Portuguese literature
golden dawns, the hills and streams of Minho, _entre simples e humildes
lavradores_ (_Carta_ 27). In 1578, however, he who had lamented that
no Maecenas encouraged those eager to sing the deeds of Portuguese
heroes was chosen to accompany as official poet[335] the Portuguese
expedition which ended disastrously in _aquelle funeral e turvo
dia_--the battle of Alcacer Kebir. It was not till 1581 that Bernardez
returned from captivity. Whether he was ransomed by King Philip, or
by the Trinitarians or Jesuits, or by himself or his friends, is not
known. After his return and his marriage he frequently laments his
poverty: not, he says, that he wishes to be the Pope in Rome, but
merely to have enough to eat (_Carta_ 31). Yet apparently he had no
cause to regret the change of dynasty so far as his personal fortunes
were concerned. Whereas he had merely held the post of _servidor de
toalha_ at the palace under King Sebastian, he was now (1582) appointed
a knight of the Order of Christ with a pension of 20,000 _réis_ and
was granted 500 _cruzados_ (‘in property and goods’) in the same year.
In 1593 his yearly pension was 40,000 _réis_, of which one-half was to
revert to his wife and children. Either these moneys remained unpaid or
the new _cavaleiro fidalgo’s_ ideas had changed greatly since he had
sung of the joys of rustic poverty and the vanity of riches. Bernardez
found his inspiration in the Portuguese and Spanish poets of the new
school (_cantigas strangeiras_, _strañas_),[336] and through them in
the great Italians. Dante’s name does not occur in his letters, written
in _tercetos_,[337] but Tasso--_o meu Tasso_---Ariosto, Petrarca, and
others are mentioned.[338] In form and sound some of his _canções_ are
not unworthy of Petrarca, but they are more homely and bucolic, have
more _saudade_ and less definite images, no concrete pictures like that
of _la stanca vecchierella pellegrina_ of the fourth _Canzone_. His
second source of inspiration was his native Minho and the transparent
waters and _fresca praia_ of the Lima. He was never happier than when
wandering _lungo l’amate rive_, and this gives a pleasant reality to
his eclogues. His muse, _a bosques dada e a fontes cristalinas_, sings
not only of the conventional ‘roses and lilies’ but of honeysuckle,
of cherries red in May, grapes heavy with dew, golden apples, nuts,
acorns, the trout so plentiful that they can be caught with the hand,
hares, partridges, doves, the thrush and the nightingale, and mentions
oak, ash, elm, poplar, beech, hazel, chestnut, and arbutus. These
eclogues, written in various metres, sometimes with _leixapren_ or
internal rhyme, are collected in _O Lima_ (1596), which also contains
his letters. His other works are sonnets, elegies, odes in _Rimas
Varias_, _Flores do Lima_ (1596), and a third small volume _Varias
Rimas ao Bom Jesus_ (1594) which includes elegies and odes to the
Virgin written during his captivity, a long _Historia de Santa Ursula_
in octaves, and other devotional verse of much fervour and his wonted
perfection of technique. If, read in the mass, his poems produce the
impression of a cloying sweetness, it must be remembered that never
before had Portuguese poetry risen to so harmonious a music. Faria e
Sousa accused him of plagiarizing Camões, but in the case of a writer
whose accepted poems, the _dulcissima carmina Limae_, are of such
excellence the accusation cannot be seriously entertained. Neither he
nor Camões was a great original poet, but in both the command of the
new style was such that their poems were often confused by collectors.
A passage in one of Bernardez’ letters (5, l. 6) seems to imply that
his poetry was not appreciated at Lisbon. It was too genuine and clear
to suit the clever Court rhymesters. But he had his followers, who
would send him their poems to be corrected, or rather, praised, and
later Lope de Vega recognized him as his master in the eclogue in
preference to Garci Lasso.
FRANCISCO GALVÃO (_c._ 1563-1635?), equerry to the Duke of Braganza,
was a true poet if he wrote the sonnet _A Nosso Senhor_ ascribed to
him by his editor, Antonio Lourenço Caminha, in _Poesias ineditas dos
nossos insignes poetas Pedro da Costa Perestrello, coevo do grande
Luis de Camões, e Francisco Galvão_ (1791): _Ó tu de puro amor Deos
fonte pura_. Innocencio da Silva vigorously doubts the authenticity of
these poems, which are mostly of a religious character or concerned
with Horace’s theme of the golden mean, as that of the _Obras ineditas
de Aires Telles de Meneses_ (1792) published by the same editor, who
professed to have faithfully copied them from the _antigos originaes_
of the time of João II. Bernardez’ brother Frei AGOSTINHO DA CRUZ
(1540-1619), born at Ponte da Barca, entered as a novice the Convent
of Santa Cruz in the Serra de Sintra in 1560, and took the vows a year
later. In 1605 he obtained permission to live as a hermit in the Serra
da Arrabida, where he cultivated _saudade_ and the muses, although his
poems were no longer profane, as when in his youth as Agostinho Pimenta
he haunted with his brother Diogo the banks of the Lima. These early
verses he burnt: _Queimei, como vergonha me pedia, Chorando par haver
tão mal cantado_. The eclogues, elegies, letters, sonnets, and odes
that survive prove that _mal_ is here a moral, not an aesthetic adverb,
and that he shared his brother’s love of Nature and in no mean degree
his power of expressing it in soft, harmonious verse.
That gift was denied to ANTONIO FERREIRA (1528-69), who combined
enthusiasm for the new style--_a lira nova_--and for classical
antiquity with a rooted antipathy against the use of a foreign language
or foreign subjects. His uneventful life as judge, courtier, and poet
was cut short by the plague of 1569. His poetry is not that of a poet
but of the Coimbra law student who had become a busy magistrate.[339]
It is thus at its best when it does not attempt to be lyrical, for
instance in his excellent letters in _tercetos_. His odes are closely
modelled on those of Horace (_o meu Horacio_). Nor did he claim
originality: indeed, his plan of introducing certain new forms was
a little too deliberate for a great poet,[340] and his best sonnet
is a translation from Petrarca. For bucolic poetry neither the grave
doctor’s style nor his inclinations were well suited. Not only is
the smooth flow of the verse which charms us in Diogo Bernardez here
absent but the metre often actually halts,[341] and throughout his work
we have sincerity, lofty aims, a stiff unbending severity, but not
poetical genius. Ferreira was a true patriot, and it was his boast and
is his enduring fame that he devoted himself to exalt the Portuguese
language.[342] It was most fortunate for Portuguese literature that at
this time of changing taste a poet of Ferreira’s great influence should
have forsworn foreign intrusions in the language with the exception
of Latin (in the introduction of which, however, his characteristic
restraint forbade excess), and left both in prose and verse abiding
monuments of pure Portuguese. This was the more remarkable in a poet
who disdained the old popular metres (_a antiga trova deixo ao povo_)
and had no thought apparently for popular customs or traditions. His
_Poemas Lusitanos_, published posthumously, contain over a hundred
sonnets, besides his odes, eclogues, elegies, epigrams (which are but
fragments of sonnets), and letters, and he also wrote a _Historia de
Santa Comba_ in fifty-seven _oitavas_.
The work of PERO DE ANDRADE CAMINHA (1520?-89), an industrious writer
of verse rather than a poet, is as cold and unmusically artificial as
Ferreira’s in its form, while it lacks Ferreira’s high thought and
ideals and his love for his native language. One may imagine that
it was through friendship with Ferreira--who scolds him for writing
in Spanish--that he became one of the set of Miranda and Bernardez.
Camões he must have known,[343] and indeed refers to him satirically
in his epigrams: he seems to have actively disliked so wayward a
genius, a man so unfitted to be a Court official. Caminha himself
was the son of João Caminha, Chamberlain of the Duchess Isabel of
Braganza, and of Philippa de Sousa of Oporto, where (or at Lisbon)
the poet may have been born. After studying at the University, either
at Lisbon, or after its transference to Coimbra in 1537, he entered
the household of the Infante Duarte. In 1576 the poet retired to the
palace of the Braganzas at Villa Viçosa and died there thirteen years
later. During the last ten years of his life he held a _tença_ of two
hundred milreis besides other sources of income (he was Alcaide Môr of
Celorico de Basto, as his father had been of Villa Viçosa), so that his
lot compares handsomely with that of Camões. He had planned an edition
of his works in nine books, but only a few occasional poems were
published during his lifetime. He wrote short poems in all the usual
kinds, but, although trusted and honoured by the princes he served, he
entirely lacked Camões’ divine _furia_ and had no compensating sympathy
or insight or lyrical charm. What would not Camões have made of his
chanty, _cantiga para çalamear_![344]
In perfect contrast to the laboured verses of Andrade Caminha is the
spontaneous flow of the lines to the river Leça beginning _Ó rio
Leça_, by which the Conde de Mattosinhos, FRANCISCO DE SÁ DE MENESES
(1515?-84), is chiefly remembered. They place him at once among the
principal poets of the century. He succeeded the Conde de Vimioso as
Camareiro Môr of Prince João, held the same post in the first years
of King Sebastian’s reign, and subsequently under King Henrique, who
created him Count of Mattosinhos in return for his services as Governor
of Portugal (during the absence of King Sebastian) and on other
occasions. After the death of the Portuguese king he retired to Oporto,
and no doubt spent the remaining summers at Mattosinhos near the gentle
stream which he had immortalized.
The Portuguese poems of ANDRÉ FALCÃO DE RESENDE (1527?-98), born at
Evora, nephew of the antiquarian André and of the poet Garcia de
Resende, were first published at Coimbra in an incomplete volume
_Poesias_ [1865], and consist of the _Microcosmographia_ and some
spirited anti-Drake ballads and good sonnets (e.g. _Ó fragil bem_, _Ó
breve gosto humano_) and satires. BALTHASAR DE ESTAÇO (born in 1570),
Canon of Viseu, and his brother the antiquarian GASPAR DE ESTAÇO, Canon
of Guimarães and author of _Varias Antiguidades de Portugal_ (1625),
were both born at Evora. The former’s _Sonetos, Eglogas e ovtras rimas_
(1604), published, according to the preface, in the author’s mature age
but written in the green, contain some religious sonnets of high merit.
A far more celebrated writer than these minor poets was JORGE DE
MONTEMÔR (_c._ 1520-61), or _hispanice_ Montemayor, who was early
driven by poverty from Montemôr o Velho (where he was born between 1518
and 1528) a few years after Mendez Pinto. Fortunately the latter did
not relate his travels in Chinese, but Montemôr, with the exception of
a few brief passages[345] in his _Diana_, wrote exclusively in Spanish.
In Spain his musical talent gave him a livelihood, and as musician
and singer of the Royal Chapel he remained at the Court till 1552,
when he accompanied the Infanta Juana as _aposentador_ on the occasion
of her marriage with that promising patron of letters, the Infante
João. But even before the prince’s death in 1554 Montemôr returned to
Spain. In 1555 he may have gone in the train of Philip II to England,
and subsequently served as a soldier in Holland and Italy till a
duel, perhaps in a love affair, at Turin ended his days in 1561.[346]
Despite his brief and restless life Montemôr, who showed in _Las obras