Portuguese literature
Germany and other parts with the sole object of seeing him’.[486] In
England certainly his book was highly prized, and both Dryden and
Pope praised Gibbs’ translation, although Francis Bacon noted the
diffuseness of Osorio’s style: _luxurians et diluta_, certainly not
a just verdict on the style as a whole; we have but to think of the
concise sketches of Albuquerque (_De Rebus_, p. 380) and King Manuel
(p. 478). Osorio acknowledged his ample debt to the chronicle of
Goes, which he describes as written ‘with incredible felicity’. FREI
BERNARDO DA CRUZ, who accompanied King Sebastian to Africa in 1578 as
chaplain, in his _Cronica de El Rei D. Sebastião_ wrote the history of
his life and reign and happily describes him as ‘a young king without
experience or fear’. The _Cronica do Cardeal Rei D. Henrique_ (1840)
completed the history of the house of Avis. It chronicles in fifty-four
diminutive chapters the eighteen months’ reign of the _pouco mimoso e
severo_ Cardinal King Henry. It was written in 1586,[487] and, although
anonymous, is ascribed with some probability to the Jesuit Padre ALVARO
LOBO (1551-1608).
The _Jornada de Africa_ (1607) by JERONIMO DE MENDOÇA, of Oporto, is
divided into three parts, describing the expedition and the battle
of Alcacer Kebir, the ransoms and escapes of the captives, and the
death of Christian martyrs in Africa. Its object was to refute certain
statements in Conestaggio’s recent work _Dell’unione del regno di
Portogallo alla corona di Castiglia_, but Mendoça had fought at Alcacer
Kebir and had been taken prisoner; he thus writes as an eyewitness,
and his excellent style and power of description give more than a
controversial value and interest to his book and make it matter for
regret that this short history was apparently his only work.
MIGUEL DE MOURA (1538-1600), secretary to five kings and one of the
three Governors of Portugal in 1593, set an example too rarely followed
by those who have played an important part in Portuguese history by
composing a brief autobiography: _Vida de Miguel de Moura_. It was
written on the eve of St. Peter’s Day, 1594, except a few pages which
were added in the year before the author’s death. Incidentally it has
the distinction of containing one of the longest sentences ever written
(114 lines--1840 ed., pp. 126-9).
The painstaking and talented DUARTE NUNEZ DE LEAM (_c._ 1530-1608),
born at Evora, son of the Professor of Medicine João Nunez, besides
genealogical and legal works, _Leis extravagantes_ (1560, 1569), wrote
two valuable treatises on the Portuguese language and an interesting
_Descripção do Reino de Portugal_ (1610), which he finished in 1599.
He also found time to spare from his duties as a magistrate to recast
the chronicles of the Kings of Portugal. The _Cronicas dos Reis de
Portugal_ (1600) contain those from Count Henry to King Fernando, and
the _Cronicas del Rey Dom Ioam de gloriosa memoria_ those of Kings
João I, Duarte, and Afonso V. Shorn of the individuality of the early
chroniclers, they yet retain much of interest, and Nunez de Leam
would be accorded a higher place as historian were it not for our
knowledge of the inestimable value of the originals which he edited
and ‘improved’. Two generations earlier Cristovam Rodriguez Azinheiro
(or Acenheiro), born in 1474 (he tells us that he was sixty-one in
May 1535), had treated the early chronicles in the same way, but only
succeeded in retaining all that was jejune without preserving their
picturesqueness in his _Cronicas dos Senhores Reis de Portugal_.[488]
More interesting personally than as historian, the humanist DAMIÃO
DE GOES (1502-74[489]) was one of the most accomplished men of his
time,[490] and, thanks partly to his trial before the Inquisition,
partly to the not unpleasant egotism with which he chronicled
autobiographical details, not only in his _Genealogia_[491] but
in many of his other works, we know more of his life than we know
of most contemporary writers. Traveller and diplomatist, scholar,
singer, musician, he was a man of many friends during his lifetime,
and the tragic circumstances of his last years have won him fresh
sympathizers after his death. Born at Alenquer and brought up at the
Court of King Manuel, he became page to the king in 1518, and five
years later was appointed secretary at the Portuguese Factory at
Antwerp. In 1529 he was sent on a diplomatic mission to Poland, and
in this and the following years, on similar missions or for his own
pleasure, ‘saw and conversed with all the kings, princes, nobles and
peoples of Christendom’.[492] He made the acquaintance of Montaigne’s
_aubergistes allemands, ‘glorieux, colères et ivrognes’_, turned
aside to visit Luther and Melanchthon at Wittenberg,[493] and was for
several months the guest of Erasmus at Freiburg. In Italy he lived
with Cardinal Sadoletto at Padua (1534-8) and met Cardinal Bembo and
other celebrated men of the day. At Louvain, too, _mihi intime carum
et iucundum_, as throughout Europe, he had many devoted friends. A
senator of Antwerp welcomed him in Latin verse on his return from his
Scythian travels,[494] Luis Vives addressed affectionate letters to
_mi Damiane_, Albrecht Dürer painted his portrait, Glareanus in his
_Dodecachordon_ included music of his composition.[495]
In 1542 he was on his way to Holland with his Flemish wife when he
heard that Louvain was threatened by a French force commanded by
Longueval and _meus ille in Academiam Louvaniensem fatalis amor_
took him back to share its perils. He played a principal part in the
defence, and finally remained a prisoner in the enemy’s hands, _quasi
piacularis hostia_, as he says.[496] His imprisonment in France lasted
nine months, and after paying a ransom of 6,000 ducats he went back
to Louvain. The Emperor Charles V rewarded him for his services with
a splendid coat of arms. In 1545, after twenty-one years of European
travel, he returned with his wife and children[497] to Portugal, and
three years later was entrusted with Fernam Lopez’ old post, the
Keepership of the Archives. He lived in the Paços d’Alcaçova with a
certain magnificence, keeping open house for all foreigners, one of
whom records that already in 1565 _il se faict fort vieulx_. Six years
later, on April 4, 1571, he was arrested by the Inquisition and spent
twenty months in prison.
It was, perhaps, inevitable that he should have incurred suspicion,
nor is it necessary to explain his trial by the enmity of certain
persons at Court due to passages in his works. His life had been out
of keeping with the _gravedades de Hespanha_, and the charges against
him were numerous and varied. He had eaten and drunken with heretics,
he had read strange books, the sound of songs not understanded of the
people and organ music had issued from his house at Lisbon, he had
omitted to observe fasts, he had called the Pope a tyrant, he set no
store by papal indulgences or auricular confession. Even the testimony
of his grand-niece is recorded, to the effect that her mother had
said of Goes, her husband’s uncle, that he had no more belief in God
than in a stone wall (she seems to have had Berkeleian tendencies).
As usual it is less the proceedings of the Inquisition than the bad
faith of the witnesses that arouse disgust. The poet Andrade Caminha,
who apparently came forward of his own accord--we are not told that
he was _chamado_--admitted that certain words of Goes which he now
denounced had not seemed so serious to him before he knew that Goes
was in the prison of the Inquisition. Goes had already been denounced
to the Inquisition in 1545 and 1550, and his book _Fides, Religio
Moresque Aethiopum_ (Lovanii, 1540) had been condemned in Portugal in
1541. He was examined frequently in 1571 and 1572, was left for three
months without news of his family, and complained of being old, weak,
and ill, and that his body had become covered with a kind of leprosy
(July 14, 1572). His sentence (October 16, 1572) pronounced him to
have incurred, as a Lutheran heretic, excommunication, confiscation of
all his property, and the life-long confinement of his person. He was
transferred to the famous monastery of Batalha in December, but his
death (January 30, 1574) occurred in his own house. His return and his
death probably explain one another. He was growing very old in 1565 and
we must suppose that his recent experiences had not made him younger.
His last request--to die among his family--was apparently granted,
and the further explanations (that he fell forward into the fire,
that he died of an apoplexy, was killed by order of the Inquisition,
was beaten to death by the lackeys of the Conde da Castanheira, or
murdered and robbed by his own servants) are superfluous. His works
consist of several brief Latin treatises crowded with interesting
facts (especially his _Hispania_); and in Portuguese the _Cronica do
Principe Dom Ioam_ (1567) and _Cronica do Felicissimo Rey Dom Emanvel_,
4 pt. (1566, 1567). He also found time to translate Cicero’s _De
Senectute_: _Livro ... da Velhice_, (Veneza, 1534). He had not the
imagination of an historian, and unless events have passed before his
eyes, or happen to interest him personally, he can be bald and meagre
as an annalist. But in any matter which touches him closely, as the
expulsion and the cruel treatment of the Jews, or the massacre of new
Christians, or the account of Ethiopia, he broadens out into moving
and detailed description. The result is that this long Chronicle of
King Manuel is a number of excellent separate treatises rather than
a history with unity and a sense of proportion. It is the work of a
scholar who likes to describe directly, from his own experience. The
_Cronica do Principe_ was written some months before that of King
Manuel. The latter was a difficult undertaking,[498] for many persons
concerned were still alive, and subjects such as the expulsion of the
Jews needed delicate handling. For thirty-one years it had hung fire
in the hands of previous chroniclers when in 1558 Cardinal Henrique
entrusted it to Damião de Goes. After eight years the four parts were
ready for press,[499] but the difficulties were not yet over, for
certain chapters met with strong disapproval at Court[500] and had to
be altered, so that two editions of the first part appeared in 1566
(the first being apparently submitted as a proof and not for sale), but
the publication of the work as a whole was not completed before 1567.
Scarcely less celebrated than Goes, the archaeologist LUCIO ANDRÉ DE
RESENDE (1493?-1573),[501] friend of Goes, Clenardus, and Erasmus, left
the Dominican convent of Bemfica, in which he was a novice, in order
to study abroad, at Salamanca, Paris, and Louvain. ‘Tall, with very
large eyes, curling hair, rather dark complexion but of a cheerful,
open countenance’, living in his house (_as casas de Resende_) at
Evora among his books and coins, statues and inscriptions--his small
garden hedged with _marmores antigos_ as, according to Brito, too
often were peasants’ vine-yards--he exercised a considerable influence
on the writers of his time[502] and was held in high esteem by the
Emperor Charles V and by King João III. The principal of his own works
were written in Latin, but besides his _De Antiquitatibus Lusitaniae_
(1593), which was edited by Mendez de Vasconcellos with the addition of
a fifth book from notes left by the author, he composed in Portuguese
a ‘brief but learned’ _Historia da Antiguidade da Cidade de Evora_
(1553). In his _Vida do Infante Dom Duarte_ (1789)[503] he did not
write the ‘very copious history’ which Paiva de Andrade[504] said the
subject required. He did better, for this sketch of a few pages is a
little masterpiece in which the vignettes, for instance, of the boatman