Portuguese literature
comes to Lisbon with her two _bestinhas_ laden with wine.
Of the twenty-five plays contained in the _Musa entretenida de
varios entremeses_ (1658) edited by Manuel Coelho Rebello, No. 17
(_Castigos de vn Castelhano_) is in Spanish and Portuguese, six are in
Portuguese,[367] all the rest in Spanish. Popular plays continued to be
written long after the introduction of the classical drama and in spite
of the antagonism of the priests. They were often composed in a variety
of metres, as the _Acto de Sᵗᵃ Genoveva, Princesa de Barbante_ (1735)
by Balthasar Luis da Fonseca, if its verse can be called metre,[368] or
the _Comedia famosa intitulada A Melhor Dita de Amor_ (1745) by Rodrigo
Antonio de Almeida,[369] which opens with a sonnet and proceeds in
_redondilhas_, hendecasyllables, and prose.
In the Christmas plays and peasant scenes some of Gil Vicente’s poetry
had lingered; the plays of more fashionable authors caught no gleam
of his lyrism, but sketched types and satirized manners successfully,
none more so than Mello’s _Auto do Fidalgo Aprendiz_, written, it must
be remembered, before _Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme_ (1670). Both kinds,
consciously or unconsciously, were derived from Vicente’s genius as
manifested in his plays for the Court and of the people.
During Gil Vicente’s lifetime, perhaps, Sá de Miranda had written
the two plays, _Os Estrangeiros_ (_c._ 1528) and _Os Vilhalpandos_
(1538?),[370] with which he introduced classical comedy into Portugal
(nearly a quarter of a century before its introduction into France and
England). _Os Estrangeiros_ was a novelty[371] in more ways than one,
for it was written in prose. Both plays were, as the author admitted,
imitated from Plautus and Terence and also from Ariosto, whose comedies
were composed in the first third of the century. _Os Estrangeiros_ was,
he further observed in a brief introductory letter to the Cardinal
Henrique, rustic and clumsy.[372] Its only claim to be called rustic,
in character as apart from treatment, consists in a few allusions
to popular customs. We would have had it more indigenous. The scene
is Palermo, the plot, _à la_ Plautus, consists of the difficulties
and differences between father and son, and there is the _aio_,
the vainglorious soldier Briobris, _nas armas um Roldão_, and the
_truão_ who plays the part of _gracioso_. The action advances in long
soliloquies to the final reconciliation between father and son. The
character of _Os Vilhalpandos_, which Mello called ‘a mirror of courtly
wit’, is similar, with the difference that Fame instead of Comedy
speaks the prologue and the action between son, father, and courtesan
is placed in Rome. Both the plays were acted before Cardinal Henrique
and printed by his command. As if to mark his initiative in every
field, Miranda also composed a classical tragedy entitled _Cleopatra_
(_c._ 1550), the title of which is of interest as preceding the plays
of Shakespeare and Samuel Daniel (1562-1619). The twelve octosyllabic
lines (_abcabcdefdef_) that survive (from a chorus?) give no idea
of its character, but it probably followed closely the _Sofonisba_
(1515) of Gian Giorgio Trissino (1478-1550). A Spanish version of
Sophocles’ _Electra_ by Hernan Perez de Oliva appeared in 1528, and
in 1536 Anrique Ayres Victoria had translated this into Portuguese
octosyllabic verse: _A Vingança de Agamemnon_. The date of the first
edition is unknown; the second appeared in 1555. Nor do we know when
_Cleopatra_ was written,[373] although it must have been prior to
Antonio Ferreira’s classical tragedy acted at Coimbra, _Inés de Castro_
(_c._ 1557), which has hitherto been considered the first of its kind
in Portugal. Written when the author was about thirty, that is, about
the time of Miranda’s death, it copied the form of Greek tragedies
and, the better to acclimatize this, a thoroughly national subject
was chosen--the death of Inés--whereas Miranda had gone to Rome and
Egypt. As might be expected from Ferreira’s other work the conception
was executed with the careful skill of a conscientious craftsman. The
drama has unity, the style is purest Portuguese, the chorus sometimes
soars into poetry, as in the celebrated passage _Quando amor naceo_.
That the same high language is spoken throughout, that, as has often
been observed, scenes of dramatic opportunity--a meeting between D.
Pedro and his father or Inés--are omitted, merely shows that Ferreira
had no dramatic instinct. Perhaps the only dramatic passage--and
even so it is of more psychological than dramatic interest--is that
in Act III: _Inés._ ‘Ah, woe is me! what ill, what fearful ill dost
thou announce?’ _Chorus._ ‘It is thy death.’ _Inés._ ‘_Is my lord
dead?_’ Nevertheless, the play was a remarkable achievement, carried
out without faltering and with a sustained loftiness worthy of its
subject. No one any longer believes that Ferreira copied from the
_Nise lastimosa_ by Geronimo Bermudez, published under the pseudonym
Antonio da Silva eight years after Ferreira’s death. This is a
slightly expanded Spanish translation, closely following the 1587
edition[374] of _Inés de Castro_, which differs considerably from
that of 1598. The _Nise laureada_ which accompanied it is perfectly
insignificant. Like Miranda, Ferreira wrote, besides one tragedy, two
comedies, _Bristo_ and _O Cioso_. There are indications that he had
in mind Ferreira de Vasconcellos’ _Eufrosina_ as well as Miranda’s
comedies. Bristo soliloquizing is the counterpart of Philtra, and in
his dedication of _Bristo_ to Prince João he acknowledges his debt
to previous plays.[375] In this comedy, written during some vacation
days at Coimbra University, the action is very primitive, but the
braggart Annibal and the charlatan Montalvão account for some farcical
scenes. His later play, _O Cioso_ (the jealous husband is also handled
by Gil Vicente and Prestes), belongs to a higher plane, i. e. to
comedy rather than farce, although _Bristo_ is not entirely devoid of
character-drawing. _Bristo_ was ‘made public’ (_publicada_) before
1554, but neither play was published till 1622. Both are remarkable for
the correctness and concise vigour of their prose.
The three plays of Camões, written perhaps between the years 1544 and
1549 during his first stay at Lisbon, belong entirely neither to the
classical drama nor to the more ancient _autos_, but combine elements
of both. They are written in _redondilhas_, mostly _quintilhas_. The
third, _El Rei Seleuco_ (1549?), is slighter even than a Vicentian
farce. It has a curious prologue scene (_Vorspiel auf dem Theater_)
in prose. The versification is easy, but its chief interest is the
important part it may have played in its author’s life. The earliest in
date, _Filodemo_, although it lacks Vicente’s savour of the soil, has
a graceful charm and faintly recalls the _Comedia do Viuvo_. Filodemo,
orphan son of a Danish princess and a Portuguese _fidalgo_, is in love
with Dionysa, daughter of his father’s brother, whose son Venadoro
is in love with Filodemo’s sister Florimena. Their relationship is
unknown, but the discovery of their true birth smoothes the path
of love and ends the play. _Os Amphitriões_, in Portuguese and
Spanish,[376] is based on the _Amphitruo_ of Plautus. The predicaments
resulting from the appearance of Jupiter as Amphitrião’s double and
Mercury as the double of Sosia are deftly and humorously worked out in
delightfully spontaneous verse.
For those so fastidious as to be satisfied neither by the popular
_autos_ nor the staid classical plays, yet another kind was provided
in the shape of Celestina comedies in prose. Of the life of their
author we know scarcely more than that he was very well known in his
day. Judging by literary merit only, one might assign the verses
written by Jorge de Vasconcellos in the _Cancioneiro Geral_ to JORGE
FERREIRA DE VASCONCELLOS (_c._ 1515-63?), since the poems, alike in
the new and the old style, interspersed in his works do not prove
him to have possessed high poetical talent. It is as a dramatist and
still more as a writer of Portuguese prose that the distinguished
courtier of King João III’s reign[377]--deserves a higher place in
Portuguese literature than his ungrateful countrymen have habitually
accorded him. But the dates forbid the identification of the dramatist
with the earlier poet, who was also a notable courtier since he is
specially mentioned in Vicente’s _Cortes de Jupiter_ (ii. 404). One of
the few definite facts known to us concerning Jorge Ferreira is that
affirmed in the preface of his _Eufrosina_: that this play was the
first fruit of his genius, written in his youth.[378] The exact date
of _Eufrosina_ is unknown, but it was written after the University had
been finally established at Coimbra in 1537--the date of the letter
from India (December 20, 1526[379]) is clearly a misprint since mention
is made of the siege of Diu (1538). Ferreira de Vasconcellos evidently
studied law at the University. If he was born, not at Coimbra but at
Lisbon, he may have begun his studies in the capital. At the time
of Prince Duarte’s death (1540) he was in his service, as _moço da
camara_, and he continued as a Court official, first, perhaps, in the
service of the heir to the throne, Prince João, who died on January
2, 1554, and then in that of King Sebastião. In 1563 he was succeeded
as Secretary (_escrivão do Tesouro_) by Luis Vicente, probably son of
the poet Gil. The document[380] which nominates his successor by no
means implies his death, since, as Menéndez y Pelayo[381] observed,
his name is unaccompanied by the formula _que Deus perdoe_ or _aja_.
But it is strange, if he did not die till 1585, the date given by
Barbosa Machado, that nothing more is heard of him after 1563 (we are
told that his son died at the battle of Alcacer Kebir), and that his
son-in-law called _Aulegrafia_, written before the death of Prince
Luis (1555), his swan-song.[382] Apart from manuscript treatises which
were never published, Jorge Ferreira is the author of four works in
prose, the three plays, _Eufrosina_, _Ulysippo_, _Aulegrafia_, and
the _Memorial da Segunda Tavola Redonda_. The latter is an involved
romance of chivalry[383] which describes the adventures of the Knight
of the Crystal Arms, emulator of the Knights of the Round Table and
Amadis of Gaul. Each chapter commences with a brief sententious
reflection, from which the reader is plunged into mortal combats
of knights, centaurs, giants, and dragons. It begins by giving an
account of King Arthur, his disappearance, and the prosperous reign of
Sagramor. It ends with a vivid description of the tournament (August
5, 1552) at Enxobregas (= Xabregas) in which the ill-fated Prince João
was the principal figure. Barbosa Machado included among Ferreira de
Vasconcellos’ works _Triunfos de Sagramor em que se tratão os feitos
dos Cavalleiros da Segunda Tavola Redonda_ (Coimbra, 1554). A passage
in the _Memorial_[384] may have led to the belief that this was a
second part of the _Memorial_, of which the first known edition is
that of Coimbra, 1567, but from the preface[385] it appears that the
_Memorial_ _is_ the _Triunfos_. The title _Triunfos de Sagramor_ may
have been given to an earlier edition,[386] or it may have been the
title of the second half of the work. The author himself declares
that his story had been ‘presented’ to Prince João.[387] The editor
of _Ulysippo_ in 1618 says that the _Memorial_ had been printed at
least twice during the author’s lifetime.[388] Yet it is difficult
not to suspect that the date 1554 was a confusion with the year of
the death of the prince to whom the work was dedicated. The same
uncertainty, as we have seen, prevails as to the date of the first
edition of the author’s masterpiece _Eufrosina_. (He published his