O brasileiro deplora

O interesse de amar

Seus costumes, sua música

Quer os outros imitar

Povo assim e muito fácil

Doutro país dominar

The Brazilian deplores the interest of love; and that others want to try its customs and music; people like this will easily dominate …

For many years I studied and translated  Greek, Latin, and later Sanskrit poetry The poets wrote of love, despair, war and peace, and their country. They sang of the glorious past and the doom of the day; other dreamed of the magnificent future. 

To understand a dead language it is vital to be aware of the culture and background of the poets.  Not so easy when we are 2 millennium apart.  

Sometimes, the poem was incomplete; only a line or two; from these words and much background knowledge (gained not by me, I might add, but by centuries of scholarship)  I might…