To You, Race of Luso
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A vós, ó geração de Luso, digo, Que tão pequena parte sois no mundo; Não digo ainda no mundo, mas no amigo Curral de quem governa o céu rotundo; Vós, a quem não somente algum perigo Estorva conquistar o povo imundo, Mas nem cobiça, ou pouca obediência Da Madre, que nos céus está em essência;
To you, O race of Luso, I speak — you who are so small a part of the world; and not even of the world do I mean, but of the friendly fold of Him who governs the round heaven. You, whom not merely some danger keeps from conquering the unclean people, but not even greed, nor slight obedience to the Mother who dwells in essence in the heavens.
Camões opens Canto 7 by turning from the story to address his own countrymen directly. Portugal is small, he says, but it is the only Christian nation still fighting.
Camões stops the narrative and speaks straight to the Portuguese. The praise is arranged as a shrinking measurement: small in the world, smaller still inside Christendom — and then, having made them nearly nothing, he says they are the only ones nothing stops. The other Christian powers are held back by danger, by greed, by lukewarm obedience to Rome. Portugal, alone, is held back by nothing.
The compliment is a complaint. "Curral" is a livestock pen, not a cathedral — Camões calls Christendom a sheepfold and means it about the flock, not the shepherd. Canto 7 was written while France, England, and the German states were breaking from Rome, and stanzas 3 through 14 name them one by one and accuse them. What sounds like a patriotic toast is the opening move of an indictment: Portugal is praised chiefly to show how badly everyone else has failed.
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