Luís de Camões: Quotes about love

Luís de Camões was Portuguese poet. Explore interesting quotes on love.
Luís de Camões: 138   quotes 5   likes

“Love is a fire that burns unseen”

Rimas, Sonnet 81 (as translated by Richard Zenith)<!-- http://portugal.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=8436-->

Lyric poetry, Não pode tirar-me as esperanças, Amor é fogo que arde sem se ver
Context: 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,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?

“The lover becomes the thing he loves
By virtue of much imagining;
Since what I long for is already in me,
The act of longing should be enough.”

Lyric poetry, Não pode tirar-me as esperanças, Transforma-se o amador na cousa amada

“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.”

Quem vê, Senhora, claro e manifesto
o lindo ser de vossos olhos belos,
se não perder a vista só em vê-los,
já não paga o que deve a vosso gesto.
Lyric poetry, Não pode tirar-me as esperanças, Quem vê, Senhora, claro e manifesto

“Ah, Dinamene,
Thou hast forsaken him
Whose love for thee has never ceased,
And no more will he behold thee on this earth!
How early didst thou deem life of little worth!
I found thee
— Alas, to lose thee all too soon!
How strong, how cruel the waves!
Thou canst not ever know
My longing and my grief!
Did cold death still thy voice
Or didst thou of thyself
Draw the sable veil before thy lovely face?
O sea, O sky, O fate obscure!
To live without thee, Dinamene, avails me not.”

<p>Ah! minha Dinamene! Assim deixaste
Quem não deixara nunca de querer-te!
Ah! Ninfa minha, já não posso ver-te,
Tão asinha esta vida desprezaste!</p><p>Como já pera sempre te apartaste
De quem tão longe estava de perder-te?
Puderam estas ondas defender-te
Que não visses quem tanto magoaste?</p><p>Nem falar-te somente a dura Morte
Me deixou, que tão cedo o negro manto
Em teus olhos deitado consentiste!</p><p>Oh mar! oh céu! oh minha escura sorte!
Que pena sentirei que valha tanto,
Que inda tenha por pouco viver triste?</p>
Lyric poetry, Não pode tirar-me as esperanças, Ah! minha Dinamene! Assim deixaste

“That more would he serve, if life
Were not so short for love so long.”

Mais servira, se não fora
Para tão longo amor tão curta a vida.
tr. Norwood Andrews
Lyric poetry, Não pode tirar-me as esperanças, Sete anos de pastor Jacob servia

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

Sabei que, segundo o amor tiverdes,
Tereis o entendimento de meus versos.
As translated by Landeg White in The Collected Lyric Poems of Luis de Camoes (2016), p. 25
Lyric poetry, Sonnets, Enquanto quis Fortuna que tivesse

“[Ah, Love…] which formed I don't know where,
That came I don't know how, and hurts I don't know why.”

[Ah o amor...] que nasce não sei onde,
Vem não sei como, e dói não sei porquê.
Poets of Portugal (2006), p. 141
Lyric poetry, Não pode tirar-me as esperanças

“I'll sing a song of love so sweet, so blessed
with harmonious sounds, so true to the name
of love (with two thousand examples), it will enflame
even those with dead hearts in their chest.”

Eu cantarei de amor tão docemente,
Por uns termos em si tão concertados,
Que dois mil acidentes namorados
Faça sentir ao peito que não sente.
Selected Sonnets: A Bilingual Edition (2008), ed. William Baer, p. 128
Lyric poetry, Sonnets, Eu cantarei de amor tão docemente

“My sins, my wild loves, and Fate herself
have all conspired against me.”

Erros meus, má fortuna, amor ardente
Em minha perdição se conjuraram.
Selected Sonnets: A Bilingual Edition (2008), ed. William Baer, p. 99
Lyric poetry, Não pode tirar-me as esperanças, Erros meus, má fortuna, amor ardente

“I am ending the course of my life, but the world will bear witness how I have loved my country; I have returned not only to die on her bosom, but to die with her!”

Enfim acabarei a vida e verão todos que fui tão afeiçoado à minha Pátria que não só me contentei de morrer nela, mas com ela.
Letter to Don Francisco de Almeyda, 1579; written after "the disaster of Alcácer-Kebir when the mad King Sebastião's mammoth invasion of Morocco ended in his death and the destruction or enslavement of all but one hundred of his army of over 20,000. [Camões] died on 10 June 1580, just before the throne passed to Philip II of Spain", as reported by Landeg White in The Lusiads (Oxford World's Classics, 2001), p. x; quoted as Camões' last words in The Yale Literary Magazine, Vol. VIII (January, 1843), No. 3, "Luis de Camoëns", p. 115.
Letters

“Seven years Jacob served as a shepherd
for Laban, lovely Rachel's father,
laboring not for the father but
anxious only for her as his reward.”

Sete anos de pastor Jacob servia
Labão, pai de Raquel, serrana bela;
Mas não servia o pai, servia a ela,
E a ela só por prémio pretendia.
tr. Landeg White
Lyric poetry, Não pode tirar-me as esperanças, Sete anos de pastor Jacob servia

“The moon, full orbed, forsakes her watery cave,
And lifts her lovely head above the wave…”

Da Lua os claros raios rutilavam...
Stanza 58 line 1 (as translated by William Julius Mickle). Compare:
As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,
Over heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light...
Homer, The Iliad, VIII. 551–555 (tr. Alexander Pope)
Epic poetry, Os Lusíadas (1572), Canto I

“Thou, only thou, pure Love…”

Tu só, tu, puro Amor...
Stanza 119, line 1 (tr. Richard Francis Burton)
Epic poetry, Os Lusíadas (1572), Canto III

“Just like Love is yonder rose.”

Com Amor a rosa,
Que tão fresca, &c.
Rondeau http://books.google.pt/books?id=OcADAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA47&dq=%22Just+like+Love+is+yonder+rose%22&hl=pt-PT&sa=X&ei=WYM1VJ7IF6W07QblrIGACA&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAzg8#v=onepage&q=%22Just%20like%20Love%20is%20yonder%20rose%22&f=false in Poems, from the Portuguese of Luis de Camoens (1803) by Percy Smythe, 6th Viscount Strangford, p. 47; original source unclear.
Attributed

“No star from above
nor flower in the field
seems to me as fair
as the one I love.”

Nem no campo flores,
Nem no céu estrelas
Me parecem belas
Como os meus amores.
"Aquela cativa" (trans. Richard Zenith)
Lyric poetry, Songs (redondilhas)

“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,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?”

Rimas, Sonnet 81 (as translated by Richard Zenith)
Listen to the poem in Portuguese https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ToldDy8izc&feature=youtu.be&t=33s
Lyric poetry, Não pode tirar-me as esperanças, Amor é fogo que arde sem se ver
Original: (pt) <p> Amor é um fogo qu'arde sem se ver,
É ferida que dói, e não se sente,
É um contentamento descontente,
É dor que desatina sem doer.</p><p>É um não querer mais que bem querer,
É um andar solitário entre a gente,
É nunca contentar-se de contente,
É um cuidar que ganha em se perder.</p><p>É querer estar preso por vontade,
É servir a quem vence o vencedor
É ter com quem nos mata lealdade.</p><p>Mas como causar pode seu favor
Nos corações humanos amizade,
Se tão contrário a si é o mesmo Amor?</p>