33 quotes
Proud over the rest, with splendid wealth arrayed,
As crown on, Europe's head
The Lusitania reign,
Where the land ends and seas begins.
Os Lusíadas (1572)
I speak it to our shame; the cause no grand
Poets adorn our country, is the small
Encouragement to such: for how can he
esteem, that understands not poetry?
Os Lusíadas (1572)
And say, has fame so dear, so dazzling charms?
Must brutal fierceness and the trade of arms,
Conquest, and laurels dipped in blood, be prized,
While life is scorned, and all its joys despised?
Os Lusíadas (1572)
Um fraco Rei faz fraca a forte gente.
Os Lusíadas (1572)
Já no largo Oceano navegavam...
Os Lusíadas (1572)
Great Sir, let never the astonished Gall
The English, German, and Italian,
Have cause to say, the fainting Portugal
Could not advance the great work he began.
Let your advisers be experienced all,
Such as have seen the world, and studied man.
For, though in science much contained be,
In special cases practice more doth see.
Os Lusíadas (1572)
Enough, my muse, thy wearied wing no more
Must to the seat of Jove triumphant soar.
Chilled by my nation's cold neglect, thy fires
Glow bold no more, and all thy rage expires.
Os Lusíadas (1572)
Arms and the Heroes, who from Lisbon's shore,
Through Seas where sail was never spread before,
Beyond where Ceylon lifts her spicy breast,
And waves her woods above the watery waste,
With prowess more than human forced their way
To the fair kingdoms of the rising day:
What wars they waged, what seas, what dangers passed,
What glorious empire crowned their toils at last!
Os Lusíadas (1572)
No more the summer of my life remains,
My autumn's lengthening evenings chill my veins;
Down the black stream of years by woes on woes
Winged on, I hasten to the tomb's repose...
Os Lusíadas (1572)
How sweet is praise, and justly purchased glory,
By one's own actions, when to Heaven they soar!
Each nobler soul will strain, to have his story,
Match, if not darken, all that went before.
Envy of other's fame, not transitory,
Screws up illustrious actions more, and more.
Such, as contend in honorable deeds,
The spur of high applause incites their speeds.
Os Lusíadas (1572)
A scene so solemn, and the tender woe
Of parting friends, constrained my tears to flow.
To weigh our anchors from our native shore—
To dare new oceans never dared before—
Perhaps to see my native coast no more—
Forgive, O king, if as a man I feel,
I bear no bosom of obdurate steel.
(The godlike hero here suppressed the sigh,
And wiped the tear-drop from his manly eye...
Os Lusíadas (1572)
And you, fair nymphs of Tagus, parent stream,
If ever your meadows were my pastoral theme,
O come auspicious, and the song inspire
With all the boldness of your hero's fire:
Deep and majestic let the numbers flow,
And, rapt to heaven, with ardent fury glow.
Os Lusíadas (1572)
You saw, with what unheard of insolence
The highest heavens they did invade of yore:
You saw, how (against reason, against sense)
They did invade the sea with sail and oar:
Actions so proud, so daring, so immense,
You saw; and we see daily more, and more:
That in few years (I fear) of heaven and sea,
Men, will be called gods; and but men, we.
Os Lusíadas (1572)