Waiting for the Mecca Fleet
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Por estas naus os Mouros esperavam, Que, como fossem grandes e possantes, Aquelas, que o comércio lhe tomavam, Com flamas abrasassem crepitantes. Neste socorro tanto confiavam, Que já não querem mais dos navegantes, Senão que tanto tempo ali tardassem, Que da famosa Meca as naus chegassem.
For these ships the Moors were waiting, so that — being large and powerful — they might burn with crackling flames those vessels that had stripped them of their trade. In this rescue they trusted so completely that they now asked nothing more of the seafarers, except that they linger on the coast long enough for the ships from famous Mecca to arrive.
At Calicut, the Muslim traders whose commerce Portugal has disrupted plot against Gama, pinning their hopes on a war-fleet expected from Mecca.
The Muslim merchants of Calicut are setting a trap. They wait for a fleet out of Mecca — big, well-armed ships — to come and burn Gama's vessels, the intruders who have taken their spice trade. They trust this rescue so fully that they now ask only one thing: that the Portuguese be kept on the coast just long enough for the Mecca ships to arrive.
The quiet key is "o comércio lhe tomavam" — the trade they took from them. Camões names the real grievance: not faith but money, the spice route Portugal has muscled into. And "esperavam" carries a cold irony — the reader already senses this awaited help will never save them; Venus will see to that. The hostility Gama faces here is commercial, and the ambush is patient rather than open.
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