his eye on exactly that transaction — a country becomes audible through the poet it produces, and the poet's home town gets the lullaby while the capital gets the glory. He is measuring the distance he intends to cover.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Os Lusíadas 5.87 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
You are reading a page of the Os Lusíadas — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Os Lusíadas 5.87 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/lusiadas/5.87/