The Catual Sends for Monçaide
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Tanto que os ígneos carros do formoso Mancebo Délio viu, que a luz renova, Manda chamar Monçaide, desejoso De poder-se informar da gente nova. Já lhe pergunta pronto e curioso, Se tem notícia inteira e certa prova Dos estranhos, quem são; que ouvido tinha Que é gente de sua pátria mui vizinha;
As soon as he saw the fiery chariots of the beautiful youth of Delos, who renews the light, he sends for Monçaide, eager to inform himself about the new people. Now, prompt and curious, he asks him whether he has full news and sure proof of the strangers — who they are; for he had heard that they were people from a land very near his own.
Dawn breaks over Calicut after the Portuguese have anchored. The Catual, the local governor, wants to know who these strangers are, and sends for the one man in the city who might tell him: Monçaide, the North African Muslim who already speaks with the newcomers.
The stanza is a piece of plot machinery: day breaks, the Catual wakes, he sends for the one man in Calicut who can tell him what has just arrived in his harbor. Camões spends a line and a half on sunrise in full mythological dress — Apollo's fire-chariot, the Delian youth — and then drops straight into the flat verbs of administration: manda chamar, pergunta. High style for the sky, plain style for the man doing his job.
What a first reader misses is why Monçaide is the man asked. He is a North African Muslim, and the Catual's last line gives the reason: he had heard the strangers came from a country near Monçaide's own. That is the quiet fact under the whole scene — Portugal and the Maghreb are neighbors, centuries of war and trade have made them mutually legible, and Gama has sailed around all of Africa only to be identified in India by a man from across the strait. The informant the Catual reaches for is the enemy who knows them best.
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