Portuguese literature
love (cf. C. V. 353 and C. V. 988) and as to whether a poem was a
_cantar novo_ or an article at second hand (C. V. 819). Yet the
poets evidently had talent and poetic feeling; indeed, their skill
in versification contrasts remarkably with their entire absence of
thought or individuality. They appear to revel in monotony of ideas
and pride themselves on the icy smoothness of their verse. All their
originality consisted in the introduction of technical devices, such as
the repetition at intervals of certain words (_dobre_), or of different
tenses of the same verb (_mordobre_, as C. V. 681), to carry on the
poem without stop from beginning to end by means of ‘for’, ‘but’, &c.,
at the beginning of each verse (_cantigas de atafiinda_,[84] as C.
V. 130, C. A. 205), to begin and end each verse with the same line
(_canção redonda_, as C. V. 685), to repeat the last line of one verse
as the first line of the next (_leixapren_), to use the same word at
the end of each line (as _vi_ in C. A. 7). The poet who addressed
_cantigas de amor_ to his lady also provided her with poems for her
to sing, _cantigas de amigo_ in complicated form, or as the simpler
_cossante_, which the _cantigas de amigo_ include. These are poems with
more life and action, often in dialogue. Perhaps the _dona_ herself,
wearied by the monotonous _cantigas de amor_, had pointed to the songs
of the peasant women, and the form of these _cantigas de amigo_ was a
compromise between the Provençal _cantiga de meestria_ and the popular
_cantiga de refran_. The peasant woman composed her own songs, and
the poet places his song on the lips of his love: thus we find her
describing herself as beautiful, _eu velida_; _eu fremosa_; _trist’ e
fremosa_; _fremosa e de mui bon prez_; _o meu bon semelhar_. Poetical
shepherdesses sing these _cantigas de amigo_; the fair _dona_ sings
them as she sits spinning (C. V. 321). The old _Poetica_ (II. 2-12)
distinguishes between the _cantigas de amor_, in which the _amigo_
speaks first, and the _cantigas de amigo_, in which the first to speak
is the _amiga_. Both were artificial forms, but the latter are clearly
more popular in theme (the _amiga_ waiting and wailing for her lover),
and in treatment sometimes convey a real intensity of feeling.[85] The
favourite subject of the _cantiga de amigo_ is that the cruel mother
prevents the lovers from meeting. The daughter is kept in the house:
_a manda muito guardar_ (C. V. 535). She reproaches and entreats her
mother, who answers her as choir to choir; she bewails her lot to her
friends, or to her sister. She is dying of love and begs her mother to
tell her lover. Her mother and lover are reconciled. Her lover is false
and fails to meet her at the trysted hour. She waits for him in vain,
and her mother comforts her in her distress. She pines and dies of
love while her _amigo_ is away serving the king in battle or _en cas’
del rei_.
The third section of the _Cancioneiro da Vaticana_ does not sin by
monotony. We may divide Pope’s line, since if the _cantigas de amor_
are ‘correctly cold’ many of the satiric poems are ‘regularly low’.
In these verses, containing violent invective and abuse (_cantigas de
maldizer_) or more covert sarcasm and ridicule (_cantigas d’escarnho_),
the themes are often scandalous, the language ribald and unseemly. They
were written with great zest, although without the fiery indignation
of the Provençal and Catalan _sirventeses_. They are concerned with
persons: the haughty _trobador_ may take a _jogral_ to task for writing
verses that do not rhyme or scan, but even then it is a personal matter
and he rebukes his insolence for daring to raise his thoughts to _altas
donas_ in song. Some of these poems should never have been written or
printed, but many of them give a lively idea of the society of that
time. They laugh merrily or venomously at the poverty-stricken knight
with nothing to eat; at the knight who set his dogs on those who called
near dinner-time; the _jogral_ who knows as much of poetry as an ass of
reading; the poet who pretended to have gone as a pilgrim to the Holy
Land but never went beyond Montpellier; the physician (Mestre Nicolas)
whose books were more for show than for use (_E sab’ os cadernos ben
cantar quen[86] non sabe por elles leer_, C. V. 1116); the Galician
unjustifiably proud of his poetical talent (_non o sabia ben_, C. V.
914); the _jogral_ who gave up poetry--shaved off his beard and cut
his hair short about his ears--in order to take holy orders, in hope
of a fat living, but was disappointed; the _jogral_ who played badly
and sang worse; the poet who was the cause of good poetry in others;
the gentleman who spent most of his income on clothes and wore gilt
shoes winter and summer. We read of the excellent capon, kid, and pork
provided by the king for dinner; of the fair _malmaridada_, married or
rather sold by her parents; of the impoverished lady, one of those for
whom later Nun’ Alvarez provided; of the poet pining in exile not of
love but hunger; of the lame lawyer, the unjust judge; the _parvenu
villão_, the knighted tailor, the seers and diviners (_veedeiros_,
_agoreiros_, _divinhos_). These _cantigas d’escarnho e de maldizer_
were a powerful instrument of satire from which there was no escape. A
hapless _infançon_, slovenly in his ways, drew down upon himself the
wit of D. Lopo Diaz, who in a series of eleven songs (C. V. 945-55)
ridiculed him and his creaking saddle till at Christmas he was fain to
call a truce. But the implacable D. Lopo forthwith indited a new song:
‘I won’t deny that I agreed to a truce about the saddle, but--it didn’t
include the mare’,[87] and so no doubt continued till _pascoa florida_
or _la trinité_. But the majority of these verses are not so innocently
merry. Many of the poets of the _Cancioneiros_ wrote in all three
kinds: _cantigas de amor_, _de amigo_, and _de maldizer_. Of JOAN DE
GUILHADE[88] (fl. 1250) we have over fifty poems.[89] He imitated both
French and Provençal models, and, having learnt lightness of touch from
them, would appear to have contented himself with writing _cantigas
de amigo_ (besides _cantigas de amor_ and _escarnho_) without having
recourse to the _cossante_. There is life and poetical feeling as well
as facility of technique in his poems.
PERO GARCIA DE BURGOS (fl. 1250) is, with Joan de Guilhade, one of
the more voluminous writers of the _Cancioneiros_. He shows himself
capable of deep feeling in his love songs, but speaks with two voices,
descending to sad depths in his poems of invective. His contemporary,
the _segrel_ PERO DA PONTE, is also an accomplished poet of love, in
the even flow of his verse far more accomplished than Pero Garcia,
and in his satirical poems wittier and, as a rule, more moderate.
He placed his poetical gift at the service of kings to sing their
praises for hire, and celebrated San Fernando’s conquest of Seville
in 1248; Seville, of which, he says, ‘none can adequately tell the
praises’. To satire almost exclusively the powerful courtier of King
Dinis’ reign, STEVAM GUARDA, devoted his not inconsiderable talent,
and the _segrel_ PEDR’ AMIGO DE SEVILHA (fl. 1250) shone in the same
kind with a great variety of metre as well as in numerous _cantigas
de amigo_. MARTIN SOAREZ (first half 13th c.), born at Riba de Lima,
and considered the best _trobador_ of his time (by those who could not
appreciate the charm of the indigenous poetry), wrote no _cossante_ nor
_cantiga de amigo_, and in his satirical poems displayed a contemptuous
insolence--towards those whom he regarded as his inferiors in lineage
or talent--which places him in no attractive light. A notable poet
at the Courts of Spain and Portugal was JOAN AIRAS of Santiago de
Compostela (fl. 1250), of whom we have over twenty _cantigas de amor_
and fifty _cantigas de amigo_. Contemporary criticism apparently viewed
their quantity with disfavour,[90] for he complains that _Dizen que
meus cantares non valen ren porque tan muitos son_ (C. V. 533). But if
his poems lack the variety of those of King Dinis, which they almost
rival in number, they are nevertheless marked not only by harmony but
by many a touch of real life. Of most of the other singers we have far
fewer poems. Like Meendinho and Estevam Coelho, PERO VYVYÃES (first
half 13th c.) is known chiefly for a single song: his _bailada_ (C. V.
336). By D. JOAN SOAREZ COELHO (_c._ 1210-80) there are two _cossantes_
(C. V. 291, 292) and numerous other poems. He was prominent at the
Court of Afonso III (1248-79) and in the conquest of Algarve, as was
also D. JOAN DE ABOIM (_c._ 1215-87), whose poems are less numerous
but include a dozen _cantigas de amigo_ and a _pastorela_ (C. V. 278:
_Cavalgava noutro dia per hun caminho frances_), and FERNAN GARCIA
ESGARAVUNHA,[91] whose _cantigas de amor_ show characteristic life
and vigour, and a good command of metre. There is an engaging grace
and spirit in the _cantigas de amigo_ written in dancing rhythm by
FERNAN RODRIGUEZ DE CALHEIROS (fl. in or before 1250), who preceded
those soldier poets; deep feeling and melancholy in the _cantigas de
amor_ of D. JOAN LOPEZ DE ULHOA, their contemporary. Neither of these,
however, possessed the poetical genius and versatility of the priest
of Santiago, AIRAS NUNEZ (second half 13th c.)--the name appears in a
marginal note to one of King Alfonso’s _Cantigas de Santa Maria_ (C.
M. 223 in the manuscript j. b. 2)--whose poems show a perfect mastery
of rhythm and a true instinct for beauty. He wrote a _pastorela_ in
the manner of the _trouvères_, and combined it with some of the most
exquisite specimens of the indigenous poetry.[92] The fact that one
of these was by Joan Zorro makes it probable that Nunez’ celebrated
_bailada_ (C. V. 462) is but a development of Zorro’s (C. V. 761),
unless both drew from a common popular source. Another of his poems
(C. V. 468) reads like an anticipatory slice out of Juan Ruiz’ _Libro
de Buen Amor_. Great importance has been attached to another (C. V.
466) as a remnant of a _cantar de gesta_, but D. Carolina Michaëlis
de Vasconcellos has shown that it was written to commemorate a
contemporary event, probably in 1289.[93] More than any other poet of
the _Cancioneiros_, with the exception, perhaps, of King Dinis, Nunez
anticipated that _doce estylo_, the introduction of which cost Sá de
Miranda so many perplexities.
The _Cancioneiros_ contain poems by high and low, prince and, one would
fain say, peasant, noble _trobador_ and humble _jogral_, soldiers
and civilians, priests and laymen, singers of Galicia, Portugal, and
Spain, but more especially of Galicia and North Portugal. As in the
case of C. V. 466, the interest of many of the poems is historical:
C. V. 1088, for instance, written by a partisan of the dethroned King
Sancho II; or C. V. 1080, a _gesta de maldizer_ of fifty-six lines in
three rhymes, with the exclamation _Eoy!_ at the change of the rhyme,
which was written by D. AFONSO LOPEZ DE BAYAN (_c._ 1220-80), clearly
in imitation of the _Chanson de Roland_.[94] Almost equally prominent,
though not from any historical associations, is the curiously modern
C. A. 429 (= C. C. B. 314) among the _cantigas de amor_. It tells
of a girl forced against her will to enter a convent, and who says
to her lover: ‘My dress may be religious, but God shall not have my
heart.’ (For the metre, cf. C. V. 342.) Its author was the _fidalgo_
D. RODRIG’ EANEZ DE VASCONCELLOS, one of the pre-Dionysian poets. But
indeed no further proofs are needed to show that, even had King Dinis
never existed, the contents of the early Portuguese _Cancioneiros_
would have been remarkable for their variety and beauty. When Alfonso
X died his grandson DINIS (1261-1325)[95] had sat for five years on