In whichever towns he could harm,
He advanced to Santarém to surround
Dom Sancho, ill-prepared for what he found.
79 The Emir launched a furious assault,
Deploying a thousand tricks of battle;
But his battering-rams, hidden mines,
And catapults counted but little,
For Afonso’s son lacked none of his father’s
Strength, valour, and resourcefulness;
On all sides there was the same persistence,
The same resolve, the same stubborn resistance.
80 Meanwhile, the old man, now compelled
By years of labour to retirement,
Was living in Coimbra, where the meadows
Are made green by the River Mondego,
But learning that his son was besieged
In Santarém by the infidel,
He rode out as when he first won his spurs,
No less alert for his advancing years.
81 With his famed men, all veterans,
He went to his son’s rescue and, as allies
They speedily laid waste the Moors
With the customary Portuguese ferocity;
The whole battle meadow was littered
With caps and various mantles
Of horses and bridles, helmets and swords,
All now abandoned by their former lords.
82 Those who survived did so in flight
From the field and from Portugal too;
Only Emir Al-muminin did not leave
For life itself had abandoned him.
To the One who permitted this victory
They made thank-offerings without measure;
In so great a triumph, visibly God’s
Favour was decisive, and not the odds.
83 Having accomplished so many victories,
Aged Afonso,* the illustrious prince,
Who had conquered all before him,
Was at last conquered by time;
Sickness with its chill hand
Took firm hold of his weakened frame,
And so his years, so many yet so few,
Paid to the gloomy goddess Nature’s due.
84 The high headlands mourned him
And the tears of the forlorn rivers
Swamped the newly planted fields
With the floods of desolation.
Eternally, so far had spread
The story of his valiant deeds,
His stricken land will call out in its pain
‘Afonso, O Afonso’, but in vain.
85 Sancho, strong youth, who continued
Matching his father’s bravery,
As he had proved, while he yet lived
When the Guadalquivir ran with blood,
And when he destroyed the hosts
Of the Muslim king of Andalusia,
And again at Beja when those who laid
Presumptuous siege felt the power of his blade,
86 When later he was raised to the throne,
And had reigned only a few years,
He invested the city of Silves*
Where the Moors tended the fields.
He was helped by the valiant knights
From German ships which were passing,
Furnished with men and weapons, to reclaim
The holy city of Jerusalem.
87 They were sailing with reinforcements
For red-beard Frederick Barbarossa,
In his sacred venture to regain
The city of Our Lord’s passion,
After Guy de Lusignan with his people
Had surrendered to great Saladin;
For Guy had camped in a plain without water,
And his men perished more of thirst than slaughter.
88 But Sancho asked the splendid fleet,
Already committed to holy war
And driven to port by contrary winds,
For support in his own campaign;
Thus as had happened to his father
When he took Lisbon, in the same crusade,
With the help of Germans, Silves was reduced
And its people tamed, or killed if they refused.
89 Having taken from Mohammed so many
Trophies of battle, he could not allow
The Leónese to live peaceably
In a land accustomed to fighting,
Until the splendid frontier city*
Of Tuy came under his firm yoke,
And many neighbouring towns in that campaign
Fell to you, Sancho, and to your domain.
90 But struck down amid such triumphs
By grim death, he was succeeded
By his only son, esteemed by all,
The second Afonso* and the third king.
During his reign, Alcácer do Sal
Was captured finally from the Moors
Who paid due penalty for having dared
To reconquer a town they should have spared.
91 After Afonso’s death, there succeeded
Sancho the second,* callow and remiss,
Whose negligence was so extreme
He was ruled by those he ruled.
Putting favourites first, he lost favour,
Forfeiting his kingdom to another,
Because his sole concern in every crisis
Was to pacify his court in all its vices.
92 This Sancho was never so depraved
As Nero, who bedded a youth as though
A woman, and later committed
Incest with his mother Agrippina;
Nor so cruel to his subjects
That he set his own city ablaze;
Nor so evil as Heliogabalus;
Nor effeminate like King Sardanapalus;
93 Nor were his people oppressed
As was Sicily by its tyrants;
Nor did he devise like Phalaris
New methods of inhuman torture;
But the proud nation, accustomed
To kings who were sovereign in everything,
Would not obey him, nor indeed consent
To a king who had not proved Most Excellent.
94 So his brother,* the Count of Boulogne,
Governed in his stead and became
King, when in his customary,
Leisurely manner, Sancho died.
This one, named Afonso the Brave,
Having secured the kingdom, set out
To extend it, his appetite for glory
Cramped by so confined a territory.
95 Of the lands of the Algarve which were
His by his marriage, he recaptured
The greater part, expelling the Moors
Who had lost their instinct for battle.
So at last, his warrior virtues made
The sons of Lusus free and sovereign;
The Moors’ defeat was absolute through all
The land assigned by fate to Portugal.*
96 Then after him came King Dinis,* noble
And worthy heir to brave Afonso,
For with his fame he overshadowed
The munificence of Alexander;
With him the happy kingdom flourished
(He presided over a golden age)
With order, constitutions, and sound law,
Beacons in a land reprieved from war.
97 He was the first to make Coimbra
A city devoted to Minerva,
Tempting the Muses down from Helicon
To tread the meadows of the Mondego.
Great Apollo established there
What Athens herself had most cherished,
The evergreen gown and gold-embroidered hat,
Those laurels of the baccalaureate.
98 King Dinis rebuilt our noblest towns,
Securing citadel and fortress,
Reshaping, as it were, the whole kingdom
With great edifices and high walls;
But after harsh Fate had snipped
He left a son, Afonso the Fourth,
A disobedient prince, but a king of worth.
99 In his heart he had always harboured
Serene contempt for Castilian pride,
For it is not for the Portuguese
To tremble before those who outnumber them;
Nevertheless, when an army of Moors*
Disembarked to retake Iberia,
And approached Castile, intending to invade,
It was proud Afonso’s part to rush with aid.
100 Never did Semiramis* with her Assyrians
So choke the plains of Hydaspes,
Nor Attila,* who terrorized Italy,
Calling himself the scourge of God,
March at the head of so many Goths
As now, with stupendous forces,
The fierce Saracens camped in the meadow
Lying alongside the River Salado.
101 Seeing this vast, unassailable army,
The proud King of Castile feared
Much more than his own demise,
A second conquest of Christian Spain,
And to beg support from the mighty
Portuguese, he sent as envoy
His dear consort, the beloved daughter
Of the same king she needed to support her.
102 As the ravishing Maria entered
Her royal father’s splendid palace,
Her countenance was lovely, but overcast,
And tears welled in her eyes;
On her shoulders, white as ivory,
Her angelic hair tumbled loose,
As encouraged by her father’s joyful tones
She sobbed out this appeal, between moans:
103 —‘The multitudes of Africa, as many
As live there, strange and terrible people,
Are brought by the great king of Morocco
To take possession of noble Spain.
Such a conjoined force has never been
Since the salt seas first washed the shore;
They bring such ferocity in their wake,
The living tremble, and the dead quake!
104 ‘He whom you gave me as husband,
Trying to defend his terrified country
With his tiny army, stands naked
Before the full weight of the Moorish sword;
And if you do not reinforce him,
You will see me forfeit him and the throne,
To be a widow, obscure and distressed,
Unhusbanded, unkingdomed, dispossessed.
105 ‘Therefore, O King, at whose name the very
Rivers of Morocco freeze for fear,
Delay no more! Help, and quickly,
The wretched people of Castile.
If it is a father’s clear, true love
I read in your bright countenance,
Go in speed, my father, go in speed,
Lest you arrive too late for those in need.’
106 Fearful Maria used just such a tone
As Venus had used, when pleading sadly
With Jove her father, begging favours
For Aeneas her son, as he ploughed the seas,
Stirring in the god such pity, he laid
Down his dreadful thunderbolts,
Acquiescing, as if it were as naught,
In everything his weeping daughter sought.
107 Then at Évora the squadrons gathered,
The men’s armour, lances, spears,
And swords flashed in the brilliant sunlight;
Horses whinnied in their harness;
Sonorous trumpets rang out
To men long accustomed to peace,
To seize their glistening weapons and follow,
The summons echoing from every hollow.
108 Proudly in their midst and escorted
By every mark of royalty, rode
Valiant Afonso, his neck towering
High above all other warriors,
Putting spirit, by sheer example,
Into anyone fearful of the outcome.
So he crossed into Castile with his serene
And elegant daughter, its noble queen.
109 United on the plain of the Salado
The two Afonsos, at length, confronted
Such a multitude of the infidels
Plain and mountain could not hold them.
Not a man was so strong or valiant
As not to anticipate defeat,
Did he not discern at every stride
Christ was the comrade fighting at his side.
110 The Ishmaelites* were as if laughing
At the Christians’ puny forces,
And were sharing out estates
Between the factions of their army;
In the same manner as they pretended
To the illustrious name of ‘Saracen’,
So already they were claiming title
To Spain in their arrogant recital.
111 As when the robust and brutal giant,*
Whom King Saul judiciously feared,
Seeing the harmless shepherd before him
With stones as his only visible weapon,
With proud, boastful words he insulted
The slight youth, dressed in his rags,
Who whirled the catapult, opening his eyes
To the power of Faith, more potent than size;
112 In the same manner the Moors insulted
The Christian armies, not realizing
They were backed by the might of Heaven
To which Hell yields with its horrors.
At this, the Castilian with good tactics
Turned his fury on the King of Morocco,
While the Portuguese, with reckless ardour,
Charged point-blank at the King of Grenada.
113 Then swords and lances clanged against
Coats of armour, in a grim tattoo!
Men cried out, following their faith
Some to ‘Mohammed’, others ‘Santiago’.*
Screams rent the skies from the wounded,
Who created with their shed blood
A filthy lake, in which others who had found
Refuge from the clash of iron lay drowned.
114 The Portuguese took the battle so
Impetuously to the Moors of Grenada,
That in a trice they routed them,
Armour and numbers availing nothing.
Pausing from such a cheap triumph
The bold victors were not satisfied,
But rushed to reinforce the brave Castilian,
Who was himself fighting the Mauretanian.
115 The molten sun was drawing near
The home of Tethys* and just beginning
His last descent when the evening star
Brought to a close that memorable day,
When the massed regiments of the Moors
Were destroyed by the two kings,
With greater carnage than any victory
Yet recorded in the world’s memory.
116 Roman Marius* did not kill a quarter
Of those who died in this rout
When he forced his army to drink water
Running with the blood of the enemy;
Nor Hannibal, from his cradle
Ancient Rome’s most bitter foe,
When triumphing at Cannae he gathered
Six gallons of gold rings from the dead.
117 Though you, Emperor Titus, dispatched
To the underworld yet more souls,
When you destroyed in Jerusalem
The people stubborn to their ancient rite,
It was Heaven permitted this,
And not the might of your armies;
For so was prophesied in the Ancient Word,
And afterwards confirmed by Christ our Lord.
118 Riding in triumph from such a victory,
Afonso returned to Portuguese soil,
To secure
as much fame with peace
As he had gained in the rigours of war;
But now the tragic history* unfolded
Of her whom men disinterred from the grave
And, in a pitiful and macabre scene,
Only after her death was enthroned as queen.
119 You alone, you, pure love, whose
Raw power drives human hearts,
You alone encompassed her murder
Like some perfidious enemy.
When they say, cruel love, your thirst
Is never quenched by grief’s tears,
The truth is it suits your nature more
To drench your harsh altars in human gore.
120 You were living safely, lovely Inês,
Enjoying the sweet fruits of youth,
In that soft deception of the soul
That fortune never indulges long;
In the Mondego’s responsive meadows
With tears welling in your lovely eyes,
To mountains and fresh lawns you would impart
The one name that was written in your heart.
121 Such yearning for your Prince was matched
By his own heart’s vivid memories,
Bringing you constantly to his eyes
When parted from your beauties;
By night, in sweet deceitful dreams,
By day, in images which soared,
Whatever struck his mind, or caught his sight,
Became instant mementoes of delight.
122 All matches, all alliances
With princesses, women of beauty,
He spurned, for pure love can accept
No substitute for the adored face.
Studying these effects of love,
Aged Afonso, who took a king’s account
Of the people’s muttering, and the strange life
Of his son who refused to take a wife,
123 Plotted to release the son held captive,
By dispatching Inês from the world,
Believing that only with innocent blood
Could he quench the flames of desire.
What cruel madness could contrive
That a sharp sword which had borne the brunt
Of the Moors’ onslaught should turn its weight
On a lady, so refined, so delicate?
124 They dragged her, the vile beasts,
To the king, who was disposed to mercy;
But the mob with false, passionate
Arguments insisted on her death.
She, with sad and piteous cries
Of anguish, and of yearning,
Less for her death than for leaving forlorn
Her dear prince and the two sons she had borne,
125 Lifted up to the crystal heavens
Eyes that were brimming with tears
(Her eyes because her hands were tied
By one of the churlish warders).
Then, gazing at the little ones
She so loved, and held so precious,
But whose destiny as orphans looked sealed,
To their obdurate grandfather she appealed:
The Lusiads (Oxford World's Classics) Page 10