65 quotes
Now let the judging reader mark what rex
The idol gold (which all the world adoreth)
Plays both in poor and rich: by money's thurst
All laws and ties (divine, and human) burst.
Os Lusíadas (1572)
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)
The more I pay you, the more I owe you.
That sad and joyful dawn,
light full of pity and grief,
while the world wakes in loneliness
I'll praise it and remember it.
Little by little it ebbs, this life,
if by any chance I am still alive;
my brief time passes before my eyes.
I mourn the past in whatever I say;
as each day passes, step by step
my youth deserts me—what persists is pain.
Whoever, Lady, sees plain and clear
the lovely essence of your fair eyes
and doesn't from seeing them go blind
hasn't paid your looks their due.
Um fraco Rei faz fraca a forte gente.
Os Lusíadas (1572)
As crown to this wide empire, Europe's head,
Fair Lusitania smiles...
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)
[Ah, Love...] which formed I don't know where,
That came I don't know how, and hurts I don't know why.
Poets of Portugal (2006)
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)
"Death, what are you taking?" "The daylight."
"What hour did you take it?" "As it dawned."
"Do you know what you're taking?"
"I'm unconcerned."
"Then who made you do it?" "The Creator."
Who has seen on so small a theatre as my poor bed, such a representation of the disappointments of fortune? And I, as if she could not herself subdue me, I have yielded and become of her party; for it were wild audacity to hope to surmount such accumulated evils.
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)
I was long ago undeceived that protesting
could bring redress. But whoever suffers
is bound to complain if the pain is great.
So I did! But the cry that could offer
relief is itself feeble and exhausted,
and it is not through weeping that pain abates.