Part 27

A faint vein of mysticism is to be found in the work of FREI HEITOR PINTO (_c._ 1528-1584?), who was born at the high-lying little town of Covilhan and professed in the famous Convento dos Jeronimos at Belem in 1543. After taking the degree of Doctor of Theology at Siguenza he in 1567 competed for a Chair at Salamanca University, but came into collision with Fray Luis de Leon, and in a bitter contest between the Hieronymite and Augustinian Orders Pinto was defeated. He returned to Portugal, became Professor of the new Chair of Scripture at Coimbra University in 1576, Rector of the University and Provincial of his Order.[554] After the death of the Cardinal-King he appears vehemently to have espoused the cause of the Prior of Crato. King Philip accordingly invited Pinto to accompany him to Spain--he was one of the fifty excluded from the amnesty of 1581--and scandal added that the king had him poisoned there in 1584. Pinto was an eminent divine, a man of wide learning, a master of Portuguese prose, and he appears to have inspired his pupils with affection; but King Philip could scarcely have considered him worth poisoning, especially when removed from his sphere of influence. No doubt he went to Spain with extreme reluctance--on other occasions of his busy life when the affairs of his Order drove him to France and Italy he had sighed in tears (in spite of his interest in travel, his love of Nature, and especially his antiquarian curiosity[555]) for his quiet cell at Belem, ‘where he had lived many years in great content’. Perhaps too he had not forgotten his defeat at Salamanca. ‘King Philip’, he now said sturdily, ‘may put me into Castille but never Castille into me.’ Pinto wrote commentaries on various books of the Old Testament, which were published in Latin, but his principal work consists in the dialogues, _a maneira dos de Platão_, of his _Imagem da Vida Christam_ (1563), followed by the _Segunda Parte dos Dialogos_ (1572). The first part has six dialogues, the subjects being true philosophy, religion, justice, tribulation, the solitary life,[556] and remembrance of death. The five of the second part treat of tranquillity of life, discreet ignorance, true friendship, causes,[557] and true and spurious possessions. It is impossible to read a page of these dialogues and not be struck by the extraordinary fascination of their style. It is concise and direct without ever losing its harmony. Perhaps its best testimonial is that its magic survives the innumerable quotations, although one may regret that the work was not written, like the _Trabalhos de Jesus_, in a dungeon instead of in a well-stocked library.[558] Apart from the proof it affords of the exceptional capacity of the Portuguese language for combining softness and vigour, the work contains much ingenious thought, charming descriptions, and elaborate similes. Some twenty editions in various languages before the end of the century show how keenly it was appreciated. It was certainly not without influence on the _Dialogos_ (1589) of the energetic and austere Bishop of Portalegre, AMADOR ARRAEZ (_c._ 1530-1600), who spent his boyhood at Beja and professed as a Carmelite at Lisbon a year after Frei Thomé de Jesus and two years after Frei Heitor Pinto had professed in the same city. Like the former he studied theology at Coimbra.[559] Cardinal Henrique, when Archbishop of Evora, chose Arraez to be his suffragan, and in 1578 appointed him to the see of Tripoli. Three years later he was made Bishop of Portalegre by Philip II. He resigned in 1596, and spent the last four years of his life in retirement, in the college of his Order at Coimbra. A few weeks before his death he wrote the prefatory letter for the revised edition of his great work.[560] It consists of ten long dialogues between the sick and dying Antiocho and doctor, priest, lawyer, or friends. The longest, over a quarter of the whole, is a mystic life of the Virgin, and of the others some are purely religious, as _Da Paciencia e Fortaleza Christam_, some historical or political (_Da Gloria e Triunfo dos Lusitanos_; _Das Condições e Partes do Bom Principe_). That on the Jews (_Da Gente Judaica_) is marred by a spirit of bitter intolerance; on the other hand there is an outspoken protest against slavery. The whole of this interesting miscellany, which incidentally discusses a very large number of subjects,[561] is tinged with mystic philosophy, and at the same time shows a keen sense of reality. In style as in degree of mysticism it stands midway between Pinto’s _Imagem_ and the _Trabalhos de Jesus_. It is evident that its composition, although less artificial than that of the _Imagem_, has been the subject of much care, and the author declares in his preface that while adopting a ‘common, ordinary style’, to the exclusion of forced tricks and elegances, he has striven after clearness and harmony (the two postulates of his contemporary, Fray Luis de Leon). The result is a treasury of excellent prose, in which the harmonious flow of the sentences in nowise interferes with precision and restraint, that grave brevity which Arraez notes as one of the principal qualities of Portuguese. It can rise to great eloquence (as in the lament of Olympio) without ever becoming rhetorical or turgid.

The prose of Pinto and Arraez was a very conscious art, that of the still greater FREI THOMÉ DE JESUS (1529?-82) was the man, and the man merged in mysticism, without thought of style. He was the son of Fernam Alvarez de Andrade, Treasurer to King João III, and of Isabel de Paiva. One of his brothers was the celebrated preacher Diogo de Paiva de Andrade (1528-75), another the historian Francisco de Andrade; a third, Frei Cosme da Presentação, distinguished himself in philosophy and theology, but died at the age of thirty-six at Bologna, while the work of a nephew (son of Francisco de Andrade), Diogo de Paiva de Andrade (1576-1660), _Casamento perfeito_ (1636), is counted a classic of Portuguese prose. His sister D. Violante married the second Conde de Linhares. As a boy at the Augustinian Collegio de Nossa Senhora da Graça at Coimbra he is said to have been all but drowned while swimming in the Mondego. He professed at the Lisbon convent of the same Order in 1544, went to Coimbra to study theology, and then became master of novices at the Lisbon convent.[562] Here in 1574 he planned a reform of the Order, but when all was ready for the secession of the new _Recoletos_ an intrigue put an end to the scheme, which a kindred spirit, Fray Luis de Leon, later carried into effect. Frei Thomé was permitted to retire to the convent of Penafirme by the sea, near Torres Vedras, where he might hope to indulge his love of quiet and solitude. He was, however, appointed prior of the convent and Visitor of his Order, and in 1578 was chosen by King Sebastian to accompany him to Africa. At the battle of Alcacer Kebir, as he held aloft a crucifix or tended the wounded, he was speared by a Moor and taken prisoner to Mequinez. Here he was loaded with chains and placed in a dungeon, and as the slave of a marabout received ‘less bread than blows’. The Portuguese Ambassador, D. Francisco da Costa, intervened, and he was removed to Morocco. Frei Thomé had borne all his sufferings with the most heroic fortitude, and now, broken in health but not in spirit, he refused to lodge at the ambassador’s and asked to be placed in the common prison. During a captivity of nearly four years, regardless of his own fate,[563] with unflagging devotion he ministered to the numerous Christian prisoners, and was occupied to the last with their needs. Costa, who shared the general respect and affection for this saint and hero, visited him as he lay dying (April 17, 1582). _Vattene in pace, alma beata e bella!_ It was during his captivity that he composed the work that has given him the lasting fame earned by his life and character, writing furtively in the scant light that filtered through the cracks of the prison door.[564] These fifty _Trabalhos de Jesus_ (2 pts., 1602, 9) embrace the whole life of Christ, and deserve, more than Renan’s _Vie de Christ_, to be called a gracious fifth Gospel. Each _trabalho_ is, moreover, followed by a spiritual exercise, and these constitute a Portuguese _De Imitatione Christi_. Rarely, if ever, has such glow and fervour been set in print: none but the very dull could be left cold by these transports of passionate devotion. The prose wrestles and throbs in an agony of grief or rapture, of mysticism carried to the extreme limit where all power of articulate expression ends.[565] Frei Thomé de Jesus is a master of Portuguese prose not by any arts or graces but through the white heat of his intensity. No book shows more clearly that style must always be a secondary consideration, that if there be a burning conviction excellence of style follows. It could evidently only have been written by one who had greatly suffered, indeed by one who still suffered, one who expressed in these fervid accents of heavenly communion an oblivion of self and an energy habitually employed in eager earthly service of his fellow men. In a prefatory letter (November 8, 1581) addressed to the Portuguese people he declared his intention of publishing as it stood this masterpiece of mystic ecstasy, which he believed to have been written by divine inspiration.[566]

Another celebrated treatise of a mystic character is the _Voz do_ _Amado_ (1579) by the learned Canon D. HILARIAM BRANDÃO (†1585). The religious works of this century are very numerous. We may mention the anonymous _Regras e Cautelas de proueito espiritual_ (1542), which is written in biblical prose and deals with the fifteen perfections or excellences of charity and kindred subjects; the dialogues _Desengano de Perdidos em dialogo entre dous peregrinos, hũ christão e hũ turco_ (Goa, 1573) by the first Archbishop of Goa, D. GASPAR DE LEÃO (†1576), and the _Dialogo espiritual: Colloquio de um religioso com um peregrino_ (1578) by FREI ALVARO DE TORRES [Vedras] (fl. 1550), who was drowned in the Tagus when on the way to his convent at Belem.

D. JOANA DA GAMA (†1568), a nun of noble birth who directed a small community founded by herself at Evora, a few miles from her native Viana, published a short collection of moral sentences in alphabetical order, followed by a few poems (_trovas_): _Ditos da Freyra_ (1555). She insists, perhaps a little too emphatically for conviction, on her lack of intelligence and ability, and says that these sayings were written down for herself alone and that she purposely avoids subtleties (_ditos sotijs_), but her aphorisms contain some shrewd personal observation. Fact and legend have combined to weave an atmosphere of romance about the life of Manuel de Sousa Coutinho, better known as FREI LUIS DE SOUSA (1555?-1632). A descendant of the second Conde de Marialva, he early entered or was about to enter the Order of Knights Hospitallers at Malta, but was captured by the Moors in much the same way and at about the same time (1575) as was Cervantes. He was taken to Algiers, and may have known Cervantes there, or the statement that he became Cervantes’ friend may have been an inference from the latter’s mention of him in _Los Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda_; they may have met in Lisbon in 1590, or at Madrid. Sousa Coutinho returned to Portugal in 1578, and some years later married D. Magdalena de Vilhena, widow of D. João de Portugal, one of all the peerage that fell with King Sebastian at Alcacer Kebir. Sousa Coutinho, at the invitation of his brother in Panama, is said to have gone thither in the hope of making a fortune, but the date is not clear. His unbending patriotism was immortalized when as Governor of Almada in 1599 he burnt down his house rather than receive as guests the Spanish Governors of Portugal. The prospect of riches at Panama may have seemed especially alluring after this rash act. He appears to have lived quietly in Portugal for some years before 1613, when both he and his wife entered a convent. Their act has been variously explained as due to melancholy disposition or to the early death of their daughter, D. Anna de Noronha. Probably after her death the example of their friend the Conde de Vimioso and the conviction that the only abiding pleasure is the renunciation of all the rest were prevalent factors in their decision. The legend, however, related by Frei Antonio da Encarnação and dramatized two centuries later by Garrett, records that D. João de Portugal, D. Magdalena de Vilhena’s first husband, had been not killed but taken prisoner in Africa, and after many years’ captivity he reappears as an aged pilgrim and bitterly reveals his identity. In the convent of Bemfica, where he had professed in September 1614, Frei Luis de Sousa was consulted on various matters by the Duke of Braganza and others who valued his fine character and clear judgement, but he did not live to see the Restoration. He was entrusted by his Order with the revision of works left by another Dominican, FREI LUIS DE CACEGAS (_c._ 1540-1610). These he re-wrote, giving them a lasting value by virtue of his style. The first part of the _Historia de S. Domingos_, ‘a new kind of chronicle’ as he calls it in his preface addressed to the king, appeared in 1623, but the second (1662) and third (1678) parts were not published in his lifetime. A fourth part (1733) was added by FREI LUCAS DE SANTA CATHARINA (1660-1740), who among other works wrote a curious miscellany of verse and prose, romance and literary criticism, entitled _Seram politico_ (1704). In the biography of the saintly and strong-willed Archbishop of Braga, _Vida de D. Fr. Bertolomeu dos Martyres_ (1619), the excellence of Sousa’s style is even more apparent, for it has here no trace of rhetoric and the pictures stand out with the more effect for the economy with which they are drawn--the dearth of adjectives is noticeable. The archbishop’s visits to his diocese give occasion for charming, homely glimpses of Minho. Neither of these books is the work of a critical historian (in the _Vida_, for instance, winds and waves obey the archbishop), but the latter, especially, is in matter and manner one of the masterpieces of Portuguese literature, a _livro divino_, as a modern Portuguese writer called it.[567] The _Annaes de El Rei Dom João Terceiro_, written at the bidding of Philip IV, was published in 1844 by Herculano, who described the work as little more than a series of notes, except in the Indian sections, which summarize Barros. It is as a stylist, not as a historian, that Frei Luis de Sousa will always be read, and read with delight.[568] The subject of his biography, FREI BARTHOLOMEU DOS MARTYRES (1514-90), wrote in Portuguese a simple _Catecismo da Dovtrina Christam_ (Braga, 1564), resembling the Portuguese work of his friend Fray Luis de Granada (1504-88): _Compendio de Doctrina Christãa_ (Lixboa, 1559).

The _Historia da Vida do Padre Francisco Xavier_ (1600), by the Jesuit JOÃO DE LUCENA (1550-1600), born at Trancoso, who made his mark as an eloquent preacher and Professor of Philosophy in the University of Evora, is also one of the classics of the Portuguese language. It receives a glowing fervour from the author’s evident delight in his subject--the life of the famous Basque missionary in whose arms D. João de Castro died. His command of clear, fluent, vigorous prose, his skilful use of words and abundant power of description, enable him to convey this enthusiasm to his readers. Part of the matter of his book was derived from Fernam Mendez Pinto, but the style is his own.

Like Frei Luis de Sousa, FREI MANUEL DA ESPERANÇA (1586-1670) became the historian of his Order in the _Historia Seraphica da Ordem dos Frades Menores_ (2 pts., 1656, 66). We know from remarks in the second part that he paid the greatest attention to its composition, for which he had prepared himself by reading _hũa multidão notavel_ of books on that and kindred subjects. Similar excellence of style marks the later work of the Jesuit FRANCISCO DE SOUSA (1628?-1713), _O Oriente conquistado_ (2 vols., 1710), in which he chronicles the history of the Company in the East.

The most celebrated Portuguese preacher of his time,[569] Frei Thomé de Jesus’ brother, DIOGO DE PAIVA DE ANDRADE (1528-75), represented Portugal at the Council of Trent in 1561. His eloquent _Sermões_ (1603, 4, 15) were published posthumously in three parts. His mantle fell upon FRANCISCO FERNANDEZ GALVÃO (1554-1610), the prose of whose _Sermões_ (3 vols., 1611, 13, 16) is admirably restrained and pure. Less sonorous than the periods of Paiva de Andrade, the _Trattados_ [_sic_] _Quadragesimais e da Paschoa_ (1609) and _Tratados das Festas e Vidas dos Santos_ (2 pts., 1612, 15) of the Dominican FREI ANTONIO FEO (1573-1627) perhaps gain rather than lose by being read, not heard. In the clearness and precision of their prose they are scarcely inferior to the remarkable _Sermões_ (3 pts., 1617, 18, 25) of the Augustinian FREI PHILIPE DA LUZ (1574-1633), confessor to the Duke of Braganza (afterwards King João IV), in whose palace at Villa Viçosa he died. He, too, writes _sem grandes eloquencias_; he is as precise as Feo in his use of words, and his vocabulary is as extensive. Purity, concision, clearness, and harmony give him, together with Feo, Ceita, and Veiga, a high place in Portuguese prose.

The sermons for which the Dominican FREI PEDRO CALVO (born _c._ 1550) was celebrated were published in _Homilias de Quaresma_ (2 pts., 1627, 9), and at the repeated request of a friend he wrote his _Defensam das Lagrimas dos ivstos persegvidos_ (1618) to prove that ‘tears shed in time of trouble do not lessen merit’. The _Sermões_ (1618) and _Considerações_ (1619, 20, 33) of FREI THOMAS DA VEIGA (1578-1638), like his father a Professor of Coimbra University, are written in a style of great excellence, as, although a trifle more redundant[570] and latinized, is that of his contemporary, like him a Franciscan, FREI JOÃO DA CEITA (1578-1633), whose prose has a natural grace and harmony, if it is less pure and indigenous than that of Luz. His best known works are the _Quadragena de Sermoens_ (1619) and _Quadragena Segunda_ (1625). Two more volumes of _Sermões_ (1634, 5) appeared after his death. Two slightly later writers were FREI CRISTOVAM DE LISBOA (†1652), brother of Manuel Severim de Faria, and FREI CRISTOVAM DE ALMEIDA (1620-79), Bishop of Martyria. The former, author of _Jardim da Sagrada Escriptura_ (1653) and _Consolaçam de Afflictos e Allivio de Lastimados_ (1742), in the preface to his _Santoral de Varios Sermões_ (1638) deplores the new fashion of certain preachers who hide their meaning under their eloquence. He is himself sometimes inclined to be florid. Bishop Almeida attained a reputation for great eloquence even in the days of Antonio Vieira.[571] His _Sermões_ (1673, 80, 86) are simpler than those of Vieira, but for the reader their prose lacks the quiet precision of Ceita, Veiga, or Luz, whose sermons may be considered one of the sources from which a greater master of Portuguese, Manuel Bernardes, derived his magic. The Jesuit LUIS ALVAREZ (1615?-1709?), who was born a few years after Vieira, and lived on into the eighteenth century, also had a great reputation as a preacher. The fire is absent from the printed page, but his works, _Sermões da Quaresma_ (3 pts., 1688, 94, 99), _Amor Sagrado_ (1673), and _Ceo de graça, inferno custoso_ 1692), are notable for the purity of their prose.

The religious works of the seventeenth, as of the sixteenth century are very various in subject and treatment. FREI JOÃO CARDOSO (†1655), author of _Ruth Peregrina_ (2 pts., 1628, 54), also wrote a lengthy commentary on the 113th Psalm in twenty-one discourses: _Jornada Dalma Libertada_ (1626). Ten years earlier a Jew, JOÃO BAPTISTA D’ESTE, had published in excellent Portuguese a translation of the Psalms: _Consolaçam Christam e Lvz para o Povo Hebreo_ (1616). His title was suggested by that of a far more remarkable book by another Jew, SAMUEL USQUE (fl. 1540), _Consolaçam ás Tribulaçoens de Israel_, written probably between 1540 and 1550[572] and first printed at Ferrara by Abraham ben Usque in 1553. The author was the son of Spanish Jews who had taken refuge in Portugal, where he was born, probably at the end of the fifteenth century.[573] His famous work is an account of the sufferings of the Jewish race. In three dialogues Jacob (_Ycabo_), Nahum (_Numeo_), and Zachariah (_Zicareo_) converse as shepherds. Israel, in person, relates his sorrows down to the fall of Jerusalem, an event which is described in detail, and so on to the persecutions in European countries (_novas gentes_), and at the end of each dialogue the prophets administer their comfort. The book closes with a chorus of rapturous psalms in biblical prose, rejoicing at the coming end of Israel’s tribulations and calling for vengeance on their enemies, and thus finishes on a note of joyful faith and courageous hope, without an inkling of charity. The first dialogue, which condenses Old Testament history, has a rhythmical, luxuriant style, rich in Oriental imagery, but later, where Roman history is the authority, or in the tragic account of the persecution of Jews in Portugal[574] under João II and the two succeeding kings, the style is shorn of rhetoric. Nor is there a trace of false ornament in a long passage of wonderful eloquence, Israel’s final complaint and invocation to sky and earth, waters and mortal creatures. The agony and awful glow of indignation at these recent events had a restraining influence on the style, which loses nothing by this simplicity. Quieter descriptions are those of the shepherd’s life and of the chase in the first, and of spring and evening in the third part.

The Jesuit DIOGO MONTEIRO (1561-1634), when towards the end of his life he published his _Arte de Orar_ (1631), promised, should his ‘great occupations’ allow, to print very soon the second volume dealing with the divine attributes. This did not appear in that generation: _Meditações dos attribvtos divinos_ (Roma, 1671). The _Arte de Orar_ contains twenty-nine treatises (604 ff.). Its subjects are various (of the virtue of magnificence; of the esteem in which singing is held by God, &c.), and they are presented with fervour and clear concision, and especially with a complete absence of oratorical effect. Quintilian takes part in one of the six dialogues which compose the _Peregrinaçam Christam_ (1620) by TRISTÃO BARBOSA DE CARVALHO (†1632); he is on a pilgrimage from Lisbon to the tomb of Saint Isabel at Coimbra, but he expresses himself in excellent Portuguese, modelled perhaps on that of Arraez. The prose of the _Retrato de Prvdentes, Espelho de Ignorantes_ (1664) by the Jesuit FRANCISCO AIRES (1597-1664) often rises to eloquence, notably in the fervent prayers. His _Theatro dos Trivmphos Divinos contra os Desprimores Hvmanos_ (1658) is of a more practical character. The Franciscan FREI MANUEL DOS ANJOS (1595-1653) laid no claim to originality in his _Politica predicavel e doutrina moral do bom governo do mundo_ (1693), written in a clear and correct but slightly redundant[575] style.