Portuguese literature
yet through his books this modest, humorous, austere priest has
exercised a profound influence not only, as Barbosa Machado declares,
in guiding souls to Heaven, but in moulding and protecting the
Portuguese language. His style is marked in an equal degree by grace
and concision, intensity and restraint, smoothness and vigour.[580]
With him the florid cloak, in which many recent writers had wrapped
Portuguese, falls away, leaving the pith and kernel of the language;
the conceits of the _culteranos_ disappear, and the most striking
effects are attained without apparent artifice. In his hands the
pinchbeck and tinsel are transmuted into delicate pieces of ivory. The
charm of his style is difficult to analyse, but it may be remarked that
his vocabulary is inexhaustible, his precision unfailing, that he is
not afraid to employ the commonest words, and that the construction of
his sentences is of a transparent simplicity, as bare of rhetoric as
is the poetry of João de Deus. His reputation as a lord of language
has survived every test. His works are not merely the _deliciae_ of a
few distant scholars but an acknowledged glory of the nation, praised
by that literary iconoclast Macedo, and quoted as an authority in
the Republican Parliament of 1915. The most popular of his works are
_Luz e Calor_, and especially the _Nova Floresta_, in which moral and
familiar anecdote go quaintly hand in hand, but if one must choose
between excellence and excellence his masterpiece is the _Exercicios
Espirituaes_, in which thought and expression often rise to sublime
heights. One may perhaps compare him with Fray Juan de los Ángeles
(†1609). His simple doctrines spring from the heart and, winged by
shrewd knowledge of men, touch the heart of his readers. One of his
more immediate followers was Padre MANUEL CONSCIENCIA (_c._ 1669-1739),
author of a large number of works on moral and religious subjects, the
best known of which is _A Mocidade enganada e desenganada_ (6 vols.,
1729-38).
FOOTNOTES:
[553] _Dial._ x. 4.
[554] The dates given by Barbosa Machado are Rector 1565, Provincial
1571.
[555] He introduces himself as a theologian in his dialogues, and one
may infer several facts concerning his life, e. g. that he had been
in Rome (_Imagem_, Pt. 2, 1593 ed., f. 351 v.), Montserrat (f. 88),
Marseilles (f. 88), Savoy (f. 295), Madrid (f. 190), that he kept a
diary (f. 190), that he was _curioso de antigualhas_ (f. 352).
[556] Macedo, quoted by Innocencio da Silva (iii. 176), alleged this
to be a ‘faithful translation’ from Petrarca. Why Petrarca (1304-74)
should praise Belem Convent and Coimbra University, refer to the recent
death (1557) of King João III, or speak of ‘our’ Francisco de Hollanda
we are not told. Pinto in a later dialogue, _Da Tranquillidade da
Vida_, refers to Petrarca’s _Vita Solitaria_ (Pt. 2, 1593 ed., f. 47
v.).
[557] Since 1590 is implied as the date of this dialogue on f. 290
of the 1593 edition it must be emphasized that the _Segunda Parte_
appeared originally in 1572.
[558] Pt. 2, 1593 ed., f. 366 v.: _eu revolvo os livros ... com grandes
trabalhos & vigilias_.
[559] Cf. _Dialogos_, 1604 ed., f. 346: _Coimbra, onde gastei a flor de
minha adolescencia._ (This edition really has but 344 ff. since f. 29
follows f. 22.)
[560] _Dialogos de Dom Frey Amador Arraiz_, Coimbra, 1604. The idea of
the work belonged to his brother, Jeronimo Arraez, who did not live to
complete what he had begun.
[561] The same variety occurs in _Poderes de Amor em geral e horas
de conversaçam particular_ (1657), by Frei Cristovam Godinho (_c._
1600-71) of Evora.
[562] He wrote the life of the prior, Frei Luis de Montoia, whose _Vida
de Christo_ he completed.
[563] _Tendo elle sua mãi e irmãos muito ricos e a Condessa de Linhares
sua irmãa, todos offerecidos a pagar o grosso resgate que os Mouros
pediam, por saberem a qualidade de sua pessoa_ (_Cronica do Cardeal Rei
D. Henrique_, p. 38).
[564] See his prefatory letter in the _Trabalhos_. Cf. Antonio, _Bib.
Nova_, ii. 307. Barbosa Machado speaks of _hũa horrivel masmorra_.
[565] Cf. p. 39 (1666 ed.): _Ó, ó, ó amor; ó, ó, ó amor, cale a lingua
e o entendimento, dilatai-vos vos por toda esta alma_, &c.; or p.
54: _Ah, ah, ah bondade; ah, ah amor sem lei, sem regra, sem medida,
adoro-te, louvo-te, desejo-te, por ti suspiro._
[566] He also wrote _Oratorio sacra de soliloquios do amor divino_
(1628) and various works in Latin. Manuel Godinho refers to his
_Estimulo das Missões_ (_Relação_, 1842 ed., p. 47).
[567] C. Castello Branco, _Estrellas propicias_, 2ᵃ ed., p. 204.
Its only fault, artistically, is the detailed description of the
commemoration festivities, which come as an anticlimax.
[568] Other works of the period are similarly read rather for their
style than as history, as the _Historia Ecclesiastica da Igreja de
Lisboa_ (1642) and the _Historia Ecclesiastica dos Arcebispos de Braga_
(2 pts., 1634, 1635) by D. RODRIGO DA CUNHA (1577-1643), the Archbishop
of Lisbon who had an active share in the liberation of Portugal from
the yoke of Spain in 1640.
[569] Another renowned Court preacher was D. ANTONIO PINHEIRO (†1582?),
Bishop of Miranda, whose works were collected by Sousa Farinha:
_Collecção das obras portuguesas do sabio Bispo de Miranda e de
Leiria_, 2 vols., 1785, 6.
[570] e. g. _officio e dignidade, gritos e brados, boca e lingoa,
cuidão e imaginão_. Macedo (_O Couto_, p. 82) rightly calls Ceita _um
dos principaes textos em lingua portugueza_.
[571] Other noted preachers were the Jesuits FRANCISCO DO AMARAL
(1593-1647), who published the first (and only) volume of his _Sermões_
(1641) in the year in which Vieira came to Portugal, and FRANCISCO
DE MENDONÇA (1573-1626), a master of clear and vigorous prose in his
two volumes of _Sermões_ (1636, 9); and the Trinitarian BALTASAR PAEZ
(1570-1638), whose _Sermões de Quaresma_ (2 pts., 1631, 3), _Sermões
da Semana Santa_ (1630), _Marial de Sermões_ (1649), may still be read
with profit.
[572] _Ha poucos annos que he arribado_ (the Inquisition in Portugal),
Pt. 3, 1908 ed., f. xxxii.
[573] See p. 5 of _Prologo_: Portuguese is _a lingoa que mamei_, but
his _passados_ are from Castile.
[574] The inhabitants of the Peninsula are _astutos e maliciosos_,
Spain is ‘a hypocritical and cruel wolf’, the Portuguese are _fortes e
quasi barbaros_, the English _maliciosos_, the Italians, since the book
was to appear in their country, merely ‘warlike and ungrateful’.
[575] If, for instance, the bracketed words in the following
sentence (p. 3, § 5) be omitted it gains in vigour and loses little
in the sense: _Este poder se não deo aos Reys para extorsoens_ [_&
violencias_] _mas para amparar_ [_& defender_] _os vassallos porque até
o propria Deos parece que tem as mãos atadas a rigores_ [_& castigos_]
_& livres a clemencias_ [_& misericordias_].
[576] He had been fortunate, for, says Antonio Vieira in 1640, _não ha
guerra no mundo onde se morra tão frequentemente como na do Brazil_.
[577] e. g. in the following passage (p. 47), in which Calderon and
João de Deus join hands: ‘The world and its glory is a passing comedy,
a farce that ends in laughter, a shadow that disappears, a thinning
mist, a fading flower, a blinding smoke, a dream that is not true.’
[578] _Estimulos de amor divino_ (1758) is an extract from this, as the
_Tratado breve da oraçam mental_ (5th ed., 1757) is extracted from the
_Exercicios Espirituaes_.
[579] Pt. 2 appeared in 1733.
[580] He often deliberately links a soft and a hard word, as _caça e
cão_, _candores da celestial graça_, _licita a guerra_. Thus his style
becomes _crespo sem aspereza_.
IV
1580-1706
_The Seiscentistas_
Philip II entered his new capital under triumphal arches on June 29,
1581, and the subjection of Portugal to Spain during the next sixty
years in part accounts for the fact that nowhere was the decadence of
literature in the seventeenth century more marked than at Lisbon. For
Spain in her sturdy independence and reaction from rigid classicism
had led the way in those precious affectations which invaded the
literatures of Europe, and the universal malady, gongorism with its
Lylyan conceits and cultured style, now found a ready welcome in
Portugal. The literary style which corresponded to the Churriguerresque
in architecture naturally proved congenial to the land of the _estilo
manuelino_. King Philip was glad to conciliate and provide for
Portuguese men of letters,[581] but if in the preceding centuries
many of them wrote in Spanish, that tendency was now necessarily
strengthened. Another cause of decadence was no doubt the Inquisition,
although its influence in this respect has been greatly exaggerated. It
required no immense tact on the part of an author to prevent his works
from being placed on the Index. An examination, for instance, of the
differences between the 1616 edition of _Eufrosina_ and the condemned
1561 edition shows that the parts excised were chiefly coarse passages
or unsuitable references to the Bible (this was also the charge against
the letters of Clenardus). That remarkable mathematician, Pedro Nunez,
pays a tribute to the enlightened patronage of letters by Cardinal
Henrique, the most ardent promoter of the Inquisition in Portugal:
_qui cum nullum_ _tempus intermittat quin semper aut animarum saluti
prospiciat aut optimos quosque auctores evolvat aut literatorum hominum
colloquia audiat_.[582]
No literary figure in Portugal of the seventeenth century, few in the
Peninsula,[583] can rank with D. FRANCISCO MANUEL DE MELLO (1608-66).
Born at Lisbon,[584] he belonged to the highest Portuguese nobility
and began both his military and literary career in his seventeenth
year. He wrote in Spanish, although, in verse at least, he felt it to
be a hindrance,[585] and it was not till he was over forty that he
published a work in Portuguese: _Carta de Guia de Casados_ (1651).[586]
Few men have accomplished more, and towards the end of his life he
could say with pride that it would be difficult to find an idle hour
in it. He was shipwrecked near St. Jean de Luz in 1627 and fought
in the battle of the Downs in 1639. He was sent with the Conde de
Linhares to quell the Evora insurrection in 1637, and took part in
the campaign against revolted Catalonia (1640), which he described in
his _Guerra de Cataluña_[587] (1645), written _em varias fortunas_
and recognized as a classic of Spanish literature. A man frankly
outspoken like Mello must have made many enemies, enemies dangerous
in a time of natural distrust. During the Catalan campaign he was
sent under arrest to Madrid, apparently on suspicion of favouring the
cause of an independent Portugal,[588] and a little later, when he
was in the service of the King of Portugal, the suspicion as to his
loyalty recurred. On November 19, 1644, he was arrested at Lisbon on a
different charge. It appears that a servant dismissed by Mello revenged
himself by implicating his former master in a murder that he had
committed (of a man as obscure as himself). Whether he did this of his
own initiative or at the bidding of Mello’s enemies is uncertain, but
they saw to it that Mello once in prison should not be soon released.
They might, probably did, assure the king that this was the best place
for one ‘devoted to the cause of Castile’. There are other theories to
account for Mello’s long imprisonment, the most romantic of which--that
he and the king were rivals in the affections of the Condessa de Villa
Nova, and, meeting disguised and by accident at the entrance of her
house, drew their swords, the king recognizing Mello by his voice--is