Portuguese literature
da carta de marear_, that the Portuguese sea enterprises were based
on careful preparation. The _nonius_ was perfected in the following
century by Vernier.
[529] _Tratado da Sphera_, Preface.
[530] This volume contains also two brief treatises by Nunez in
Portuguese: _Tratado ... sobre certas duuidas da nauegação_, answering
certain questions put to him by Martim Afonso de Sousa, and _Tratado
... em defensam da carta de marear_, addressed to the Infante Luis.
The _De Sphaera_ of Joannes de Sacro Bosco was printed with a preface
by Philip Melanchthon in 1538. Arraez, in his _Dialogos_, 1604 ed., f.
56, says: _sei algo da Sphera porque quando Pero Nunez a lia a certos
homens principais eu me achava presente_.
[531] He himself says that he was born in the excellent city of Lisbon
(_Esmeraldo_, iv. 6), and he was one of the captains sent out by João
II to continue the discovery of the West Coast of Africa. In 1520-2 he
was Governor of the fortress of S. Jorge da Mina, but his last years
were spent in poverty.
[532] Other works of a similar nature, _livros das rotas_ or
_derrotas_, are printed in _Libro de Marinharia_. _Tratado da Aguia de
Marear_ [1514] _de João de Lisboa_ [†1526]. _Copiado e coordenado por
J. I. Brito Rebello_, 1903. Cf. also G. Pereira, _Roteiros Portuguezes
da viagem de Lisboa á India nos seculos xvi e xvii_, 1898; H. Lopes
de Mendonça, _Estudos sobre navios portuguezes nos seculos xv e xvi_,
1892, and _O Padre Fernando Oliveira e a sua obra nautica_, 1898 (pp.
147-221 contain _O Liuro da fabrica das naos_, of which, says the
preface, _ninguem escreveo ateegora_); and Sousa Viterbo, _Trabalhos
nauticos dos portuguezes nos seculos xvi e xvii_ (_Historia e Memorias
da Ac. das Sciencias_, tom. vii (1898), _mem._ 3; tom. viii (1900),
_mem._ 1). Diogo de Sá’s _De Navigatione_ was published in Paris in
1549; the _Arte Practica de Navegar_ (1699) by the _Cosmographo Môr_
Manuel Pimentel (1650-1719) appeared a century and a half later and had
several editions in the eighteenth century.
[533] Fr. Antonio de San Roman, _Historia General de la India
Oriental_, Valladolid, 1603.
[534] _De Rebvs Emmanvelis_ (1571), p. 380: _Non erat alienus a
literis, & cum otium erat lectione sacrarum praecipue literarum
oblectabatur._
[535] Pt. 1, 1572 ed., f. 224: _não feyto por mão do nosso Olãda nẽ do
vosso Michaël Angelo mas por meu bayxo ingenho_.
[536] Or Gonçalo Fernandez of Trancoso (Beira). His name has no
connexion with the phrase _contar historias a trancos_ (_de coq à
l’âne_).
[537] Preface addressed to the Queen in Pt. 1. His object was _prender
a imaginação em ferros_.
[538] Timoneda’s _El Patrañuelo_ appeared in the following year.
[539] See, however, Dr. Agostinho de Campos’ selections (1921).
[540] _O que aprendi, ouui ou li_ (1624 ed.); _o que aprendi, vi ou li_
(1734 ed.).
[541] See Menéndez y Pelayo, _Orígenes de la Novela_, tom. ii (1907),
p. lxxxvii et seq.
[542] The alternation of the indigenous and the exotic may be seen in
the spelling of the same name as Piro (= Pero, Pedro, Peter) and Pyrrho
(Pyrrhus) in iii. 8.
[543] _Ropica Pnefma_, 1869 ed., p. 2.
[544] _Dialogos_, 1604 ed., f. 157. A third edition of _Clarimundo_
(1601) had appeared before the second edition of the _Dialogos_.
[545] _Corte na Aldea_ (1619), _Dialogo_ 1 (1722 ed., p. 5).
[546] Moraes, _Dialogo_ 1 (1852 ed., p. 11).
[547] Barbosa Machado seems to have considered him much under seventy
at the time of his death in 1572.
[548] The tradition, mentioned by Cervantes, that it was written by
a learned and witty king of Portugal is clearly traceable to that
other tradition that King João III as Infante had been joint-author of
_Clarimundo_.
[549] Mount Brandon, Smerwick (and The Three Sisters) of the ‘pleasant’
but ‘densely wooded’ coast of Kerry, are Greek to the Spanish
translator and become San Cebrian (Cyprian) and San Maurique.
[550] The title continues: _que tinha com hũa dama francesa da raynha
dona Leanor per nome Torsi, sendo Portugues, pela quai fez a historia
das damas francesas no seu Palmeirim_.
[551] It is scarcely possible that the author (Francisco Vazquez?)
considered that Burgos, as his birthplace--his mother--had a part in
the work.
[552] From being merely the legend above, the mounted knight on the
title-page _Dom Duardos de Bretanha_ became the title of the book.
§ 7.
_Religious and Mystic Writers_
Amador Arraez in one of his dialogues defines mysticism thus: ‘There
is a theology called mystic, as being hidden and unintelligible to
those who have no part in it. It is attained by much love and few books
and with much meditation and purity of heart, which alone suffices
for its exercise, and consists mainly in the noblest part of our will
inflamed in the love of God, its full and perfect good.’[553] ‘Our
will inflamed’: perhaps these words explain the excellence of the
style, the intensity and directness, of the writers in this mystic
theology. Style, so shy and elusive to Flaubert and his disciples,
came unsought to the religious writers of the sixteenth century,
because they wrote not with an eye on verbal artifices but out of the
fullness of the heart, ‘self-gathered for an outbreak’; and their
works can still be read with pleasure by priest and pagan. Mysticism,
inherent in the character of the Portuguese, runs through a great
part of their literature; we find it, for instance, in the merry
poetry of Gil Vicente or in the precious accents of Soror Violante do
Ceo. Strength of character, aloofness, rapt enthusiasm, singleness
of purpose: these are the qualities of mysticism at its best, and if
it also manifests itself in vagueness and confusion, this was not
so with the great mystic and religious writers of the golden age of
Portuguese literature. To them mysticism was not a cloudy goodness or
an abstract perception-dulling humanity, not a mist but a pillar of
fire, in the light of which the facts and details of reality stood out
the more clearly. But if the intensity of many of the mystics has its
natural complement in the fervour and directness of their prose, this
was not always the case, and it was not only in profane works that the
Portuguese language fell into the pitfalls of _culteranismo_. All the
more remarkable is the purity, the exquisite taste, the simplicity
and charm of some of the later, seventeenth century, prose. The secret
of this prose lay in fact in _culteranismo_ itself, the points and
conceits of which were based on a recognition of the value of words.
All the _seiscentistas_ set to playing with words as with unset stones
of price. The more critical or inspired writers joined in the game but
selected the genuine stones, leaving the rest to those who did not care
to distinguish between gems and coloured glass.
A faint vein of mysticism is to be found in the work of FREI HEITOR
PINTO (_c._ 1528-1584?), who was born at the high-lying little town
of Covilhan and professed in the famous Convento dos Jeronimos at
Belem in 1543. After taking the degree of Doctor of Theology at
Siguenza he in 1567 competed for a Chair at Salamanca University, but
came into collision with Fray Luis de Leon, and in a bitter contest
between the Hieronymite and Augustinian Orders Pinto was defeated. He
returned to Portugal, became Professor of the new Chair of Scripture
at Coimbra University in 1576, Rector of the University and Provincial
of his Order.[554] After the death of the Cardinal-King he appears
vehemently to have espoused the cause of the Prior of Crato. King
Philip accordingly invited Pinto to accompany him to Spain--he was
one of the fifty excluded from the amnesty of 1581--and scandal added
that the king had him poisoned there in 1584. Pinto was an eminent
divine, a man of wide learning, a master of Portuguese prose, and he
appears to have inspired his pupils with affection; but King Philip
could scarcely have considered him worth poisoning, especially when
removed from his sphere of influence. No doubt he went to Spain with
extreme reluctance--on other occasions of his busy life when the
affairs of his Order drove him to France and Italy he had sighed in
tears (in spite of his interest in travel, his love of Nature, and
especially his antiquarian curiosity[555]) for his quiet cell at Belem,
‘where he had lived many years in great content’. Perhaps too he had
not forgotten his defeat at Salamanca. ‘King Philip’, he now said
sturdily, ‘may put me into Castille but never Castille into me.’ Pinto
wrote commentaries on various books of the Old Testament, which were
published in Latin, but his principal work consists in the dialogues,
_a maneira dos de Platão_, of his _Imagem da Vida Christam_ (1563),
followed by the _Segunda Parte dos Dialogos_ (1572). The first part has
six dialogues, the subjects being true philosophy, religion, justice,
tribulation, the solitary life,[556] and remembrance of death. The five
of the second part treat of tranquillity of life, discreet ignorance,
true friendship, causes,[557] and true and spurious possessions. It
is impossible to read a page of these dialogues and not be struck by
the extraordinary fascination of their style. It is concise and direct
without ever losing its harmony. Perhaps its best testimonial is
that its magic survives the innumerable quotations, although one may
regret that the work was not written, like the _Trabalhos de Jesus_,
in a dungeon instead of in a well-stocked library.[558] Apart from
the proof it affords of the exceptional capacity of the Portuguese
language for combining softness and vigour, the work contains much
ingenious thought, charming descriptions, and elaborate similes. Some
twenty editions in various languages before the end of the century
show how keenly it was appreciated. It was certainly not without
influence on the _Dialogos_ (1589) of the energetic and austere Bishop
of Portalegre, AMADOR ARRAEZ (_c._ 1530-1600), who spent his boyhood at
Beja and professed as a Carmelite at Lisbon a year after Frei Thomé de
Jesus and two years after Frei Heitor Pinto had professed in the same
city. Like the former he studied theology at Coimbra.[559] Cardinal
Henrique, when Archbishop of Evora, chose Arraez to be his suffragan,
and in 1578 appointed him to the see of Tripoli. Three years later he
was made Bishop of Portalegre by Philip II. He resigned in 1596, and
spent the last four years of his life in retirement, in the college
of his Order at Coimbra. A few weeks before his death he wrote the
prefatory letter for the revised edition of his great work.[560] It
consists of ten long dialogues between the sick and dying Antiocho
and doctor, priest, lawyer, or friends. The longest, over a quarter
of the whole, is a mystic life of the Virgin, and of the others some
are purely religious, as _Da Paciencia e Fortaleza Christam_, some
historical or political (_Da Gloria e Triunfo dos Lusitanos_; _Das
Condições e Partes do Bom Principe_). That on the Jews (_Da Gente
Judaica_) is marred by a spirit of bitter intolerance; on the other
hand there is an outspoken protest against slavery. The whole of this
interesting miscellany, which incidentally discusses a very large
number of subjects,[561] is tinged with mystic philosophy, and at the
same time shows a keen sense of reality. In style as in degree of
mysticism it stands midway between Pinto’s _Imagem_ and the _Trabalhos
de Jesus_. It is evident that its composition, although less artificial
than that of the _Imagem_, has been the subject of much care, and the
author declares in his preface that while adopting a ‘common, ordinary
style’, to the exclusion of forced tricks and elegances, he has striven
after clearness and harmony (the two postulates of his contemporary,