Ambassadors, Letters, and Tears
Read the full text in our reader
" E se, agravadas damas, sois servidas, Por vós lhe mandarei embaixadores, Que, por cartas discretas e polidas, De vosso agravo os façam sabedores. Também por vossa parte encarecidas Com palavras de afagos e de amores Lhe sejam vossas lágrimas, que eu creio Que ali tereis socorro e forte esteio.
"And if you are willing, wronged ladies, I will send ambassadors to him on your behalf, who by discreet and polished letters will make the men there aware of the wrong done to you. And on your side too, let your tears go to him, pressed home with words of endearment and of love; for I believe that there you will find help, and a strong prop to lean on."
In the tale of the Twelve of England, told aboard ship by Veloso, twelve English ladies have been slandered by twelve English knights and can find no one at home to fight for them. Here the Duke answers them with a plan: send to Portugal.
The Duke answers the twelve slandered ladies with a procedure rather than a promise. Ambassadors, letters written in the right register, and the ladies' own tears attached to them, all directed at a court far away. He is confident about the result: help is waiting there, and something to lean on.
What a first reader skips past is that this generous offer is also an admission. The ladies came to the Duke because no English knight would fight for them, and his answer is to write abroad for champions. The Duke is John of Gaunt, who had campaigned in Portugal and whose daughter Filipa married Joao I, so the connection was real. But the tale is being told by a Portuguese sailor to Portuguese sailors, and the compliment it pays runs in one direction only: an English duke telling English ladies that the men who will defend them live in Portugal. Even the last word, esteio, is a shipwright's term for the timber propping up a hull.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Os Lusíadas 6.49 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 6.49 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/lusiadas/6.49/