Portuguese literature
genealogies is not increased by the fact that one investigator, the
Visconde Sanches de Baena (1822-1909), emerges with the triumphant
conclusion that the two Gil Vicentes were uncle and nephew, while
another, Dr. Theophilo Braga, declares that they are cousins. Perhaps
we may be permitted to believe in neither and to restore Gil Vicente
to himself. For indeed this was a singular instance of cousinly love.
The goldsmith wrote verses; the poet takes a remarkable interest in the
goldsmith’s art.[239] The goldsmith is appointed inspector (_vedor_)
of all works in gold and silver at the convent of Thomar, the Lisbon
Hospital of All Saints, and Belem. The poet is particularly fond of
referring to Thomar,[240] and in its convent in 1523 staged his _Farsa
de Inés Pereira_ (who lived at Thomar with her first husband), while
at the Hospital of All Saints was played the _Barca do Purgatorio_ in
1518. The goldsmith was in the service of the widow of João II, Queen
Lianor, who mentions two of his chalices in her will; the poet at the
request of the same Queen Lianor wrote verses, probably in 1509, in a
poetical contest about a gold chain and was encouraged by her to write
his early plays.[241] The goldsmith was _Mestre da Balança_ from
1513 to 1517; the poet goes out of his way to refer to _os da Moeda_,
familiarly but not as one of them, in 1521. He henceforth devoted
himself more ardently to the literary side of his genius, speaks of
himself as Gil Vicente who writes _autos_ for the king, and with an
occasional sigh[242] that he can no longer afford to stage his plays
as splendidly as of old (in King Manuel’s reign) produces them with
increasing frequency. ‘Had Gil Vicente been a goldsmith and a goldsmith
of such skill,’ said the late Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo (1856-1912),
‘it would have been impossible for him to leave no trace of it in his
dramatic works and for all the contemporary writers who speak of him
to have kept complete silence as to his artistic talent.’[243] But
his work is essentially that of an artist (Menéndez y Pelayo himself
well calls him an _alma de artista_)[244]: involuntarily one likens
his sketches to some rough terra-cotta figure of Tanagra or sculpture
in early Gothic, and his lyrics are clear-cut gems, a thing very rare
in Portuguese literature. Intensely Portuguese in his lyrism and his
satire, he is almost un-Portuguese in the extreme plasticity of his
genius. Concrete, definite images spring from his brain in contrast to
the vaguer effusions of most Portuguese poets. And if Queen Lianor’s
goldsmith, like the troubadour _ourives_ Elias Cairel, or, to come to
the fifteenth century, like Diogo Fernandez and Afonso Valente of the
_Cancioneiro de Resende_,[245] set himself to write verses, this would
call for no comment. Every one wrote verses. Had a celebrated poet--say
the Gil Vicente of 1520--wrought the _custodia_ his contemporaries
might have recorded the fact, but Gil Vicente was not a famous poet
when the _custodia_ was begun in 1503. Stress was therefore naturally
laid on the plays of Gil Vicente the goldsmith, not on the art of Gil
Vicente the poet. The historian Barros refers in 1540 to Gil Vicente
_comico_,[246] and since 1517 he had certainly been more _comico_ than
_ourives_. But the _comico_ who was dramatist and lyric poet, musician,
actor, preacher in prose and verse, may also have been a goldsmith. His
versatility was that of Damião de Goes a little later or of his own
contemporary Garcia de Resende, with genius added. The fact that the
official document in which _Gil Vicente lavrador da Rainha Lianor_ is
appointed to his post in the Lisbon _Casa da Moeda_ (Feb. 4, 1513[247])
has above it a contemporary note _Gil Vᵗᵉ trouador mestre da balãça_
should in itself be conclusive evidence that the poet was the goldsmith
of the queen. This modest but intimate position at Court accords well
with what we know of the poet and with the production of his plays.
The offerings at the end of the _Visitaçam_ seem to have suggested
to Queen Lianor the idea of its repetition on Christmas morning, but
Gil Vicente, considering its matter inappropriate, wrote a new play
with parts for six shepherds. This _Auto Pastoril Castelhano_ is four
times as long as the _Visitaçam_. The shepherds pass the time in dance
and song, games, riddles, and various conversation (the dowry of the
bride of one of them is catalogued in the manner of Enzina[248] and
the Archpriest of Hita). To them the Angels announce the birth of the
Redeemer, and they go to sing and dance before _aquel garzon_. The
principal part, that of the mystic shepherd Gil Terron, ‘inclined to
the life contemplative’, well read (_letrudo_) in the Bible, with
some knowledge of metaphysics and perhaps of the _Corte Imperial_,
devoted to Nature and the _sierras benditas_, was evidently played by
Gil Vicente himself. A fortnight later, for the Day of Kings, he had
ready the _Auto dos Reis Magos_ (1503), again at the request of Queen
Lianor, who had ‘been very pleased’ with what Vicente himself called a
_pobre cousa_. This brief interval of time limited the length of the
new play. Its action is as slight. A shepherd enters who has lost his
way to Bethlehem. He meets another shepherd and then a hermit, whom
they ply with irreverent problems. To them enters a knight of Araby,
and finally the three kings, singing a _vilancete_. The _Auto da Sibila
Cassandra_ has been assigned to the same year, but is probably a later
play (1513?). Nearly twice as long as the _Auto Pastoril Castelhano_,
it combines the ordinary scenic display--_todo o apparato_--of a
Christmas _representação_ with a presentment of the early prophecies
now to be fulfilled, and introduces Solomon, Isaiah, Abraham, and
Moses, who describes the creation of the world. The play includes a
profane theme, since Cassandra in her mystic aversion from marriage
realistically portrays the sad life of married women in Portugal.
Although Cassandra appears as a shepherdess and her aunt Peresica as a
peasant, they speak a purer, more flowing Castilian than the _toscos,
rusticos pastores_ of the preceding _autos_, and the play is remarkable
for the beauty of its lyrics--_Dicen que me case yo_, _Sañosa está la
niña_, _Muy graciosa es la doncella_, and _A la guerra_. For the Corpus
Christi procession of 1504 was provided, at short notice from Queen
Lianor, the _Auto de S. Martinho_. The subject of this piece, merely
ten dodecasyllabic _oitavas_ followed by a solemn _prosa_, is that of
El Greco’s marvellous picture--St. Martin dividing his cloak with a
beggar, whom Vicente treats with characteristic sympathy and insight:
¿Criante rocío, qué te hice yo[249]
Que las hiervecitas floreces por Mayo
Y sobre mis carnes no echas un sayo?
The _Auto dos Quatro Tempos_, of uncertain date, acted before the Court
in the Lisbon palace of Alcaçova on Christmas morning in or after
1511, opens with a mystic ode on the Nativity and a _vilancete_ (_A
ti dino de adorar_) and proceeds rapidly with snatches of song in a
splendid rivalry between the four seasons. The praises of Spring are
sung with a delightful freshness, as are Winter’s rages, while Summer
in a straw hat appears sallow and fever-stricken. Jupiter comes with
countless classical allusions and David with much Latin, and they
all worship together the new-born King. Very different is the _Auto
da Alma_, written for Queen Lianor and acted in King Manuel’s Lisbon
palace of Ribeira on the night of Good Friday, 1518 (Snr. Braamcamp
Freire’s plausible suggestion in place of the commonly accepted 1508).
It represents the eternal strife between the soul and sin. The soul,
slowly journeying in the company of its guardian angel, is alternately
tempted by Satan with the delights of the world, with fine dresses and
jewels, and exhorted by the Angel, till it arrives at the Church, the
Innkeeper of Souls, and confesses its guilt, imploring protection (_Ach
neige, du schmerzenreiche!_). Then, while Satan in a restless fury of
disappointment makes a last effort to secure his victim, the ransomed
soul is fortified with celestial fare served by St. Augustine and
other _doutores_. The whole theme, to which the language rises fully
adequate, is treated with great delicacy and with a mystic fervour.
In 1505 King Manuel and his Court in his Lisbon palace had witnessed
the first of those _farsas_ in which Gil Vicente has sketched for all
time Portuguese life in the first third of the sixteenth century.
It rapidly became popular and went from hand to hand as a _folha
volante_, receiving from the people the name of _Quem tem farelos?_
i.e. the first three words of the play. The plots of the twelve
_farsas_ written from 1505 to 1531 are so slight that only one
calls for detailed notice, the _Farsa de Inés Pereira_[250] (1523),
which in its carefully defined characters and developed story more
closely resembles a modern comedy. It tells how the hapless Inés,
having rejected a plain suitor for a more romantic lover, a poor but
deceptive _escudeiro_ presented to her by two Jewish marriage agents,
learns by bitter experience the truth of the old proverb that ‘an
ass that carries me is better than a horse that throws me’. But the
types and persons in all these farces are etched with so much realism
and humour that they bite into the memory and rank with the living
malicious sketches of _Lazarillo de Tormes_. Who can forget the
famished escudeiro Aires Rosado with his book of songs (_cancioneiro_)
and guitar, continuing to sing beneath the window of his love while
the curses of her mother fall thick as snowflakes on his head,[251]
or the lady of his affections, vain and idle Isabel, or his servant
(_moço_) Apariço who draws so cruel a picture of his master, or that
other penniless _escudeiro_ who considers himself ‘the very palace’
and calls up his _moço_ Fernando at midnight to light the lamp and
hold the inkstand while he writes down his latest verses?[252] Equally
well sketched is the splendid poverty-plagued _fidalgo_ who walks
abroad accompanied by six pages, but cannot pay his chaplain or his
goldsmith; his ill-used, servile, ambitious chaplain[253]; the witch
Genebra Pereira mixing the hanged man’s ear, the heart of a black cat,
and other grim ingredients: _Alguidar, alguidar, que feito foste ao
luar_[254]; the household of the Jewish tailor who delights in songs
of battles-at-a-distance and is filled with pride when the _Regedor_
salutes him in the street[255]; M. Diafoirus’ lineal ancestors Mestres
Anrique, Felipe, Fernando, and Torres[256]; the sporting priest[257];
the unfaithful wife of the Portuguese who has embarked for India with
Tristão da Cunha; the vainglorious, grandiloquent Spaniard who takes
the opportunity to pay his court to her.[258] They are all drawn from
life with a master hand, even the more insignificant figures, the girl
keeping ducks, the _moços_, the gipsy horse-dealers,[259] the old man
amorous,[260] the carriers faring leisurely along with their mules,
the braggart who disables six of his fourteen imaginary opponents, the
Frenchman and Italian with their stock phrases _Par ma foi_, _la belle
France_, _tutti quanti_,[261] the wily and impudent negro, the poor
_ratinho_[262] Gonçalo, who loses his hare and capons and his clothes
as well, the page of peasant birth ambitious to become a _cavaleiro
fidalgo_, the roguish and pretentious palace pages. Side by side with
these farces Vicente continued to write religious _autos_ as well as
comedies and tragicomedies. The difference between these various pieces
is less of kind than of the occasion on which they were produced, the
_obras de devação_ on Christmas morning or other solemn day,[263]
the _farsas de folgar, comedias_, &c., at the evening parties--those