Even the Gods Are Taught Wrong
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" Que o grã Senhor e Fados que destinam, Como lhe bem parece, o baixo mundo, Famas mores que nunca determinam De dar a estes barões no mar profundo. Aqui vereis, ó Deuses, como ensinam O mal também a Deuses: que, a segundo Se vê, ninguém já tem menos valia, Que quem com mais razão valer devia.
For the great Lord and the Fates, who arrange this low world however it suits them, are resolved to grant these barons on the deep sea a fame greater than any before. Here you will see, o gods, how wrong is taught to gods as well: for, as far as one can see, nobody now counts for less than the one who by every right ought to count for most.
Bacchus, disguised, is addressing the assembled sea-gods in Neptune's undersea hall, urging them to destroy Gama's fleet. Here he argues that Jupiter and the Fates are handing the Portuguese a glory greater than any before, while the older gods are pushed aside.
This is Bacchus working the room. He has come down to Neptune's hall and is telling the sea-gods that Jupiter and the Fates have already decided the outcome: the Portuguese get a fame larger than anything on record, and the old powers of the ocean are simply expected to watch. The last two lines are the hook he wants left in them: the more right you have to be honoured, the less you are.
What a first reader can miss is that the complaint is really about Bacchus himself, not about justice. He was the god who conquered the East, and Gama's ships are about to make that conquest look small. "Ensinam o mal também a Deuses" is a sly line — he is not saying the gods are being taught a lesson, but that heaven is teaching them how to do harm, which conveniently licenses the storm he is about to ask for. Camões lets him sound wronged so that the reader hears the self-interest under it.
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