Portuguese literature
and his figs, or the meal in the mill, must ever retain their vividness
and charm. Resende had been the prince’s tutor and writes of what he
saw; he shows that he could decipher a person’s character as keenly as
a Latin inscription. Resende’s legitimate successor in archaeology,
MANUEL SEVERIM DE FARIA (1583-1655), scarcely belongs to the sixteenth
century although he wrote verses in 1598 and 1599. He succeeded his
uncle as Canon (1608) and Precentor (1609) of Evora Cathedral and
resigned in favour of his nephew Manuel de Faria Severim as Canon in
1633 and Precentor in 1642. Living in ancient Evora when the memory of
Resende was still fresh, this antiquary of the pale face and blue eyes,
‘store-house of all the treasures of the past’,[505] with his medals
and statues and choice library of rare books, soon rivalled Resende’s
fame. His most important works are _Discursos varios politicos_ (1624)
containing four essays and the lives of Barros, Camões, and Couto, and
_Noticias de Portugal_ (1655).
A less attractive personality is that of MANUEL DE FARIA E SOUSA
(1590-1649), born near Pombeiro (Minho), a most accomplished,
industrious, but untrustworthy author who wrote mainly in Spanish. His
_Epitome de las Historias Portuguesas_ was published in 1628 at Madrid,
where he spent the greater part of his life, and where he died. He
seems to have retained a real affection for his native country, but
he was not a man of independent character and bestowed his flatteries
as his interest required. After the Restoration of 1640 he stayed
on at the Spanish Court, and there appears to be some doubt whether
it was João IV, his nominal master, or Philip IV of Spain that he
served best. His long historical works, _Europa Portuguesa_, _Asia
Portuguesa_, _Africa Portuguesa_, appeared posthumously, between 1666
and 1681. He is most pleasant when he is not trying to ‘make’ history
but is simply describing, as in his account of the various provinces
of Portugal.[506] In his own not over-modest verdict in Part 4 of the
same volume, _De las primazias deste Reyno_, he was _el primero que
supo historiar con más acierto_. Faria e Sousa was enthusiastic but
unscrupulous and he has been severely handled by the critics. With
posterity he has fallen between two stools, since the Spanish are only
moderately interested in his subject, Portugal, and the Portuguese
consider him to belong to Spanish literature.
FOOTNOTES:
[436] Antonio Vieira, _Historia do Futuro_ (1718), p. 24: _esta
historia era o silencio de todas as historias_.
[437] _O primeiro Portugues que na nossa lingoa as [façanhas]
resuscitei._ João de Barros, in his preface, makes a similar claim:
_foi o primeiro_.
[438] Cf. vi. 37, 38; vii. 77, 78; or vi. 100, where the ships
bristling with the enemy’s arrows are likened to porcupines.
[439] 1496, the generally accepted year of his birth, is the
calculation of Severim de Faria, followed by Barbosa Machado, Nicolás
Antonio, &c. As he retired at the end of 1567 it is difficult not to
suspect (from his love of method and the decimal system) that he was
born in 1497--the year of Vasco da Gama’s expedition.
[440] 400,000 _réis_. He also obtained the privilege of trading with
India free from all taxes so as to clear a profit of 1,600,000 _réis_.
Innocencio da Silva adds ‘yearly’ to this sum, mentioned by Severim de
Faria. In any case Barros’ complaints of his poverty seem misplaced.
[441] Faria e Sousa (_Varias Rimas_, pt. 2 (1689), p. 165), says that
neither Lopez de Castanheda nor Barros was widely read, one of the
reasons being the length of their histories.
[442] According to Pero de Magalhães de Gandavo (_Dialogo em defensam
da lingua portvgvesa_) Barros ‘is in Venice preferred to Ptolemy’.
[443] His account of the fleet leaving Lisbon (I. v. 1) _is_ that of an
eyewitness.
[444] _Mais trabalhamos no substancial da historia que no ampliar as
miudezas que enfadam e não deleitam_ (I. vii. 8). Cf. I. v. 10 (1778
ed., p. 465); III. ix. 9 (p. 426); III. x. 5 (p. 489). Yet the vivid
light thrown by the details recorded in other writers, such as the
‘bushel of sapphires’ sent to Albuquerque by one of the native kings,
or the open boat drifting with a few Portuguese long dead and a heap of
silver beside them, is of undeniable value. Goes inserts details, but
is too late a writer to do so without apology, like Corrêa and Lopez
de Castanheda: _pode parecer a algũa pessoa_ [e. g. his friend Barros]
_que em historia grave nam eram necessarias estas miudezas_ (_Cron. do
Pr. D. Joam_, cap. cii).
[445] e.g. the following mortar of conjunctions between the stones on
p. 335 of _Decada_ II (1777 ed.) opened at hazard: _nas quaes ... que
... que ... qual ... que ... como ... que ... que ... o qual ... cujos
... que ... que ... que ... posto que ... como ... porque ... que_.
[446] _E sendo eu moço servindo a El Rey D. João na guardaroupa_
(_Dec._ IV. iii. 8). In _Dec._ VII. viii. 1 he speaks of having served
João III for two years as _moço da camara_ (1555-7). In the same
passage he embarks for India in 1559 aged _fifteen_. In _Dec._ VII. ix.
12 (1783 ed. p. 396) he is eighteen (April 1560).
[447] According to the Governor, Francisco Barreto, he was more at home
with arms than with prices (_Dec._ IX. 20, 1786 ed., p. 160). Another
passage in the _Decadas_ proves him to have been an excellent horseman.
[448] Cf. _Dec._ IV. iii. 8 (1778 ed. p. 234).
[449] He himself describes with great detail and pathos the wrecks of
the ships _N. Senhora da Barca_ (VII. viii. 1), _Garça_ (VII. viii.
12), _S. Paulo_ (VII. ix. 16), _Santiago_ (X. vii. 1), as well as that
of Sepulveda (_Dec._ VI. ix. 21, 22). In his account of the loss of
the _S. Thomé_ (which was printed in the _Historia Tragico-Maritima_,
in the _Vida de D. Paulo de Lima_, and no doubt in the lost eleventh
_Decada_), the separation of D. Joana de Mendoça from her child is one
of the most tantalizing and touching incidents ever penned.
[450] _Não particularizo ninguem_ (_Dec._ XII. i. 7).
[451] What he lacks in _gravidade_ (cf. _Dec._ X. x. 14)--he is
quite ready to admit that he writes _toscamente_ (VII. iii. 3),
_singelamente, sem ornamento de palavras_ (VI. ii. 3), _simplesmente,
sem ornamento nem artificio de palavras_ (V. v. 6)--he makes good by
directness as an eyewitness, _de mais perto_ (IV. i. 7; cf. IV. x. 4
_ad init._). When he had not himself been present he preferred the
accounts of those who had, as Sousa Coutinho’s description of the siege
of Diu (_Commentarios_) _em estilo excellente e grave, e foi o melhor
de todos, porque escreveo como testemunha de vista_, V. iii. 2) or
Miguel de Castanhoso’s _copioso tratado_ (V. viii. 7). Among the traces
of his close touch with reality are the popular _romances_, _cantigas_,
_adagios_, which Barros would have deemed beneath the dignity of
history.
[452] As the fleets grew, long catalogues of the captains’ names were
perhaps inevitable. They are certainly out of place in a biography,
but Couto’s _Vida de D. Paulo de Lima Pereira_ (1765) is really a
collection of those passages from the _Decadas_ which bear on the life
of Couto’s old friend, a _fidalgo muito pera tudo_. As far as chapter
32 it is told in words similar to or identical with those of _Decada_
X. Chapter 32 corresponds with the beginning of the lost _Decada_ XI.
[453] His biographer, Manuel Severim de Faria, says that he left (in
manuscript) ‘a large volume of elegies, eclogues, songs, sonnets and
glosses’ (Barbosa Machado calls them _Poesias Varias_), and that
he wrote a commentary on the first five books of the _Lusiads_.
_Carminibus quoque pangendis non infeliciter vacavit_, says N. Antonio.
[454] _Lendas_, iii. 7: _nom ouve alguem que tomasse por gloria
escrever e cronizar o descobrimento da India_. In an earlier passage
(i. 3) he refers to narratives of travellers such as that of Duarte
Barbosa.
[455] He says (_Lendas_, ii. 5): _quando comecei esta ocupação de
escrever as cousas da India erão ellas tão gostosas, per suas bondades,
que dava muito contentamento ouvilas recontar_.
[456] _Lenda_, iii. 438.
[457] _Fui hum dos seus escrivães que com elle andei tres annos_ (ii.
46). Elsewhere (i. 2) he says that he went to India _moço de pouca
idade_ sixteen years after the discovery of India. 1512 was fourteen
years after the actual discovery (1498), but might be counted the
sixteenth year from 1497.
[458] _Homens da criação d’El Rei_, says Corrêa with some pride, _de
que confiasse seus segredos_ (ii. 46).
[459] Lima Felner, _Noticia preliminar_ (_Lendas_, i, p. xi).
[460] Ibid.; but Corrêa says (_Lendas_, ii. 891) that he held this post
at Cochin (_almoxarife do almazem da Ribeira_) in 1525.
[461] _Por ter entendimento em debuxar._ The portraits, drawn by Corrêa
and painted by ‘a native painter’ so cleverly that you could recognize
the originals (iv. 597), as well as Corrêa’s very curious drawings of
Aden and other cities, are reproduced in the 1858-66 edition of the
_Lendas_.
[462] _Passa de cincoenta annos_ [i.e. 1512-63] _que ando no rodizio
d’este serviço, aleijado de feridas com que irei á cova sem satisfação._
[463] Cf. ii. 608, 752; iii. 437; iv. 338, 537-8, 567-8, 665, 669,
730-1.
[464] He so styles his work in the preface of _Lenda_ iv.
[465] He is writing, he says, in 1561 (_Lendas_, i. 265); 1561 again
(i. 995: _não cessando este trabalho até este anno_); 1563 (iii. 438);
1550 (iv. 25); 1551 (iv. 732).
[466] The value of that evidence varies. For instance, he assures us
(iii. 689) that he saw with his own eyes a native 300 years old and his
son of 200; yet there is something suspicious in the roundness of the
figures.
[467] _Escrevia com elle as cartas pera El Rei_ (ii. 172).
[468] Albuquerque in one of his letters (No. 95) says that in Portugal
a man is hanged for stealing Alentejan _mantas_. Corrêa repeats this
phrase twice (_Lendas_, ii. 752; iv. 731).
[469] Cf. ii. 247: _Eu ouvi dizer a Afonso d’Albuquerque_.
[470] _Neste meu trabalho não tomei sentido senão escrever os feitos
dos Portugueses e nada das terras_ (iii. 66). Cf. i. 651, 815; ii. 222.
[471] Latino Coelho, _Fernão de Magalhães_ in _Archivo Pittoresco_, vi.
(1863), p. 170 et seq.
[472] Corrêa himself seems to have been rather unsuccessful than
scrupulous in amassing money. He tells without a hint of embarrassment
(ii. 432) how he took the white and gold scarf (_rumal_) of the
murdered Resnordim (or Rais Ahmad) and sold it for 20 _xarafins_ (about
£7), and (iii. 281) helped to dispose of stolen goods in 1528 at Cochin.
[473] _Protestando d’em meus dias esta lenda nom mostrar a nenhum_ (i.
3).
[474] _Que colligi dos proprios originaes._ The work is a history of
events in India, not a biography of Albuquerque, the first forty years
of whose life are represented only by half a dozen sentences (1774 ed.,
iv. 255).
[475] _Aquelle tão pouco venturoso como sciente & valeroso Antonio
Galvão_ (João Pinto Ribeyro, _Preferencia das Letras ás Armas_, 1645).
In his youth in India he won the regard of that keen judge of men,
Afonso de Albuquerque, who could see in him nothing to find fault with
except his excessive generosity.
[476] _Tratado. Prologo_ [3 ff.]. _Em este tractado con noue ou dez
liuros das cousas de Maluco & da India que me o Cardeal mandou dar a
Damiam de Goes._
[477] Vol. i, No. 4.
[478] Vol. v, No. 1 (1836).
[479] The name would seem to have been really Tillison, i.e. son of
John Tilly, who married a granddaughter of Moraes, the author of
_Palmeirim_.
[480] He speaks of their _lingua alquanto negletta e lo stile molto
semplice, naturale e piano, la qual cosa deveva apparire un’ anomalia
a confronto della lingua purgata con cui si scriveva allora in