Portuguese literature
se tiene por del tiempo deste Rey don Iuan’ (_Fvente de Aganipe_
(Madrid, 1646), § 10). The obvious sympathy of the author for the
_escudero viejo_ who is knighted in _Amadis_ (ii. 13, 14) amidst the
laughter of the Court ladies is perhaps significant.
[134] _Cronica de D. Fernando_, cap. 177. The year of his death, given
as 1403, is quite uncertain. Soares de Brito in the _Theatrum_ forms
no independent opinion: ‘Vascus de Lobeyra inter Lusitanos Scriptores
enumeratur a Faria.... Floruit tempore Fernandi Regis.’ Antonio
Sousa de Macedo, in _Flores de España_, also follows Faria: Vasco de
Lobeira _fué el primero que con gentil habilidad escribió libros de
caballerías_. Nicolás Antonio (1617-84), _Bib. Nov._, 1688 ed., ii.
322, says that Vasco de Lobeira _vulgo inter cives suos existimari
solet auctor celeberrimi inter famosa scripti_ Historia de Amadis
de Gaula ... _cuius laudes nos inter Anonymos curiose collegimus.
Ostendere autem Lusitanos Amadisium hunc Lusitane loquentem, uti
Castellani Castellanum ostendunt, ius et aequum esset in dubia re
ne verbis tantum agerent._ The challenge in the last sentence is of
interest, as coming in date between the two statements (by Leite
Ferreira and the Conde da Ericeira) asserting the existence of the
Portuguese text.
[135] There was a Canon of Santiago of this name in 1295, and he may
have come to the Portuguese Court on business concerning certain
privileges of the Chapter which King Dinis confirmed in 1324.
[136] _Hist. da Litt. Port._ i (1909).
[137] In the document the only son mentioned is named Gonçalo.
[138] Zurara, loc. cit., _cousas fingidas_; López de Ayala, _mentiras
probadas_. According to D. Francisco de Portugal (_Arte de Galantería_,
p. 146) such lies could only be written in Spanish (_en la Portuguesa
no se podía mentir tanto_). Portugal was writing in Spanish.
[139] _Agiologio Lusitano_, i (1652), p. 410: _E por seu mandado_ [of
the Infante Pedro, son of João I] _trasladou de Frances em a nossa
lingua Pero Lobeiro_ [so], _Tabalião d’Eluas, o liuro de Amadis._
§ 2
_Epic and Later Galician Poetry_
Some of the poems of the early _Cancioneiros_, as we have seen, have
an historical character, but they are all written from a personal
point of view. Portuguese history, with its heroic achievements such
as the conquest of Algarve, seems to have begun just too late to be
the subject of great anonymous epics, or rather the temperament of the
Portuguese people eschewed them. Of five poems, long believed to be the
earliest examples of Portuguese verse but no longer accepted by any
sane critic as genuine, only one belongs to epic poetry. This _Poema da
Cava_ or _da Perda de Espanha_ was an infant prodigy indeed, since it
was supposed to have been written (in _oitavas_) in the eighth century.
With a discretion passing that of Horace it kept itself from the world
not for nine but nine hundred years, and was first published in Leitão
de Andrada’s _Miscellanea_ (1629)[140]: _O rouço da Cava imprio de tal
sanha_, &c.
Of the four other spurious poems, two[141] were alleged to be love
letters of Egas Moniz Coelho, a cousin of the celebrated Egas Moniz
Coelho of the twelfth century; another, published by Bernardo de
Brito,[142] _Tinherabos nam tinherabos_, has a real charm as gibberish.
Fascination, of a different kind, attaches also to the fifth:
No figueiral figueiredo, no figueiral entrei:
Tres niñas encontrara, tres niñas encontrei,
for if this poem is not genuine, and the fact that it was first
published by Brito[143] at once lays it open to grave suspicion, it
is nevertheless undoubtedly based on popular tradition of a yearly
tribute of maidens to the Moors such as the Greeks paid to the
Minotaur, and must be the echo of some Algarvian song. Its simple
repetitions have a haunting rhythm, but they are perhaps a little
too emphatic. The impression is that its author had been struck by
the repetitions in songs heard on the lips of the people, perhaps
crooned to him in his infancy (cf. _Miscellanea_, p. 25: _sendo eu
muito menino_), and worked them up in this poem. One early epic poem
Portugal undoubtedly possessed, the _Poema da Batalha do Salado_, by
AFONSO GIRALDEZ, who himself probably took part in the battle (1340).
The subject of the poem is the same as that of the Spanish _Poema de
Alfonso Onceno_, but whether its treatment was similar we cannot say,
as only forty lines of the Galician-Portuguese poem survive. Since
the authorship of the Spanish poem is doubtful and its rhymes run
more naturally in Galician than in Spanish, the theory has arisen,
among others, that Rodrigo Yannez, whose name perhaps denotes a
connexion with Galicia, merely translated the poem of Afonso Giraldez.
But against this it is argued that Yannez or Eanez was a Galician
or wrote Galician lyrics (there are several poets of that name in
the _Cancioneiro da Vaticana_), and when called upon to compose an
epic--for Spain a late epic--chose Castilian, the traditional language
of such poetry, and in executing his design found that his enthusiasm
had outrun his knowledge of Castilian.[144] It is not strange if so
brilliant a victory inspired two poets independently with its theme.
It is perhaps more extraordinary that both should have chosen a metre
(8 + 8) which has called for remark as showing the _romance_ through
the _cantar de gesta_.[145] Frei Antonio Brandão, indeed, called the
Portuguese poem a _romance_, a type of poem which did not exist in the
fourteenth century. Since the battle was fought in Spain it would be
considered in Brandão’s day a proper subject for a _romance_, but would
be noticeable as being written in Galician. Castilian was throughout
the Peninsula regarded as the fitting medium for the _romance_, as
for its father the epic, just as, a century earlier, Galician was the
universal language of the lyric.[146] Portuguese poets, if they wrote
a _romance_, would usually do so in Spanish. The best-known instance
is Gil Vicente’s fine poem (_muy sentido y galan_ as the 1720 editor
says) of _D. Duardos e Flerida_, which only belongs to Portuguese
literature through the excellent ‘translation of the Cavalheiro de
Oliveira’, among whose papers Garrett professed to have found it.
Portugal possessed no epic _cantares de gesta_ of her own, had not
therefore the stuff out of which the _romances_ were formed, and the
birth of the _romance_ coincided with the predominance of Spanish
influence in Spain. It is therefore surprising to find in Portugal a
large number of _romances_ unconnected with Spain, the explanation
being that, having accepted with characteristic enthusiasm the new
thing imported from abroad, the Portuguese turned to congenial themes,
of love, religion, and adventure. Had the _romances_ been elaborated
in the same way as in Spain, we might have expected a large number of
anonymous Portuguese _romances_ dealing with the Breton cycle, and
indeed with early Portuguese history, so rich in heroic incidents.
The fact that this is not the case and the number of _romances_
collected in Tras-os-Montes alike point to their Spanish origin, while
their frequency in the Azores denotes how popular they became later
in Portugal. In the sixteenth century their Spanish character was
recognized. The poor _escudeiro_ in _Eufrosina_ is bidden go to Spain
to gloss _romances_, and in the seventeenth century, as a passage
in Mello’s _Fidalgo Aprendiz_ well shows, they were better liked if
written in Spanish. The partiality for Spanish applied to poetry of
other kinds, and Manuel de Galhegos says (1635) that it is a bold
venture to publish poetry in Portuguese.[147] But it did not as a rule
extend to popular poetry. It is therefore noteworthy that the nurse
in Gil Vicente sings _romances_ in Spanish.[148] Dr. Theophilo Braga,
who considers Spanish influence on the _romances_ in Portugal to have
been ‘late and insignificant’,[149] is obliged, in order to support
his argument, to quote not Portuguese but Spanish _romances_.[150] Nor
is it a happy contention that Portuguese _romances_ were not printed
owing to _desleixo_, since the publication of Spanish _romances_ at
Lisbon cannot be attributed merely to a craze for things foreign.
More persuasive is the theory, developed by D. Carolina Michaëlis de
Vasconcellos,[151] that many _romances_ in Spanish were the work of
Portuguese poets, especially those related to the Breton cycle, such as
_Ferido está Don Tristan_, those concerned with the sea, and those of
a soft lyrical character, as _Fonte Frida_ and _La Bella Malmaridada_.
However that may be, the fact that _romances_ appear on the lips of
the people in Gil Vicente, that is, before the publication of the
_romanceros_, indicates how rapidly their popularity spread,[152]
and accounts for their numerous progeny in Portugal, collected in
the nineteenth century. True historical _romances_ the Portuguese
did not possess, unless we are to consider that certain lines which
occur in Vicente’s parody of _Yo me estaba allá en Coimbra_, in Garcia
de Resende’s _Trovas_, and elsewhere, are echoes of a Portuguese
_romance_ on the death of Inés de Castro.[153] But that is not to
say that they did not possess _romances_, and many of these might be
almost as old as their Spanish models, although not derived directly
from _cantares de gesta_. These Portuguese _romances_ or _xacaras_ (in
the Azores _estorias_ and _aravias_) often differ from the Spanish
in a certain vagueness of outline and sentimental tone. They are
frequently of considerable length. Many of them are undoubtedly of
popular origin and have a large number of variants in different parts
of the country. If there are none to compare with _Fonte Frida_ or
_Conde Arnaldos_ (which belong to Castilian literature, whatever
the nationality of their authors), they nevertheless, with a total
lack of concentration, present many natural scenes and incidents of
affecting pathos and an attractive simplicity. One of the best and
most characteristically Portuguese is _A Nau Catharineta_, and others
almost equally famous are _Santa Iria_, _Conde Nillo_, and _Brancaflor
e Flores_. The second edition of Dr. Theophilo Braga’s _Romanceiro_
runs to nearly two thousand pages. The first two volumes contain over
150 _romances_ (together with numerous variants). Of these 5 belong to
the Carolingian, 8 to the Arthurian cycle, 63 are _romances sacros_
or _ao divino_, 11 treat of the cruel husband or unfaithful wife.
In the third volume are reprinted _romances_ composed by well-known
Portuguese authors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It must
be admitted that Spain generously repaid to Portugal the loan of the
Galician language for lyrical composition--although in each case it was
the lender’s literature that profited (especially if some of the most
beautiful Spanish _romances_ were the work of Galician or Portuguese
poets). But even after the birth of the _romance_ Spain continued to
cultivate the Galician lyric, until the second half of the fifteenth
century. The last instance is supposed to be a Galician poem by Gomez
Manrique (1412-91), uncle of the author of _Recuerde el alma dormida_,
No. 65 in the _Cancioneiro Gallego-Castelhano_. This collection,
published by Professor Lang at the suggestion of D. Carolina Michaëlis
de Vasconcellos, contains the meagre crop of Portuguese verse of the
transition period from 1350 to 1450, meagre in quality and quantity.
One name dominates the period. The love and tragic fate of MACIAS
(second half 14th c.), _o Namorado, idolo de los amantes_, gave him a
renown similar to but far exceeding that of D. Joan Soarez de Paiva
in the preceding century. As the ideal lover he is met with at every