Portuguese literature
des Falcão_. Cf. F. Bouterwek, _History of Spanish and Portuguese
Literature_, Eng. tr. 1823, ii. 39: ‘A long eclogue by this writer,
which forms an appendix to the works of Ribeyro, so completely partakes
of the character of the poems which it accompanies that were it not
for the separate title it might be mistaken for the production of
Ribeyro himself. It therefore proves that Ribeyro’s poetic fancies, his
romantic mysticism not excepted, were by no means individual.’
[315] According to Dr. Theophilo Braga, he was born in 1515; married
in 1529 Maria Brandão (aged eleven); was profoundly influenced by
Ribeiro’s _Trovas de dous pastores_ (1536) but did not plagiarize it in
the _Trovas de Crisfal_ (1536-41), similar passages being due to the
_situação quasi similar_ (i.e. _quasi identica_) of the two friends;
went to Italy on a diplomatic mission in 1541; spent the year 1543 in
Rome and returned to Portugal in the winter of 1543-4; was factor of
the fortress of Arguim from 1545 to 1548; and died in 1577.
[316] The whole question at issue is whether the _de_ of _Trovas de
Crisfal_ = ‘by’ or ‘about’ (cf. _O Livro das Trovas d’ El Rei_ = rather
‘belonging to’ than ‘by’ the king), and protests against _a illusão
de pretender identificar em um mesmo poeta o apaixonado de Aonia e
o de Maria_ (_Obras_, 1915 ed., p. 10) or _o intuito de converterem
Christovam Falcão em um mytho_ (ibid., p. 42) are beside the point.
[317] That one of the figures is identical in the woodcuts of these two
_folhas volantes_ is not significant: it appears also in an anonymous
edition of the _Pranto de Maria Parda_.
[318] In the 1559 ed. the words _hũa muy nomeada e agradauel Egloga
chamada Crisfal ... que dizem ser de Cristouam Falcam, ho que parece
alludir ho nome da mesma Egloga_ may legitimately be held to imply
merely that some persons, misled by the anagram, attributed the poem to
Falcão.
[319] _Decada_ 8, cap. 34 (1786 ed., p. 322).
[320] The _licença_ of the 1632 edition says, _Este livrinho ... muitas
vezes se imprimio_.
[321] Cf. 1885 ed., No. 109:
Eu digo os Provençais que inda se sente
O som das brandas rimas que entoaram.
Cf. Boscán ap. Menéndez y Pelayo, _Antología_, tom. xiii (_Juan
Boscán_), p. 165: _En tiempo de Dante y un poco antes florecieron los
Proenzales, cuyas obras por culpa de los tiempos andan en pocas manos._
Menéndez y Pelayo also (ibid., p. 174) gives a reference by Faria e
Sousa to King Dinis: _El rey don Dionis de Portugal nació primero
que el Dante tres ó quatro años y escrivió mucho deste propio género
endecasílabo, coma consta de los manuscritos._
[322] Cf. 1885 ed., No. 112:
¿Como se perdieron
Entre nos el cantar, como el tañer
Que tanto nombre a los pasados dieron?
[323]
Adeus leitor a mais ver,
Porque ainda haveis de ver mais (_A Egipciaca_, p. 181).
[324] He must often have repeated Nuno Pereira’s lines, which may have
influenced him when he read them in the _Cancioneiro Geral: Privar em
cas da Rainha Deos vollo deixe fazer, E a mi hũa vinha E regar hũa
almoinha Em que tenho mor prazer ... Lavro, cavo quanta posso ... O
gingrar de meu caseiro_, &c.
[325] His complaint in the second elegy (1885 ed., No. 147, l. 17)
shows how far he was in advance of his age in Portugal: _Um vilancete
brando ou seja um chiste, Letras ás invenções, motes ás damas, Hũa
pregunta escura, esparsa triste, Tudo bom, quem o nega? Mas porque, Se
alguem descobre mais, se lhe resiste?_
[326] Often he combines several in the same poem. Thus the long (533
lines) eclogue on the death of Garci Lasso (_Nemoroso_) begins in
_tercetos_, proceeds with _rima encadeada_ (internal rhyme), and ends
with Petrarcan stanzas.
[327] Cf. the sonnet (1885 ed., No. 126) _Esprito que voaste_ with
_Alma minha gentil_.
[328] The autograph manuscript of this and of other poems, discovered
in the Lisbon Biblioteca Nacional by Snr. Delfim Guimarães in 1908, has
been reproduced in facsimile by D. Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcellos
in the _Boletim_ of the Lisbon _Ac. das Sciencias_, vol. v (1912), pp.
187-220. See _infra_, p. 164.
[329] Leonel da Costa, the translator of Virgil and Terence, later
wrote a poem in seven cantos of _redondilhas_ on the same subject: _A
Conversão miraculosa da felice egypcia penitente Santa Maria_ (1627).
[330] Faria e Sousa even makes him the first Portuguese poet to write
hendecasyllabics, setting aside those of Sá de Miranda as unreadable:
_son incapaces de ser leidos!_ (_Varias Rimas_, pt. ii, p. 162).
[331] He was _Moço da camara_ in 1566. He was appointed a knight of the
Order of Christ in 1582. He married apparently after his return from
Africa in 1581. He was alive in 1596 (although in one of his poems he
refers to a premature old age) and dead in 1605. On the other hand, he
was apparently over twenty-five in 1558. It is thought that the right
of passing on his official posts to his children (_sobrevivencia_),
granted to his father in 1532, may indicate the date of the birth of
the eldest of his eleven children: Diogo Bernardez (who did not, like
some of his brothers, use his father’s second name, Pimenta).
[332] _Carta_ 12: _Confesso dever tudo áquella rara Doutrina tua_.
[333] The succeeding generation was also distinguished, one of the
poet’s nephews becoming Bishop of Angra, another Governor of Angola, a
third Professor at Coimbra University.
[334] Bernardez’ letters in verse contain many such references to
everyday life, e. g. the Lisbon negress selling fried fish in the
_Betesga_.
[335] A confident sonnet by him in this capacity is extant: _Pois
armarse por Christo não duvida Sebastião._
[336] _O doce estillo teu tomo por guia_ and _Escrevo, leio e risco_
he writes to Miranda, but his muse was far more spontaneous than
Miranda’s, and it appears from another passage (in _Elegia_ 5) that his
alterations were less of style than of matter.
[337] _Carta_ 32 is an exception, and consists of seventy-two _oitavas_.
[338] He introduces Italian lines (_Cartas_ 23, 27, 30) and wrote a
sonnet in Italian.
[339] Cf. _Carta_ 4: _Foge inda o dia ao muito diligente_, although
whether this is due to his work or to the number of his friends is not
clear.
[340] _Com cujo_ [Miranda’s] _exemplo meu pai, que entam estaua nos
estudos, pretendeo com a variedade destes sens manifestar como a lingua
Portugueza assi em copia de palauras como em grauidade de estylo
a nenhuma he inferior_ (Miguel Leite Ferreira, Preface to _Poemas
Lvsitanos_, 1598).
[341] To take an example not from the eclogues but from one of his
sonnets, the words
da guerra
Nossa livres viveis em paz e em gloria
correspond but ill to their peaceful sense.
[342] Cf. _Carta_ 2. Bernardez (in an elegy on Ferreira’s death
addressed to Andrade Caminha) records that among all Ferreira’s verses
not a line was written in a foreign tongue: _um só nunca lhe deu em
lingua alhea_.
[343] Thirteen times the same subject is treated by Camões and Caminha,
sometimes exclusively by them (C. Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, _Pero de
Andrade Caminha_ (1901), p. 55).
[344] _Obras_, ed. Priebsch, p. 361.
[345] All that he wrote in Portuguese is contained in two pages
(389-91) of Garcia Peres’ _Catálogo_ (1890).
[346] Fray Bartolomé Ponce, _Primera Parte de la Clara Diana a lo
divino_ (1582?): _Me dijeron como un muy amigo suyo le habia muerto por
ciertos zelos ó amores_ (quoted by Ticknor, iii. 536, and by T. Braga
(omitting _ciertos_), _Bernardim Ribeiro_ (1872), p. 80).
[347] _Argumento desta obra._
[348] e.g.
No mato o rosmaninho, a branca esteva,
No campo o lirio azul que o chão cubria.
[349] _Que estes se chamem poetas!_ rightly exclaims Frei Lucas de
Santa Catharina (_Seram Politico_ (1704), p. 146) of those who revel in
the use of _esdruxulos_.
[350] The whole of Canto XIV is given to a vigorous account of the
battle of Aljubarrota, already described more vividly in fewer stanzas
by Camões. Another poem in _oitavas_ by Rodriguez Lobo, _Historia da
Arvore Triste_, was published in _Fenix Renascida_, vol. iv.
[351] In Spanish also are the fifty-six _romances_ which make up the
poem _La Jornada_, &c. (1623), written on the coming of Philip III to
Portugal in 1619. In the eclogues, written chiefly in _redondilhas_, he
sings with spontaneous charm _as praticas humildes e os cuidados Não
por arte fingidos e enfeitados_ of the _rusticos vaqueiros_, as he says
in the prefatory sonnet. Many of the words are pleasantly indigenous:
_milho_, _boroa_, _salgueiraes_, _rafeiro_, _charneca_, _chocalho_,
_abegões_, _ovelheiros_.
[352] For instance, when the Angel has announced in Spanish _las
alegres nuevas_, the goatherd, _ratinho_, Mendo, says: _A din Rey,
a din Rey ay! Que estou amorrinhentado, Acudame algum Cristom ou
Sancristom._ Laureano, the shepherd, speaks Portuguese and Spanish,
and Silvia says: _Porque o que sinto quisera Dizelo em bom Portugues._
An _Auto e Colloquio do Nascimento de Christo_ (1646) attributed to
Francisco Lopes was reprinted in 1676.
§ 3
_The Drama_
After Gil Vicente’s death the _autos_ continued to flourish in number
if not in excellence, and evidently answered to a very real popular
demand. It was in vain that the Jesuits produced their Latin plays and
that serious poets of high reputation sought to wean the affections of
the people from the _auto_ to the classical drama.[353] This opposition
of the educated did, however, conduce to the swift deterioration of
the _auto_, although some of those of a religious character, chiefly
the Nativity plays, still succeeded in reflecting a part of the charm
that characterized the Vicentian drama. To Gil Vicente’s lifetime
probably belongs the _Obra famosissima tirada da Sancta Escriptura
chamada da Geração humana, onde se representam sentenças muy catolicas
& proueitosas pera todo christã: Feita por huũ famoso autor_ (1536?).
Indeed, the verse runs so easily, the peasants are so natural, that
one might almost suspect him of having had a hand in its composition.
But the metre (8 8 4 8 8 4) is more monotonous than he would have used
throughout. The _dramatis personae_ are angels, peasants,[354] Adam,
Justice, Reason, Malice, two devils, a priest, four saints and doctors
of the Church, a Levite, the Church, the Heavenly Samaritan. Adam
in a scene closely resembling that of the _Auto da Alma_ is tempted
by Malice. Justice intervenes, and finally the Samaritan leads him
to the _estalagem_ of Holy Mother Church. The _Auto de ds [Deus]
padre & justiça & mia [Misericordia]_ belongs to the same period. It
is written in octosyllabic verse and contains a similar medley of
peasants, prophets, and abstract virtues. In the first part the angels
in Portuguese announce to the Virgin the birth of Christ, and in the
second part the peasants, who speak Spanish, go to offer rustic gifts
to _el muy chiquito donzel_. Another early and anonymous play is the
_Auto do Dia do Juizo_, included in the _Index_ of 1559, which for
its subject closely follows Gil Vicente’s _Auto da Barca do Inferno_.
A peasant, a false and lying notary, a market-woman who had offered
weekly bread and wax to Santa Catharina but had ’robbed the poor
people’, a butcher, a miller who had mixed bran in his sacks of flour,
are introduced in turn and duly consigned by Lucifer to Hell.
If we only knew the quondam Franciscan monk ANTONIO RIBEIRO CHIADO
(_c._ 1520?-91) and his contemporary and rival, the mulatto servant of
the Bishop of Evora, by their mutual abuse, we could form no very high
opinion of their character or their wit. In bitter _quintilhas_ Chiado