Luís de Camões Quotes

Once you experience love, I'm persuaded
you'll know what I'm on about in my verses.

Erros meus, má fortuna, amor ardente
Em minha perdição se conjuraram.

Love is a fire that burns unseen,
A wound that aches yet isn't felt,
An always discontent contentment,
A pain that rages without hurting,</p>A longing for nothing but to long,
A loneliness in the midst of people,
A never feeling pleased when pleased,
A passion that gains when lost in thought. It's being enslaved of your own free will;
It's counting your defeat a victory;
It's staying loyal to your killer. But if it's so self-contradictory,
How can Love, when Love chooses,
Bring human hearts into sympathy?

For these vain honours, this false gold, give price
(Unless he have it in himself) to none,
Better deserve them, and to go without;
Than have them undeserved, without doubt.

As when a rose, ere-while of bloom so gay,
Thrown from the careless virgin's breast away,
Lies faded on the plain, the living red,
The snowy white, and all its fragrance fled;
So from her cheeks the roses died away,
And pale in death the beauteous Inez lay.

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!

As armas e os Barões assinalados
Que da Ocidental praia Lusitana
Por mares nunca de antes navegados Passaram ainda além da Taprobana, Em perigos e guerras esforçados Mais do que prometia a força humana, E entre gente remota edificaram Novo Reino, que tanto sublimaram.

Sabei que, segundo o amor tiverdes,
Tereis o entendimento de meus versos.

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.

I, then inspired, the wondering world should see
Great Ammon's warlike son revived in thee;
Revived unenvious of the Muse's flame
That over the world resounds Pelides' name.

Foge-me pouco a pouco a curta vida
(se por caso é verdade que inda vivo);
vai-se-me o breve tempo d'ante os olhos;
choro pelo passado e quando falo,
se me passam os dias passo e passo,
vai-se-me, enfim, a idade e fica a pena.

Transforma-se o amador na cousa amada,
Por virtude do muito imaginar;
Não tenho, logo, mais que desejar,
Pois em mim tenho a parte desejada.

I spoke, when rising through the darkened air,
Appalled, we saw a hideous phantom glare;
High and enormous over the flood he towered,
And thwart our way with sullen aspect lowered.
An earthy paleness over his cheeks was spread,
Erect uprose his hairs of withered red;
Writhing to speak, his sable lips disclose,
Sharp and disjoined, his gnashing teeth's blue rows;
His haggard beard flowed quivering on the wind,
Revenge and horror in his mien combined;
His clouded front, by withering lightnings scared,
The inward anguish of his soul declared.
His red eyes, glowing from their dusky caves,
Shot livid fires: far echoing over the waves
His voice resounded, as the caverned shore
With hollow groan repeats the tempest's roar.
Cold gliding horrors thrilled each hero's breast,
Our bristling hair and tottering knees confessed
Wild dread, the while with visage ghastly wan,
His black lips trembling, thus the fiend began...

Numa mão sempre a espada, e noutra a pena.

Um fraco Rei faz fraca a forte gente.