The Child Levy
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Gregos, Traces, Arménios, Georgianos, Bradando-vos estão que o povo bruto Lhe obriga os caros filhos aos profanos Preceptos do Alcorão ( duro tributo!) Em castigar os feitos inumanos Vos gloriai de peito forte e astuto, E não queirais louvores arrogantes De serdes contra os vossos mui possantes.
Greeks, Thracians, Armenians, Georgians are crying out to you that the brutish people forces their dear children into the profane precepts of the Koran — a hard tribute! Take pride in punishing such inhuman deeds, with a heart both strong and shrewd, and do not want arrogant praise for being so mighty against your own.
Camões interrupts the voyage to rebuke the Christian nations of Europe. Here he names the eastern peoples living under Ottoman rule and the price they pay while Europe fights itself.
Camões stops the story to shout at Europe. Four peoples under Ottoman rule are named in a single line, and the whole stanza turns on what is being done to them: not taxes, not war, but the taking of children. The closing couplet is the point of the whole speech — you are strong, but you are strong against each other.
The "duro tributo" is not a figure of speech. It is the devshirme, the Ottoman levy of Christian boys from the Balkans and the Caucasus, taken young, converted, and raised into the janissary corps or the palace service. A first reader hears rhetoric; a reader in 1572 heard a known practice with a known price. "Os vossos" in the last line means fellow Christians — the Europeans Camões accuses of pouring their strength into wars against each other while this went on.
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