Luís de Camões: Quotes about the world

“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.”

Luís de Camões

Veja agora o juízo curioso
Quanto no rico, assim como no pobre,
Pode o vil interesse e sede inimiga
Do dinheiro, que a tudo nos obriga.
Stanza 96, lines 5–8 (tr. Richard Fanshawe)
Epic poetry, Os Lusíadas (1572), Canto VIII

Money , World , Law

“Ever in this world saw I
Good men suffer grave torments,
But even more—
Enough to terrify—
Men who live out evil lives
Reveling in pleasure and in content.”

Luís de Camões

Os bons vi sempre passar
No mundo graves tormentos;
E para mais me espantar,
Os maus vi sempre nadar
Em mar de contentamentos.
"Esparsa ao Desconcerto do Mundo", translation from Luís de Camões and the Epic of the Lusiads (1962) by Henry Hersch Hart, p. 111
Lyric poetry, Songs (redondilhas)

Men , Pleasure , World , Suffering

“That sad and joyful dawn,
light full of pity and grief,
while the world wakes in loneliness
I'll praise it and remember it.”

Luís de Camões

Aquela triste e leda madrugada,
Cheia toda de mágoa e de piedade,
Enquanto houver no mundo saudade,
Quero que seja sempre celebrada.
tr. David Wevill
Lyric poetry, Não pode tirar-me as esperanças, Aquela triste e leda madrugada

World , Sadness , Light , Loneliness

“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!”

Luís de Camões

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

Love , Life , World , Country

“[She] heard the bitter, heartsick words
that made the fires of Hell burn cold
and soothed the lost spirits under the world.”

Luís de Camões

Ela viu as palavras magoadas,
Que puderam tornar o fogo frio,
E dar descanso as almas condenadas.
tr. David Wevill
Lyric poetry, Não pode tirar-me as esperanças, Aquela triste e leda madrugada

World , Hell

“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.”

Luís de Camões

Fico que em todo o mundo de vós cante,
De sorte que Alexandro em vós se veja,
Sem à dita de Aquiles ter enveja.
Stanza 156, line 6–8 (tr. William Julius Mickle); hear the last lines https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHwqw1Fbcoc&feature=youtu.be&t=6m5s [in Portuguese]
Epic poetry, Os Lusíadas (1572), Canto X

World