Sertorius and the White Hind
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Vês? conosco também vence as bandeiras Dessas aves de Júpiter validas; Que já naquele tempo as mais Guerreiras Gentes de nós souberam ser vencidas. Olha tão subtis artes e maneiras, Para adquirir os povos, tão fingidas, A fatídica Cerva que o avisa: Ele é Sertório, e ela a sua divisa.
See? With us too he conquers the banners of those mighty eagles of Jupiter; for already in that age the most warlike peoples came to be vanquished by us. Look at such subtle arts and ways, so feigned, to win over the peoples: the prophetic Hind that warns him. He is Sertorius, and she his emblem.
On the painted banners Paulo da Gama shows the Catual, this figure is the Roman rebel Sertorius, who with Lusitanian troops beat the eagles of Rome and steered his people by a tame white hind he claimed was divine.
Paulo da Gama is reading the painted flags to the Catual, and here he lands on a boast: the Roman rebel Sertorius, who used Lusitanian troops, beat the eagle-standards of Rome itself. The claim folds Portugal's ancestors into the deepest layer of classical prestige, that the very people Rome could not fully tame once fought its legions to a standstill.
What a first reader slides past is the sly turn in the second half. The white hind was Sertorius's trick, not a miracle: he pretended the tame deer carried messages from the gods so his men would obey. Camoes admires the deception openly, calling the arts subtle and the manners feigned. It is a small confession that empire runs on stagecraft, that a leader wins peoples by managing what they believe as much as by winning battles.
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