Chapter 5

The action of the _Auto dos Reis Magos_ is as simple as that of the two preceding plays. _Quem tem farelos?_ however is a quite new development. 'The argument,' says the rubric, 'is that a young squire called Aires Rosado played the viola and although his salary [as one of the Court] was very small he was continually in love.' He is contrasted with another penniless _escudeiro_ who gives himself martial airs and willingly speaks of the heroic deeds of Roncesvalles, but runs away if two cats begin to fight. Only five persons appear on the stage, but with considerable skill Vicente enlarges the scene so as to include a vivid picture of the second squire as described by his servant as well as the barking of dogs, mewing of cats and crowing of cocks and the conversation of Isabel with Rosado, which is conjectured from his answers. No doubt the two _moços_ owe something to Sempronio and Parmeno of the _Celestina_, but this first farce is thoroughly Portuguese and gives us a concrete and living picture of Lisbon manners. Not all the farces have this unity. The _Auto das Fadas_ loses itself in a long series of verses addressed to the Court. The _Farsa dos Fisicos_ has no such extraneous matter: it confines itself to the lovelorn priest and the contrast between the four doctors. The _Comedia do Viuvo_ is not a farce and only a comedy by virtue of its happy ending. A merchant of Burgos laments the death of his wife and is comforted by a kindly priest and by a friend who wishes that his own wife were as the merchant's (the simple mediaeval contrast common in Vicente). Meanwhile Don Rosvel, Prince of Huxonia, has fallen in love with both the daughters of the merchant, whom he agrees to serve in all kinds of manual labour as Juan de las Brozas. His brother, Don Gilberto, arrives in search of him and a quaintly charming and technically skilful play ends with a double wedding (the Crown Prince of Portugal, present at the acting of this play, had to decide for Don Rosvel which daughter he should marry).

The _Auto da Fama_ is Vicente's second great hymn to the glory of Portugal. Portuguese Fame, in the person of a humble girl of Beira, is envied and wooed in vain by Castille, France and Italy--England and Holland were then scarcely in the running--and narrates in ringing verses the deeds of the Portuguese in the East, without, however, mentioning the great name of Albuquerque, a name which inspired many of the courtiers with more fear than affection. The _Auto dos Quatro Tempos_ is a pastoral-religious play, the main theme being, as its title indicates, a contrast between the four seasons. David appears as a shepherd and Jupiter also takes a considerable part in the conversation. Action there is none.

Vicente's satirical vein found excellent occasion in the ancient theme of scrutinizing the past lives of men as Death reaps them, high and low, but his profoundly religious temperament raises the _Barcas_ into an atmosphere of sublime if gloomy splendour, which is surpassed in the _Auto da Alma_, the most perfect and consistent of his religious plays--even the symbolical character of the latter part can hardly be called a defect. In the _Comedia de Rubena_ the development of Vicente's art is perhaps more superficial than real. It is divided into three long scenes or acts and is thus more like a regular comedy than his other plays. The acts, however, are isolated, the action occupies fifteen years and occurs in Castille, Lisbon and Crete. English readers of the play must be struck by its resemblance to _Pericles, Prince of Tyre_. Written fifty-five years before Lawrence Twine's _The Patterne of Painful Adventures_ (1576) and eighty-seven before George Wilkins and William Shakespeare produced their play (1608), the _Comedia de Rubena_ is in fact a link in a long chain beginning in a lost fifth century Greek romance concerning Apollonius of Tyre and continued after Gil Vicente's death in Timoneda's _Tarsiana_ and in _Pericles_. Vicente, however, in all probability did not derive his Cismena, cold and chaste predecessor of Marina, from the _Gesta Romanorum_ or the _Libro de Apolonio_ but from the version in John Gower's _Confessio Amantis_, of which a translation, as we know, was early available in Portugal. After an exclusively Court piece, the _Cortes de Jupiter_, Vicente wrote the _Farsa de Ines Pereira_, in which there is more action and development of character than in his preceding, or indeed his subsequent, plays. He represents the aspirations and repentance of Ines, the 'very flighty daughter of a woman of low estate.' Despite the warnings of her sensible mother she rejects the suit of simple and uncouth Pero Marques for that of a gentleman (_escudeiro_) whose pretensions are far greater than his possessions. The mother gives them a house and retires to a small cottage. But the _escudeiro_ married confirms the wisdom of the Sibyl Cassandra (I. 40). He keeps his wife shut up 'like a nun of Oudivellas.' The windows are nailed up, she is not allowed to leave the house even to go to church. Thus the hopes and ambitions of Ines Pereira de Grãa are tamed, although she was never a shrew[144]. Presently, however, the _escudeiro_ resolves to cross over to Africa to win his knighthood:

ás partes dalem Vou me fazer cavaleiro,

and he leaves his wife imprisoned in their house, the key being entrusted to the servant (_moço_). Ines, singing at her work, is declaring that if ever she have to choose another husband _on ne m'y prendra plus_ when a letter arrives from her brother announcing that her husband, as he fled from battle towards Arzila, had been killed by a Moorish shepherd. The faithful Pero Marques again presses his suit. He is accepted and is made to suffer the whims and infidelity of the emancipated Ines. The question of women's rights was a burning one in the sixteenth century.

Vicente's versatility enabled him to laugh at his critics to the end of the chapter. In _Dom Duardos_ he gave them an elaborate and very successful dramatization of a Spanish romance of chivalry. The treatment has both unity and lyrical charm. It was so successful that the experiment was repeated in 1533 with the earlier romance of _Amadis de Gaula_ (1508), out of which Vicente wrought an equally skilful but less fascinating play[145]. But Vicente had not given up writing farces and the sojourn of Ines Pereira's husband in town enables the author to introduce various Lisbon types in _O Juiz da Beira_. It indeed completely resembles the early farces, while the _Auto da Festa_ with its peasant scene and allegorical _Verdade_ is of the _Auto da Fé_ type but adds the theme of the old woman in search of a husband. The _Templo de Apolo_, composed for a special Court occasion, shows no development, but in the _Sumario_ we have a fuller religious play than he had hitherto written. It proves, like _Dom Duardos_, his power of concentration and his skill in seizing on and emphasizing essential points in a long action (the period here covered is from Adam to Christ[146]). It is closely moulded on the Bible and contains, besides an exquisite _vilancete_ (_Adorae montanhas_), passages of noble poetry and soaring fervour--Eve's invocation to Adam:

Ó como os ramos do nosso pomar Ficam cubertos de celestes rosas (I. 314);

Job's lament 'Man that is born of woman' (I. 324); the paraphrase or rather translation of 'I know that my Redeemer liveth' (I. 322). Nothing here, surely, to warrant the complaints of Sá de Miranda as to the desecration of the Scriptures. This play was followed by the _Dialogo sobre a Ressurreiçam_ by way of epilogue; it is a conversation between three Jews and is treated in the cynical manner that Browning brought to similar scenes. The _Sumario_ or _Auto da Historia de Deos_ was acted before the Court at Almeirim and must have won the sincere admiration of the devout João III. If the courtiers were less favourably impressed they were mollified by the splendid display of the _Nao de Amores_ with its much music, its Prince of Normandy and its miniature ship fully rigged. Vicente was now fighting an uphill battle and in the _Divisa da Cidade de Coimbra_ he attempted a task beyond the strength of a poet and more suitable for a sermon such as Frei Heitor Pinto preached on the same subject: the arms of the city of Coimbra. Even Vicente could not make this a living play; it is, rather, a museum of antiquities and ends with praises of Court families. It is pathetic to find the merry satirist reduced to admitting (in the argument of this play) that merely farcical farces are not very refined. Yet we would willingly give the whole play for another brief farce such as _Quem tem farelos?_:

Ya sabeis, senhores, Que toda a comedia começa em dolores, E inda que toque cousas lastimeiras Sabei que as farças todas chocarreiras Não sam muito finas sem outros primores (II. 108).

Fortunately he returned to the plain farce in _Os Almocreves_, the _Auto da Feira_ and _O Clerigo da Beira_ (which, however, ends with a series of Court references) with all his old wealth of satire, touches of comedy and vivid portraiture. He also returned to the pastoral play in the _Serra da Estrella_, while his exquisite lyrism flowers afresh in the _Triunfo do Inverno_, a tragicomedy which is really a medley of farces. It is not a great drama but it is a typical Vicentian piece, combining vividly sketched types with a splendid lyrical vein. Winter, that banishes the swallows and swells the voice of ocean streams, first triumphs on hills and sea and then Spring comes in singing the lovely lyric _Del rosal vengo_ in the Serra de Sintra. The play ends on a serious and mystic note, for Spring's flowers wither but those of the holy garden of God bloom without fading:

E o santo jardim de Deos Florece sem fenecer.

The _Auto da Lusitania_ is divided into two parts, the first of which is complete in itself and gives a description of a Jewish household at Lisbon, while the second is a medley which contains the celebrated scene of Everyman and Noman: Everyman seeks money, worldly honour, praise, life, paradise, lies and flattery; Noman is for conscience, virtue, truth. In the _Romagem de Aggravados_ the fashionable and affected Court priest, Frei Paço, is the connecting link for a series of farcical scenes in which a peasant brings his son to become a priest, two noblemen discourse on love, two fishwives lament the excesses of the courtiers, Cerro Ventoso and Frei Narciso betray their mounting ambition, civil and ecclesiastic, the poor farmer Aparicianes implores Frei Paço to make a Court lady of his slovenly daughter, two nuns bewail their fate and two shepherdesses discuss their marriage prospects. The _Auto da Mofina Mendes_ is especially celebrated because Mofina Mendes, personification of ill-luck, with her pot of oil is the forerunner of La Fontaine's _Pierrette et son pot au lait_: it was perhaps suggested to Vicente by the tale of Doña Truhana's pot of honey in _El Conde Lucanor_; the theme of counting one's chickens before they are hatched also forms the subject of one of the _pasos_, entitled _Las Aceitunas_, of the goldbeater of Seville, Lope de Rueda[147]. Vicente's piece consists, like some picture of El Greco, of a _gloria_, called, as Rueda's scenes, a _passo_, in which appear the Virgin and the Virtues (Prudence, Poverty, Humility and Faith) and an earthly shepherd scene. It is thus a combination of farce and religious and pastoral play. Vicente's last play, the _Floresta de Enganos_, is composed of scenes so disconnected that one of them is even omitted in the summary given after the first deceit: that in which a popular traditional theme, derived directly or indirectly from a French (perhaps originally Italian) source, _Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_, is presented, akin to that so piquantly narrated by Alarcón in _El Sombrero de Tres Picos_ in the nineteenth century, the judge playing the part of the Corregidor and the malicious and sensible servant-girl that of the miller's wife.

In these last plays we see little or no advance: there is no attempt at unity or development of plot. We cannot deny that the creator of the penniless-splendid nobleman and the mincing courtier-priest and the author of such touches as the death of Ines' husband or the sudden ignominious flight of the judge possessed a true vein of comedy, but he remained to the end not technically a great dramatist but a wonderful lyric poet and a fascinating satirical observer of life. His influence was felt throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Portugal, by Camões and in the plays of Chiado, Prestes and a score of less celebrated dramatists, as well as in a considerable number of anonymous plays, but confined itself to the _auto_, which, combated by the followers of the classical drama and the Latin plays of the Jesuits, soon tended to deteriorate and lose its charm. In Spain his influence would seem to have been more widely felt, which is not surprising when we remember how many of his plays were Spanish in origin or language[148]. We may be sure that Lope de Rueda was acquainted with his plays and that several of them were known to Cervantes--the servant Benita insisting on telling her simple stories to her afflicted mistress is Sancho Panza to the life:

_Benita._ Diz que era un escudero....

_Rubena._ O quien no fuera nacida: ¿Viendome salir la vida Paraste a contar patrañas?

_Benita._ Pues otra sé de un carnero....

Lope de Vega was likewise certainly familiar with some of Vicente's plays. If we consider these passages in _El Viaje del Alma_, the _representación moral_ contained in _El Peregrino en su Patria_ (1604), we must be convinced that the trilogy of _Barcas_, the _Auto da Alma_, and perhaps the _Nao de Amores_ were not unknown to him:

Alma para Dios criada Y hecha a imagen de Dios, etc.; Hoy la Nave del deleite Se quiere hacer a la mar: ¿Hay quien se quiera embarcar?; Esta es la Nave donde cabe Todo contento y placer[149].

The alleged imitation by Calderón in _El Lirio y la Azucena_ is perhaps more doubtful. Vicente was already half forgotten in Calderon's day. In the artificial literature of the eighteenth century he suffered total eclipse although Correa Garção was able to appreciate him, nor need we see any direct influence in that of the nineteenth[150] except that on Almeida Garrett: the similar passages in Goethe's _Faust_ and Cardinal Newman's _Dream of Gerontius_ were no doubt purely accidental. Happily, however, we are able to point to a certain influence of the great national poet of Portugal on some of the Portuguese poets of the twentieth century. The promised edition of his plays will increase this influence and render him secure from that neglect which during three centuries practically deprived Portugal and the world of one of the most charming and inspired of the world's poets.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] _Falamos do nosso Shakespeare, de Gil Vicente_ (A. Herculano, _Historia da Inquisição em Portugal_, ed. 1906, vol. I. p. 223). The references throughout are to the Hamburg 3 vol. 1834 edition.

[7] See infra _Bibliography_, p. 86, Nos. 42, 62, 79.

[8] _Bibliography_, Nos. 21, 24, 25, 26, 30, 51, 52, 59, 89.

[9] _Bibliography_, Nos. 29, 48, 57, 66, 83, 95.

[10] _Bibliography_, Nos. 53, 73, 82, 88, 97.

[11] _Bibliography_, Nos. 44, 84, 90, 101, 102.

[12] Guerra Junqueiro, _Os Simples_.

[13] Cf. André de Resende, _Gillo auctor et actor_. (For the accurate text of this passage see C. Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, _Notas Vicentinas_, I. p. 17.)

[14] _Os livros das obras que escritas vi_ (Letter of G. V. to King João III).

[15] 'E assi mandou de Castella e outras partes vir muitos ouriveis para fazerem arreos e outras cousas esmaltadas.' (Garcia de Resende, _Cronica del Rei D. João II_, cap. 117.)

[16] _Bibliography_, Nos. 70, 71.

[17] He argues that Vicente was not old enough to be King Manuel's tutor, but in other passages he is clearly in favour of the date 1460 or 1452. He is born 'considerably before' 1470 (_Revista de Historia_, t. 21, p. 11), in 1460? (_ib._ p. 27), in 1452? (_ib._ pp. 28, 31, and t. 22, p. 155), 'about 1460' (t. 22, p. 150), he is from two to seven years younger than King Manuel, born in 1469 (t. 21, p. 35). He is nearly 80 in 1531 (_ib._ p. 30). His marriage is placed between 1484 and 1492, preferably in the years 1484-6 (_ib._ p. 35).

[18] Gil Terron in the same year is _alegre y bien asombrado_ (I. 12).

[19] Cf. _Nao de Amores_ (1527), _Viejo, vuestro mundo es ido_, and II. 478 (1529).

[20] See A. Braamcamp Freire in _Revista de Historia_, t. 26, p. 123.

[21] _Grandes baxillas y pedraria_ (_Canc. Geral_, vol. III. (1913), p. 57).

[22] Cf. _Canc. Geral_, vol. I. (1910), p. 259:

Vejam huns autos Damado, Huũ judeu que foi queimado No rressyo por seu mal.

[23] There is a slight confusion. The 'second night of the birth' of the rubric may mean the night following that of the birth (June 6-7), i.e. the evening of June 7, or the second night _after_ the birth, i.e. the evening of June 8; but the former is the more probable.

[24] Damião de Goes, _Chronica do felicissimo Rey Dom Emanuel_, Pt I. cap. 69.

[25] See A. Braamcamp Freire in _Revista de Historia_, vol. XXII. (1917), p. 124 and _Critica e Historia_, vol. I. (1910), p. 325; Brito Rebello, _Gil Vicente_ (1902), p. 106-8.

[26] _Antología de poetas líricos castellanos_, t. 7, p. clxiii.

[27] _Orígenes de la Novela_, t. 3, p. cxlv.

[28] _Antol._ t. 7, p. clxvi.

[29] _Ib._ p. clxxvi.

[30] _Ib._ p. clxiv.

[31] Especially that of Garcia de Resende, who in one verse (185) of his _Miscellanea_ mentions the goldsmiths and in the next verse the plays of Gil Vicente.

[32] _Bibliography_, No. 45.

[33] Cf. his earlier studies, in favour of identity, with his later works, maintaining cousinhood.

[34] Cf. _Obras_, I. 154 (Jupiter is the god of precious stones), I. 93, 286; II. 38, 46, 47, 210, 216, 367, 384, 405; III. 67, 70, 86, 296, etc. Cf. passages in the _Auto da Alma_ and especially the _Farsa dos Almocreves_. Vicente evidently sympathizes with the goldsmith to whom the _fidalgo_ is in debt, and if the poet took the part of _Diabo_ in the _Auto da Feira_ (1528) the following passage gains in point if we see in it an allusion to the debts of courtiers to him as goldsmith:

Eu não tenho nem ceitil E bem honrados te digo E homens de muita renda Que tem divedo comigo (I. 158).

[35] The MS. note by a sixteenth century official written above the document appointing Gil Vicente to the post of _Mestre da Balança_ should be conclusive as to the identity of poet and goldsmith: _Gil V^te trouador mestre da balança_ (_Registos da Cancellaria de D. Manuel_, vol. XLII. f. 20 v. in the _Torre do Tombo_, Lisbon).

[36] Garcia de Resende († 1536) was of opinion that it had no rival in Europe:

nam ha outra igual na Christamdade no meu ver.

(_Miscellanea_, v. 281, ed. Mendes dos Remedios (1917), p. 97.)

It contained 5000 _moradores_ (_ibid._). In the days of King Duarte (1433-8) the number was 3000.

[37] Cf. the dedication of _Dom Duardos_ (_folha volante_ of the Bib. Municipal of Oporto, N. 8. 74) to Prince João: 'Como quiera Excelente Principe y Rey mui poderoso que las Comedias, Farças y Moralidades que he compuesto en servicio de la Reyna vuestra tia....'

[38] The date 1509 is not barred by the reference to the _Sergas de Esplandian_, which certainly existed in an earlier edition than the earliest we now possess (1510). A certain Vasco Abul had given a girl at Alenquer a chain of gold for dancing a _ballo vylam ou mourysco_ and could not get it back from the _gentil bayladeyra_. Gil Vicente contributes but a few lines: _O parecer de gil vycente neste proceso de vasco abul á rraynha dona lianor_.

[39] It is absurd to argue that during the years of his chief activity as goldsmith he had not time to produce the sixteen plays that may be assigned to the years 1502-17.

[40] _Gil Vicente_ (1912), p. 11-13.

[41] The dates in the rubrics are given in Roman figures and the alteration from MDV to MDIX is very slight.

[42] Cf. Bartolomé Villalba y Estaña, _El Pelegrino Curioso y Grandezas de España_ [printed from MS. of last third of sixteenth century]. _Bibliófilos Españoles_, t. 23, 2 t. 1886, 9, t. 2, p. 37: 'Almerin, un lugar que los reyes de Portugal tienen para el ynvierno, con un bosque de muchas cabras, corzos y otros generos de caza.'

[43] See A. Braamcamp Freire in _Revista de Historia_, vol. XXII. p. 129.

[44] A. Braamcamp Freire in _Rev. de Hist._ vol. XXII. p. 133-4.

[45] Luis Anriquez in _Canc. Geral_, vol. III. (1913), p. 106.

[46] See _Rev. de Hist._ vol. XXII. p. 122; vol. XXIV. p. 290.

[47] E.g. the words _ahotas_ and _chapado_ and the expression _en velloritas_ (I. 41), cf. Enzina, _Egloga_ I.: _ni estaré ya tendido en belloritas_ = in clover, lit. in cowslips: _belloritas de jacinto_ (_Egl._ III.).

[48] A. Braamcamp Freire in _Rev. de Hist._ vol. XXIV. p. 290.

[49] There are, however, several such psalms in the works of Enzina.

[50] Cf. I. 85: _huele de dos mil maneras_ with Enzina, _Egloga_ II: _y ervas de dos mil maneras_. In the _Auto da Alma_, probably written about this time, there are imitations of Gomez Manrique (_c._ 1415-90). Cf. the passage in the _Exhortação_.

[51] That the illness of the Queen would not prevent the entertainment is proved by the fact that in the month before her death King Manuel was present at a fight between a rhinoceros and an elephant in a court in front of Lisbon's India House. We do not know if Vicente was present nor what he thought of this new thing.

[52] In December 1517 El Bachiller de la Pradilla published some verses in praise of _la muy esclarecida Señora Infanta Madama Leonor, Rey[na] de Portugal_ (v. Menéndez y Pelayo, _Antología_, t. 6, p. cccxxxviii).

[53] He argues that such a form as MD & viii was never used and must be a misprint for MDxviii.

[54] Cf. also the resemblance of certain passages in the _Auto da Alma_ and in the _Auto da Barca da Gloria_ (1519). They must strike any reader of the two plays.

[55] Goes, _Chronica_, IV. 34.

[56] Garcia de Resende, _Hida da Infanta Dona Beatriz pera Saboya_ in _Chronica...del Rey Dom Ioam II_, ed. 1752, f. 99 V.

[57] Gil Vicente, _Á morte del Rei D. Manuel_ (III. 347).

[58] Gil Vicente, _Romance_ (III. 350).

[59] Goes says generally that King Manuel _foi muito inclinado a letras e letrados_ (_Chronica_, 1619 ed., f. 342. _Favebat plurimum literis_, says Osorio, _De rebus_, 1561, p. 479).

[60] II. 4: _Foi feita ao muito poderoso e nobre Rei D. João III. sendo principe, era de MDXXI_ (rubric of _Comedia de Rubena_).

[61] II. 364. Although 'good wine needs no bush' the custom of hanging a branch above tavern doors still prevails.

[62] A. Braamcamp Freire in _Rev. de Hist._ vol. XXII. p. 162.

[63] _Id. ib._ vol. XXIV. p. 307. It is astonishing how slight errors in the rubrics of Vicente's plays have been permitted to survive, just as Psalm LI, of which Vicente perhaps at about this time wrote a remarkable paraphrase, still appears in all editions of his works as Ps. L.

[64] _Ib._ vol. XXIV. p. 312-3.

[65] Th. Braga, _Historia da Litteratura Portuguesa. II. Renascença_ (1914), p. 85.

[66] J. I. Brito Rebello, _Gil Vicente_ (1902), p. 64.

[67] H. Thomas, _The Palmerin Romances_ (London, 1916), p. 10-12.

[68] M. Menéndez y Pelayo, _Antología_, t. 7, p. cci; _Oríg. de la Novela_, I. cclxvii: _toda la pieza es un delicioso idilio_.

[69] _Rev. de Hist._ vol. XXIV. p. 315.

[70] It should be noted that the lines in _Dom Duardos_ (II. 212):

Consuelo vete de ahi No perdas tiempo conmigo

are from the song in the _Comedia de Rubena_ (1521):

Consuelo vete con Dios (II. 53).