JACOB Poem by Luís de Camões

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."