Portuguese literature
de George de Montemayor_ (1554) that he was no mean poet, found time
to write one of the most famous books in literature. The date of its
publication--it was dedicated to Prince João and Princess Juana--is
uncertain, but it was probably an early work. In spirit, since not in
the letter, it belongs to Portugal. Its gentle, easy style (Menéndez y
Pelayo calls it _tersa, suave, melódica, expresiva_), the sentimental
love and melancholy, the introduction of bucolic scenes, the references
to Portugal--_cristalino_ applied to the Mondego is no conventional
epithet, as only those who have seen its transparent waters can fully
realize--mark the _Diana_ as the work of a Portuguese. Its fame soon
overleapt the borders of the Peninsula. In Spain it had a numerous
progeny, to which Cervantes refused the grace somewhat grudgingly given
to Montemôr’s work as ‘the first in its kind’. In Portugal this, the
eldest child of Bernardim Ribeiro’s _Menina e moça_, had to wait over
half a century before it found a worthy successor in the _Lusitania
Transformada_.
Little certain is known of the life of FERNAM ALVAREZ DO ORIENTE (_c._
1540-_c._ 1595?). Born at Goa, he served in the East, and may have
fought in the battle of Alcacer Kebir. His resemblance to Moraes in
temperament and adventures perhaps gave rise to the assertion that
he wrote the fifth and sixth parts of _Palmeirim de Inglaterra_. The
scene of his _Lvsitania Transformada_ (1617) is partly in Portugal
(the banks of the river Nabão and the seven hills of Thomar) and
partly in India (_no nosso Oriente_). Like Montemôr’s _Diana_, it is
divided into _prosas_ and poems, and it is modelled on the _Arcadia_
of Jacopo Sannazzaro (1458-1530)--the mountains of Arcadia transformed
into Lusitania[347]--which, however, each of its three books equals in
length. The prose setting, although devoid of thought, is mellifluous
and clear, and the poems, which contain reminiscences of Camões, rival
in the harmony and transparent flow of the verse that ‘prince of the
poets of our time’, as Alvarez calls him. Some critics have even
ventured to attribute the work to Camões, as though his genius were
so poor that he must needs fall to quoting himself in whole lines, as
is here the case. But Alvarez had certainly caught some measure of
Camões’ skill and of _il soave stilo e ’l dolce canto_ of Sannazzaro
and Petrarca. He is, moreover, less vague[348] than many writers
of eclogues, and in singing his own love story describes what his
eyes have seen. It was, however, an aberration to favour the _verso
esdruxulo_ (Ariosto’s _sdruccioli_) (cf. Sannazzaro’s _Arcadia_, Ecl.
1, 6, 8, 9, 12), a truly Manueline adornment which other Portuguese
poets unfortunately copied as a new artifice.[349]
As a poet Manuel de Faria e Sousa, who was something more than a
pedant of pedants, deserves a place among the multitude of Portuguese
writers of eclogues, since of the twenty long eclogues contained in
his _Fvente de Aganipe y Rimas Varias_ (7 pts., 1624-7) the first
twelve are in his native tongue. They show no originality but have
occasional passages of quiet beauty. Nos. 7 and 8 are both entitled
‘rustic’ and purpose to represent peasants of Minho. They are so
overcharged with archaisms and rustic words and expressions (_samicas_
and _namja_ of course occur, and _grolea_ (glory), _marmolea_ (memory),
the form _suidade_, &c.) that they would probably have been Greek to
the peasants. As a critic Lope de Vega called Faria the prince of
commentators, on the strength of his learned and copious editions of
the Lusiads and lyrics of Camões, for whom he had a genuine devotion.
Time has lent an interest, if not validity, to his literary criticisms.
In poetry he was as prolific as in prose: he boasted, in the age of
Lope de Vega, that he had written more blank verse than any other poet
and that his printed sonnets exceeded those of Lope by 300.
ELOI DE SÁ SOTTOMAIOR (or Souto Maior), the author of _Jardim do Ceo_
(1607) and _Ribeiras do Mondego_ (1623), is generally perhaps more
familiar with the Saints than with the Muses, but some of his poems
are not without merit. The latter work, in prose and verse, has no
originality, although the author was careful to state that he had
composed it before the _Primavera_ of FRANCISCO RODRIGUEZ LOBO (_c._
1580-1622), who in strains not less sweetly harmonious than the Lima
poems of Bernardez sang the little stream of Lis that runs so gaily
through his native Leiria. He went to study at Coimbra in 1593, took
his degree there in 1602, returned to Leiria and before 1604 was in
the service of Theodosio, Duke of Braganza, at Villa Viçosa. He was
drowned in his prime in the Tagus coming from Santarem to Lisbon. He
was alive in 1621, but, as Dr. Ricardo Jorge has shown in his able
biography, died before the end of 1622. The fact of his drowning is
well established, otherwise the tradition might have been attributed
to passages in his works in which he seems to foretell such a fate.
An extraordinarily prolific writer, his fame rests chiefly on his
three pastoral works of mingled prose and verse: _A Primavera_ (1601)
and its second and third parts _O Pastor Peregrino_ (1608) and _O
Desenganado_ (1614). Rodriguez Lobo somewhere speaks disparagingly of
books ‘long as leagues in Alentejo’, but length and monotony are not
absent from his own pastorals. Look into them where you will, beautiful
descriptions, showing deep love of Nature, will present themselves,
and delightful verse and harmonious prose, excellent in its component
parts although allowed to trail in the construction of the sentences.
But the reader who attempts more than a desultory acquaintance is soon
overcome by a feeling of satiety, for the _Primavera_ in its _brandura
sem fim_ and the complete absence of thought is like a stream choked by
water-lilies: lovely, but tiring to the swimmer.
Through all these love-lorn shepherd scenes runs a vague thread of
autobiography. The passion of Bernardim Ribeiro is replaced by a
suaver melancholy. The poet leaves the Lis for Coimbra and then goes
to Lisbon and thence to distant lands, where he wanders as a pilgrim
till he is shipwrecked at the mouth of the Lis and returns to his home
to find Lisea given to another. It is divided into _florestas_. In the
opening _florestas_ the quiet streams, the green woods and pastures,
are charmingly described; later the scene is transferred to the _campos
do Mondego_ and the _praias do Tejo_. A breath of the sea is welcome in
_O Desenganado_, but the story soon returns to shepherd life and its
series of natural but rather insipid incidents.
Had Rodriguez Lobo written not better but less, his pastoral romances
would probably be far more widely read. But his finest work is of a
different kind, a long dialogue, _Corte na Aldea e Noites de Inverno_
(1619), between a _fidalgo_, D. Julio, and four friends in the long
winter evenings near Lisbon. Suggested by Baldassare Castiglione’s
famous _Il Cortigiano_, which had been popularized in Spain by Boscán’s
excellent translation (1534), this work, for which Gracián prophesied
immortality, is full of the most varied interest. The prose, excellent
as is all that of this champion of the Portuguese language, _jardineiro
da lingua portuguesa_ (which his countrymen, he complained, patch and
patch like a beggar’s cloak), is here more vigorous and compact in its
construction without losing its harmonious rhythm, attractive as the
conversations which it records. Besides the beautiful verses lavishly
scattered through his prose works, Rodriguez Lobo wrote a long epic on
Nun’ Alvarez in twenty cantos of _oitavas_: _O Condestabre de Portugal
D. Nuno Alvarez Pereira_ (1610),[350] a volume of _Eglogas_ (1605), in
which he is a recognized master, a volume of _Romances_ (1596) written,
with two exceptions, in Spanish,[351] and, perhaps, a Christmas play
entitled _Auto del Nascimiento de Christo y Edicto del Emperador
Avgvsto Cesar_, published in 1676. It is written in _redondilhas_ in
Spanish and Portuguese.[352] This _auto_ is followed by an _Entremes do
Poeta_ in Portuguese. A poet, an obdurate Gongorist (_Do Gongora tive
sempre opinadas preferencias_), recites a sonnet to a lady: _Celicola
substancia procreada_, which she does not understand, and a _ratinho_,
also at a loss (_he para mim cousa grega_), advises him to give over
his jargon for a more natural language:
Gerigonças no fallar,
Que amor nam he contrafeito.
But Rodriguez Lobo has no need of such attributions to justify his
great and enduring fame.
FOOTNOTES:
[302] Cf. H. Lopes de Mendonça, _O Salto Mortal_, Act iii: _Tanto
gostaes d’este livro: É por ser triste?--É por ser verdadeiro._
[303] Eclogue 5 (_a qual dizem ser do mesmo autor_), which is
undoubtedly by Ribeiro, refers to Coimbra in the lines: _É lembrarme os
sinceiraes De Coimbra que me mata_.
[304] As in the case of Gil Vicente, we are vexed with homonyms--a
notary, an admiral, &c. Dr. Theophilo Braga, skilfully dovetailing
hypotheses, develops his biography fully. _Casi todo lo que de él se ha
escrito son fábulas sin fundamento alguno_, wrote Menéndez y Pelayo in
1905.
[305] Fray Luis de Leon may have remembered this passage in _De los
Nombres de Cristo_, Bk. 3 (1917 ed., t. 1, p. 198; _Bib. Aut. Esp._, t.
37, p. 182).
[306] _Nossos amores contados por um modo que os não entenderá
ninguem_, Garrett, _Um Auto de Gil Vicente_.
[307] _La Voluntad_, Barcelona, 1902. Camillo Castello Branco held
similar views.
[308] The word cannot be translated exactly, but corresponds to
the Greek πόθος, Latin _desiderium_, Catalan _anyoranza_, Galician
_morriña_, German _Sehnsucht_, Russian тоска (pron. _taská_). It is the
‘passion for which I can find no name’ (Gissing, _The Private Papers of
Henry Ryecroft_).
[309] Menéndez y Pelayo’s strict division between the ‘subjective’ pt.
1 and pt. 2 as _externa y de aventuras_ is thus somewhat arbitrary.
[310] Pt. 1, cap. 9; pt. 2, cap. 25.
[311] In pt. 2, cap. 9, this is forgotten: _outras_ [_cousas_] _que
não são escritas neste livro_, a slip which throws no light on the
authorship.
[312] It was characteristic of the hot-house air in which Portuguese
literature existed that the first publication of a book often consisted
in its circulation (_correr_) in manuscript from courtier to courtier,
a special licence being obtained for this apart from the licence to
print. Those to whom it appealed made copies. The earliest known
edition of _Menina e moça_ is of 1557-8: _Primeira & segũda parte do
liuro chamado as Saudades de Bernaldim Ribeiro com todas suas obras.
Treladado de seu propria original. Nouamente impresso._ 1557 (Euora.
The date of the colophon is January 30, 1558). An introductory note
_Aos lectores_ says: _Foram tantos os traduzidores deste liuro & os
pareceres em elle tam diuersos que nam he de marauilhar que na primeira
impressam desta historia se achassem tantas cousas em contrario de como
foram pello auctor delle escriptas ... foy causa de andar este liuro
tam vicioso ... conueo tirarse a limpo do propria original_, &c., &c.).
The edition of 1554, quoted by Brunet, was probably the first in spite
of the words _com summa diligencia emendada_ (i.e. corrections of the
manuscript). The phrase _de nouo_ tells more against than in favour of
an earlier edition (= rather ‘new’ than ‘anew’).
[313] Ribeiro, so far as we know, wrote no line of Spanish. Boscán’s
_romance Justa fué mi perdición_ and the _romance Ó Belerma_ have been
wrongly ascribed to him.
[314] p. 287: ... _so ganz persönlichem Stil, dass sie mit keinem
anderen Dichter vor oder nach ihnen, wohl aber untereinander zu
verwechseln wären_; and p. 292: Bernardim Ribeiro writes _ganz im Stile