O salt sea, how much of your salt is the tears of Portugal!
Genuine
Yes. In Message (1934), Mensagem, Second part, Mar Portuguez; poem X, “Mar Portuguez”, first stanza (1934 edition, p. 64).
Found word for word by program in the Portuguese original.
The English is our own translation, not yet reviewed: there is no public-domain translation of this text in our sources.
- Work
- Message (Mensagem), 1934
- Where
- Mensagem, Second part, Mar Portuguez; poem X, “Mar Portuguez”, first stanza (1934 edition, p. 64)
- Found at
- Paragraph 392 of the Portuguese text
- Translation
- Our own, not yet reviewed (no public-domain translation in our sources)
Researched by AI; checked by program against the full text on 31 October 2026. Editorial review: pending. How we check
On the page
O céu abrir o abysmo à alma do Argonauta.
O’ mar salgado, quanto do teu sal
São lagrimas de Portugal!
Por te cruzarmos, quantas mães choraram,
Quantos filhos em vão resaram!
Quantas noivas ficaram por casar
Para que fosses nosso, ó mar!
Valeu a pena? Tudo vale a pena
Se a alma não é pequena.
O salt sea, how much of your salt is the tears of Portugal! For us to cross you, how many mothers wept, how many sons prayed in vain! How many brides were left unmarried so that you might be ours, O sea!
The scene
The first stanza addresses the sea and counts the grief of mothers, sons and brides left behind by Portuguese seafaring. The second stanza asks whether the cost was worthwhile, answering with the condition about the greatness of the soul. The whole poem holds maritime aspiration together with suffering and loss.
What it means
The sea’s salt becomes an image of the tears paid for Portuguese maritime expansion: national achievement has a human cost.
Often misread
The opening is neither uncomplicated celebration nor the poem’s final rejection of the voyages. The later answer about the soul qualifies the mourning, while the mourning prevents that answer from being cost-free triumphalism.
Topics
Related quotes
- Everything is worthwhile if the soul is not small.
- God wills, man dreams, the work is born.
- From the very fountain of delights rises something bitter that troubles us amid the flowers. Lucretius
- It is sweet, when the winds stir the sea, to watch another’s great trouble from the land. Lucretius
- Experience that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn. (misattributed) C. S. Lewis
Sources
Cite it
Fernando Pessoa, Message (1934), Mensagem, Second part, Mar Portuguez; poem X, “Mar Portuguez”, first stanza (1934 edition, p. 64), our own translation. Checked at Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/o-salt-sea-how-much-of-your-salt/ (31 October 2026).
Have a different wording, or a source we missed? Check it or submit it.
Do you hold the rights to anything on this page? Tell us.
Checked by people
People who checked this entry against its source, under their own names. Their checks do not change the verdict: an editor reviews every entry.
Comments