Portuguese literature
Queen Lianor, widow of King João II. It is a homily in praise of the
hermit’s life of solitude and against worldly joys and traffics, and
is marked by a pleasant quaintness, an intense and excellent style,
a fervent humanity and love of Nature. The hermit’s independent
and healthy life[197] is contrasted with that of the merchant in
cities.[198] In chapter I the repentant sinner is introduced in ‘a
very thick wood of very fair trees in which many birds sang very
sweetly’ near ‘a very fair field full of many herbs and scented
flowers’--_frolles de boo odor_. He prays to be delivered from this
darkness of death, and a very fair youth appears ‘clothed in clothes of
gleaming fire and his face shone as the sun when it rises in the season
of great heat’. His ‘glorious guide’, _grorioso guyador_, leads him to
a _dona sabedor_ and to _dom francisco solitario_, who in a _fremoso
fallamento_ praises the solitary life and condemns those who are puffed
up with the conceit of learning, in itself ‘a very fair thing’. He
tells of the lives of saintly hermits; St. Bernard, St. Thomas Aquinas,
Dom Seneca, Dom Cicero, _a mui comfortosa donzella_, and others exhort
the sinner to leave the world, and he ends by relating his frequent
raptures until his soul is carried to the _terra perduravil_. In its
main subject, praise of the solitary life, the book recalls the title
of the treatise ascribed to D. Philippa de Lencastre: _Tratado da Vida
Solitaria_, a translation or adaptation from the Latin of Laurentius
Justinianus.[199] The latter’s _De Vita Solitaria_ is, however, quite
different from the _Boosco deleytoso_, which was probably composed
before the birth of D. Philippa (1437).
Another remarkable early work is the anonymous _Corte Imperial_ (14th
or early 15th c.), the language of which often bears traces of a
Latin original.[200] Many of its sentences are veritable _dobres_ and
_mordobres_ in prose,[201] and to a superficial reader will have little
meaning; but in fact this mystic treatise is closely reasoned. It
may have some connexion with similar works by Juda Levi, Ramon Lull,
and Don Juan Manuel. In a _corte_ or parliament the Church Militant,
in the person of a ‘glorious Catholic Queen’ argues with Gentile,
Moor, and Jew on the nature of God and the Trinity. The Gentiles and
Moors gradually accept her doctrines, but the Jewish rabbis prove
more contumacious. Saints and angels and all the company of heaven
discourse sweet music in the intervals of the discussion. One of the
best known of the many other important translations of this time was
the _Flos Sanctorum_ (1513),[202] which begins[203] with extracts from
the Gospels and has a savour of the Bible about its prose. There were
many later versions of the Gospel story, as _A Paxã de Jesu Christo
Nosso Deos e Senhor_, &c. (1551); _Tratado en que se comprende breue
e deuotamente a Vida, Paixão e Resurreição_, &c. (1553); _Traatado em
q̃ se contẽ a paixam de x̃po_, &c. (1589?). But the earliest and most
splendid, an incunable of which Portugal has reason to be proud on
account of its beautiful print, is the _Vita Christi_ (Lixboa, 1495),
translated _em lingoa materna e portugues linguagem_ from the original
of Ludolph von Sachsen by the Cistercian monk Frei Bernardo de Alcobaça
(†1478?), at the bidding of Queen Isabel, sister of the Constable D.
Pedro, in the middle of the fifteenth century (1445).
Another notable translation for the same queen is the _Espelho de
Christina_ (1518),[204] from the French of Christine de Pisan:
_Livre des trois vertus pour l’enseignement des princesses_ (1497).
The Portuguese manuscript, translated from the French manuscript
nearly half a century before the latter appeared in print,[205] was
published at the bidding of Queen Lianor (wife of João II), who so
keenly encouraged Portuguese art, language, and literature. Her squire
Valentim Fernandez’ version of Marco Polo, _Marco Paulo_, was published
at Lisbon in 1502. The _Espelho de Prefeyçam_ (1533) was translated
from the Latin by the Canons of Santa Cruz, Coimbra, and edited by Bras
de Barros (_c._ 1500-59), Bishop of Leiria and cousin of the historian
João de Barros. A Portuguese version of a scriptural work entitled
_Sacramental_, originally written in Spanish by Clemente Sanchez de
Vercial, was published apparently in 1488 (it would thus be one of the
earliest books printed in Portugal), and was reprinted at Lisbon in
1502.
FOOTNOTES:
[162] Lopez himself was probably of humble birth. It appears from
a document presented by Dr. Pedro de Azevedo at a meeting of the
_Sociedade Portuguesa de Estudos Historicos_ in July 1916 that his
wife’s niece was married to a shoe-maker.
[163] Zurara, _Cron. D. Joam_, cap. 2.
[164] i.e. eighty-nine years before the first English translation of
Froissart was published. Needless to say, no English translation of
Lopez exists.
[165] A facsimile of a page of this lengthy document is given in Snr.
Braamcamp Freire’s excellent edition of the _Primeira Parte da Crónica
de D. Joam I_ (1915).
[166] See A. Braamcamp Freire, ibid., pp. xl-xlii.
[167] _Fez todas as chronicas dos Reis té seu tempo, começando do
Conde dom Henrique, como prova Damião de Goes_ (Gaspar Estaço, _Varias
Antigvidades de Portugal_ (1625), cap. 21, § 1); cf. Goes, _Cron. de D.
Manuel_, iv. 38.
[168] _Nosso desejo foi em esta obra escrever verdade--nuamente--a nua
verdade_ (_Cr. D. Joam_, _Prologo_).
[169] Zurara, _Cr. D. Joam_, cap. 2. Cf. Lopez’ preface to his _Cr.
D. Joam_: _Oo com quamto cuidado e diligemçia vimos gramdes vollumes
de livros, de desvairadas linguageẽs e terras; e isso meesmo pubricas
escprituras de muitos cartarios e outros logares nas quaaes depois de
longas vegilias e gramdes trabalhos mais çertidom aver nom podemos da
contheuda em esta obra_ (1915 ed., p. 2).
[170] Usually he does this without naming the offender, but he refutes
the _razões_ of Martim Afonso de Mello, a person well known at the
Court of King João I and author of a technical book on the art of war,
_Da Guerra_ (see Zurara, _Cr. D. Joam_, cap. 99). Mello refused the
governorship of captured Ceuta in 1415. A work on a similar subject,
_Tratado da Milicia_, is ascribed to Zurara’s friend and patron. King
Afonso V (Barbosa Machado, i. 19).
[171] _Cr. del Rei D. Fern._, cap. 2: _a ordenança de nossa obra_; _Cr.
D. Joam_, 1915 ed., p. 51: _Certo he que quaaesquer estorias muito
melhor se entemdem e nembram se som perfeitamente e hem hordenadas_;
_Cr. del Rei D. Fern._, cap. 139: _guardando a regra do philosopho_ [of
cause and effect].
[172] _Antología_, iv, p. xx: _Nada hay semejante en las literaturas
extranjeras antes de fin del siglo xv._ The words apply more accurately
to Fernam Lopez.
[173] _Leixados os compostos e afeitados razoamentos_ (_Cr. D. Joam_,
_Prologo_).
[174] The references in cap. 76 and 80 to events of 1451 and 1461 are
evidently later additions.
[175] Cf. _Cr. do Cond._, cap. 14 and 15, with _Cr. del Rei Fern._,
cap. 166.
[176] A. Braamcamp Freire, _Cr. de D. Joam_ (1915), _Introdução_, p.
xxi.
[177] By Matheus de Pisano (whom some have considered the son of
Christine de Pisan). He wrote in Latin: _De Bello Septensi_ (_Ined.
de Hist. Port._, vol. i, 1790), Portuguese tr. Roberto Correia Pinto:
_Livro da Guerra de Ceuta_ (1916).
[178] _Não seja porem algum de tam simples conhecimento que presuma que
este é o teor propria_, &c. (cap. 95).
[179] But he can also be picturesque in expressing time (like Lopez,
who for ‘early morning’ says, ‘at the time when people were coming from
Mass’), e.g. _Cr. D. Joam_, cap. 102 _ad fin._: Ceuta had been captured
so swiftly that ‘many had left the corn of their fields stored in their
granaries and returned in time for the vintage’. The whole description
of the expedition against Ceuta and the attack and sack of the city are
extremely clear.
[180] Cf. Goes, _Cr. D. Manuel_: _escrevia com razoamentos prolixos e
cheos de metaforicas figuras que no estilo historico não tem lugar_;
_Cr. do Princ. D. Joam_, cap. 17: _com a superflua abundancia e copia
de palavras poeticas e metaforicas que usou em todalas cousas que
screveo_. His style is less involved than is often said. Some of his
sentences may contain as many as 500 words and yet be perfectly plain
and straightforward, whereas Mallarmé could be obscure in five words.
[181] Cf. cap. 2: _Oo tu principe pouco menos que devinal!_ and _Tua
gloria, teus louvores, tua fama enchem assi as minhas orelhas e ocupam
a minha vista que nom sei a qual parte acuda primeiro._ This chronicle
has the same plethora of learned quotations. Chapter 1 quotes St.
Thomas, Solomon, Tully, the Book of Esther, and introduces Afonso V,
King Duarte, the French duke Jean de Lançon, the Cid, Nun’ Alvarez,
Moses, Fabricius, Joshua, and King Ramiro.
[182] He re-wrote the _Cronica do Conde D. Pedro de Meneses_ twice.
João de Barros, who was inclined to slight earlier and contemporary
historians, acknowledges his great debt to Zurara. Damião de Goes
regards him less favourably.
[183] November 22, 1467 (_Coll. Liv. Ined._ iii. 3-5). There is also an
affectionate letter from King Pedro of Aragon to Zurara, dated June 11,
1466, or 1460.
[184] Zurara, on the other hand, with feigned diffidence represents
himself as ‘a poor scholar’, ‘a man almost entirely ignorant and
without any knowledge’, and if he has any learning it is but the crumbs
from King Afonso’s table (_Cr. D. Pedro_, cap. 2). He can rise to
real eloquence, as in the beginning of cap. 25 of the _Cr. da Guiné_:
_Oo tu cellestrial padre, que com tua poderosa maão, sem movimento
de tu devynal essencia, governas toda a infiinda companhya da tua
sancta cidade_, &c., or sober down into a Tacitean phrase such as
that of cap. 26, describing the fate of natives of Africa brought to
Portugal: _morriam, empero xraãos_ (they died, but Christians). He has
a misleading trick of saying ‘The author says--_diz o autor_’, meaning
himself.
[185] _Nunca me em ello quis leixar obrar segundo meu desejo_ (_Cr. D.
Pedro_, cap. 1).
[186] His son Fernam de Pina became _Cronista Môr_ in 1523. The
immediate successor of Zurara as _Cronista Môr_ was VASCO FERNANDEZ
DE LUCENA, whose life must have coincided almost exactly with the
sixteenth century. He represented King Duarte at the Council of Basel
in 1435, and according to Barbosa Machado, who calls him _um dos varões
mais famosos da sua idade assim na profundidade da litteratura como na
eloquencia da frase_, he was still living in 1499. Unfortunately none
of his works have survived. His manuscript translation of Cicero’s _De
Senectute_ and other works were destroyed in the Lisbon earthquake
(1755).
[187] Much later, in the first third of the seventeenth century,
CASPAR DIAZ DE LANDIM wrote a _copiosa relação_ from a point of view
unfavourable to D. Pedro and dedicated it to the Duke of Braganza: _O
Infante D. Pedro, Chronica Inedita_, 3 vols. (1893-4).
[188] _Tudo o contheudo no siguiente trautado eu o uy e ouuy_ (1911
ed., p. 2).
[189] 1911 ed., p. 117: Ichoa (= Blind). The fact that no other name is
given shows that then as now Basques were known by their nicknames. The
same name figures in ‘Pierre Loti’s’ _Ramuntcho_ (1897): Itchoua. In
the sixteenth century Martim Ichoa and João de Ychoa appear among the
_moradores_ of King Manuel’s household (1518). The substantive _ichó_
(= _armadilha_), derived from _ostiolum_, is used by Diogo Fernandez
Ferreira (_Arte da Caça_) and Garcia de Resende (_Cron. João II_).
[190] The extremely interesting list of his important library has been
published in _Provas Genealogicas_, i. 544, in the 1842 ed. of _Leal
Conselheiro_, and edited by Dr. T. Braga in _Historia da Univ. de