Part 2

The Portuguese, a proud and passionate people with a certain love of magnificence and adventure, an Athenian receptivity,[19] an extensive sea-board and vague land-frontiers, naturally came under foreign influences. Many and various causes made their country cosmopolitan from the beginning. It is customary to divide Portuguese literature into the Provençal (13th c.), Spanish (14th and 15th c.), Italian (16th c.), Spanish and Italian (17th c.), French and English (18th c.), French and German (19th c.) Schools. The question may therefore be asked, especially by those who confuse influence with imitation, as though it precluded originality: What has Portuguese literature of its own? In the first place, the Celtic satire and mystic lyrism of the Galicians is developed and always present in Portuguese literature. Secondly, the genius for story-telling, displayed by Fernam Lopez, grew by reason of the great Portuguese discoveries in Africa and Asia to an epic grandeur both in verse and prose. Thirdly, the absence of great cities, the pleasant climate, and fertile soil produced a peculiarly realistic and natural bucolic poetry. And in prose, besides masterpieces of history and travel--a rich and fascinating literature of the East and of the sea--a fervent religious faith, as in Spain, with a more constant mysticism than in Spain, led to very high achievement. Had one to choose between the loss of the works of Homer, or Dante, or Shakespeare, and that of the whole of Portuguese literature, the whole of Portuguese literature must go, but that is not to say that the loss would not be very grievous. Indeed, those who despise Portuguese literature despise it in ignorance,[20] affecting to believe, with Edgar Quinet, that it has but one poet and a single book; those who are acquainted with it--with the early lyrics, with the quaintly alluring eclogues of Ribeiro and Sá de Miranda, with the works of Fernam Lopez, described by Robert Southey as ‘the best chronicler of any age or nation’, _naïf, exact, touchant et philosophe_[21]; of Gil Vicente, almost as far above his contemporary Juan del Enzina as Shakespeare is above Vicente; of Bernardim Ribeiro, whose _Menina e moça_ is the earliest and best of those pastoral romances which led Don Quixote to contemplate a quieter sequel to his first adventures; of Camões, ‘not only the greatest lyric poet of his country, but one of the greatest lyric poets of all time’[22]; with Fernam Mendez Pinto’s travels, ‘as diverting a book of the kind as ever I read’[23]; or Corrêa’s _Lendas_, Frei Thomé de Jesus’ _Trabalhos_, or the incomparable prose of Manuel Bernardes--know that, extraordinary as were Portugal’s achievements in discovery and conquest, her literature is not unworthy of those achievements. Unhappily the Portuguese, with a notorious carelessness,[24] have in the past set the example of neglecting their literature, and even to-day scarcely seem to realize their great possessions and still greater possibilities in the realm of prose.[25] The excessive number of writers, the excessive production of each individual writer, and the _desleixo_ by which innumerable books and manuscripts of exceptional interest have perished, are all traceable to the same source: the lack of criticism. A nation of poets, essentially lyrical,[26] with no dramatic genius but capable of writing charmingly and naturally without apparent effort, needed and needs a severely classical education and stern critics, to remind them that an epic is not rhymed history nor blank verse mangled prose, that in bucolic poetry the half is greater than the whole, and to bid them abandon abstractions for the concrete and particular and crystallize the vague flow of their talent. But in Portugal, outside the circle of writers themselves, a reading public has hitherto hardly existed, and in the close atmosphere resulting the sense of proportion was inevitably lost, even as a stone and a feather will fall with equal speed in a vacuum. The criticism has been mainly personal,[27] contesting the originality or truthfulness of a writer, without considering the literary merits of his work. To deprecate such criticism became a commonplace of the preface, while numerous passages in writers of the sixteenth century show that they feared their countrymen’s scepticism, expressed in the proverb _De longas vias mui longas mentiras_, which occurs as early as the thirteenth century.[28] The fear of slovenly or prolix composition was not present in the same degree. But these are defects that may be remedied partly by individual critics, partly by the increasing number of readers. Meanwhile this little book may perhaps serve to corroborate the poet Falcão de Resende’s words:

Engenhos nascem bons na Lusitania E ha copia delles.[29]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] A few Portuguese sixteenth-century writers in touch with Italy may have known of their existence. But they were neglected as _rusticas musas_. The references to King Dinis as a poet by Antonio Ferreira and once in the _Cancioneiro Geral_ do not of course imply that his poems were known and read. André de Resende seems to have been more interested in tracing an ancestor, Vasco Martinez de Resende, than in the poets among whom this ancestor figured (see C. Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, _Randglosse_ XV in _Ztft. für rom. Phil._, xxv. 683).

[2] _Illud vero poemation quod vulgo circumfertur de Lessa ... nunc vera cum plurimum illud appetant_ ... (Soares, _Theatrum_). Cf. F. Rodriguez Lobo, _Primavera_, ed. 1722, pp. 240, 356, 469; Eloy de Sá de Sottomayor, _Ribeiras do Mondego_, f. 27 v., 28 v., 120-1, 186; _Canc. Geral_ of A. F. Barata (1836-1910), p. 235; Jeronimo Bahia, _Ao Mondego_ (_Fenix Ren._, ii. 377-9). Cf. Brito, _Mon. Lus._ 1. ii. 2: _O rio Leça celebre pelas rimas de nosso famoso poeta_.

[3] The documents of the Torre do Tombo are now in the able keeping of Dr. Pedro de Azevedo and Snr. Antonio Baião.

[4] Even its title was inaccurately given, as _O Fiel Conselheiro_ (Bernardo de Brito), _De Fideli Consiliario_ (N. Antonio, _Bib. Vetus_, ii. 241), _Del Buen Consejero_ (Faria e Sousa); correctly by Duarte Nunez de Leam. A _Conselheiro Fiel_ by Frei Manuel Guilherme (1658-1734) appeared in 1727.

[5] _De que não ha noticia_ (Goes, _Cronica de D. João_, cap. 6).

[6] _D. Francisco Manuel de Mello. Esboço biographico._ Coimbra, 1914, an admirably clear and very important work, in which much light from new documents is thrown on Mello’s life.

[7] It would be interesting to know how many English-speaking persons have ever heard of the great men and writers that were King Dinis, Fernam Lopez, Bernardim Ribeiro, Diogo Bernardez, Heitor Pinto, Frei Thomé de Jesus, Ferreira de Vasconcellos, Frei Luis de Sousa, Antonio Vieira, Manuel Bernardes. Their neglect has been largely due to the absence of good or easily available texts; there is still nothing to correspond to the Spanish _Biblioteca de Autores Españoles_ or the many more modern Spanish collections. But is not even Camões still ‘an abused stranger’, as Mickle called him in 1776?

[8] See F. de Figueiredo, _O que é a Academia das Sciencias de Lisboa_ (1779-1915) in _Revista da Historia_, vol. iv, 1915.

[9] His valuable study on Zurara, which has not been superseded by any later work on the subject, is dated 1896.

[10] She has, indeed, laid the Portuguese people under an obligation which it will not easily redeem. That no formal recognition has been bestowed in England on her work (as in another field on that of Dr. José Leite de Vasconcellos, of Snr. Braamcamp Freire, and of the late Dr. Francisco Adolpho Coelho) is a striking example of our insularity.

[11] It does not include living writers. Its dates must be received with caution.

[12] It has been found necessary to publish the bibliography separately.

[13] e. g. King Sancho II’s _Foros da Guarda_, printed, from a 1305 manuscript, in vol. v (1824) of the _Collecção de Ineditos_, or the _Foros de Santarem_ (1385). The _Livro Vermelho do Senhor D. Affonso V_, printed in the _Collecção de Livros Ineditos_, vol. iii (1793), is also full of interest.

[14] e.g. the fourteenth-century _Livro de Cetreria_ of PERO MENINO; MESTRE GIRALDO’S _Tratado das Enfermidades das Aves de Caça_ and _Livro d’Alveitaria_; the _Arte da Cavallaria de gineta e estardiota_ (1678) by ANTONIO GALVAM DE ANDRADE (1613?-89); _Correcçam de abusos introduzidos contra o verdadeiro methodo da medicina_ (2 pts., 1668-80) by the Carmelite FREI MANUEL DE AZEVEDO (†1672); _Agricultura das Vinhas_ (1711) by Vicente Alarte (i.e. SILVESTRE GOMEZ DE MORAES (1643-1723)); _Compendia de Botanica_ (2 vols., 1788) by FELIX DE AVELLAR BROTERO (1744-1828).

[15] Many will be found in _Portugalia_ and the _Revista Lusitana_.

[16] In the beginning of the sixteenth century Galician is already despised in Portugal, and became more so as Portuguese grew more latinized. Cf. Gil Vicente, ii. 509: _Pera que he falar galego Senão craro e despachado?_; Chiado, _Auto das Regateiras: Eu não te falo galego_.

[17] _Por ser lingua mais jêral_ (Vera, _Lovvores_), _mais universal_ (Sousa de Macedo). _Os grandes ingenios não se contentão de ter por espera de seu applauso a hũa só parte do mundo_ (D. Francisco de Portugal). Cf. Osorio, writing in Latin, _De Rebus_, p. 4, and Pedro Nunez’ reason for translating his _Libro de Algebra_ into Spanish: _he mais comum_, and the advice given to Luis Marinho de Azevedo to write in Spanish or Latin as _mais geral_ (_Primeira Parte da Fundação, Antiguidades e Grandezas da mvi insigne cidade de Lisboa. Prologo_). Faria e Sousa condemns the practice of writing Spanish _glosas_ to a Portuguese _mote_, and declares that he himself wrote in Spanish _con gran pesar mío_. Frei Antonio da Purificaçam considered that had he written his _Cronica_ in Latin or Spanish _fora digno de grande nota_, in this following Frei Bernardo de Brito, who indignantly rejected the exhortation to use Latin or Spanish (_Mon. Lus._ i, _Prologo_), although he wrote under Spanish rule. Bernarda Ferreira de Lacerda wrote in Spanish _por ser idioma claro y casi comun_. Simão Machado explains why he wrote _Alfea_ in Spanish as follows (f. 72 v.): _Vendo quam mal aceitais As obras dos naturais Fiz esta em lingoa estrangeira Por ver se desta maneira Como a eles nos tratais._

[18] Portuguese spelling is a vexed and vexing question, complicated by the positive dislike of the Portuguese for uniformity (the same word may be found spelt in two ways on the same page both in modern and ancient books; the same person will spell his name Manoel and Manuel). In proper names their owners’ spelling has been retained, although no one now writes Prince Henry the Navigator’s name as he wrote it: Anrique. Thus Mello (modern Melo); Nunez (13th c.), Nunes (19th c.); Bernardez (16th c.), Bernardes (17th-18th c.). The late Dr. Gonçalves Vianna himself adopted the form Gonçalvez Viana. In quoting ancient Portuguese texts the only alteration made has been occasionally to replace _y_ and _u_ by _i_ and _v_.

[19] _Este desejo (de sempre ver e ouvir cousas nouas) he moor que nas outras nações na gente Lusitana._ André de Burgos, _Ao prudente leitor_ (_Relaçam_, Evora, 1557). It is displayed in their fondness for foreign customs, for the Spanish language, for India to the neglect of Portugal, the description of epic deeds rather than of ordinary life, high-flown language as opposed to the common speech (_da praça_), &c. Antonio Prestes calls the Portuguese _estranho no natural, natural no estranjeiro_.

[20] In Spain it has had fervent admirers, notably Gracián. More recently Juan Valera spoke of it as _riquísima_, and Menéndez y Pelayo explored this wealth.

[21] F. Denis, _Résumé_ (1826), p. xx.

[22] Wilhelm Storck, _Luis de Camoens’ Sämmtliche Werke_, Bd. I (1880).

[23] Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple.

[24] For a good instance of this _descuido portugues_ see Manuel Pereira de Novaes, _Anacrisis Historial_ (a history of the city of Oporto in Spanish), vol. i (1912), _Preámbulo_, p. xvii. It is lamented by the editors of the _Cancioneiro Geral_ (1516) and _Fenix Renascida_ (1716).

[25] Portuguese literature begins for most Portuguese with Camões and Barros, and its most charming and original part thus escapes them. Cf. F. Dias Gomes, _Obras Poeticas_ (1799), p. 143: Camões ‘without whom there would have been no Portuguese poetry’; and ibid., p. 310: Barros ‘prepared the beautiful style for our epic writers’. Faria e Sousa’s homely phrase as to the effect of Camões on preceding poets (_echólos todos a rodar_) was unfortunately true.

[26] Much of their finest prose is of lyrical character, personal, fervent, mystic. As to philosophy proper the greatest if not the only Portuguese philosopher, Spinoza, a Portuguese Jew, left Portugal as a child, and Francisco Sanchez (_c._ 1550-_c._ 1620), although probably born at Braga, not at _a soberba_ Tuy, lived in France and wrote in Latin. He tells us that he in 1574 finished his celebrated treatise _Quod nihil scitur_, published at Lyon in 1581, in which, at a time of great intolerance, he revived and gave acute and curious expression to the old theory that nothing can be known. To modern philosophy Dr. Leonardo Coimbra (born in 1883) has contributed a notable but somewhat abstruse work entitled _O Criacionismo_ (Porto, 1912).

[27] Or political, or anticlerical, or anything except literary. The critics seem to have forgotten that an _auto-da-fé_ does not necessarily make its victim a good poet, and that even a priest may have literary talent. A few literary critics, as Dias in the eighteenth, Guilherme Moniz Barreto in the nineteenth century, are only exceptions to the rule. It has been the weakness of Portuguese criticism, more lenient than the gods and booksellers of ancient Rome, to suffer _mediocres_ gladly.

[28] _C. da Vat._ 979 (cf. Jorge Ferreira, _Eufrosina_, v. 5: _como dizia o Galego: de longas vias longas mentiras_).

[29] _Poesias, Sat._ 2. The remark of Garrett still holds good: _Em Portugal ha mais talento e menos cultivação que em paiz nenhum da Europa_.

I

1185-1325

§ 1

_The Cossantes_

Under the Moorish dominion we know that poetry was widely cultivated in the Iberian Peninsula, by high and low. At Silves in Algarve ‘almost every peasant could improvise’.[30] But the early Galician-Portuguese poetry has no relation with that of the Moors, despite certain characteristics which may seem to point to an Oriental origin. The indigenous poems of Galicia and Portugal, of which thirteenth-century examples have survived, are so remarkable, so unlike those of any other country, that they deserve to be studied apart from the Provençal imitations by the side of which they developed. Half buried in the _Cancioneiros_, themselves only recently discovered, these exquisite and in some ways astonishingly modern lyrics are even now not very widely known and escape the attention of many who go far afield in search of true poetry. The earliest poem dated (1189) by D. Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, in which Pay Soarez de Taveiroos, a nobleman of Galicia or North Portugal, addresses Maria Paez Ribeira, the lovely mistress of King Sancho I, _mia sennor branca e vermelha_, does not belong to these lyrics[31]; but the second earliest (1199), attributed to King SANCHO I (1185-1211) himself, is one of them (C.C.B.348). This unique form of lyric requires a distinctive name, and if we adopt that used by the Marqués de Santillana’s father, Diego Furtado de Mendoza (†1404), we shall have a word well suited to convey an idea of their striking character.[32] His Spanish poem written in parallel distichs, _A aquel arbol_, is called a _cossante_.[33] In an age when all that seemed most Spanish, the _Poema del Cid_, for instance, or the _Libro de Buen Amor_, has been proved to derive in part from French sources, it is peculiarly pleasant to find a whole series of early poems which have their roots firmly planted in the soil of the Peninsula. The indigenous character of the _cossantes_ is now well established, thanks chiefly to the skilful and untiring researches of D. Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcellos.[34] They are wild but deliciously scented single flowers which now reappear in all their freshness as though they had not lain pressed and dead for centuries in the library of the Vatican. One of the earliest is quoted by Airas Nunez (C. V. 454) and completed in _Grundriss_, p. 150:

1. Solo ramo verde frolido Vodas fazen a meu amigo, E choran olhos d’amor.

2. Solo verde frolido ramo[35] Vodas fazen a meu amado, E choran olhos d’amor.

What first strikes one in this is its Oriental immobility. The second distich adds nothing to the sense of the first, merely intensifying it by repetition. Neither the poetry of the _trouvères_ of the North of France nor that of the Provençal _troubadours_ presents any parallel. The scanty Basque literature contains nothing in this kind. But it is unnecessary to go for a parallel to China.[36] None more remarkable will be found than those contained in the books of that religion which came from the East and imposed its forms if not its spirit on the pagans of the Peninsula. Verses 8, 9 of Psalm 118 are very nearly a _cossante_ but have no refrain. The resemblance in Psalm 136, verses 17, 18, is still more marked:

To him which smote great kings, For his mercy endureth for ever,

And slew famous kings, For his mercy endureth for ever.

The relations between Church and people were very close if not always very friendly. The peasants maintained their ancient customs, and their pagan jollity kept overflowing into the churches to the scandal of the authorities. Innumerable ordinances later sought to check their delight in witchcraft and mummeries, feasts and funerals (the delight in the latter is still evident in Galicia as in Ireland and Wales). Men slept, ate, drank, danced, sang profane songs, and acted plays and parodies in the churches and pilgrimage shrines. The Church strove to turn their midsummer and May-day celebrations into Christian festivals, but the change was rather nominal than real. But if the priests and bishops remained spiritually, like modern politicians, shepherds without sheep, the religious services, the hymns,[37] the processions evidently affected the people. Especially was this the case in Galicia, since the great saint Santiago, who farther south (as later in India) rode into battle on a snow-white steed before the Christians, gave a more peaceful prosperity to the North-west. Pilgrims from all countries in the Middle Ages came to worship at his shrine at Santiago de Compostela. They came a motley company singing on the road,[38] criminals taking this opportunity to escape from justice, tradesmen and players, jugglers and poets making a livelihood out of the gathering throngs, as well as devout pilgrims who had ‘left alle gamys’ for their soul’s good, _des pélerins qui vont chantant et des jongleurs_. Thus the eyes of the whole province of Galicia as the eyes of Europe were directed towards the Church of Santiago in Jakobsland. The inhabitants of Galicia would naturally view their heaven-sent celebrity with pride and rejoice in the material gain. They would watch with eager interest the pilgrims passing along the _camino francés_ or from the coast to Santiago, and would themselves flock to see and swell the crowds at the religious services. When we remember the frequent parodies of religious services in the Middle Ages and that the Galicians did not lag behind others in the art of mimicry,[39] we can well imagine that the Latin hymns sung in church or procession might easily form the germ of the profane _cossante_. A further characteristic of the _cossante_ is that the _i_-sound of the first distich is followed by an _a_-sound in the second (_ricercando ora il grave, ora l’acuto_) and this too maybe traced to a religious source, two answering choirs of singers, treble and bass.[40] It is clear at least that these alternating sounds are echoes of music: one almost hears the clash of the _adufe_ in the _louçana_ (answering to _garrida_) or _ramo_ (_pinho_). The words of these poems were, indeed, always accompanied by the _son_ (= music). But if born in the Church, the _cossante_ suffered a transformation when it went out into the world. The rhythm of many of the songs in the _Cancioneiros_ is so obtrusive that they seem to dance out of the printed page. One would like to think that in the ears of the peasants the sound of the wheel mingled with the echo of a hymn and its refrain as they met at what was, even then, no doubt, a favourite gathering-place--the mill[41]--and thus a lyric poem became a dance-song. The _cossante Solo ramo_ would thus proceed, sung by ‘the dancers dancing in tune’:

(Verses 3 and 4) Vodas fazen a meu amigo (amado) Porque mentiu o desmentido (perjurado) E choran olhos d’amor,