Portuguese literature
Court audience, and had mingled warning and instruction with amusement;
and when, having lived and laughed and loved, he went his way, he
was not only spared by a crowning grace from the wrath that was to
come but left to his countrymen an heirloom more enduring than brass,
more precious than all the gold of India, with a breath of that true
Portugal in its simplicity, its mirth and jollity, the disappearance
of which he had deplored. Portuguese literature was never so national
again. A period of splendid achievement followed, but alike in subject
and language it was too often a honeyed sweetness containing in itself
the seeds of decay, and if for the time it swept away all memory of Gil
Vicente, for us it only emphasizes his qualities by the contrast. In
his directness, his close contact with the people,[298] his humanity,
his quick observation, keen satire, love of laughter and malicious
humour, in his unsurpassed lyrical gift and his natural delight in
words, to be used not at haphazard but weighed and set cunningly as
precious stones in the hands of an _ourives_, this great lyrical poet
and charmingly incorrect playwright clearly foreshadowed dramatists so
different as Calderón, Lope de Vega, Shakespeare, and Molière. Yet we
look in vain for a Vicentian school of great dramatists in Portugal.
His fame had reached Brussels and thence Rome, and Erasmus is credited
with having wished to learn Portuguese in order to read Vicente’s
plays. Shakespeare, who was twenty-two when the second edition of
Vicente’s plays appeared and who almost certainly read Spanish, may
also have been tempted. It would have been strange if Erasmus had not
heard of Vicente through his friend André de Resende, who in his Latin
poem _Genethliacon_ declared that had not the comic poet Gil Vicente,
actor and author, written in the vulgar tongue he would have rivalled
Menander and excelled Plautus and Terence. In Portugal the number of
plays written in the sixteenth century was large,[299] but none can
be placed on a level with those of Vicente. One cannot say that he
influenced Camões or Ferreira de Vasconcellos deeply, although they had
evidently read him. In Spain Cervantes, who read everything, _aunque
sean los papeles rotos de las calles_, had read his plays (the _Farsa
dos Fisicos_, _O Juiz da Beira_, the _Comedia de Rubena_ among others),
Lope de Vega likewise, Calderón possibly. Lope de Rueda probably
derived the idea of his _paso Las Aceitunas_ from the _Auto da Mofina
Mendes_. Yet it is almost with amazement, if we forget the crowded
history of Portugal and Portuguese literature in the sixteenth century,
the introduction of the Inquisition, and the great changes in the
language, that we find a Portuguese, Sousa de Macedo, a century after
Vicente’s death, speaking of him as one ‘whose style was celebrated of
old’,[300] and a Spaniard, Nicolás Antonio, declaring that his works
were written in prose and knowing nothing of a collected edition.[301]
It was with reasonable misgivings that Vicente just before his death
wrote: _Livro meu, que esperas tu?_; ‘my book, what is in store for
you?’ We know that it remained in manuscript for a quarter of a
century, that a second edition in 1586 was so handled by the Censorship
that it contains but thirty-five mutilated plays, and that for two and
a half centuries no new edition was printed.
FOOTNOTES:
[219] _Essais_, 1. XXV.
[220] _Nicolai Clenardi Episiolarum libri duo._ Antuerpiae, 1561.
[221] Several fine sonnets have been ascribed to him (cf. _Fenix
Renascida_, iii. 252, _Horas breves_, and, with more reason, iii. 253.
_Á redea solta corre o pensamento_), as was also Gil Vicente’s _Dom
Duardos_ and a manuscript _Tratado dos modos, proporções e medidas_.
[222] Duarte Nunez de Leam, _Descripção_, 2ᵃ ed. (1785), cap. 80: _Da
habilidade das molheres portuguesas para as letras e artes liberaes._
Severim de Faria speaks of her _sancto desejo de saber_. The author
of _Dos priuilegios & praerogatiuas q̃ ho genero femenino tem_ (1557)
says (p. 9): _se pode estranhar esta hidade na qual as molheres não se
aplicam aas letras e sciencias coma faziam as antigas Romanas e Gregas_.
[223] Gil Vicente, _Obras_ (1834), ii. 414.
[224] Ibid. iii. 350.
[225] Cf. João Rodriguez de Sá e Meneses in the _Cancioneiro Geral_:
_De Çeita atee os Chijs_.
[226] M. Menéndez y Pelayo, _Antología_, vol. vii, p. clxiii.
[227] A. Herculano, _Historia da Inquisição_, 3ᵃ ed. (1879), i. 238.
Cf. Camillo Castello Branco, _A Viuva do Enforcado_, _ad init._ No one
of course thinks of comparing Gil Vicente with Shakespeare, but one may
perhaps say that he resembles what Shakespeare might have been had he
been born in the fifteenth century. The shipwreck in the _Triunfo do
Inverno_ recalls the opening scene of _The Tempest_, as the mad friar
recalls poor Tom, and the magnificent fidalgo Falstaff. In the _Farsa
de Inés_ Pereira Inés, without being a shrew, is tamed by her husband,
who says:
Se eu digo: Esto é novello
Vos aveis de confirmalo.
[228] In 1513 Afonso de Albuquerque writes of ‘the son of Gil Vicente’
in India.
[229] It is customary in Portugal to fix the date of his birth in 1470
owing to the statement of the judge in the _Floresta de Enganos_ (1536)
that he--the judge--was already sixty-six. It is a method which might
lead to comical results if further pressed in the case of Vicente or
other dramatists. Was Mello seventy-three when he wrote the _Fidalgo
Aprendiz_?
[230] ‘A gentleman of good family’ (Ticknor); _hijo de ilustres padres_
(Barrera y Leirado); _na qualidade nobilissimo_ (Pedro de Poyares).
[231] iii. 275. Pederneira is mentioned again in ii. 390 and iii. 205.
[232] The authority is Cristovam Alão de Moraes in his manuscript
_Pedatura Lusitana_ (1667) (No. 441 in the Public Library of Oporto).
This genealogist, says Castello Branco, _era ás vezes ignorante e
outras vezes mal intencionado_. He does not say that Martim Vicente
exercised his alleged profession of silversmith at Guimarães, or that
Gil was born there. What more probable than for Guimarães, proud
of its poetical traditions, to invent a silversmith father for the
famous poet-goldsmith? Pedro de Poyares, _Tractado em louvor da villa
de Barcellos_ (1672), says that Gil Vicente, _em tempo de D. João o
terceiro poeta celebre, foi natural de Barcellos e andam algumas cousas
suas impressas_.
[233] _Grammatica_, ed. 1871, p. 118.
[234] Ibid., p. 81. See J. Leite de Vasconcellos, _Gil Vicente e a
Linguagem Popular_, 1902. Feo, _Trattados Quadragesimais_ (1619), f.
10, mentions the _somsonete de pronunciação_ of the _ratinhos_.
[235] _Soncas_ occurs no less than seven times in the brief _Auto
Pastoril Castelhano_. It occurs twice in the first twenty-eight lines
of one of Enzina’s eclogues (_Cancionero de todas las obras_ (Çaragoça,
1516), f. lxxviii, and again f. lxxviii verso and lxxx).
[236] A. dos Reis, _Enthusiasmus Poeticus_ (_Corpus Ill. Poet. Lus._,
tom. viii, pp. 18-19): _Quem iuvisse ferunt velut olim Polla maritum_.
Manuel Tavares, _Portugal illustrado pelo sexo feminino_ (1734), calls
her a _discretissima mulher_.
[237] _Com muita pena de minha velhice._ Ruy de Pina calls a man _mui
velho_ whose father (King João I) would have been but ninety-one
in that year (_Cr. de Afonso V_, cap. 105). Cf. Jorge Ferreira,
_Ulysippo_, iii. 3: _velho se pode chamar pois vai aos cincoenta anos_.
[238] See Barros, _Asia_, 1. vi. 7. Beckford has glowing praise for
‘this gold custodium of exquisite workmanship’: ‘Nothing could be
more beautiful as a specimen of elaborate Gothic sculpture than this
complicated enamelled mass of flying buttresses and fretted pinnacles’
(_Italy, with Sketches of Spain and Portugal_, Paris, 1834).
[239] Reference to gold, jewels, sapphires, pearls, rubies is frequent
in his plays. The goldsmith in the _Farsa das Almocreves_ uses the
technical word _bastiães_ which occurs in the _Livro Vermelho_ of
Afonso V: _E porque alguns Ouriueses tem ora feita algũa prata dourada
e de bastiães_. It occurs, however, in the _Cancioneiro Geral_
(_galantes bastiães_), in Resende’s _Miscellania_ (_bestiães_), and
other writers.
[240] Cf. i. 127, 130; ii. 391, 488; iii. 151, 379.
[241] An unfortunate interpolation by the 1834 editors in the rubric of
the _Auto da Sibila Cassandra_ was largely responsible for the belief
that his patroness was not Queen Lianor but King Manuel’s mother D.
Beatriz.
Yet the rubric of the _Auto dos Quatro Tempos_ says clearly that _a
sobredita senhora_ is King Manuel’s sister.
[242] _Mas ja não auto bofé Como os autos que fazia Quando elle tinha
com que_ (_Auto Pastoril Portugues_, i. 129).
[243] _Antología_, vii, p. clxvi. It should be said that Dr. Theophilo
Braga, the late General Brito Rebello, and the late Dr. F. A. Coelho
agree with Menéndez y Pelayo. Dr. Theophilo Braga even declares that
he can prove an alibi. D. Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcellos opposed
identity in 1894, and has not definitely expressed herself in its
favour since. On the other hand, Snr. Braamcamp Freire is a convinced
supporter of identifying poet and goldsmith.
[244] _Antología_, vii, p. clxxvi.
[245] And later Jeronimo Corrêa (†1660) at Lisbon, author of _Daphne
e Apollo_ (Lisboa, 1624) and other prosaic verses, Xavier de Novaes
(1820-69) at Oporto, and others. Perhaps the gold-beater of Seville,
Lope de Rueda (1510?-65), whose _pasos_ are akin to Vicente’s _farsas_,
was fired by his example and success.
[246] _Dialogo em lovvor de nossa linguagem_, 1785 ed., p. 222.
[247] Registers of the Chancellery of King Manuel (vol. xlii, f. 20 v.)
in the Torre do Tombo, Lisbon.
[248] Cf. _Cancionero_, f. lxxxvi v.
[249] An effective instance of a line shortened by emotion. The long
pause on _tardas_ in _Oo morte que tardas, quien te detien?_ is equally
impressive, but the 1562 ed. has _de quien_ and Vicente may have
written _Oo morte que tardas, di ¿quien te detien?_
[250] _Auto de Inés Pereira_ in the 1562 ed. So _Auto dos Almocreves_.
It will, however, be convenient to call them _farsas_, since _auto_ is
a more general term applicable to all the plays.
[251] _Quem tem farelos?_
[252] _O Juiz da Beira_, a continuation suggested by the success of the
_Farsa de Inés Pereira_ and acted at Almeirim in 1525.
[253] _Farsa dos Almocreves_ (or _do Fidalgo Pobre_) acted at Coimbra
(1525). It is curious to compare the sterner type of chaplain denounced
in _Don Quixote_.
[254] _Auto das Fadas_ (1511).
[255] _Auto da Lusitania_ (1532) acted in honour of the birth of Prince
Manuel (1531).
[256] _Farsa dos Fisicos_ (1512).
[257] _O Clerigo da Beira_ (1529?).
[258] _Auto da India_ (1509).
[259] _Farsa das Ciganas_ (or, in the 1562 edition. _Auto de hũas
ciganas_), a very slight sketch acted in a _seram_ before the king at
Evora (1521).
[260] _O Velho da Horta_ (1513).
[261] _Auto da Fama_ (Lisbon). Its date has been given as 1510, but
internal evidence shows that it is later, probably 1515 or 1516
(although perhaps prior to the knowledge of Albuquerque’s death in
India (December 16, 1515) since so splendid a paean in honour of the
Portuguese victories would be out of place afterwards).
[262] = labourer from Beira. He figures in comedy as the slow-witted
(or malicious) clod-hopper, to the delight of an urban audience.
[263] In the palace (at Lisbon, Almeirim, Evora) or in convents
(Enxobregas, Thomar, Odivellas), once (as part of a procession) in a
church (_Auto de S. Martinho_).
[264]
Os momos, os serões de Portugal
Tam fallados no mundo, onde são idos,
E as graças temperadas do seu sal?
[265] This play is written in lines of 10, 11, or 12 syllables with a