Part 29

The taste in poetry in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is seen in two collections, partly Spanish, partly Portuguese: _Fenix Renascida_ (5 vols., 1716-28) and _Eccos que o Clarim da Fama dá_ (2 vols., 1761, 2). The latter is sufficiently characterized by its title, too long to quote in full. As to the former the Phoenix seems to have given real pleasure to contemporary readers, but for us the bird and song are flown and only the ashes remain, from which a sixteenth-century poem such as the sonnet _Horas breves_ stands out conspicuously. The subjects are often as trivial as those of the _Cancioneiro_ published two centuries earlier and more domestic: to a cousin sewing, to an overdressed man, to a large mouth, a sonnet to two market-women fighting, another to the prancing horse of the Conde de Sabugal, on a present of roses, two long _romances_ on a goldfinch killed by a cat, verses sent with a gift of handkerchiefs or eggs or melons, or to thank for sugar-plums--the _Fenix_ rarely soars above such themes. The magistrate ANTONIO BARBOSA BACELLAR (1610-63) figures largely, with glosses on poems by Camões, a _romance_ _A umas saudades_, a satirical poem _A umas beatas_. His _romances varios_ are mostly in Spanish, but a few of his sonnets in Portuguese have some merit. The fifth volume opens (pp. 1-37) with a far more elaborate satire by DIOGO CAMACHO (or Diogo de Sousa): _Jornada que Diogo Camacho fez ás Cortes do Parnaso_, the best burlesque poem of the century, in which the author did not spare contemporary Lisbon poets.[605] The poems of JERONIMO BAHIA likewise cover many pages. He it is who bewails at length the sad fate of a goldfinch. In _oitavas_ he wrote a _Fabula de Polyfemo a Galatea_,[606] and in octosyllabic _redondilhas_ jocular accounts of journeys from Lisbon to Coimbra and from Lisbon into Alentejo (on a very lean mule) which are sometimes amusing. His sonnet _Fallando com Deos_ shows a deeper nature, and the collection contains other religious verse, notably that of Violante Montesino, better known as SOROR VIOLANTE DO CEO (1601-93). Here,[607] as in her _Rythmas varias_ (Rouen, 1646) and _Parnaso Lusitano de divinos e humanos versos_ (2 vols., 1733), this nun, who spent over sixty years in the Dominican Convento da Rosa at Lisbon, and who from an early age was known for her skill upon the harp and in poetry--admiring contemporaries called her the tenth Muse--showed that she could write with simple fervour, as in the Portuguese _deprecações devotas_ of the _Meditações da Missa_ (1689) or her Spanish _villancicos_. But she could also be the most gongorical of writers, her very real native talent being too often spoilt by the taste of the time.[608] BERNARDA FERREIRA DE LACERDA (1595-1644), another _femina incomparabilis_, like Soror Violante and Dercylis considered the tenth Muse and fourth Grace, wrote almost exclusively in Spanish, nor can her _Soledades de Buçaco_ (1634) or her epic _Hespaña Libertada_ (2 pts., 1618, 73) be considered a heavy loss to Portuguese literature. SOROR MARIA MAGDALENA EUPHEMIA DA GLORIA (1672-? _c._ 1760), in the world Leonarda Gil da Gama, in _Brados do Desengano_ (1739), _Orbe Celeste_ (1742), and _Reino de Babylonia_ (1749), rarely descends from the high-flown style indicated in these titles. On the other hand, the Franciscan nun of Lisbon, SOROR MARIA DO CEO (1658-1753), or Maria de Eça, in _A Preciosa_ (2 pts., 1731, 3) and _Enganos do Bosque, Desenganos do Rio_ (1741), among much verse of the same kind has some poems of real charm and an almost rustic simplicity.

By reason of a certain intensity and a vigorous style D. FRANCISCO CHILD ROLIM DE MOURA (1572-1640), Lord of the towns of Azambuja and Montargil, although more versed in arms than in letters, wrote in _Os Novissimos do Homem_ (1623) a poem quite as readable as the longer epics of his contemporaries, despite its duller subject (man’s first disobedience and all our woe). The four cantos in _oitavas_ are headed Death, Judgement, Hell, Paradise.[609] Of the life of MANUEL DA VEIGA TAGARRO we know little or nothing, but his volume of eclogues and odes, _Lavra de Anfriso_ (1627), stands conspicuous in the seventeenth century for its simplicity and true lyrical vein. There is nothing original in these four eclogues, but the verse is of a harmonious softness. In the odes he succeeds in combining fervent thought with a classical restraint of expression. He aimed high; Horace, Lope de Vega, and Luis de Leon seem to have been his models. Some measure of the latter’s deliberate tranquillity he occasionally attained. The works of the ‘discreet and accomplished’, keen-eyed and graceful D. FRANCISCO DE PORTUGAL (1585-1632) appeared posthumously[610]: _Divinos e humanos versos_ (1652) and (without separate title-page) _Prisões e solturas de hũa alma_, consisting of mystic poems mostly in Spanish in a setting of Portuguese prose, and, in Spanish, _Arte de Galanteria_ (1670), of which a second edition was published in 1682. Lope de Vega praised the ‘elegant verses’ of the _Gigantomachia_ (1628) written by MANUEL DE GALHEGOS (1597-1665). That he could write good Portuguese poetry the author showed in the 732 verses of his _Templo da Memoria_ (1635), in the preface of which he declares that it had become a rash act to publish poems written in Portuguese but quotes the example of Pereira de Castro and of Góngora as having used the language of everyday life and plebeian words without indignity.

The later epics testified to the perseverance of their authors rather than to their poetical talent. They are perhaps less guilty than the critics, who should have discouraged the kind and recognized that the _Lusiads_ were only an accident in Portuguese literature, the accident of the genius of Camões. As a rule the epic spirit of the Portuguese expressed itself better in prose. GABRIEL PEREIRA DE CASTRO (1571?-1632) forestalled Sousa de Macedo in his choice of a subject. His _Vlyssea, ov Lysboa Edificada, Poema heroyco_ (1636) was published posthumously by his brother Luis, and perhaps the most remarkable thing about it is that it should have run through six editions. The structure of the poem, in ten cantos of _oitavas_, is closely modelled on that of the _Lusiads_, and the gods of Olympus duly take a part in the story. He sings, he says boldly, to his country, to the world and to eternity, but his sails flap sadly for lack of inspiration and enthusiasm, and his daring _enjambements_[611] do not compensate for the dullness of theme and treatment. If, for instance, we compare his storm[612] with that of the _Lusiads_ (vi. 70-91) it must be confessed that the former has much the air of a commotion in a duckpond. Ulysses on his way to Lisbon visits (canto 4) the infernal regions, is astonished to meet kings there, and (canto 6) relates the siege and fall of Troy.

The life of BRAS GARCIA DE MASCARENHAS (1596-1656) was more interesting than his verses. He was born at Avó, near the Serra da Estrella, and his adventures began early, for he was arrested on account of a love affair (1616) and made a daring escape from Coimbra prison after wounding his jailer. His careful biographer, Dr. Antonio de Vasconcellos, has shown that there is no record of his having studied at Coimbra University. Subsequently he travelled and fought in Brazil (1623-32), Italy, France, Flanders, and Spain, and in 1641, as captain, raised and commanded a body of horse known as the Company of Lions. As Governor of Alfaiates, the ‘key of Beira’, he was wrongfully accused of having a treasonable understanding with Spain and imprisoned at Sabugal, some ten miles from Alfaiates (1642). He obtained a book (the _Flos Sanctorum_), flour, and scissors and cut out a letter in verse to King João IV, who restored him to his governorship and gave him the habit of Avis. His long epic _Viriato Tragico_ (1699) contains some forcible descriptions and has a pleasantly patriotic and indigenous atmosphere--one feels that he is singing _os patrios montes_ as much as the hero--but in style it differs little from prose. Tedious geographical descriptions, dry catalogues of names, a whole stanza (vii. 39) composed exclusively of nouns, another (iv. 63) of proper names, incline the reader less to praise than sleep, from which he is only gently stirred when the sun is called _a solar embaixadora_. In the prevailing fashion of the time the author works in lines of Camões, Sá de Miranda, Garci Lasso, Ariosto, and other poets. While the work was still in manuscript another poet, and perhaps a relation, Andre da Silva Mascarenhas, helped himself liberally to its stanzas (they number 2,287) for his epic _A Destruição de Hespanha_ (1671). He could have given no better proof of the poverty of his genius. FRANCISCO DE SÁ DE MENESES (_c._ 1600-1664?), although less true a poet than his cousin and namesake the Conde de Mattosinhos, won a far wider fame by his epic poem _Malaca Conqvistada_ (1634), in which he recounts _a heroica historia dos feitos de Albuquerque_. The reader who accompanies his frail bark[613] through twelve cantos of _oitavas_ feels that he has well earned the fall of Malacca at the end. For although the author is not incapable of vigorous and succinct description he too often decks out the pure gold of Camões’ style[614] with periphrases and Manueline ornaments which delay the action. The sun is ‘the lover of Clytie’ or ‘the rubicund son of Latona’. He stops to tell us that a diamond won by Albuquerque had been ‘cut by skilled hand in Milan’, and some of his more elaborate similes are not without charm. Canto 7 tells of the future deeds of the Portuguese in India. The gods interfere less than in the _Lusiads_ (Asmodeus plays a part in canto 6), but the general effect is that of a great theme badly handled. After the death of his wife, the author spent the last twenty years of his life (from 1641) in the Dominican convent of Bemfica as Frei Francisco de Jesus.

ANTONIO DE SOUSA DE MACEDO (1606-82), _moço fidalgo_ of Philip IV and later Secretary of Embassy and Minister (_Residente_) in London (1642-6) and Secretary of State to the weak and unlettered Afonso VI, wrote at the age of twenty-two _Flores de España, Excelencias de Portugal_ (1631). This historical work of considerable interest and importance was written in Spanish por ser mais universal, but he returned to Portuguese presently in a curious prose miscellany, _Eva e Ave_ (1676), and in the epic poem _Vlyssippo_ (1640) in fourteen cantos of _oitavas_. He seems to have felt that interest could not easily be sustained by the subject, the foundation of Lisbon by Ulysses. Accordingly, following the example of Camões, he inset various episodes. Canto 6 summarizes the events of the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_, canto 10 describes a tapestry adorned with future Portuguese victories, in canto 11 the Delphic Sibyl foretells the deeds of Portugal’s kings, down to Sebastian, in canto 12 the wise Chiron prophesies of her _famosos varões_. The style is correct, but the poem as a whole is commonplace. VASCO MOUSINHO DE QUEVEDO, of Setubal, although no records of his life remain, won high fame by his epic poem in _oitavas_ (twelve cantos) _Afonso Africano_ (1611), in which ‘the marvellous prowess of King Afonso V in Africa’ is described. The poem, admired by Almeida Garrett, is particularly wearisome because it is largely allegorical. The king conquering Arzila represents the strong man subduing the city of his own soul, the Moors are the spirits of the damned, and seven of their knights representing the seven deadly sins are defeated by seven Christian knights who stand for the virtues.

The poverty of profane prose, compared with its flourishing condition in the preceding century, is also remarkable. A few historians of the seventeenth century have already been mentioned. The literary academies, of which the most famous were the _Academia dos Generosos_ (1649-68) and the _Academia dos Singulares_ (1663-5),[615] existed rather for the interchange of wit and complimentary or satiric verses than for the encouragement of historical and scientific research. The Conde da Ericeira’s _Portugal Restaurado_ and Freire de Andrade’s Life bear no comparison with works of the _Quinhentistas_. Yet it was the second golden age of Portuguese prose, as the names of Manuel Bernardes and Vieira prove. The latter’s letters, with those of Frei Antonio das Chagas and Mello, are in three different kinds--the political, religious, and familiar--the most notable written in the century. GASPAR PIRES DE REBELLO in the preface to his _Infortvnios tragicos da Constante Florinda_ (1625) excuses himself for its publication on the ground that ‘not spiritual and divine books only benefit our intelligence’. The book, which records the love of Arnaldo and Florinda, of Zaragoza, shows the modern novel growing through _Don Quixote_ out of the _Celestina_ plays and the romances of chivalry, but has little other interest. A second part was published in 1633, and _Novellas Exemplares_, six stories by the same author, in 1650. Numerous other works appeared with more or less alluring or sensational titles but contents disappointingly dull. MATTHEUS DE RIBEIRO (_c._ 1620-95), in his _Alivio de Tristes e Consolação de Queixosos_ (1672, 4), shows greater skill than Pires de Rebello in the invention of the story, but it is marred by the diffuse and pedantic style--April becomes an ‘academy in which Flora was opening the doors for the study of flowers’. The pastoral novel ended in sad contortions with the _Desmayos de Mayo em sombras de Mondego_ (1635) by DIOGO FERREIRA DE FIGUEIROA (1604-74). Its title and the three involved sentences which cover the first three pages (ff. 10, 11) convey an adequate idea of its character and contents.

Of several prose works written by MARTIM AFONSO DE MIRANDA, of Lisbon, in the first third of the century, the most important is _Tempo de Agora_ (2 pts., 1622, 4). It contains seven dialogues dealing with truth and falsehood, the evils of idleness, temperance, friendship, justice, the evils of dice and cards, and precepts for princes. Much of their matter is interesting and the comments incisive, especially as to the prevailing luxury in food and dress. They tell of the infinite number of curiously bound books at Lisbon, of the soldiers unpaid, ‘eating at the doors of convents’, of the delight in foreign fashions, and the craze for ‘diabolical’ books from Italy to the exclusion of _livros de historias_ and books in Portuguese. The anonymous _Primor e honra da vida soldadesca no Estado da India_ (1630), edited by the Augustinian FREI ANTONIO FREIRE (_c._ 1570-1634), is a different work from Geronimo Ximenez de Urrea’s _Diálogo de la verdadera honra militar_ (1566), which it resembles slightly in title. It is divided into four parts and contains various episodes of the Portuguese in the East and some curious information. MIGUEL LEITÃO DE ANDRADE (1555-1632) went straight from Coimbra University to Africa with King Sebastian. After the battle of Alcacer Kebir he succeeded in escaping from captivity, followed the cause of the Prior of Crato, and was imprisoned under Philip II. In his book, in twenty dialogues, _Miscellanea do Sitio de N. Sᵃ da Lvz do Pedrogão Grande_ (1629), he disclaims any purpose of writing history. It reveals an inquiring and observant but uncritical mind, interested in fossils, inscriptions, astrology, the early history of Portugal, etymology, heraldry, and the ‘infinite wonderful secrets of Nature daily being revealed’. It contains a graphic account of his escape from Fez, but on the whole, in spite of attractive passages and interesting details, scarcely merits its great reputation. _Do Sitio de Lisboa_ (1608), which Mello praises as _aquelle elegantissimo livro_, by the author of _Arte Militar_ (1612), LUIS MENDES DE VASCONCELLOS, is written in the form of a dialogue between a philosopher, a soldier, and a politician, and deserves its place among the minor classics of Portuguese literature.

The famous love letters of the Portuguese nun MARIANNA ALCOFORADO (1640-1723), which bring a breath of life and nature into the stilted writing of that day, only belong to Portuguese literature in the sense that Osorio’s history belongs to it--by translation. They first appeared in indifferent French (_Lettres Portvgaises_, Paris, 1669) and were not retranslated, or, if we accept the theory that the nun originally wrote them in French[616]--French _suranné et dénué d’élégance_--translated into Portuguese for a century and a half: _Cartas de uma Religiosa Portugueza_ (1819).[617] Meanwhile, even before their obscure author died in the remote and beautiful city of Beja, they had been translated into English and Italian and had received over fifty French editions. Colonel (later Marshal) Noël Bouton, Comte de Saint-Léger, afterwards Marquis de Chamilly (1636-1715), accompanied the French troops sent to help Portugal against Spain, and was in Portugal from 1665 to 1667. Marianna Alcoforado, belonging to an old Alentejan family, was a nun in the convent of Nossa Senhora da Conceição at Beja. Her five letters, written between the end of 1667 and the middle of 1668 after her desertion, in their artlessness, contradictions, and disorder, vibrate with emotion. They are a succession of intense cries like the popular quatrain:

Por te amar deixei a Deus: Ve lá que gloria perdi! E agora vejo-me só, Sem Deus, sem gloria, sem ti.

Sometimes, it is true, a trace of French reason seems to mingle with the ingenuous Portuguese sentiment, and it is almost incredible, although of course not impossible, since _omnia vincit amor_, that the nun should have written certain passages. From these and not on the amazing assumption of Rousseau that a mere woman could not write so passionately--he was ready to wager that the letters were the work of a man[618]--one may suspect that the lover, who did not scruple to hand over the letters to a publisher (unless he was merely guilty of showing them to his friends), sank a little lower and edited them, adding a phrase here and there more peculiarly pleasing to his vanity.[619] In that case the nun actually wrote these letters, full of passion and despair, and perhaps in French, to her French lover; but we only read them as they were touched up for publication by another hand.

A work which has nothing in common with these fervent love letters except an enigmatic origin is the _Arte de Furtar_, which in part at least probably belongs to the seventeenth century. It is a curious and amusing treatise on the noble art of thieving in all kinds, private and official, civil and military. Its anecdotes are racy if not original. Two of the happiest incidents (in caps. 6 and 41) are copied without acknowledgement from _Lazarillo de Tormes_.[620] The author seems to have had misgivings that he had presented his subject in too favourable a light, for he ends by assuring his reader thieves that many tons of worldly glory are not worth an ounce of eternal blessedness, and promises them before long another ‘more liberal treatise on the art of acquiring true glory’. These tardy qualms did not save his book from the Index. The first edition, purporting to be printed at Amsterdam, bears the date 1652[621] and attributes the work to Antonio Vieira. That attribution may be set aside. Were there no other reasons for its rejection it would suffice to read the book or even its title in order to be convinced that it is not from the _veneravel penna_ of that great statesman and preacher. He might dabble in Bandarra prophecies, but would scarcely have sunk to the picaresque familiarities of the _Arte de Furtar_ or occupy himself with the sad habits of innkeepers, the long stitches of tailors, or the price of straw. It has also been attributed, without adequate ground, to Thomé Pinheiro da Veiga (1570?-1656), the author of a lively account of the festivities at the Spanish Court and description of Valladolid in 1605, entitled _Fastigimia_ (it mentions Don Quixote and Sancho (p. 119) but says nothing of Cervantes), and to João Pinto Ribeiro (_c._ 1590-1649), the magistrate who played a notable part in the Restoration of 1640 and wrote various short treatises such as _Preferencia das Letras ás Armas_ (1645); and even less plausibly to DUARTE RIBEIRO DE MACEDO (1618?-80), statesman and diplomatist, an indifferent poet but an excellent writer of prose and a careful although not original historian. His halting verses and his treatises were collected in his _Obras_ (2 vols., 1743). Of the latter the _Summa Politica_ has been shown by Snr. Solidonio Leite[622] to be copied almost word for word from the work of identical title by D. SEBASTIÃO CESAR DE MENESES (†1672), Bishop of Oporto and Archbishop of Braga. Both author and book were too well known for Ribeiro de Macedo to claim it as his own. He seems merely to have translated it from the original Latin published at Amsterdam in 1650, a year after the first Portuguese edition. The work is remarkable for acute thought and clear and concise expression. A work of a similar character is the well-written _Arte de Reinar_ (1643) by P. ANTONIO CARVALHO DE PARADA (1595-1655). The _Tratado Analytico_ (1715), by MANUEL RODRIGUEZ LEITÃO (_c._ 1620-91), a controversial treatise written to prove the right of Portugal to appoint bishops, is also the work of a good stylist. Some would say the same of one of the best-known books of the seventeenth century, the _Vida de Dom João de Castro_ (1651), by JACINTO FREIRE DE ANDRADE (1597-1657). The author, born at Beja, was suspected at Madrid of nationalist inclinations, and retired to his cure in the diocese of Viseu; after the Restoration he refused the bishopric of Viseu. His book has often been regarded as a model of Portuguese prose. Pompous and emphatic,[623] it may be described as inflated Tacitus, or rather a mixture of Tacitean phrases, conceits, and rhetorical affectation. But if as a whole it is more akin to Castro’s garish triumph at Goa than to the scientific spirit of his letters, it scarcely deserves the severe strictures which followed excessive praise[624]: it might even become excellent if judiciously pruned of antitheses and artifice.[625] The second Conde da Ericeira, D. FERNANDO DE MENESES (1614-99), wrote a _Historia de Tangere_ (1732) and the _Vida e Acçoens d’El Rei D. João I_ (1677), which ends with an elaborate parallel between Julius Caesar and the Master of Avis. Equally clear but far more artificial is the style of the third Count, D. LUIS DE MENESES (1632-90), in the best-known historical work of the century in Portuguese: _Historia de Portugal Restaurado_ (2 pts., 1679, 98). Its author ended his life by leaping from an upper window into the garden of his palace on a May morning in a fit of melancholy.