CAMÕES and JACOB - CAMÕES e JACÓ

Camões was an outstanding Portuguese POET.
Camões foi um extraordinário POETA português.
He wrote a poem on JACOB being tricked by his father in law. Ele escreveu um poema acerca de Jacó ter sido enganado pelo sogro.
To find out about the original text go to/Para descobrir o texto original consulte: GENESIS 29: 9-30

JACÓ

Sete anos de pastor Jacob servia
Labão, pai de Raquel, serrana bela;
mas não servia ao pai, servia a ela,
e a ela só por prémio pretendia.
Os dias, na esperança de um só dia,
passava, contentando-se com vê-la;
porém o pai, usando de cautela
em lugar de Raquel lhe dava Lia.
Vendo o triste pastor que com enganos
lhe fora assi negada a sua pastora,
como se a não tivera merecida;
começa de servir outros sete anos,
dizendo: — Mais servira, se não fora
para tão longo amor tão curta a vida.
© 1595, Luís Vaz de Camões
From: Rimas
Publisher: Almedina, Coímbra, 1994
ISBN: 972-40-0775-8

JACOB
For seven years, the shepherd Jacob slaved
for the father of beautiful Rachel, working not for the man,
but only for her, knowing ever since he began
that she alone was the only reward he craved.
His days, dreaming of the wedding that lay ahead,
passed by, content to see her from time to time,
until her father plotted his duplicitous crime,
by placing Leah in Jacob’s marriage bed.
Learning the cruel deception, Jacob, in tears,
had lost the one he loved, as if, somehow,
he hadn’t truly earned the proper wife.
But he starts all over again, for seven more years,
saying, “If life wasn’t so short, beginning right now,
I'd serve even longer for Rachel, the love of my life.”

© Translation: 2005, William Baer
From: Selected Sonnets
Publisher: University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2005
ISBN: 0-226-09266-6

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