Chapter 16

73 _day passada_ = _perdoai_, _dai licença_. Cf. Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcellos, _Eufrosina_, II, 5. 1616 ed. f. 79 v.

77 In Basque _pastorales_ one of the main attributes of the devils and the wicked is that they are never quiet on the stage. In the _Auto da Cananea_ (1534), a play in many ways resembling the _Auto da Alma_, the line _Como andas desosegado_ recurs, addressed by Belzebu to Satanas. It is the 'incessant pacing to and fro' of _The Dream of Gerontius_ (l. 446). In its beauty and intensity as a whole and in many details Cardinal Newman's _The Dream of Gerontius_ is strikingly similar to the _Auto da Alma_. But in it the strife is o'er, the battle won, and the sanctified soul, rising refreshed from sleep with a feeling of 'an inexpressive lightness and sense of freedom,' passes serenely, accompanied by its guardian angel, above the 'sullen howl' of the demons in the middle region. Cf. _Calte por amor de Deus, leixai-me, não me persigais_ with 'But hark! upon my sense Comes a fierce hubbub which would make me fear _Could I be frighted_' (l. 395-7).

80 Cf. Amador Arraez, _Dialogos_, No. 1, 1604 ed. f. lv.: _S. Jeronimo diz que é grande o reino, potencia e alçada das lagrimas...atormentam mais aos Demonios que a pena infernal_.

84 The author of the _Vexilla regis_ hymn was Venantius Fortunatus (530-600).

95 Cf. Antonio Feo, _Trattados Quadragesimais_ (1609), II f. 23: _assy na Cruz como no monte Oliueto chorou porque vio vir a quem ouuera de chorar_.

97 Cf. Gomez Manrique, _Fechas para la Semana Santa_ (ap. M. Pelayo, _Antología_, t. III, p. 92).

108 Cf. Juan del Enzina, _Teatro_ (1893), p. 39: _Veis aqui donde vereis Su figura figurada Del original sacada_.

116 _dais o seu a cujo he_, cf. _Triunfo do Inverno_: _Porque se devem de dar As cousas a cujas são_; _C. Res._ I (1910), p. 64: _dar o seu a cujo hee_.

121 Cf. Gomez Manrique, _Fechas_ (_Antolog._ t. III, p. 93):

Y vamos, vamos al huerto Do veredes sepultado Vuestro fijo muy prouado De muy cruda muerte muerto.

EXHORTAÇAO DA GUERRA

PAGE 23

The expedition to capture from the Moors the important town of Azamor in N. W. Africa consisted of over 400 ships (Luis Anriquez in his poem in the _Cancioneiro Geral_ says 450) and a force of 18,000 soldiers, of which 3000 were provided by James, Duke of Braganza, who commanded the expedition. It set sail from Lisbon on the 17th of August, 1513. (Damião de Goes and Osorio say the 17th, Luis Anriquez the 15th, which was evidently the day (the Feast of the Assumption) fixed for departure.) It was entirely successful and the news of the fall of Azamor caused great rejoicings both at Lisbon and Rome. The play was evidently touched up afterwards, for it includes the sending of the elephant to Rome (1514) and the marriages of the princesses. It is barely possible that it was written after the victory, in which case the words _na partida_ would be retrospective and the date given in the 1st edition was not a slip. Parts of the play suit 1514 better than 1513. Tristão da Cunha's special mission (cf. lines 195-6) to the Pope (with Garcia de Resende for secretary) left early in 1514 and entered Rome on March 12. One of the objects of the mission was to obtain a grant of the tithes (ll. 194, 224) for the Crown to use for the war in Africa. (The request was granted but King Manuel subsequently renounced them in return for 150,000 gold coins.) The exhortations of l. 351 _et seq._, l. 514 _et seq._, l. 559 _et seq._ are better suited to a time when more men and money were needed actively to continue the war than when an army of 18,000 was equipped and ready to leave. The Pope in 1514 promised indulgences to all those who should contribute money for the African war and also granted King Manuel a portion of church property in Portugal (cf. ll. 475-84 and 535-48) for the same object (l. 546: _pera Africa conquistar_). The King's aim is now to build a cathedral in Fez (l. 573-4). There is no mention of Azamor. This was the first of the great patriotic outbursts (cf. the _Auto da Fama_ and other plays) in which Vicente appears not as a satirist or religious reformer but as an enthusiastic imperialist, and which still delight and stir his countrymen.

18 Prince Luis (1506-55), one of the most gallant, talented and interesting of Portuguese _infantes_, was no doubt present at the _serão_ and would be delighted by this reference. (The youngest princes, Afonso, born in 1509, and Henrique, born in 1512, are not mentioned. They both became Cardinals and the latter King of Portugal, 1578-80.) The princes are similarly addressed in the _Cortes de Jupiter_ in 1521.

46 Mercury opens the _Auto da Feira_ with a similar string of absurdities (suggested by Enzina's _perogrulladas_), e.g. _Que se o ceo fora quadrado Não fora redondo, Senhor; E se o sol fora azulado D'azul fora seu cor_. (If square the sky were found then it would not be round, and if the sun were blue then blue would be its hue.) _Os disparates de 'Joan de Lenzina'_ (Ferreira, _Ulys._ IV, 7) were well-known in Portugal.

94, 113, 129 No meaning is to be squeezed out of these cabbalistic words.

116 We have an even more detailed description in the _Sumario da Historia de Deos_:

A furna das trevas, ponte de navalhas, o lago dos prantos, a horta dos dragos, os tanques da ira, os lagos da neve, os raios ardentes, sala dos tormentos, varanda das dores, cozinha dos gritos, Açougue das pragas, a torre dos pingos, o valle das forcas.

125 Vicente was more tolerant than most contemporary writers who inveighed against the blindness and malice of the Jews.

132 The necromancer evokes spirits which he is unable to control. He calls them brothers but they answer in effect: 'Du gleich'st dem Geist den du begreif'st, nicht mir.'

151 The _almude_ = 12 gallons.

156 Cabrela e Landeira is a village near Montemôr-o-Novo. Cf. _Sum. da Hist. de Deos_:

_Satanas_: Sabes Rio-frio e toda aquela terra, aldea Gallega, a Landeira e Ranginha e de Lavra a Coruche? Tudo é terra minha.

157 Cartaxo, a small town in the district of Santarem.

158 The village of Lumiar is now connected with Lisbon by a tramway.

159 Mealhada, a parish in the district of Aveiro.

162 Cf. _uva terrantes_ (indigenous).

164 Ribatejo = the country along the river Tejo (Tagus). Cf. _Auto da Feira_: _Vai-te ao sino do Cranguejo, Signum Cancer, Ribatejo._

168 Arruda dos Vinhos and Caparica are villages in a vine-growing district on the left bank of the Tagus opposite Lisbon, near Almada.

173 _estrema_ = _marco_ (Sp. _mojon_). Cf. _Auto da Festa_, ed. Conde de Sabugosa (1906), p. 110: _Este he da pedra do estremo_.

174 _diadema_ is usually masculine, but Antonio Vieira has it both ways.

176 Seixal (2500-3000 inh.) in the district of Almada.

177 Almada, formerly Almadãa (Arab = the mine, but as Englishmen settled there in the 12th century it was later given the fanciful derivation All made or All made it), a town of 10,000 inh., opposite Lisbon on the left bank of the Tagus.

179 Tojal (= whin-moor, gorse-common), a small village near Olivaes (= olive groves), in the Lisbon district.

195 The impression produced by the arrival in Rome of King Manuel's elephant, panther and other magnificent gifts was vividly described by several writers. Cf. Damião de Goes, _Chron. de D. Manuel_, Pt 3, cap. 55, 56, 57 (1619 ed. f. 223 v.-227). According to Ulrich von Hutten the elephant 'fuit mirabile animal, habens longum rostrum in magna quantitate; et quando vidit Papam tunc geniculavit ei et dixit cum terribili voce _bar, bar, bar_' (apud Theophilo Braga, _Gil Vicente e as Origens do Theatro Nacional_ (1898), p. 191). Cf. also Manuel Bernardez, _Nova Floresta_, V, 93-4. The head of this celebrated elephant forms the background to a portrait of Tristão da Cunha (head of the embassy to the Pope) reproduced in Senhor Joaquim de Vasconcellos' edition of Francisco de Hollanda's _Da Pintura Antigva_ (Porto, 1918).

229 In 1517 among other exotic presents a rhinoceros was sent to the Pope. It was however shipwrecked and drowned on the way. It had the honour of being drawn by Albrecht Dürer.

238 Vicente seems to have coined this intensive of _bellisima_.

243-4 Cesar = King Manuel. Hecuba=his second wife, Queen Maria, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain.

249 Prince João, born in 1502, afterwards King João III (1521-57).

259 The Infanta Isabel (1503-39) married her first cousin the Emperor Charles V, and in her honour on that occasion Vicente composed his _Templo de Apolo_ (1526). Her marriage may have already been planned in 1513, but more probably Vicente altered the passage when he was preparing the 1st edition of his works during the last months of his life. Gil Vicente more than once refers to her great beauty. Her portrait by Titian in the Madrid Prado fully bears out his praises and the expression on her face places this among the most fascinating portraits of women. The Empress is sitting by a window looking on to a beautiful country of woods and blue mountains, in her hand is a book; but one feels that she is thinking of neither book nor scenery but that her thoughts go back in _saudade_ to the soft air and merry days of Lisbon. It might indeed be a picture of _Saudade_. There is a slight flush on her pale oval face. Her almond-shaped eyes are grey-green, her nose delicately aquiline. In the eyes and in the general expression there is a look of undeniable sadness. Her dress of plum, cherry-pink, gold and brown gives a gorgeously mellow effect and the curtain at the back is plum-brown. If the colouring seems at first too rich this is due to the criminal gold frame which clashes with the dress and the chestnut-golden hair. In a dark frame the picture would be twice as beautiful. The Empress' dress gleams with pearls and she has a jewel with pearls--set perhaps by Gil Vicente--in her hair, large pearl earrings and a necklace of large pearls. She died at Toledo at the age of 36 and lies in the grim Pantheon of the Kings in the Escorial crypt.

266 Of Prince Fernando, born in 1507, Damião de Goes, who knew him personally, says: 'assi na mocidade como depois de ser homem foi de bom parecer e bem disposto, muito inclinado a letras e dado ao estudo das historias verdadeiras e imigo das fabulosas... Era colerico e apressado em seus negocios e muito animoso, com mostra e desejo de se achar em algun grande feito de guerra, mas nem o tempo nem o estudo do Regno deram pera isso lugar' (_Chron. de D. Manuel_, II, xix). Cf. Osorio, _De Rebvs Emmanvelis_ (1571), p. 189: 'Fuit in antiquitate pervestiganda valde curiosus: maximarum rerum studio flagrabat multisque virtutibus illo loco dignis praeditus erat.'

275 Princess Beatrice as a matter of fact married Charles, Duke of Savoy, and on the occasion of her departure from Lisbon by sea with a magnificent suite Vicente wrote the _Cortes de Jupiter_ (1521) with the _romance_:

Nina era la Ifanta, Dona Beatriz se dezia, Nieta del buen Rei Hernando, el mejor rei de Castilla, Hija del Rei Don Manuel y Reina Doña Maria, etc.

284 Cf. the _Auto das Fadas_ (with which this play has many points of resemblance): _Feiticeira_ (ao principle e infantes): _ó que joias esmaltadas, ó que boninas dos ceos, ó que rosas perfumadas!_

331-2 Cf. _Divisa da Cidade de Coimbra_: _Vai delas a eles tão grande avantagem... como haverá...do vivo a hũa imagem_.

341 _Godos_, Goths, i.e. of ancient race, 'Norman blood.'

346 For _dioso_ = _idoso_ v. _C. Geral_, vol. II (1910), p. 153. Fernam Lopez, _Chron. J. I._ Pt. 2, cap. 10, has _deoso_.

384 _pequenas quadrilhas_. When Afonso de Albuquerque began his glorious career (1509-15) there were in India but a few hundred Portuguese fighting men, and most of these badly armed. The whole population of Portugal during this time of fighting and discovery in N.-West, West and East Africa and India is by some calculated at a million and a half, by others at between two and three millions.

416 Prov. _mais são as vozes que as nozes_.

418 For this line cf. Pedro Ferrus: _Que por todo el mundo suena_ (ap. Menéndez y Pelayo, _Antología_, t. I, p. 159 and Enzina, _Egloga_, V (_ib._ t. VII, p. 57)).

420 _pois que...pessoa_, a homely version of Goethe's _Was du ererbt von deinen Vätern hast Erwirb' es um es zu besitzen_.

470-4 These lines are translated from the Spanish poet Gomez Manrique (1415?-1490?). See Menéndez y Pelayo, _Antología_, t. VII, p. ccx.

Cf. Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcellos, _Ulysippo_, V, 7: _Vos quando vos tirarem de Ansias e passiones mias e guando Roma conquistava_.

487 _dom zote_. Cf. supra _zopete_ and Sp. _zote_, _zopo_, _zopenco_, _zoquete_ (a dolt); low Latin _sottus_; Dutch _zot_; Fr. _sot_; Eng. _sot_ (_bebe sem desfolegar_). _Zote_ occurs twice in the _Auto Pastoril Portugues_: _muito gamenho_ (cf. Fr. _gamin_) _zote_ and _Auto da Fé_, l. 5.

534 _trepas_ is the Span. form (Port, _tripas_?).

538 _soyços_ the old, _soldados_ the new, word for 'soldiers.' Cf. Lucas Fernández, _Farsas_ (1867), p. 89: _Entra el soldado, o soizo, o infante_.

559 This rousing chorus fitly ends a play from every page of which breathes the most ardent patriotism. Small wonder that King Sebastião (1557-78), with his visions of conquest and glory, read Vicente with pleasure as a boy.

561 Cf. Gaspar Correa, _Lendas da India_, IV, 561-2: _o Governador logo sobio e o frade diante dele bradando a grandes brados, dizendo: 'O fieis Christãos, olhai para Christo, vosso capitão, que vai diante'_ (1546).

FARSA DOS ALMOCREVES

PAGE 37

This is one of the most famous of those lively farces with which Gil Vicente for a quarter of a century delighted the Portuguese Court and which still hold the reader by their vividness and charm. Its fame rests on the portraiture of the poverty-stricken but magnificent nobleman who has been a favourite object of satire with writers in the Peninsula since the time of Martial, and who in a poem of the _Cancioneiro Geral_ is described in almost the identical words of Vicente's prefatory note:

o gram estado e a renda casi nada (_Arrenegos que que fez Gregoryo Affonsso_).

An alternative title of the play is _Auto do Fidalgo Pobre_, but the extremely natural presentment of the two carriers in the second part justifies the more popular name. The Court, fleeing from plague at Lisbon, was in the celebrated little university town of Coimbra on the Mondego and here Gil Vicente in the following year staged his _Divisa da Cidade de Coimbra_, the _Farsa dos Almocreves_, and (in October) the _Tragicomedia da Serra da Estrella_ and Sá de Miranda, in open rivalry, produced his _Fabula do Mondego_. But Gil Vicente was not to be silenced by the introduction of the new poetry from Italy and to these two years, 1526 and 1527, belong no less than seven (or perhaps eight) of his plays. Yet what a difference in his own position and in the state of the nation since his first farce--_Quem tem farelos?_ twenty years before! The magnificent King Manuel was dead, and his son, the more care-ridden João III, was on the throne:

tão ocupado co'este Turco, co'este Papa co'esta França.

There was plague and famine in the land. The discovery of a direct route to the East and its apparently inexhaustible wealth had not brought prosperity to the Portuguese provinces. There the chief effect had been to make men discontented with their lot and to lure away even the humblest workers to seek their fortune and often to find death or a far less independent poverty:

até os pastores hão de ser d'el-Rei samica.

The result was that the old rustic jollity which Vicente had known so well in his youth was dying out, and the very songs of the peasants took a plaintive air:

E no mais triste ratinho s'enxergava hũa alegria que agora não tem caminho. Se olhardes as cantigas do prazer acostumado todas tem som lamentado, carregado de fadigas, longe do tempo passado. O d' então era cantar e bailar como ha de ser, o cantar pera folgar, o bailar pera prazer, que agora é mao d'achar[155].

Nor could it be expected that the rich _parvenu_, the mushroom courtier, the _fidalgo 'que não sabe se o é,'_ the palace page fresh from keeping goats in the _serra_, the Court chaplain anxious to hide his humble origin, would greatly relish Vicente's plays which satirized them and in which rustic scenes and songs and memories appeared at every turn. It was much like mentioning the rope in the house of the hanged, and these dainty and sophisticated persons would turn with relief to the revival of the more decorous ancient drama inaugurated by Trissino in Italy and in Portugal by Sá de Miranda.

3 _este Arnado_. Cf. Bernardo de Brito, _Chronica de Cister_, III, 18: 'se foi [Afonso Henriquez] ao longo do Mondego por um campo ̃q então e no tempo de agora se chama o Arnado, trocado ja pelas enchentes do rio de campo cuberto de flores em um areal esteril e sem nenhũa verdura.' Cf. _Cancioneiro da Vaticana_, No. 1014: 'en Coimbra caeu ben provado, caeu en Runa ata en o Arnado.'

7 See the Spanish _romance_ (ap. Menéndez y Pelayo. _Antología_, t. VIII, p. 124): 'Yo me estaba allá en Coimbra que yo me la hube ganado.'

8, 9 The sense of these two obscure lines is apparently: 'Since Coimbra so chastises us that we are left without a penny.' Ruy Moniz in the _Canc. Geral_, vol. II (1910), p. 142, has _çimbrar ou casar_. In Spanish _cimbrar_ = 'to brandish a rod,' 'to bend.' In the _Auto del Repelon_, printed in 1509, Enzina has: _El palo bien assimado Cimbrado naquella tiesta_ (_Teatro_ (1893), p. 236) and Fernández (p. 25) _No vos cimbre yo el cayado_. Cf. Antonio Prestes, _Autos_ (ed. 1871), p. 211: _E o vilão vindo me zimbra: reprender-me!_ and João Gomes de Abreu (_C. Ger._ vol. IV (1915), p. 304) _seraa rrijo çimbrado_. _preto_ = _real preto_, contrasted with the white (i.e. silver) _real_.

12 _Pelos campos de Mondego cavaleiros vi somar_ were two very well-known lines apparently belonging to a real historical Portuguese _romance_ on the death of Ines de Castro. They occur in Garcia de Resende's poem on her death. See C. Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, _Estudos sobre o romanceiro peninsular_.

13 Cf. _Tragicomedia da Serra da Estrella_ (1527): _Pedem-lhe em Coimbra cevada E elle dá-lhe mexilhões_.

19 _milham_, green maize cut young for fodder.

32 _ratinhos_, peasants from Beira. They play a large part in Portuguese comedy.

80 _azemel_ = _almocreve_. Both words are of Arabic origin. Cf. _almofreixe_ infra.

93 _Endoenças_ = _indulgentiae_. _Semana de Endoenças_ = Holy Week.

103 In the _Auto da Lusitania_ Vicente says jestingly, perhaps in imitation of the Spanish _romances_, that he was born at Pederneira (a small sea-side town in the district of Leiria). He mentions it again in the _Cortes de Jupiter_ and in the _Templo de Apolo_.

109 Cf. Alvaro Barreto in _Cancioneiro Geral_, vol. I (1910), p. 322: _põe me tudo em huũ item_.

120 It was the plea of Arias Gonzalo that the inhabitants of Zamora were not answerable for the guilt of Vellido Dolfos who had treacherously killed King Sancho:

¿Qué culpa tienen los viejos? ¿qué culpa tienen los niños? ¿qué culpa tienen los muertos...?

129 _balcarriadas_. Cf. _Auto das Fadas_: _Venhas muitieramá com tuas balcarriadas;_ _Auto da Festa_: _tão grão balcarriada_; _Auto da Barca do Purgatorio_: _Nunca tal balcarriada Nem maré tão desastrada_. Couto, _Asia_, VII, 5, vii: _Tal balcarriada_ (act of folly) _foi esta_. The _Canc. Geral_, vol. IV (1915), p. 370, has the form _barquarryadas_.

134 Cf. _Auto da Lusitania_: _um aito bem acordado Que tenha ave e piós_ (= well-proportioned).

135 The numerous servants of the starving _fidalgos_ are satirized by Nicolaus Clenardus and others. Like the English as described by a German in the 18th century they were 'lovers of show, liking to be followed wherever they go by whole troops of servants' (_A Journey into England_, by Paul Hentzer. Trans. Horace Walpole, 1757). Clenardus in his celebrated letter from Evora (1535) says that a Portuguese is followed by more servants in the streets than he spends sixpences in his house. He mentions specifically the number eight.

141 Alcobaça is the town famous for its beautiful Cistercian convent.

161 _Alifante._ Cf. infra, _avangelho_. _A_ for _e_ is still common in Galicia: e.g. _mamoria_ (memory). Cf. Span. Basque _barri_ (new), for Fr. Basque _berri_.

165 The Dean was Diogo Ortiz de Vilhegas († 1544) successively Bishop of São Tomé (1534) and Ceuta (1540). See A. Braamcamp Freire in _Revista de Historia_, No. 25 (1918), p. 3.

224 _bastiães = _bestiães_, figures in relief. Gomez Manrique has _bestiones_ in this sense.

247 In Antonio Prestes' play _Auto do Mouro Encantado_ the golden apples prove to be pieces of coal. So Mello in his _Apologos Dialogaes_ speaks of the treasure of _moiras encantadas_ which all turns to coal.

269 _In Rey_, the popular form of _El-Rei_ (the king) is frequent also in the plays of Simão Machado, who died about a century after Vicente.

272 It is tempting to add the word _madraço_ (fool, ignoramus) for the sake of the rhyme. If _O recado que elle dá_ were spoken very fast the line would bear the addition.

293 Here, as often, the deeper purpose of Vicente's satire appears beneath his fun. The growing depopulation of the provinces was becoming painfully evident to those who cared for Portugal.

302 Jorge Ferreira, _Ulysippo_, III, 5: _não haveria corpo, por mais que fosse de aço milanes, que podesse sofrer quanta costura lhe seria necessaria_; _ib._ III, 7: _temos muita costura esta noite; muita costura e tarefa_; Antonio Vieira, _Cartas_: _tambem aqui teremos costura_ (1 de agosto de 1673).

310 _trapa_ in Port. = 'a gin,' 'a trap,' but in Sp., as perhaps here, = 'noise,' 'uproar.'

327 Cf. _Farsa dos Fisicos_: _Praticamos ali O Leste e o Oeste e o Brasil_ and III, 377; Chiado, _Auto da Natural Invençam_, ed. Conde de Sabugosa (1917), p. 74.

348 The carrier comes along singing snatches of a _pastorela_ of which we have other examples, of more intricate rhythm, in the _Cancioneiro da Vaticana_ and the poems of the Archpriest of Hita and the Marqués de Santillana. A modern Galician _cantiga_ says that

O cantar d'os arrieiros E um cantariño guapo: Ten unha volta n'o medio Para dicir 'Arré macho.'

(Pérez Ballesteros, _Cancionero Popular Gallego_, vol II, p. 215.)

355 Cf. _O Clerigo da Beira_: _Nuno Ribeiro Que nunca paga dinheiro E sempre arreganha os dentes_; and _Ah Deos! quem te furtasse Bolsa, Nuna Ribeiro. Homem vai buscar dinheiro, A todo ele disse: Ja dinheiro feito é_.

360 _uxtix_, _uxte_. Ferreira de Vasconcellos, _Eufrosina_, II, 4: _Tanto me deu por uxte como por arre_.

_atafal_. Cf. _Barca do Purgatorio_ (I, 258): _amanhade-lhe o atafal_ (not _amanhã dé-lhe_).

363 Candosa, a village of some 1400 inh. in the district of Coimbra.

369 _xulo_ = _chulo_, _pícaro_. The derivation of _chulo_ is uncertain (v. Gonçalvez Viana, _Apostilas_, vol. I (1906), p. 299). While Dozy derives it from Arabic _xul_, A. A. Koster suggests the same origin as that of Fr. _joli_, It. _giulivo_, Catalan _joliu_ [= gay. Cf. Eng. _jolly_ and the Portuguese word used by D. João de Castro: _joliz_], viz. the Old German word _jol_ (gaiety). Vid. _Quelques mots espagnols et portugais d'origine orientale_ (_Zeitschrift für rom. Philologie_, Bd. 38 (1914), S. 481-2). The Valencian form for July (_Choliol_) may strengthen this view.

372 Tareja is the old Portuguese form of Theresa.

375 _bareja_ = _mosca varejeira_.

379 Aveiro. A town of about 7500 inh., 40 miles S. of Oporto. It was nearly taken by the Royalists in 1919.