Buying His Freedom
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Diz-lhe " que mande vir toda a fazenda Vendível, que trazia, para a terra, Para que de vagar se troque e venda: Que quem não quer comércio, busca guerra. Posto que os maus propósitos entenda O Gama, que o danado peito encerra, Consente, porque sabe por verdade, Que compra com a fazenda a liberdade.
He tells Gama to have all the merchandise he carried, everything for sale, sent ashore, so that it can be exchanged and sold at leisure — for a man who refuses trade is asking for war. Though Gama sees the evil intentions hidden in that wicked heart, he agrees, because he knows for certain that with these goods he is buying his own freedom.
At Calicut the Catual, acting for the Samorin, orders Gama to bring all his trade goods ashore. Gama sees the trap but agrees, because the merchandise is the price of his release.
The stanza reports a demand and a calculated surrender. The Catual, speaking for the Samorin of Calicut, orders Gama to land his trade goods, dressing the order as ordinary commerce and capping it with a proverb: refuse to trade and you are choosing war. Gama, who has already read the hostility behind the courtesy, lets the goods go ashore anyway.
What a first reader can miss is that the merchandise is not really being sold — it is ransom. Gama and his men are effectively detained, and the cargo landed "para a terra" becomes the pledge that buys their release; that is the whole point of the last line's "compra a liberdade." The Portuguese trade goods were famously poor for the Malabar market, so the exchange makes no commercial sense — which is exactly why Camões frames it as a hostage transaction rather than a bargain.
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