Portuguese literature
release him.
A great part of the popular literature has been set down in cold
print during the last half-century. Much remains ungarnered. In every
province there are peculiar words, phrases, traditions, heirlooms of
times prehistoric, waiting to be gathered in, and both the Portuguese
literature and the Portuguese language of the future will owe a debt of
gratitude to their collectors, and find rich material in the pages of
the _Revista Lusitana_.
FOOTNOTES:
[700] The whole Bible in Portuguese was not translated until the
eighteenth century, by JOÃO FERREIRA DE ALMEIDA, _O Novo Testamento_
(Amsterdam, 1681), _Do Velho Testamento_, 2 vols. (Batavia, 1748,
53). This is the version still commonly in use. Another translation,
entitled _Biblia Sagrada_, was made from the Vulgate at the end of the
eighteenth century by ANTONIO PEREIRA DE FIGUEIREDO (1725-97), author
of some fifty theological and historical works in Latin and Portuguese,
and a paraphrase (_Historia Evangelica_, 1777, 78, _Historia Biblica_,
1778-82) by Frei FRANCISCO DE JESUS MARIA SARMENTO (1713-90). See C.
Michaëlis de Vasconcellos et S. Berger, _Les Bibles Portugaises_ in
_Romania_, xxviii (1899), pp. 543-8: _La littérature portugaise est
en matière de traductions bibliques d’une pauvreté désespérante._
The _Parocho Perfeito_ (1675) speaks of _os parochos que não tiverem
Biblias_ (p. 19). See also G. L. Santos Ferreira, _A Biblia em
Portugal, 1495-1850_ (L. 1906).
[701] See _Floire et Blancheflor. Poèmes du xiiiᵉ siècle. Publiés
d’après les manuscrits ... par E. du Méril_, Paris, 1856. In the
original story Flores in a basket of roses enters the tower where
Brancaflor is imprisoned. Señor Bonilla y San Martín (_La Historia de
los dos Enamorados Flores y Blancaflor_, Madrid, 1916) attributes an
Italian origin to the Spanish prose story. The Spanish translation
probably dates from the fifteenth century.
[702] For its popularity with the Provençal troubadours see Raynouard,
_Choix_, e. g. ii. 297, 304, 305.
[703] _A historia de Branca Fror Outra saca a relocer_ (_Chorimas_
(1890), p. 148).
[704] It has been reproduced, from an earlier edition, in T. Braga, _Os
Livros Populares Portuguezes_ (_Era Nova_, vol. i, 1881).
[705] At either side explanatory verses, the only verse in the leaflet,
tell us that ‘Magalona was the most beautiful of all contemporary
princesses, beloved daughter of the King of Naples, and her heart full
of goodness. She was a model of virtues, of pure beliefs and a loving
heart, married with Pierres, Pedro of Provence, a noble knight and
virtuous man.’
[706] One of the Elvas Chapter was _homem versado Na lição de Florinda
e Carlo Magno_.
[707] This charm hangs over many anonymous lyrics of popular
inspiration, as the _Trovas da Menina Fermosa_, seventeenth or
eighteenth century variations of a sixteenth century song: _Menina
fermosa Dizei do que vem Que sejais irosa A quem vos quer bem; Porque
se concerta Rosto e condiçam Dais por galardam A pena mui certa. Sendo
tam fermosa Dizei_, &c. Even less genuinely popular are the _Trovas
do Moleiro_ (1602), written by an obscure native of Tangier, Luis
Brochado, and others.
[708] Luis de Sousa, _Vida_, 1763 ed., i. 462.
[709] e. g. _Em Belem vila do amor_ (i. 183).
[710] e. g. _Que no quiero estar en casa_ (i. 73) (which is _como laa
cantaes co’ gado_, essentially a peasant’s song).
[711] The _leixapren_ occurs in most of the songs accompanied by
dance in Gil Vicente: e. g. _Quem é a desposada_ (_chacota_, i. 147),
_Pardeus bem andou Castella_ (_em folia_) (ii. 389), _Ja não quer
minha senhora_ (ii. 439, _Esta cantiga cantarão e bailarão de terreiro
os foliões_). _Não me firaes madre_ (ii. 440, _em chacota_), _Mor
Gonçalves_ (ii. 509, _bailão ao som desta cantiga_), _Por Mayo era, por
Mayo_ (ii. 525, _a vozes bailarão e cantarão a cantiga seguinte_: i. e.
a _romance_ with _leixapren_ and refrain). They are thus a combination
of glee and dance.
[712] Gil Vicente, _Obras_ (ii. 448).
[713] _Não nas quero ver cantar_ (Gil Vicente) is, however, probably
a misprint, for which D. Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcellos suggests
_quer’ eu_.
[714] Cf. J. Leite de Vasconcellos, _Ensaios Ethnographicos_, ii. 264:
_O povo (principalmente as mulheres) canta-as_ [_cantigas soltas_] _em
qualquer occasião_.
[715]
_Já os campos reverdecem, Já o alecrim tem flor,
Já cantam os passarinhos A resurreição do Senhor._
(Now to the fields returns the green and the rosemary’s in flower, and
the little birds are singing the Lord’s Resurrection hour).
[716]
_Ó triste da minha vida, Ó triste da vida minha,
Quem me dera ir contigo Onde tu vaes, andorinha._
(O how sad my life is, O how sad my plight!
Would I might go with thee, swallow, in thy flight!)
recalls the French _Si j’étais hirondelle Que je pusse voler, Sur votre
sein, ma belle, J’irais me reposer_ (A swallow I Would be to fly And
take my rest Upon thy breast).
[717] All green things in summer Their freshness lose: Only my heart
Its love renews.
[718] When the light of the fire is dead The ashes its heat retain:
When love is over and fled In the heart abides the pain.
[719] To the three kings was given A star in heaven for sign: And thy
eyes have guided My heart unto thine.
[720] Reprinted in his article in _Romania_, vol. vi, and by Dr. Braga.
_Aygua_ in the second line is probably a corruption from _alua_ (dawn)
to _agua_ (water).
[721] Fernam Rodriguez Lobo Soropita, speaking of the _noites
privilegiadas_--the eves of New Year and Epiphany--refers to
_os villões ruins que essas noutes vos perseguem_ and to their
_pandeirinhos, musica de agua-pé que toda a noute vos zune nos ouvidos
como bizouro, e sobre tudo isto haveis de lhe offertar os vossos quatro
vintens, e quando lh’os entregais a candeia vos descobre o feitio dos
ditos musicos: um mocho com sombreiro com mais chocas que um corredor
de folhas_. They thus resembled Christmas ‘waits’.
[722] The Spanish translator of _Eufrosina_ apparently derived this
name from musical notes (= a sung _romance_), since he translates _un
romance de sol la_, _Eufr._ i. 3; iii. 2 (_Oríg. de la Novela_, iii.
77 and 110), but even he would not derive it from the _selah_ of the
Psalms (T. Braga, _Hist. da Litt. Port._ i (1914), p. 205). In the
Spanish _solao_ in _Obras de Dom Manoel de Portugal_ (1605), Bk. XII,
pp. 282-7, each singer takes three lines, of which the last two rhyme
together.
[723] Formerly _verbos_ (e.g. in the _Canc. da Vat._) and _exemplos_
(_enxempros_).
[724] The word _rifão_ does not now mean the refrain or burden
(_estribilho_) of a song but proverb, like the Spanish _refrán_.
[725] There is another proverb _Mentras a pedra vae e vem Deus dará de
seu bem_ (While the [mill?] stone doth come and go God his blessing
shall bestow).
§ 2
_The Galician Revival_
For over four hundred years--with the exception of a few poems by
Padres José Sanchez Feijoo and Martín Sarmiento[726] in the eighteenth
century--the Galician language held aloof from literature. It was
peculiarly fitting that at a time when Portugal was recovering for
her own literature the early Galician lyrics, which are now one of its
most precious possessions, a new company of poets should have sprung
up in the region now, as of old, _fertil de poetas_[727]--Galicia.
They were no doubt multiplied and encouraged by the discovery of the
_Cancioneiros_, but began independently of these, in the wake of that
regionalism which manifested itself so vigorously in the second half
of the nineteenth century, for instance in Provence, Catalonia, and
Valencia. Besides their general character--the mingling of irony and
sentimental melancholy--and a few conscious imitations, the new poets
and the ancient _Cancioneiros_ present several striking similarities.
It is now some three-quarters of a century since regionalism in Galicia
assumed its first literary pretensions. In 1861 the poets had become
sufficiently numerous and distinguished to warrant the holding of
_Juegos Florales_ (_xogos froraes_) at La Coruña. JUAN MANUEL PINTOS
(1811-76) had published eight years earlier a small volume of verses,
_A Gaita Gallega_ (Pontevedra, 1853), and FRANCISCO AÑON (1817-78) had
contributed poems to various local newspapers. Añon led the life of
a wandering _jogral_ of old, and his occasional verses soon won him
popularity, so that he came to be regarded as the father of modern
Galician poetry. He could express his love for his native province in
the tender and melancholy stanzas (_abbcdeec_) _A Galicia_, and in his
other poems, at once ingenuous and satirical; he is also thoroughly
Galician and foreshadowed the poetry that was to follow. A leaflet
of his verses appeared in the year after his death, _Poesías_ (Noya,
1879), and a more satisfactory collection ten years later: _Poesías
Castellanas y Gallegas_ (1889). JOSÉ MARÍA POSADA Y PEREIRA (1817-86),
born at Vigo, the son of a Vigo advocate, published his first volume
of verses in 1865 and others were collected in _Poesías Selectas_
(1888). The second part of this collection (pp. 111-250) is written
in Spanish, but the Galician poems include a series of letters in
octosyllabic verse, the wistful humour of which is attractive. Born in
the same year as Añon, he survived Rosalía de Castro, twenty years his
junior. He survived in disillusion, for he had been one of the pioneers
and now felt himself neglected in the changed conditions. When the
first floral games were celebrated the most talented of these early
poets, ALBERTO CAMINO (1821-61), had but a few months to live. Another
generation passed before his poems were published: _Poesías Gallegas_
(1896). Camino was not a prolific writer, and this tiny book contains
but twelve of his poems; but there is not one of them that we would
willingly miss, whether he is giving harmonious form to a poignant
theme, as in _Nai Chorosa_ and _O Desconsolo_, or in lighter verses
describing with a contagious glow and spirit some scene of village
merriment, as in _A Foliada de San Joan_ or _Repique_.
Galician patriots, indignant at the neglect or contempt habitually
meted out to their region, might persevere in their belief that the
language which had produced the _cantigas_ of King Alfonso X, the
Portuguese _Cancioneiros_, and the poems of Macías was capable of
revival as an instrument of poetry; but it was for the most part by
scattered poems, manuscript or printed in periodicals (especially the
Coruña paper _Galicia_, 1860-6), that they justified their faith,
until in 1863 appeared _Cantares Gallegos_ by ROSALÍA DE CASTRO[728]
(1837-85). The authoress, born at Santiago, was but twenty-six when
this collection of poems gave her a wider celebrity than has been
granted to any Galician writer since Macías. Emilio Castelar wrote a
preface for her second volume, _Follas Novas_ (1880), and hailed her
as ‘a star of the first order’. Indeed, so great was her fame as a
Galician singer that until recently it obscured her Spanish poems,
_En las orillas del Sar_ (1884). It was an unsought fame. Rosalía de
Castro wrote much more than she published and destroyed much that
was worth publishing. She sank herself in Galicia; her voice is that
of the Galician _gaita_ in all its varying moods. In her preface to
_Cantares Gallegos_ she wrote: ‘I have taken much care to reproduce
the true spirit of our people.’ That she succeeded in this all critics
are agreed. A favourite method in the _Cantares Gallegos_ is to take a
popular quatrain and develop it at some length, as, for instance, in
the beautiful variations on the lines _Airiños_, _airiños_, _aires_,
_Airiños_ _da miña terra_, _Airiños_, _airiños_, _aires_, _Airiños_,