Portuguese literature
reader’s pleasure in these malicious and ingenious tales.
Despite inroads of the exotic and all the chances and changes of
life and literature in this century, the Portuguese maintained their
interest in the romances of chivalry, in which indeed they saw a
reflection of their own prowess in the East. Dull as _Clarimundo_ may
now seem, it made a great impression in its day, and was eagerly read,
from Lisbon to the Moluccas.[543] Even as late as 1589 Bishop Arraez
considers it necessary to say that a prince should have better ways of
spending his time than _ler por Clarimundo_,[544] while Rodriguez Lobo,
thirty years later, brackets it with _Amadis_ and _Palmeirim_.[545]
Many a young page and _escudeiro_ must have aspired not only to pore
over the _cronicas_ but to write one of his own.[546] The facility of a
Barros is, however, given to few, and both Jorge Ferreira’s _Memorial_
and Moraes’ _Palmeirim de Inglaterra_ were written later in life.
FRANCISCO DE MORAES (_c._ 1500-72),[547] a well-known courtier in the
reign of King João III, whose Treasurer he was, and a _Comendador_ of
the Order of Christ, in 1540 accompanied the Portuguese Ambassador,
D. Francisco de Noronha, to Paris as Secretary, and at the French
Court he fell passionately in love with one of the ladies-in-waiting
of Queen Leonor (sister of the Emperor Charles V and widow of King
Manuel of Portugal) named Claude Blosset de Torcy. His love was not
returned: there was a great discrepancy of age between them, his
knowledge of French was very slight, and his passion robbed him of wit
and reason. If the Duc de Châtillon was favoured, or if the English
Ambassador gave Mademoiselle de Torcy his arm, Moraes would flare
up in jealousy, and when in the presence of the queen the elderly
lover went down on his knees _la belle Torcy_ (to whom Clément Marot
had addressed one of his _Étrennes_ and who eventually married the
Baron de Fontaines) prayed him not to continue to make her as well as
himself ridiculous. Moraes, after leaving France in 1543, or early
in 1544, recovered from his passion and married in Portugal. Of his
subsequent life little is known; he appears to have returned to France,
and in 1572 he was murdered at the entrance of the Rocio, the central
square of Evora. His _Cronica de Palmeirim de Inglaterra_, written in
France or Portugal or both, was probably published in 1544, but the
earliest existing Portuguese edition is that of Evora, 1567, which
contains the dedication to the Infanta Maria, written over twenty years
earlier (1544). Chiefly remarkable for the excellence of its style,
_Palmeirim_ will always retain its place in Portuguese literature
as a masterpiece of prose, musically soft, yet clear and vigorous.
Cervantes considered it worthy to be preserved in a golden casket like
the works of Homer,[548] but few of its readers will now differ from
the more modern and moderate opinion of Menéndez y Pelayo that ‘it
requires a real effort’ to read the whole of it. The effort required
to read the miserable Spanish translation of 1547-8 is infinitely
greater. The fact that this translation is of earlier date than any
surviving Portuguese edition gave rise to the theory that Moraes had
translated his work from the Spanish. No competent critic now believes
this; any doubts that may have lingered were dispelled wittily and
for ever in Mr. Purser’s able essay (1904). The Spanish version,
with its painful efforts to avoid _lusitanismos_ and its palpable
mistranslations (such as _suavidad_ or _alegria_ for _saudade_), shows
less knowledge of the sea, of Ireland,[549] and of Portugal. Moreover,
the preference of the author of _Palmeirim_ for Portugal is obvious,
and the passage in which ladies of the French Court are introduced
corresponds to Moraes’ _Descvlpa de hvns amores_,[550] first published
with the _Dialogos_ in 1624. Moraes himself would probably not have
been greatly troubled by the impudent claim set up for Luis Hurtado
and Miguel Ferrer. To have made a masterpiece out of their book would
have been an achievement as great as to have made it out of old French
and English legends in Paris. _Palmeirim’s_ predecessors, _Palmerin de
Oliva_ (1511), _Primaleon_ (1512), and _Platir_ (1533), were probably
all genuinely Spanish, although some doubts have been raised as to
the first of the line, _Palmerin de Oliva_ attributed to a cryptic
lady, a _femina docta_ called Agustobrica.[551] Its successors were as
genuinely Portuguese: to Moraes’ parts 1 and 2 DIOGO FERNANDEZ added
parts 3 and 4 (1587), concerned with the deeds of Palmeirim’s son, _Dom
Duardos_,[552] and BALTHASAR GONÇALVEZ LOBATO parts 5 and 6 (1602), in
which are told those of his grandson, _Dom Clarisol de Bretanha_. Three
brief but very lively and natural _Dialogos_ (1624) show that Moraes
was not only an excellent stylist but a keen observer. The _fidalgo_
and _escudeiro_, the lawyer and the love-lorn _moço_, are all clearly
and wittily presented.
FOOTNOTES:
[507] For a full list see Innocencio da Silva, _Dicc. Bibliog._ i.
377, and _Grundriss_, p. 339. Five volumes were announced by Barbosa
Machado as ready for press. The modern editors, besides eleven wrecks
of the sixteenth, eight of the seventeenth, and two of the eighteenth,
have included three of the nineteenth century. Some of the original
chap-books survive, with a fine woodcut of a tossing galleon on the
title-page: _Historia da mui notavel perda do galeam grande S. Joam_
(1554?); _Relaçam do lastimozo navfragio da nao Conceiçam chamada
Algaravia a Nova_ (1555); _Naufragio da nao Santo Alberto_ (1597);
_Memoravel relaçam da perda da nao Conceiçam_ (1627). The _Relaçam da
viagem do galeão São Lovrenço e sua perdição_ (1651) is by the Jesuit
Antonio Francisco Cardim (1596-1659); the _Relaçam sumaria da viagem
que fez Fernão d’Alvarez Cabral_, by Manuel Mesquita Perestrello, is
an account of the wreck of the fine ship _S. Bento_, which had taken
Camões to India.
[508] In this _Relaçam do naufragio da nao S. Thomé_, written in 1611,
twenty-two years after the event, he refers several times to his
_Decadas_.
[509] _Naufragio da nao S. Alberto_ (1593). It is a summary of a _largo
cartapacio_ of the pilot.
[510] _pedirme meu tio Ioam de Barros que lhe screuesse muito
particularmente todos os lugares deste meu caminho._
[511] _Verd. Inf._, p. 110: _nam era pera velhos_.
[512] This seems to have aroused the resentment of Barros (_Asia_, III.
iv. 3). The author, he says, had no learning. In II. iii. 4 he again
refers to him slightingly as ‘a certain Francisco Alvarez’. Barros as
grammarian similarly ignored Oliveira.
[513] Barbosa Machado says, _ultimamente em o Convento de Goa,
para onde tinha passado no anno de 1622 falleceu com saudade_, &c.
Innocencio da Silva read this with a comma after _passado_.
[514] Afonso de Albuquerque mentions another surgeon Mestre Afonso
in India in his time, i.e. half a century earlier. The value of the
_Itinerario_ consists in its having been written as a diary on the
journey, and its author, perhaps thinking of Mendez Pinto, says _hee
hũu grande descuido de homens que fazem semelhantes viagens e as nom
escreuem ... porque a memoria nom pode ser capaz de tamanha cousa e
tantas particularidades_ (p. 82).
[515] According to Barbosa Machado he entered the Jesuit College as a
novice in 1645 and died in 1712 _aet._ 78. Godinho also wrote a life of
Frei Antonio das Chagas.
[516] He was the son of D. Jorge, illegitimate son of João II., and was
created Duke of Aveiro.
[517] See the important works by Colonel Cristovam Ayres, _Fernão
Mendes Pinto_, 1904; _Fernão Mendes Pinto e o Japão_, 1906.
[518] His work did not appear till 1614 and it is uncertain to what
extent it was edited by the historian Francisco de Andrade. It is
thought that the account of his services as missionary in Japan may
have been excised owing to the hostility of the Jesuits.
[519] Cap. 223: _eu respondi acrecentando em muitas cousas que me
perguntava por me parecer que era assim necessario á reputação da nação
portuguesa_.
[520] Cf. caps. 14, 70, 88, 114, 126, 198, 204. The complaint is echoed
by almost every Portuguese traveller of the day. Bishop Osorio refers
to the _fidei faciendae difficultas_; even the truthful and exact
Francisco Alvarez fears his readers’ disbelief.
[521] Cf. Faria e Sousa (_laudari a laudato!_): _Yo le tengo por muy
verdadero_; A. de Sousa Macedo, _Eva e Ave_, ii. 55, 1676 ed., p. 495:
_El Rey Catholico D. Philippe II, quando veio a Portugal, gostava de
ouvir a Fernão Mendes, em cujas peregrinaçoens & sucessos que dellas
escreveo mostrou o tempo com a experiencia a verdade que se lhe
disputava antes que ouvesse tantas noticias d’aquellas partes_; Soares,
_Theatrum_: _diu apud Lusitanos fidem non meruit donec rerum qui secuti
sunt eventus et aliorum scripta nihil Ferdinandum a vero discrepasse
confirmarunt_; Manuel Bernardes, _Nova Floresta_, i (1706), p. 124: _as
Relações do nosso Fernão Mendez Pinto que não merecem tão pouco credito
como alguns lhe dão_. ‘Either never man had better memory or he was the
most solemn liar that ever put pen to paper’ is the verdict of José
Agostinho de Macedo (_Motim Literario_, 1841 ed., ii. 17).
[522] In France he was known as du Jardin. Familiarly this great
botanist seems to have been called Herbs. A copy of the first edition
of the _Coloquios_ has GRACIA DORTA O ERVAS on the back of the binding.
This might be an ignorant mistake for D’ELVAS.
[523] The Governor’s brother, Pero Lopez de Sousa, wrote a _Diario da
Navegação_ (1530-2) first published at Lisbon in 1839. The soldier in
Couto’s _Dialogo_ says, _não vai tão mal negociado hir por Fysico môr
pois todos os que este cargo serviram tiraram nos seus tres annos sete
ou oito mil cruzados_.
[524] _Libro di Odoardo Barbosa Portoghese._
[525] He must have spent many a half-hour in the corner bookshop in
Goa mentioned by Couto (_Dec._ VI. v. 8, 1781 ed., p. 400): _o canto
onde pousa um livreiro_--unless this is a misprint for _luveiro_,
as the neighbouring _sirgueiro_ seems to indicate. The growth of
Portuguese literature in the East would furnish matter for a curious
essay. Great folios like the _Cancioneiro de Resende_ (see Lopez de
Castanheda, v. 12, and Barros, _Asia_, III. iii. 4, for the strange use
made of it in India) and the _Flos Sanctorum_ were taken out, and it
is improbable that they were brought back when every square inch was
required for pepper. Thousands of precious volumes must have gone down
in shipwrecks, others--profane books and _autos_--were thrown overboard
at the bidding of the priests. For the fate of a case of Hebrew Bibles
(_briuias_) see Corrêa, _Lendas da India_, i. 656-7. _Amadis de Gaula_
was apparently in India in 1519 (Lopez de Castanheda, v. 16). A most
interesting list of books ready to be sent to the Negus of Abyssinia in
1515 is given in Sousa Viterbo’s _A Livraria Real_ (1901), p. 8.
[526] Unless Corrêa’s description (_Lendas_, iv. 288-9) is earlier.
Other events recorded by Corrêa which must have closely affected Orta
are the fate of a bachelor of medicine strangled and burnt by the
Inquisition at Goa in 1543 (iv. 292) and the outbreak of small-pox,
from which 8,000 children died there in three months in 1545 (iv. 447).
The _Dialogo da perfeyçam & partes que sam necessarias ao bom medico_
(1562), with the exception of the dedicatory letter to King Sebastian
and the title, is written in Spanish (25 ff.). Apparently AFONSO DE
MIRANDA found it in Latin among the books of his son Jeronimo (who had
studied at Coimbra and Salamanca) and translated it.
[527] _Composto_, he says (_Coloquios_, i. 5). Dimas Bosque (ib. i. 11)
says _começado_.
[528] Thus he contributed to the fact, which he notices in the _Tratado