The Sword Pointed the Wrong Way
Read the full text in our reader
Achas que tens direito em senhorios De Cristãos, sendo o teu tão largo e tanto, E não contra o Cinífio e Nilo, rios Inimigos do antigo nome santo? Ali se hão de provar da espada os fios Em quem quer reprovar da Igreja o canto. De Carlos, de Luís, o nome e a terra Herdaste, e as causas não da justa guerra?
Do you think you have a claim on Christian lands, when your own is already so wide and so great — and no claim against the Cinyps and the Nile, rivers hostile to the ancient holy name? There is where the sword's edges should be tested: on those who would reject the Church's chant. From Charles, from Louis, you inherited the name and the country — and not the reasons for the just war?
Canto 7 opens with the poet stepping out of the story to scold the Christian kingdoms of Europe for warring on each other while Portugal sails alone against Islam. Here he turns to France: you inherited Charlemagne's name and Saint Louis's crown, but not their reasons for fighting.
The poet has stopped telling the voyage and is arguing with Europe. This stanza takes on France directly: your kingdom is already large, so a war on other Christians has no excuse; the enemy lies south, on the Cinyps in Libya and the Nile in Egypt. The last two lines make the charge specific. Charlemagne and Saint Louis are the names the French crown claims — Camões grants the inheritance of the name and the territory, then withholds the part that mattered.
What a first reader misses is that this is a complaint about Portugal being alone. Camões wrote in the 1560s and 70s, with France and the Habsburgs tearing at each other and France even dealing with the Ottomans; the crusade he is invoking had become a rhetorical antique. The rebuke is also a boast — every kingdom that stayed home makes the small country that sailed look larger.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Os Lusíadas 7.7 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 7.7 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/lusiadas/7.7/