FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH UNTIL TOWARDS THE END OF THE
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
CHAP. I.
GENERAL VIEW OF THE POETIC AND RHETORICAL CULTIVATION OF THE
PORTUGUESE DURING THE ABOVE PERIOD.
_Relation of Portuguese to Spanish Poetry in the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Centuries._
The original relationship between Portuguese and Spanish poetry paved
the way for the adoption of the Italian style by the former; for
when that style became, during the sixteenth century, naturalized in
Spain, a similar change soon followed in the national taste and poetic
forms of Portugal. The political conflicts of the two nations did not
either then, or at any former period, disturb the harmony of their
common poetic feeling. Though the distinctive features in the national
character as well as in the language of the Portuguese and Spaniards,
might be traced with more precision than heretofore, yet the general
customs of both nations remained the same, and the demands of their
respective tastes which had been awakened in nearly the same manner,
required to be satisfied by similar means. Every species of poetry was
not, however, received with equal favour in Spain and Portugal; nor
did every style of poetic composition find in each country a poet
whose genius was capable of elevating it to particular distinction.
In those nations, as elsewhere, fate has, by incomprehensible laws,
sometimes summoned the right spirit at the right hour, and has
sometimes denied the art to the artist when all external circumstances
appeared most favourable, and when the perseverance of emulative
competitors was most conspicuous. Thus Portugal cannot boast of a
Cervantes, and Spain has given birth to no Camoens.
The Portuguese had raised their country to the same height of political
glory as Spain, when their poets began to vie with the Spanish in
the ingenious imitation of the Italian forms. After Columbus had
discovered America for Spain, as Vasco de Gama had the new way to
the East Indies for his own countrymen, the Portuguese lost no time,
at least on the eastern coast of the new world, in seizing a share
of the rich booty claimed by the Spaniards. The Florentine Amerigo
Vespucci in the service of King Emanuel of Portugal, explored a part
of the new continent, the whole of which has since borne his name.
The papal line of demarcation which divided the newly discovered
heathen regions between Spain and Portugal, was equally flattering,
though circumstances prevented it from being equally advantageous
to both powers. The Portuguese was like the Spaniard, proud of his
achievements; and before the mines of Peru had given the highest
impulse to Spanish self-esteem, Portugal was already enriched by her
Indian treasures. If during the thirty years reign of John III. (from
1521 to 1557) the Portuguese government shewed itself wanting in
wisdom, it was not deficient in energy. Even the exertions made to
maintain sword in hand, the Portuguese dominion in India, against the
constant hostility of the natives, augmented the military strength of
the nation, though they proved injurious to its commercial interests.
Under these circumstances the bold spirit of commerce was in no danger
of degenerating into a petty trading spirit; and the romantic character
which Portuguese poetry had from its origin always displayed, could
without difficulty develope itself under new features, particularly
when the poet himself, like Camoens, was at once a hero and an
adventurer.
After the period of the highest greatness of the little kingdom of
Portugal had long passed away, its effects still operated powerfully
on the spirit and the literature of the nation. To be obliged to
become Spanish subjects, on the extinction of their old royal family,
deeply mortified the Portuguese; but the shadow of ancient national
independence which the cabinet of Madrid found it necessary to concede
to Portugal, was sufficient during the whole period in which that
country continued under Spanish domination, to maintain in full force
the old national hatred between the two countries. This was carried to
the highest pitch of exasperation in the hearts of the Portuguese, when
they found that in spite of the seeming independence of the kingdom
of Portugal, the foreign powers with whom Spain waged incessant war,
paid no attention to the distinction between Spanish and Portuguese
possessions; and that the Dutch in particular availed themselves of
the favourable opportunity to treat the Portuguese as Spaniards, and
to deprive them of those valuable possessions in India, for which
they were indebted to the enterprising spirit and courage of their
ancestors. It required no great political penetration to discover that
the most productive source of Portuguese national prosperity had thus
become obstructed, and that in all probability such a misfortune would
not have occurred had Portugal preserved her independence. Even the
nobility and the ecclesiastics, who, contrary to the express wish of
the people, had favoured the claims by which Philip II. of Spain was
declared Philip I. of Portugal, could not possibly be warm partisans
of a government which oppressed the whole country by an absurd and
despotic system of administration. During the sixty years therefore in
which Portugal felt the weight of Spanish supremacy, every patriotic
Portuguese regarded the three Philips, who ruled over his native
country, merely as kings of Portugal, unfortunately residing in Madrid.
Lisbon continued to be the real Portuguese capital. The ministerial
departments of state were still concentrated there; and in conformity
with the treaty by which the crown was ceded to Philip, all the public
offices in Portugal were filled by native Portuguese. In Lisbon, too,
the Portuguese language maintained its ancient consideration in the
courts of law, in the polite world, and in literature, though it was
not very readily adopted by Spaniards.
The national peculiarities which, even under the Spanish dominion,
continued to distinguish the Portuguese from the Spaniards, were
attended by consequences remarkably favourable to Portuguese
literature, when at last, in the year 1640, the long prepared blow was
struck, which rescued Portugal from the yoke of the Spanish sovereigns,
and placed John of Braganza on the throne amidst the acclamations
of the people. At this period, Spanish poetry had already declined,
while on the contrary Portuguese poetry once more revived. The general
re-action against every thing Spanish had an inspiring influence on the
Portuguese poets, even though they took no part in political affairs.
If no second Camoens arose in that age, it nevertheless gave birth
to several poets, whose lyric compositions honourably maintained the
reputation of their country; and they were eminently successful in
gathering the last blossoms of the poetry of romantic love, which had
taken the deepest root in Portugal.
CAUSES OF THE CONTINUED CULTIVATION OF THE SPANISH LANGUAGE IN PORTUGAL.
To causes of a totally different nature and in which political
interests were but remotely concerned, must be attributed the zeal
with which the Portuguese, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
cultivated the language and literature of Spain, along with their
mother tongue and the learning of their own country; while the
Spaniards of the same period regarded the Portuguese poetry as a mere
scion of the Spanish, and besides, generally speaking, looked down
with contempt on the language and literature of Portugal. That this
unequal conduct of the two nations was not the effect of political
causes, is evident from the favour which the Portuguese poets extended
to the Castilian language, in the first half of the sixteenth century,
when certainly no expectation was entertained of the union of the
two kingdoms. Even at that period it was a custom, and indeed a high
style of fashion in literature for Portuguese poets to write verses
in Castilian as well as in their mother tongue. Saa de Miranda, the
poet with whom the most brilliant period of Portuguese literature
commences, also holds a place among Spanish poets. Compositions in the
Castilian language are indeed interspersed through the works of all
the Portuguese poets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; but
nothing could be more extraordinary than to find either verse or prose
written in the Portuguese language by a Spaniard.
This phenomenon, which seems to be at variance with Portuguese
patriotism, may, however, be explained by the peculiar relations
which the Castilian and Portuguese languages bear to each other. The
Castilian language has an imposing character which is wanting in the
Portuguese; and though the stateliness of the Spanish diction might
seem formal and affected to the Portuguese in general, it was likely
to make a forcible impression on their poets. The pleasing fluency of
the Portuguese tongue, could not, however, operate so favourably on
the poets of Spain, for to a Spanish ear the most elegant Portuguese
has merely the effect of broken Castilian.[56] The Portuguese were
indemnified for the Castilian guttural, which so much displeased them,
by the sonorous accentuation of the Castilian words; but the Spaniards
found much of this accentuation lost in Portuguese by abbreviations
of the very words in which it occurs in Spanish. The Castilian too
was regarded as the more dignified tongue, because its unabbreviated
words, for which it is indebted to the latin, excited more precise
recollections of the language of ancient Rome.[57] It is probable
also, that Castilian pride after the union of the Castilian and
Arragonian provinces contributed its share in rendering the Spaniards
insensible to the peculiar beauties of the Portuguese language. On the
contrary, the flexibility of the Portuguese character more readily
accommodated itself to foreign forms. Finally, the dependence of the
whole government of Portugal on the court of Madrid, during the space
of half a century, rendered the knowledge of the Castilian language
indispensable to those Portuguese who were destined to fill the first
ministerial departments in their native country; but the Spaniards had
no such inducement to learn Portuguese, as they were not permitted
to hold any public office in Portugal. Thus did the Spanish language
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, acquire that degree of
consideration in Portuguese literature which it afterwards maintained.
It should besides be recollected, that during the period in which
Portugal continued under the dominion of Spain, a great portion of the
bookselling trade had been transferred to Lisbon, the first commercial
city in the two united kingdoms; and trifling as this circumstance may
at first sight appear, it cannot be doubted that it co-operated to the
diffusion of the Spanish language in Portuguese literature.
RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL CHARACTER OF THE PORTUGUESE DURING THIS PERIOD.
The polite literature of Portugal experienced no disadvantage from
certain traits of difference in the Spanish and Portuguese character
and manners. The Portuguese who were less addicted to pomp than the
Spaniards, were also less inclined to religious fanaticism. The
monarchs of Portugal, it is true, exerted their utmost endeavours
to inflame the religious prejudices of their subjects, and to teach
them to revel in the same delirium of barbarous orthodoxy as the
Spaniards. John III. in whose reign Portugal attained the highest
pinnacle of her power, did not neglect formally to introduce the
Spanish inquisition into his dominions; and the jesuits, who had now
begun to excite the alarm of every catholic monarchy, Spain excepted,
were in the year 1540, received into Portugal by the same sovereign who
proposed to avail himself of the aid of those enterprising defenders
and propagators of the old catholic faith, for the conversion of the
infidels in both Indies. He consigned to the jesuits the education of
his grandson Sebastian, who was his successor on the throne; and the
example of the monarch was doubtless imitated by many families of rank.
Thus, literary education seems to have been still more jesuitical in
Portugal than in Spain; and the dreadful pile, on which heretics were
immolated, was lighted up often enough to blunt the moral feelings of
the people. But these horrid festivals of superstition accorded less
with the Portuguese than the Spanish character. Of the two nations the
Portuguese were in disposition the more tolerant, and they continue
so to be.[58] On this account the spiritual comedies, with which the
Spanish public was never satiated, obtained only a transitory success
in Portugal. If, then, the fetters imposed on conscience proved only
slight restraints to poetic genius in Spain,[59] still less could any
considerable injury arise from such influence on polite literature in
Portugal.
At this period poetry and eloquence were not in Portugal much more
than in Spain indebted to support from the throne. The poetic art was
nevertheless held in esteem and honour at the court of John III. The
time had, indeed, gone by in which the kings of Portugal competed
for the laurels of Apollo, and shone conspicuous among the bards
of their native land. From the reign of Emanuel the Great, to the
period when the dynasty of that monarch became extinct, the kings
of Portugal were more disposed to encourage adventurous enterprises
in the two Indies than to devote themselves to the cultivation of
poetry. John III. however, seems to have possessed a strong taste
for dramatic amusements; at least it is related that he himself used
to perform parts in the plays of Gil Vicente, which were represented
at his court. Sebastian, the ardent disciple of the jesuits, was
occupied in the fulfilment of his presumed destiny to extend the
glory of his faith and his name by romantic achievements, until in
the fatal conflict, by which he hoped to render himself master of Fez
and Morocco, he was lost among the lifeless wreck of his defeated
army: and Camoens, the no less ardent disciple of the muses, whose
enthusiasm in his sovereign’s cause was both patriotic and poetic,
was left by Sebastian to languish in bitter poverty. Old Cardinal
Henry, though a lover of literature, found, on ascending the throne,
sufficient occupation in providing for the political welfare of the
country. That the Spanish kings who next governed Portugal bestowed
little or no attention on Portuguese poetry and eloquence, is a fact
to which it is scarcely necessary to advert. On the accession of John
of Braganza, it is probable that the government would have done more
for the national drama, which had hitherto been left to work its own
way, had not the Portuguese, after the death of the inventive Gil
Vicente, fallen further behind the Spaniards in dramatic composition
than in any other class of poetry. The royal patronage now arrived too
late. Portugal possessed no national drama like that of Spain; and
for the non-existence of that branch of literature the people and not
the government must be held responsible. The causes which prevented
dramatic poetry in Portugal from attaining that degree of excellence
to which it arrived in Spain, will be noticed in their proper place,
in so far as they can be ascertained or conjectured. The distinguished
favour, however, which the Italian opera at length obtained from the
court of Lisbon was not only unprofitable to Portuguese national
poetry, but contributed to banish it still further from the stage.
There was of course now less reason than ever to hope for the
establishment of a genuine and well cultivated national drama in
Portugal.
To the Portuguese nation must be attributed the excellencies and the
defects which Portuguese poetry and eloquence presented throughout the
whole of this period. In Portugal, no poet, who wished to distinguish
himself within the sphere of his art, presumed to dictate legislatorily
to the national taste. No one, by striking out a new path, sought to
explore the unbeaten regions of his native Parnassus. No sects, like
those which occasionally arose in Spain, disturbed the poetic harmony
of the Portuguese poets, whose various voices were always attuned in
national concord. The influence which the Italian poetry gained over
the Portuguese was recognised with equal willingness by the poets and
the public. It cannot, however, be denied that this national harmony
of the Portuguese poets during the most brilliant period of the
polite literature of their nation, gave rise to a certain spirit of
self-satisfaction, which though very favourable to subordinate talent,
was by no means calculated to awaken genius. The higher beauties of the
poetic art were not scrupulously demanded: to secure success it was
sufficient that an author should elevate himself in a slight degree
above the common makers of verse. Romantic ideas tolerably versified
in pleasing language were all that a Portuguese poet found necessary
in order to secure the esteem and the eulogy of that public on whose
decision his reputation depended. Eminent poetic merit could be
appreciated by very few, and it received no particular encouragement
or uncommon reward. Thus it happened that the state of poetic public
spirit among the Portuguese created no demand beyond an extensive
improvement of the national poetry. The great mass of the people
adhered to the old romance style; while the nobility, men of education,
and finally, all who wished to mingle in fashionable society, preferred
the Italian forms, on which, however, the Portuguese national impress
was always discernible. But the majority of the poets whose names
acquired celebrity, belonged to noble families;--for in Portugal, as in
Italy and Spain, every one who wished to gain distinction at court, or
in the army, or as a well educated man of the world, composed verses;
and even ecclesiastics who were anxious to gain the good graces of the
fair sex, found it necessary to lay claim to poetic cultivation. Among
the princes of the royal house, the Infante Dom Manoel, who stands in a
kind of poetic relationship with Saa de Miranda, seems to be the last
who was distinguished for writing passable verse.
CHAP. II.
HISTORY OF PORTUGUESE POETRY AND ELOQUENCE FROM THE EPOCH OF THE
INTRODUCTION OF THE ITALIAN STYLE, TILL TOWARDS THE END OF THE
SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
_Tranquil Adoption of the Italian Style._
The introduction of the Italian style into Portuguese poetry was
unaccompanied by any remarkable struggle or sensation. No mention is
made by writers on general literature, of the existence of a party
strenuously opposed to that style in Portugal; and even the works of
the Portuguese poets present few or no traces of any literary conflict
on the subject. That a change which excited so violent a storm in Spain
passed tranquilly in Portugal, was certainly not owing to indifference
on the part of the Portuguese in matters of taste. But the Portuguese
most distinguished for cultivation, were not attached to the old
romance poetry by so decided a predilection as the Castilians. Besides,
as has already been stated, that class had become, at an early period,
acquainted with Italian poetry. Some of the Italian syllabic metres
might already be regarded as vernacular in Portugal, and the spirit of
Italian poetry was certainly not unknown to the Portuguese, since they
had, from an early period possessed translations of some of Petrarch’s
sonnets. Thus the way was already traced out for the thorough reform of
the old taste, and the natural flexibility of the Portuguese character
was more easily reconciled than Castilian stubbornness to that reform.
When, therefore, even Spanish poets had set the judicious example
of improving their national poetry, an opposition which would have
appeared the mere imitation of an unreasonable party spirit was not
to be expected in Portugal. Finally, the poet with whose works the
new epoch in Portuguese poetry commences, so successfully seized the
delicate tone by which the union of the Italian and the old Portuguese
styles was to be accomplished, that the national taste found in him
precisely what it required, and the innovation was accommodated to the
Portuguese character under the most pleasing forms.
SAA DE MIRANDA.
The romantic Theocritus, Saa de Miranda, one of the most distinguished
poets of the sixteenth century, has already been noticed in the History
of Spanish Poetry.[60] He shines indeed more conspicuously among the
Spanish than the Portuguese poets; but in his native country he stands
at the head of a poetic school. The present is, therefore, the fit
place to relate the necessary particulars of his biography.[61]
Saa de Miranda, the descendant of a noble family, was born at
Coimbra, in the year 1495. His parents destined him for the study of
the law, and wished, if possible, that he might become professor of
jurisprudence in his native city. To occupy the chair of a teacher of
law was at that period considered an object worthy of the ambition
of persons of rank; and to take an interest in the prosperity of the
university of Coimbra was found to be a strong recommendation to the
favour of the sovereign. Saa de Miranda had but little taste for
jurisprudence, yet, for the sake of pleasing his parents, he pursued
his study of legal science until he obtained the degree of doctor.
He was afterwards appointed to a professorship, and is said to have
distinguished himself by his lectures. But on the death of his father,
Saa de Miranda immediately bade farewell to jurisprudence, and resolved
to live after his own taste. We are not informed what age he had
attained at this period. That his character was, however, truly poetic,
is sufficiently obvious, not only from his writings, but from several
anecdotes which are related of him. In mixed companies he often sat in
a state of silent abstraction, without observing or being aware that he
was himself observed. Tears would sometimes flow from his eyes, without
any apparent cause, and he himself was so little conscious of their
presence, or cared so little to conceal them, that if any one happened
to address him, he would, while he suffered himself to be quietly drawn
into conversation, frequently forget to dry his moistened cheeks.
He cherished a particular desire to travel; and this inclination he
gratified when filial duty no longer bound him to the professor’s
chair. He declined the offers of King John III. who, in order to
detain him would have provided for him in another way, and proceeded
to Spain, where he probably acquired a more intimate knowledge of the
Castilian language than he had before possessed. He next travelled to
Italy, and visited the cities of Venice, Rome, Florence, Naples, and
Milan, where he found sufficient opportunities for rendering himself
intimately acquainted with the Italian poetry. On his return to his
native country he was appointed to a place at court, and enjoyed the
favour of the king. He was now accounted one of the most accomplished
courtiers in Lisbon, notwithstanding the cast of melancholy which
still distinguished him. His pastoral poetry, however, peaceful as its
character was, involved him in a dispute with a Portuguese nobleman,
who discovered in an eclogue some allusions which he applied to
himself. The quarrel having become warm, the poet found it necessary
to quit the court. He retired to his estate of Tapada near Ponte de
Lima, in the province of Entre Minho e Douro, where he devoted himself
wholly to his literary studies, and to the cultivation of rural and
domestic happiness. Next to poetry, he took most interest in practical
philosophy. His acquaintance with ancient literature was sufficient to
enable him to enrich his books with passages from Homer, in the form
of marginal notes. He also understood music, and was a performer on
the violin. Notwithstanding the gentleness of his temperament, he was
fond of chivalrous exercises, and took particular delight in hunting
the wolf. He lived happily with his wife, though she was not handsome
nor even young at the period when he married her. During his life,
his poetic fame was widely spread. Several poets, who reflect honour
on their native country, particularly Antonio Ferreira and Andrade
Caminha, formed themselves chiefly on the model of Saa de Miranda.
His two comedies so highly pleased the Infante Cardinal Henry, that
they were performed in the palace of that prince, before a company of
prelates, and other persons of rank. After the poet’s decease these
comedies were printed by order of the cardinal. Having reached the
sixty-third year of his age, he died universally admired and beloved,
at Tapada, in the year 1558.
No trace of resemblance to a style produced by imitation, distinguishes
the works of Saa de Miranda from the more ancient Portuguese poetry.
What he learnt from the Italians was a genuine though not perfect
refinement of the old Portuguese style, under more beautiful forms. He
was indeed, and ever continued to be, too true a Portuguese to aim at
the highest degree of Italian correctness, though it appears, from what
he has himself stated, that he was most industrious in the revisal of
his works.[62] According to his own declaration, it also appears that
he did not rely with much more confidence on systematic criticism,
than on the fickle approbation of the public. That feeling under the
dominion of which he always lived and moved, was, in the dernier
resort, his critical rule and guide. The Italian models only directed
him to the course which he himself would naturally have adopted. To use
his own expression, he culled flowers with the muses, the loves, and
the graces.[63]
Had Saa de Miranda been in a greater degree an imitator than a
self-dependent poet, his sonnets would, doubtless, have been more
numerous; for he was peculiarly fitted, from his knowledge of the
delicacies of the Italian style, to shine in that form of composition.
But his Portuguese as well as his Spanish sonnets are few in number;
and those of the tender cast, like the sonnets of Boscan, and most
of the Spanish writers, entirely harmonize with the old national
tone. Besides indulging himself in the use of masculine rhymes, he
represented the complaints of love in the old strain of despair, and
contributed his share in pourtraying the endless conflict between
passion and reason.[64] But he particularly excelled in painting
the soft enthusiasm of love,[65] and his sonnets acquire a peculiar
colouring from the mixture of pastoral simplicity, which he could
never entirely exclude from his style of poetic representation. The
reiterated allusion to the joys and sorrows of human existence,
and the transitoriness of all things, is a grecian trait in the
compositions of this poet.[66]
The romantic pastoral world was the native sphere of Saa de Miranda’s
muse. The greater number and by far the most beautiful of his eight
eclogues are, however, in the Spanish language, for he wrote only
two in Portuguese. It can scarcely be doubted, therefore, that Saa
de Miranda considered the Spanish language to be more expressive or
more elegant than the Portuguese, or that for some other reason he
preferred it to his mother tongue; and yet as far as a foreigner
may presume to judge between the two languages, his choice ought to
have been reversed, for the Portuguese seems expressly formed for
romantic pastoral poetry. Perhaps Saa de Miranda thought, without
being himself clearly conscious of entertaining such an idea, that
it was more poetic to give dignity to the soft pastoral style, by
the help of the sonorous Castilian tongue, than to suffer it to be
altogether naturally expressed through the medium of the Portuguese
idiom. For the character of his pastoral style was to be romantic and
wholly national, to resemble the idyllic style of Theocritus only in
the simplicity of rural expression, but by no means to be popular, in
a prosaic sense. Whether Saa de Miranda’s shepherds and shepherdesses
converse in Spanish or in Portuguese, the rural scene is always laid in
Portugal. On this account the first of the two Portuguese eclogues of
this modern Theocritus, is partly unintelligible to the foreigner, who
possesses only a literary knowledge of the peculiarities of the rural
idiom of Portugal. The poet himself observes, at the conclusion of his
dedicatory stanzas to the Infante Dom Manoel, that he discourses in a
new language.[67] The new language here alluded to is produced by a
delicate blending of the turns most remarkable for graceful simplicity
in the Portuguese vernacular dialect, with a set of dignified words and
phrases approximating more nearly to the latin. But the effect of the
union is very imperfectly appreciated by a foreigner; and the finest
charm of the expression is lost in the labour of studying a poetic
language of this kind. Besides the simplicity of the composition
does not exclude from Saa de Miranda’s eclogues, those mysterious
allusions to the romantic manners of the age, which are so common in
the writings of the old Portuguese poets. The first eclogue which
he wrote in his native language, abounds in such allusions, though
it is in other respects one of the least artificial of the poet’s
productions in the class to which it belongs. It is a pastoral dialogue
in tercets concerning love and indifference, happiness and unhappiness.
Three cantigas, the first in octaves, the second in redondillas and
in the Spanish language, and the third in the syllabic measure of an
Italian canzone, form the poetic essence of this, simple composition.
The disposition to prefer the Spanish language for imagery, and the
Portuguese for reasoning, which is a striking feature in Saa de
Miranda’s poetry, plainly betrays itself in this eclogue. The romantic
conversation which forms the frame work to the cantigas in this
eclogue, consists chiefly of general observations, which in the simple
pastoral language in which they are expressed, have a very piquant
character, but which are rendered scarcely intelligible to a foreigner,
by the occurrence of broken popular phrases in a half ironical, half
serious tone.[68] To the philological obscurity of several passages is
added the enigmatical expression of suppressed pain, which, however,
is natural enough in the mouths of the persons to whom it is assigned.
In a word this eclogue is entirely national. None but a Portuguese can
justly estimate its poetic merits and demerits. To a foreigner the
cantigas are decidedly the best portion.[69]
The second Portuguese eclogue, included in the works of Saa de Miranda,
has essentially the same tone and character as the first; with this
difference, that it is versified throughout in national stanzas of
ten lines (_decimas_). Descriptions of the general instability and
transitory nature of earthly things are particularly conspicuous in
this as well as in several of Miranda’s other poems.[70] But it would
be in vain to look in these Portuguese eclogues for passages of such
exquisite beauty as those which occur in the Spanish eclogues of the
same author. It was only on the Castilian Parnassus that Saa de Miranda
established his fame as one of the most distinguished of bucolic
poets. With the exception of elegant language and versification, his
Portuguese eclogues are not much superior to the cordial effusions of
Ribeyro.
Saa de Miranda seems to have wished to display his native language to
advantage in another department of composition, in which, however, he
did not shine with equal lustre. A series of poetic epistles which in
the collection of his works follow the pastoral poems, are all, except
one, written in Portuguese. At the time of their appearance, no similar
productions existed in Portuguese literature: but they were speedily
surpassed by other writers. Nevertheless it is not merely for the
circumstance of their being first attempts that they claim attention.
They are distinguished from other poems of this class by the delicate
and characteristic union of that peculiar style of pastoral poetry
which Miranda formed for his eclogues, with a didactic diction which
indicates the disciple of Horace. At the same time Horatian ideas are
but thinly scattered through these epistles, and Miranda’s elegance
of language is far from reaching the force and precision of the latin
model. The poetry in which he endeavoured to approach the style of
Horace, is of the romantic didactic class--full of sound morality,
conveyed in ingenious reflections and pleasing representations--full
of truth and warmth of feeling--but like all romantic poetry, it is
somewhat too prolix, and its learning like the most of that which
has passed through the scholastic conduits of the cloister, is not
drawn from a very profound source. To interest by new views and ideas
in didactic poetry, was not a task suited to a catholic poet of the
sixteenth century, and least of all to one who so piously adhered to
the principles of his faith as Saa de Miranda. The most interesting
ideas of this poet, in so far as the value of such ideas is to be
considered, must be estimated by their truth and not by their novelty;
and their natural application to manners and characters within the
scope of the poet’s own observation, constitutes the basis of their
poetic merit. The verse chiefly employed consists of light redondilhas,
running in stanzas of five lines; and thus, even in metrical form,
these epistles depart considerably from the style of Horace. The two
last, which, together with those written in the Spanish language, are
versified in tercets, must in other respects be ranked in the same
class with the rest. Miranda, according to the old custom, styles
the whole series of these compositions _Cartas_ (letters), and not
_Epistolas_, the term which at a somewhat later period was properly,
though not generally employed by Portuguese writers, to designate poems
of a didactic or amusing description under the form of individual
correspondence. The first is addressed to the king. After a long
series of introductory compliments, full of the accustomed phrases
of servile devotion to the throne, the author enters into popular
reflections on the art of government, and particularly on the risk of
deception, to which sovereigns of the best intentions are constantly
exposed. Some of these reflections resolve very happily into practical
traits of didactic description.[71] Miranda must be forgiven for his
useless display of erudition which was quite in the spirit of his
age. In recompense, the legitimate character of the poet predominates
throughout the whole composition. The succeeding epistles possess more
of the light ironical tone of Horace. They are addressed to friends
and acquaintances. They relate to the advantages of rural life;--the
equivocal nature of city manners and amusements;--the mischievous
effects of luxury in Portugal since the introduction of the treasures
of India;--the value of literary occupation;--and similar subjects,
which an author, who had lived in the gay world, and afterwards retired
to solitude, might be expected to discuss in pleasing verse. Thus from
the nature of their subjects Miranda’s epistles may also be ranked
among the literary pictures of manners in the sixteenth century. The
philanthropic and patriotic poet particularly laments the insatiable
spirit of trade which prevailed in his native country. He declares
his opinion that danger was not to be apprehended from the extended
love of the arts and sciences, but from the “perfumes of the Indian
spices,” which had the melancholy effect of enervating the old national
character.[72]
Saa de Miranda also contributed to improve the sacred poetry of his
native country. His two hymns to the Holy Virgin were the first
compositions in Portuguese literature which were executed entirely in
the style of the Italian canzone. They cannot, however, be regarded
as lyric master pieces any more than the spiritual canzoni of the
Italians. Had a catholic poet been able to guard himself against
romantic prolixity in such hymns, still must his fancy, on any attempt
to elevate it to the poetic spirit of the ode, have again been subdued
by the humiliating idea of the guilt and unworthiness of man; and the
more truly Christian the song of praise might be, the more would it
partake of the litany character. Saa de Miranda cannot be regarded as a
model for the composition of hymns. But in his two spiritual _Canções_
he extended the sphere of Portuguese lyric poetry by the noble diction
which he introduced into them.[73] In the second _Cançaõ_ he has,
among other faults, indulged in a play on words, than which no verbal
conceit could be more antipoetic; for he finds a wonderful analogy of
contradiction between the fall of womankind and the merits of the Holy
Virgin, in the name _Eve_ and the word _Ave_ with which the angelical
salutation commences.[74] But these remains of monkish quibbling are to
be expected in spiritual, and particularly in catholic spiritual poems
of the sixteenth century.
In the series of Saa de Miranda’s lyric poems, there are several
popular songs written in some of the more ancient forms of Portuguese
poetry, which are, however, dignified by purity of language and
accuracy of expression and versification. These songs are chiefly of
the style called cantigas, or poetic mottos, with variation (_voltas_)
which are shorter than the Spanish _glossas_. They repeat the idea of
the motto differently turned or applied, but its text is not literally
interwoven with the variations; and this is precisely the difference of
form which distinguishes the older Portuguese cantigas from the Spanish
villancicos. To these lyric compositions is added a beautiful elegy in
tercets, in which Miranda with manly dignity bewails the death of his
beloved son who accompanied King Sebastian to Africa, and who fell in
the same battle in which that monarch lost his life.[75]
With Saa de Miranda the literary history of the Portuguese drama
likewise commences. Any attempts at dramatic composition which may
have been previously made in the Portuguese language, obtained no
literary celebrity, and are now forgotten. That in the time of Saa
de Miranda, theatres existed in Lisbon, in which dramas, similar to
those in the Spanish language were performed, is a fact sufficiently
evident from several allusions in Miranda’s two comedies, as well
as from the works of Gil Vicente, which will soon claim particular
notice. But no national taste for any particular species of drama
was then formed in Portugal. The Castilian style could not give the
tone to the Portuguese; for at the period in question, which was half
a century previous to the birth of Lope de Vega, the Spanish drama
was still in its infancy and wavering amidst heterogeneous forms.
Thus the Portuguese writers who turned their attention to dramatic
poetry, were not, in their choice of styles and forms, restrained by
any capricious conditions demanded by the public. These circumstances
afforded an opportunity for commencing, without any literary warfare,
the improvement of the Portuguese drama by the works of two poets,
who like Saa de Miranda and Gil Vicente trod in very different paths.
Miranda wrote two comedies in prose. They are dramas of character in
the style of Plautus and Terence:--one is entitled _Os Estrangeiros_
(the Foreigners); the other is called _Os Vilhalpandos_, from two
Spanish soldiers, who had both adopted the name Vilhalpando, which,
at that period, was probably celebrated in the military world. It has
already been mentioned that the Infante Cardinal Henry was particularly
pleased with these two dramas, that he permitted them to be performed
at his court, and that he gave orders for having them printed. How
they happened to obtain these honours is explained partly by their own
intrinsic merits and partly by contingent and temporary circumstances.
At the papal court, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, a
favourable reception had been given to the early Italian comedies in
prose, and in particular to Bibiena’s _Calandra_.[76] Miranda’s taste
had been formed in Italy, and what pleased a pope might well afford
entertainment to a cardinal. Miranda, as a dramatic poet, retraced
the footsteps of Bibiena and Ariosto; and Cardinal Henry of Portugal
followed the example of Leo X. It is, however, more than probable
that the Portuguese public was not induced by such high patronage to
manifest particular regard for this class of dramatic entertainments,
any more than the Italian public had been, by the marks of distinction
bestowed on the plays of Bibiena and Ariosto.
The two comedies of Miranda are, nevertheless, even at the present day,
worthy the attention of the critic. They are the first compositions of
their kind in Portuguese literature; and in none of the essentials of
the dramatic art are they surpassed by the subsequent productions for
which they have served as models. Both dramas exhibit highly natural,
though not ingenious delineations of character, unaffected diction, and
a pleasing and rapid flow of dialogue; and though in their composition
they really possess but little dramatic merit, still it is evident that
a dramatic spirit has governed their execution.[77] These comedies are
indeed imbued throughout with the delicate and refined spirit of a
poet, whose aversion from pedantry was equal to his feeling of delicacy
and love of nature. Miranda, as a dramatist, endeavoured to draw common
characters from the life, after the manner of Plautus and Terence, of
whom he avowed himself an imitator,[78] but he felt the necessity of
elevating, by some degree of refinement, the vulgar phraseology which
the characters he chose to pourtray actually employed in common life.
For this purpose he availed himself of the interesting popular style
in which he acquired such extraordinary facility as an idyllic poet.
Had the poetic spirit of this popular style shone as conspicuously in
his comedies as in his pastoral poems, the former, like the latter,
would have been novel and single in their kind. But Saa de Miranda was
born a pastoral poet, and only made himself a dramatist by imitation.
If he had been penetrated with the spirit of the comic dramatists of
Rome, as he was with that of the father of the Greek bucolic, he would
have endeavoured to become a Portuguese Plautus or Terence in the same
manner as he became a Portuguese Theocritus. He would not then have
transplanted foreign manners to the comic stage of his native land.
Still less would he have imitated his models in the manner of Bibiena;
a manner which even in Italy had been relinquished by Ariosto, who,
as a dramatist, struck into the same bypath, and missed the goal.
Miranda then did not, strictly speaking, follow Plautus and Terence;
but Bibiena and Ariosto, in their character of imitators of those
ancient poets, were his guides in the region of dramatic poetry,
where the spirit of modern times demanded more than he was capable
of supplying. Besides, why did this poet, who was a master in the
art of versification, write his dramas in prose? Wishing to adhere
throughout to the nature of prose, he makes the principal persons of
his dramas explain, chiefly in soliloquies, their own characters,
with a garrulity, which though certainly natural, is nevertheless low
and tedious; and the popular morality which floats in this prolix
stream of vulgar phraseology affords no pleasurable compensation
to the auditor or reader.[79] Faithful to his models, Miranda has
not, in either of his two comedies, laid the scene of action in his
native country, where he might have dramatized national customs; the
events which he describes are supposed to take place in Italy, and the
manners, and in general the characters which he paints, are Italian.
In the selection of those characters, he however follows Plautus and
Terence, without paying any apparent regard to the distinction between
different ages, by which the choice of the dramatic poet ought to be
directed. Of the principal characters there is only one perfectly
modern in the _Estrangeiros_, and in like manner only one of the same
description appears in the _Vilhalpandos_. The first is a pedantic
doctor named _Juris_; the second is a lady named _Fausta_, a hypocrite,
surrounded by a group of pretended devotees. The other characters in
Miranda’s two dramas, besides valets and waiting maids, are some old
men, ostentatious soldiers, and enamoured youths, a grumbling tutor,
(_ayo,)_ two or three merchants, a parasite, (_truhaõ_,) a match-maker,
(_casamenteiro_), and others of a still baser description, which
the author seems to have thought could not be dispensed with in any
imitation of the ancient drama. In the _Vilhalpandos_ the author has
also incidentally introduced the modern characters of a hermit and a
French page. No remarkable intricacy of events is produced by these
characters being brought in contact with each other; for Saa de Miranda
was not formed to be a writer of dramas of intrigue. His scenes are
strung together, rather than drawn out of each other. It is not worth
while more minutely to analyze the composition of these two dramas. No
highly comic scenes occur in either of them. But their general tone is
spirited; and, if well performed, they doubtless would, in the age in
which they were produced, interest an audience disposed to be pleased
with the comic delineation of character; for most of the scenes are
of a kind which might enable a player to supply by good acting that
comic force in which they are deficient. Thus it happened that though
the Portuguese public took no particular interest in dramas of this
class, no party was formed, as in Italy, avowedly hostile to them.
The bitterest portion of the satire with which Miranda invigorates,
not the comic spirit, but the morality of his dramas, is directed
against the Italian and particularly the Romish priesthood, to whose
scandalous mode of life, the basest characters are made, as the most
proper witnesses in such a case, to bear ample testimony. It appears,
therefore, that at this time satire might be openly and fearlessly
directed against the clergy, and that its application in that way was
not displeasing to the heads of the Portuguese church; for had it been
otherwise, so pious a writer as Saa de Miranda would scarcely have
ventured to indulge in such representations even if he could have made
them in secret.
Having taken a general view of the services which this memorable writer
rendered to Portuguese poetry, it can scarcely be necessary to state
that he was the first classic poet of his nation; but if it be wished
to make a more rigid application of this title and to confer it only on
writers, whose poetic cultivation, according to the classic models of
the ancients, leaves nothing farther to be desired, it were better to
abstain altogether from employing it in the history of modern poetry.
Miranda presented to his countrymen the first example of the manner in
which poetic genius aspiring to the highest pinnacle of art, ought to
study the classic poets of antiquity, in order to acquire clearness of
poetic perception, solid judgment in invention and precision, elegance
and ingenious simplicity in composition and diction, without renouncing
his individual character and the genius of his age and nation.[80]
The account of the classic school which Saa de Miranda founded in
Portuguese poetry, must be deferred until historical justice be
rendered to the genius of a less cultivated poet, who flourished at the
same period with Saa de Miranda, but who chose for himself a totally
different path on the Portuguese Parnassus.
GIL VICENTE.
Writers on literature have not recorded the date of the birth of Gil
Vicente, who is styled the Portuguese Plautus.[81] There is reason to
suppose that at the latest he was born within twenty years of the close
of the fifteenth century. It is known that he belonged to a family of
rank, and that he studied the law in compliance with the wish of his
family. But it appears that he speedily relinquished his juridical
studies and devoted himself wholly to the dramatic art. It is not
recorded whether or not he was regularly pensioned as a writer to the
court; but he was most indefatigable in furnishing the royal family
and the public with dramatic entertainments suited to the taste of the
age. He constantly resided at court, where his poetic talents were held
in permanent requisition for the celebration of spiritual as well as
temporal festivals; and no dramatic writer in Europe was more admired
and esteemed than Gil Vicente. His first productions were performed
with approbation at court in the reign of Emanuel the Great; but his
reputation acquired additional brilliancy in the reign of John III.
a monarch who, as has already been mentioned, did not scruple in his
younger years to perform characters in the dramas of this favourite
author. Vicente seems also to have possessed all the requisite
qualifications for a theatrical manager. We are not informed whether he
was himself an actor; but he was the tutor of the most distinguished
actress of his age, namely, his daughter _Paula_, maid of honour to the
Infanta Maria, a poetess, an amateur performer on several instruments,
and, as it appears, celebrated for every thing except beauty. Erasmus
is said to have learned Portuguese for the express purpose of reading
the comedies of Vicente in the original. There are no notices extant by
which farther insight into the personal character of this poet could be
obtained. He died in the year 1557 at Evora, and, as there is reason to
believe, at an advanced age. Five years after his death, his son Luis
Vicente edited a complete collection of his works, or at least of all
that had been preserved in manuscript.[82]
Gil Vicente would have been the Portuguese Lope de Vega, if not
something even superior, had he been born half a century later, and
had he been as much indebted to his age as the Spanish dramatist was
to that in which he flourished. But no one was less calculated than
Gil Vicente to become an improver of taste; and indeed he was far from
being ambitious of earning that honourable title. Had not the favour
of the public been continued to him and his dramas even after the
middle of the sixteenth century, when the school of Saa de Miranda had
risen and acquired the ascendancy in the polite world, he might with
propriety be ranked as the last in the series of the Portuguese poets
of the fifteenth century. His diction, as well as his whole poetic
style, belongs to that age, and to the latest period of his life he
continued faithful to the old national manner. In the conflict with the
new style introduced by Saa de Miranda’s school, Gil Vicente appeared
as the representative of the yet enduring national taste, which even
at court, where the adherents of the new party were most honourably
distinguished, preserved a co-equal authority with that party. That
each party should under such circumstances maintain its credit is not
a little remarkable. Perhaps they became accommodated to each other
merely because the Portuguese had no relish for literary feuds. It may
be presumed that each party therefore felt itself secure, and, content
with its own security, took no notice of the other.
Here we again arrive at the point, at which the historian of the
cultivation of the Portuguese and Spanish drama finds a stumbling-block
in the way of his enquiries; for the materials necessary to the right
prosecution of his labour are either entirely wanting or involved in
contradiction. In the history of the Spanish theatre it has already
been stated how little positive knowledge the Spaniards possessed
even in the age of Cervantes and Lope de Vega, respecting the early
formation of their national comedy.[83] To Torres Naharro, so strangely
overlooked by Cervantes, the honour of being the real father of the
Spanish comedy, must, on every just principle of historical criticism,
be conceded. But Gil Vicente was a contemporary of Torres Naharro; and
the dramatic compositions of the Portuguese poet, so far approximate
to the ruder forms of the Spanish comedy, as to entitle Portuguese
writers to claim for their own country the honour of the invention
of that comedy. Spanish Autos either did not exist in the beginning
of the sixteenth century, or if they did, they have disappeared from
the domain of literature. A whole series of Autos by Gil Vicente are,
however, extant; and several were written within the first ten years
of the sixteenth century. Some are entirely in the Spanish language;
others are half in Portuguese and half in Spanish, but all present,
in their radical features, the form and character of the Spanish
spiritual comedy. Was Gil Vicente then the first writer who exhibited
a kind of poetic design in dramatic entertainments for the celebration
of christian festivals, and thus raised to literary consideration
a style of composition which had previously been degraded by monks
and buffoons? Or are the corresponding works of contemporary Spanish
writers lost in oblivion? Was Gil Vicente an imitator of Torres
Naharro, or did the latter copy from the former?
The number of dramas which Gil Vicente has bequeathed to posterity is
considerable, though compared with the fertility of some of the Spanish
poets, by no means extraordinary. They are arranged in classes either
by himself, or, as is more probable, by his son, by whom they were
published; and in taking a critical view of them this classification
is very convenient. At the commencement appear the Autos or spiritual
dramas; next follow some anomalous works, which are oddly enough,
in preference to all others, styled comedies; these are succeeded
by the tragi-comedies; and last of all come the _Farsas_. Various
small poems in the Spanish and Portuguese languages form an appendix
to the collection. These works display a true poetic spirit, which,
however, accommodated itself entirely to the age of the poet, and
which disdained all cultivation. The dramatic genius of Gil Vicente
is equally manifest from his power of invention, and from the natural
turn and facility of his imitative talent. Even the rudest of these
dramas is tinged with a certain degree of poetic feeling. Scenes in
stanzas and redondilhas which, though harmonious, are of antiquated
construction, succeed each other with wonderful truth and simplicity.
But there appears in these compositions no perception of what may be
properly called the perfection of dramatic poetry; and no trace of an
endeavour to attain classic excellence, calls to mind the spirit of the
sixteenth century. Gil Vicente’s language, too, is altogether in the
old and uncultivated style.
The _Autos_, or spiritual dramas, contained in the collected works
of this poet, are sixteen in number. They cannot properly be called
_Corpus Christi_ pieces, or _Autos Sacramentales_; for most of them
were written to be performed on Christmas night, in celebration of that
festival, either before the court at Lisbon, or at royal residences in
the country, and they perfectly correspond with the object for which
they were intended. Pastoral poetry forms the basis of the whole, even
of those which, taking a totally different turn from the rest, become
alternately didactic and allegoric. By this characteristic feature
they are distinguished from most of the Autos of Spanish or posterior
origin. Accident favoured the national poetic genius of the Portuguese
in the creation of the spiritual pastoral drama. Gil Vicente while yet
a youth and a tyro in the poetic art, surprised King Emanuel and the
Queen on the birth of the Infante, afterwards King John III. by the
production of a little pastoral drama, which appears better adapted for
celebrating the festival of Christmas than the birth of a hereditary
prince, but which was, perhaps, on that very account the more
flattering to the royal family. This pastoral drama is, in consequence
of the distinction it thus obtained, placed before Vicente’s Autos,
and a notice by the son of the poet explains the reason why that
precedence is assigned to it. The little piece is written in the
Spanish language. Vicente’s son observes in his notice, that it was
received with particular favour because it was something new in
Portugal.[84] It is therefore probable that at this period Gil Vicente,
as yet unconscious of his own talent, only followed in the footsteps of
the venerable Juan del Enzina.[85] Having at the request of the royal
family altered his piece in such a way as to render it more suitable
to representation at Christmas, he was thus accidentally directed
into the path which naturally led to the union of dramatic poetry
with christian mysteries, and which he afterwards steadily explored.
Year after year with increasing taste and fancy he continued to write
Christmas pieces, which at last assumed a more enlarged form. Among
the personages introduced in these dramas there are always some of the
pastoral class, intended to represent directly, and also in a certain
degree allegorically, the shepherds at the manger of Bethlehem. But the
inventive poet soon advanced a step further. He composed dramas in the
same style for the celebration of other religious festivals, without
any admixture of pastoral poetry. Among his Autos, however, there is
one in celebration of the festival of Corpus Christi, which was one of
his earliest productions. The notice annexed to it states that it was
performed in the year 1504. It is founded on a simple incident in the
life of St. Martin, and possesses scarcely any thing of the character
of the later spiritual dramas, or _Autos Sacramentales_, properly so
called. But a far greater display of fancy and theatrical splendour,
was the result of Gil Vicente’s subsequent endeavours to dramatize the
mysteries of the catholic faith. It would appear that spiritual dramas
of this class, in which so much was to be seen and admired, had never
before been produced either on the Portuguese or the Spanish stage.
It cannot, therefore, be doubted, that Gil Vicente’s Autos had their
effect on the Spanish dramatists of the sixteenth century; and that if
they were not imitated as models, they served at least as examples for
emulation.
The invention and the execution of Gil Vicente’s Autos present an
equal degree of rudeness. The least artificial are also those in which
the most decided traits of national character appear. The shepherds
and shepherdesses who are introduced into these Autos are Portuguese
and Spanish both in their names and manners. Their simple phrases and
turns of language are similar to those employed by the characters
in Saa de Miranda’s eclogues, except that their discourse is more
negligent and occasionally more coarse. In combining the appearance
of angels, the devil, the holy virgin and allegorical characters,
with popular scenes, an effect perfectly consistent with the ideas of
the audience was produced; for, according to the catholic doctrine,
the miracles with which Christianity commenced are continued without
intermission; through the mysteries of faith, the connection between
the terrestrial, celestial and infernal worlds is declared; and by
allegory that connection is rendered perceptible. The critic would
therefore judge very unfairly, were he to regard as proofs of bad
taste the consequences which a poet naturally entails on himself in
writing according to the spirit of his religion. Making allowance,
however, for that spirit, the rudeness of Gil Vicente’s Autos must be
acknowledged even by him who measuring them by the rule of critical
judgment, is perfectly disposed to view every system of religion only
on its poetic side. For instance in one of the simplest of these
Autos some shepherds who discourse in Spanish, enter a chapel, which
is decorated with all the apparatus necessary for the celebration of
the festival of Christmas. The shepherds cannot sufficiently express
their rustic admiration of the pomp exhibited in the chapel. Faith (_La
Fè_) enters as an allegorical character. She speaks Portuguese, and
after announcing herself to the shepherds as true Faith, she explains
to them the nature of faith, and enters into an historical relation
of the mysteries of the incarnation.[86] This is the whole subject of
the piece. Another Auto in which the poet’s fancy has taken a wider
range, presents scenes of a more varied nature. Mercury enters as an
allegorical character, and as the representative of the planet which
bears his name. He explains the theory of the planetary system and the
Zodiac, and cites astronomical facts from Regiomontanus, in a long
series of stanzas in the old national style. A Seraph then appears
who is sent down from heaven by God in compliance with the prayers
of Time. The Seraph, in the quality of a herald, proclaims a large
yearly fair in honour of the Holy Virgin, and invites customers to
it.[87] A Devil next makes his appearance with a little stall which he
carries before him. He gets into a dispute with Time and the Seraph,
and asserts that among men such as they are, he shall be sure to find
purchasers for his wares.[88] He therefore leaves to every customer his
free choice. Mercury then summons eternal Rome as the representative
of the church. She appears, and offers for sale peace of mind, as the
most precious of her merchandize. The Devil remonstrates; and Rome
retires. Two Portuguese peasants now appear in the market. One is very
anxious to sell his wife, and observes that if he cannot sell her,
he will give her away for nothing, as she is a wicked spendthrift.
Amidst this kind of conversation a party of peasant women enter, one of
whom, with considerable comic warmth, vents bitter complaints against
her husband.[89] The man who has already been inveighing against his
wife immediately recognizes her, and says:--“that is my slippery
helpmate.”[90] During this succession of comic scenes the action does
not advance. The Devil at last opens his little stall and displays
his stock of goods to the female peasants; but one of them who is the
most pious of the party seems to suspect that all is not quite right
with regard to the merchandize, and she exclaims: “Jesus! Jesus! True
God and man!” The Devil immediately takes to flight, and does not
re-appear; but the Seraph again comes forward and mingles with the
rustic groupes. The throng continues to increase; other countrywomen
with baskets on their heads arrive; and the market is stored with
vegetables, poultry and other articles of rural produce. The Seraph
offers virtues for sale; but they find no purchasers. The peasant girls
observe that in their village money is more sought after than virtue,
when a young man wants a wife. One of the party, however, says, that
she wished to come to the market because it happened to fall on the
festival of the mother of God; and because the Virgin does not sell
her gifts of grace (_as graças_); but she distributes them gratis (_de
graça_). This observation crowns the theological morality of the piece,
which terminates with a hymn of praise, in the popular style, in honour
of the Holy Virgin.
These specimens will afford an adequate idea of the spirit and style of
Gil Vicente’s Autos. His largest work of this class may, however, be
referred to, in proof of the little attention he bestowed on dramatic
plan in the composition of his spiritual comedies. It purports to be
“A Summary of the History of God.” After the prologue, which is spoken
by an Angel, Sir Lucifer (_Senhor Lucifer_,) enters, attended by a
numerous retinue of devils. Belial is president of his court of justice
(_meirinho de corte_), and Satan gentleman of his privy council,
(_fidalgo do conselho_). After this privy counsellor has performed
his part in the temptation of Adam and Eve in Paradise, the whole
details of which are represented on the stage, Lucifer confers on him
the dignities of duke and captain of the kingdoms of the world.[91]
Next succeeds a series of scenes which summarily represent the history
of the christian redemption. The World accompanied by Time and angels
enters as a king. The representation of the fall of man is followed by
the history of Abel, by whom a beautiful and simple hymn is sung.[92]
The next scenes exhibit the histories of Abraham, Job, and David;
and thus the Auto proceeds through the incidents of the old and new
testaments until the ascension of Christ, which is represented on the
stage amidst an accompaniment of drums and trumpets.
On comparing the Autos of Gil Vicente with those of Calderon, the
difference appears not much less considerable than that which exists
between the works of Hans Sachs and Shakespeare. But the graceful
simplicity with which many of the scenes of these spiritual dramas
are executed, raises the Portuguese poet infinitely above the poetic
shoe-maker of Nuremberg.
The most unimportant of the dramatic works of Gil Vicente are those
which the poet and his son have called comedies. One is a dramatized
novel, in which a young lady, whom her lover, a priest, has seduced,
appears on the stage in child-bed, and after long lamentations and
discussions is actually delivered of a daughter. In the second half
of the piece the child whose birth is thus announced has attained
the age of womanhood, and is in her turn introduced as a lady loving
and beloved. The action, however, is not destitute of interest. In
the first half of the drama, a Witch, who summons the Devil on the
stage, assists the unfortunate lady in child-bed, and afterwards, five
laundresses (_lavandeiras_) make their appearance. Nevertheless, amidst
much extravagance and absurdity, the author has represented several
scenes of domestic life, in a style equally pleasing and natural. No
example of the intrigue of the Spanish theatre is to be found in this
piece, but there is introduced a fool (_parvo_), or more properly a
waggish clown, a character which appears to be the rude prototype of
the Spanish _gracioso_. Pleasing songs in the Spanish language are
interspersed through the dialogue. The young girl who was born at the
commencement of the piece takes leave of the public in the character
of a princess. Several of Gil Vicente’s other works, which are styled
comedies, are dramatized novels, similar to that just described. One
which is entitled, _A Floresta de Enganos_, (the Forest or Gardens of
Deception),[93] is merely a dramatized garland of sprightly fancies
enriched with allegorical and mythological ornaments. At the head of
the dramatis personæ appears the burlesque character of a philosopher,
who, because he has reproved some wicked men for their misconduct, is,
by way of punishment, tied to a fool (_parvo_) with whom he is thus
compelled to associate. He regards this punishment as the severest
torture that could be inflicted on a philosopher. He speaks Spanish,
and the replies of the fool are more remarkable for their rudeness than
for their wit.[94]
Gil Vicente’s tragi-comedies may be regarded as rough outlines of
that kind of drama which subsequently formed a variety of the heroic
comedies[95] of the Spanish stage. They are not historical dramas, but
festival pieces adorned with a certain pomp of allegory, mythology,
magic, &c. and occasionally interspersed with pathetic scenes. They
were performed before the court on festivals or particular occasions,
which are specified. One of these dramas, entitled, _Amadis de Gaula_,
and founded on some of the incidents in the celebrated romance of
the same name, was, in spite of its inoffensive character, forbidden
to be performed in Spain in the reign of Philip II. The cause of
this prohibition probably was, that the disguise of Amadis, as a
pilgrim, was deemed a profanation of the sacred habit. This piece
which is written in the Spanish language, is destitute of all merit of
invention. Others of these dramas exhibit more traces of the poet’s
fancy; but in none is there the foundation of a genuine dramatic
plot. One entitled, _Exhortaçaõ de Guerra_, (Exhortation to War),
was doubtless a favourite with the court. A pious magician appears
who has learned necromancy in a sybil’s cave. By powerful spells
he summons to his presence some subject demons, whom he suffers to
revile him in the coarsest language.[96] He however obliges them to
conjure up the spirits of Polyxena, Penthesilea, Achilles, Scipio,
and other celebrated characters of antiquity. These spirits appear
in succession, and address fine compliments to the royal family. In
another tragi-comedy Providence is introduced as a Princess. But the
most varied of all is _Triumpho do Invierno_, (Winter’s Triumph),
in two parts. Besides a multitude of characters, among which an
allegorical personification of Winter is one of the most conspicuous,
Gil Vicente exhibited to his audience a view of the open sea, agitated
by a storm during the most inclement season of the year. The noise and
confusion among the ships in distress, and the oaths and prayers of the
Portuguese sailors expressed in rhymes and redondilhas, would naturally
be gratifying to a public who at the period when the piece was written,
took particular interest in maritime affairs.[97] Another of these
tragi-comedies is also a satire.
Gil Vicente was destined by nature to be a comic poet. His _farças_
(farces) are by far his best productions; and to them he was indebted
for the chief portion of his fame, as well as for the honourable but
ill-chosen surname which some critics have applied to him. If the
literary relationship between two dramatic writers were to be decided
by the comic strength of their works, then indeed Gil Vicente might be
truly termed a second Plautus. But neither in respect to their form
nor their spirit can Vicente’s farces be ranked in the same class with
the regular comedies of Plautus. Nevertheless the name of _farces_,
was not given to those comic dramas, on account of their irregularity
or their burlesque style. At the rise of the modern theatre in Spain
and Portugal all dramas were denominated farces,[98] and that the name
has been continued to be applied to Vicente’s comedies, is an accident
arising merely from the want of a better term of classification. It
is in like manner the result of accident, that in France, England and
Germany, the same term is still employed to distinguish precisely that
species of drama to which Gil Vicente’s farces belong. These pieces
are equally burlesque in their design and execution. They may, in a
certain sense, be styled dramas of character; for Vicente attached
great importance to the burlesque representation of some characters
which he sketched from life. But he never thought of founding his comic
interest on plot and intrigue; and in the degree of cultivation to
which he had attained, and above which he never rose, he was incapable
of designing and executing, on a comprehensive scale, a dramatic
picture of character with true delicacy of outline, and still less with
interesting truth of colouring. His farces, like his other dramas, have
no regular plot for their ground-work. They are dramatic conceptions of
scenes of real life, rapidly sketched by a glowing fancy, with genuine
comic feeling, with a certain poetic keeping, even when derived from
the commonest nature, and worked up by more or less of plastic talent,
into some form, but without any regard to correctness, and altogether
executed as a mere sportive task. In these farces the language and
metrical form are the same as in Gil Vicente’s other dramas. The
alternation of the Portuguese and Castilian idioms is seldom governed
by any other rule than the caprice of the poet. Upon the whole Gil
Vicente’s farces bear much resemblance to the _Entremeses_ which
subsequently became favourite entertainments on the Spanish stage; like
them they are not divided either into acts or scenes.
Among the eleven dramas, which in the collected works of Gil Vicente
are entitled farces, there are two festival pieces, in the popular
style, which might with equal propriety have been ranged in one of the
preceding classes. The first piece is truly a farce. Two miserable
servants, the one a Portuguese, the other a Spaniard, who are almost
starving in the service of two coxcombs, meet together in the street
at midnight, and each in his respective language complains of his sad
fate. The Portuguese describes his master as an enamoured enthusiast,
who employs himself day and night in writing silly verses, and in
singing them to his own wretched music, but who never appears to think
of eating and drinking.[99] This romantic gentleman (_escudeiro_)
soon makes his appearance with one of his own song books in his hand.
Before he begins to sing a song, he reads aloud its title, and names
himself as the author. When he has finished it he commences a new song,
first pronouncing very formally the words, “Another by the same,” in
the style of the old Cancioneiros. He proceeds to sing under the window
of his mistress Isabella, a miller’s coquetish daughter, where his
music is accompanied by the barking of dogs and the mewing of cats.
The blending of these songs, which though insipid, possess something
of the tender and melancholy character of the old cantigas, with the
conversation of the lover and his servant,--with the whisperings
of the serenaded Isabella from her lattice window,--and with the
rage of the gallant at the dogs and cats, which mortify him by the
interruption of his singing, was doubtless calculated to operate very
powerfully on the risibility of the audience, though much of the
ludicrous effect of the scene must now be supplied by the imagination
of the reader.[100] The mother of Isabella at length appears, with a
lantern in her hand, endeavouring to learn what is the cause of the
uproar. Here a change of scene commences with the lamentations of the
old woman in a burlesque caricature style.[101] She enters into a
dispute first with her coquetish daughter, who has expressed herself
pleased with the serenade, and then with the gallant, who at length
sings a farewell stanza, and departs. But this collection of songs and
dialogues is as far from having any real dramatic object as are the
other farces of Vicente, in which he sometimes introduces Witches,--at
that period objects of particular interest with the public,--performing
incantations in concert with the Devil; sometimes Frenchmen and
Italians who speak a kind of broken Portuguese, perhaps often enough
heard on the quays of Lisbon. In another of these lively entertaining
dramas, an enamoured old man is the principal character.
Of all these farces, however, that entitled _Inez Pereira_, is
distinguished by the most remarkable plot and the greatest stretch
of dramatic talent. The history of this piece serves to throw some
light on the relation in which Gil Vicente stood with respect to the
Portuguese public. Some persons, it appears, had expressed doubts of
his title to the authorship of the admired farces attributed to him,
and in order to maintain the reputation of his talent, he was desirous
that a pointed theme should be prescribed to him as a ground-work for
dramatic composition. It was accordingly suggested that he would find
a fit subject in the Portuguese proverb: “I prefer an ass that carries
me, to a horse that throws me.”[102] For the comic representation of
this proverb, Vicente chose the prettily conceived story of a young
girl, who rejects the matrimonial offer of a wealthy simpleton, because
she is resolved to marry none but a man of superior understanding and
talents. Inez at length finds a man after her own heart. She gives him
her hand, but soon grows very unhappy, because she finds that with such
a husband, his will must always be her law. She now sincerely repents
the coyness with which she had listened to the proposals of her less
gifted lover. Death soon interposes in her favour, and she becomes a
widow. Her former suitor offers himself again, and Inez triumphs in
the possession of a husband whom she finds it easy to manage. This
happily chosen fable is worked up with more care than Vicente seems
to have bestowed on his other farces. Had this poet been placed in
circumstances similar to those which a hundred and fifty years later
operated in favour of Moliere, _Inez Pereira_ would in all probability
have been made one of the best comic pieces of character in the
dramatic literature of modern times. But in this drama Gil Vicente
has contented himself with grouping his characters in a brilliant but
confused throng, stringing his scenes together like a wreath of roses,
exhibiting events, between which, days, weeks, and months intervene, in
immediate succession, like pictures in a rareeshow; and thus upon the
whole he has made little approximation towards the point of cultivated
taste.[103] But this farce supplies illustrations of the manners of
the age, which could not easily be obtained from any other source.--We
learn from it that the jews in Lisbon were then particularly celebrated
as marriage brokers (_casamenteiros_) and that they carried on this
employment as an ordinary branch of traffic. One of the suitors is
introduced by some jews of this profession to Inez Pereira.
On reverting from the dramas of Gil Vicente to the poetic works of
the classic writers, at whose head Saa de Miranda stands, the reader
will find himself transported to a totally different world. But this
transition belongs to the chronological order of the subject.
FERREIRA.
Antonio Ferreira, surnamed the Portuguese Horace, was born at Lisbon
in the year 1528. His parents, who belonged to the first class of
nobility, destined him for a statesman or public functionary. He
obtained the degree of Doctor at the University of Coimbra, where
he studied the civil law. He took however less interest in his
jurisprudential studies than in the lectures of a professor of ancient
literature, named Diogo de Tieve, who at that time possessed great
celebrity, and for whom after quitting the university he continued
to entertain a strong affection and regard. While Ferreira was
pursuing his studies at Coimbra, the works of Horace, and other
poets of antiquity, produced on him an impression totally different
from that which was experienced by the other students, who directed
their attention to ancient literature. Among the latter it was a
fashion to write verses in latin, and to look with disdain on the
Portuguese language; but Ferreira, while yet a youth, proved himself
an enthusiastic lover of his mother tongue. He resolved not to write a
line in any foreign language, not even in Spanish; and he faithfully
kept his determination. In his beautiful introductory or dedicatory
stanza, to readers after his own taste (_a os bons engenhos_) he
intimates that his poems shall belong “to those readers to whose
pure bosoms he may commit them. For himself he will be content with
the glory of having it said that he loved his native land and his
countrymen.”[104] But the patriotic spirit which thus glowed in the
soul of Ferreira was combined, in a manner then altogether uncommon,
with a similar enthusiasm for the ancient classics, and particularly
for the poetry of Horace. The example of Saa de Miranda had also its
influence in forming his taste; and he closely studied the Italian
poets from whom he learned to combine classic correctness of ideas
and language, on the model of the ancients, with a natural poetic
style, suited to the age in which he lived. The beautiful structure of
Italian verse so charmed him, that he thought no other metres possessed
sufficient dignity to entitle them to be introduced into Portuguese
poetry. He accordingly never composed in redondilhas, and, generally
speaking, in no verse in the old national style. The whole object of
his ambition was to be a classical poet, and in that character to give
to Portuguese poetry a new, and according to his taste, a more noble
diction. Inspired with the hope of accomplishing this purpose, he
laboured with so much assiduity, that before he left the university he
had composed the greater portion of the hundred and thirteen sonnets
which are contained in the collection of his poems. Whether the “Lady
of his Thoughts,” who supplies in these sonnets the place of Petrarch’s
Laura, was no imaginary character, is uncertain. It cannot, however,
be doubted, that in his fifth elegy the poet alludes to a real and
beloved Manila, who had been snatched from him by death. Ferreira was
twenty-nine years of age when he published the first collection of his
poetic works. He had previously been engaged in delivering academic
lectures, probably on jurisprudence, in the university of Coimbra. In
his poetic pursuits, he was joined by several young men of similar
talent, particularly Andrade Caminha, Jeronymo Cortereal, and Diogo
Bernardes, who, together with other poets of that age, formed a circle
of disciples and admirers of Saa de Miranda. But he grew tired of
his university studies, and visited the court where he soon acquired
distinction. He obtained the high office of _desembargador de camara
de supplicaçaõ_ (judge of the council of grace), and he was likewise
appointed a _fidalgo da casa real_ (gentleman of the royal household).
For the young poets of Portugal he now became an oracle of criticism;
and a most brilliant prospect had opened itself to him, when in the
year 1569, and at the age of forty-one, he died of the plague which
was supposed to be brought to Lisbon from the Levant. A monument was
erected to his memory in the church where he was buried; but the stone
is now much defaced.[105]
Though not a poet of the first rank, Ferreira has, as a classical
poet, been surpassed by no other in Portuguese literature, and has
in that respect also had but few equals in the literature of Spain.
His fancy was circumscribed, and to originality he seems to have put
forth no pretension; but the sound taste which he manifested from the
commencement of his poetic cultivation, was a thing totally new in
Portugal at that period. Ferreira was by no means a blind or pedantic
imitator of the ancients and the Italians. He was, however, animated
by an enthusiastic feeling for every thing truly exemplary in the
writings of the foreign poets whom he chose for prototypes; his
vigorous understanding, cherished with particular predilection the
idea of reforming the national Portuguese poetry after such models;
and patriotic zeal prompted him to complete what poetic feeling and
sound judgment had combined to suggest. Correctness of ideas as well
as of language was to him the first requisite of all poetic beauty.
He wished to banish from the poetry of his native land those traces
of orientalism which it still retained. It was not less his study to
avoid the eccentric than the common. He attached more importance to
noble than to extraordinary ideas. But to poetic energy, precision
and plenitude of picturesque expression, or what may be termed the
poetry of language, his attention was chiefly directed. This quality
he cultivated with a degree of talent and judgment, which would
have imparted to his style Horatian perfection, were it not for the
philosophic laconism peculiar to the diction of Horace, and which no
modern poet, Klopstock alone excepted, has been able to approach.
Ferreira was the first Portuguese writer who manifested a particular
interest in the poetic dignity of his native tongue. He was the first
who practically proved that the soft toned accentuation and simple
popular idiom of that language were not inconsistent either with the
energetic expression of didactic poetry, or the sonorous rhythm of the
loftier styles. In this respect he essentially departed from the manner
of Saa de Miranda; and thus his poetry lost the national colouring by
which that of his predecessor is peculiarly distinguished. The works
of Ferreira belong indeed to that class of Portuguese poetry which
is most easily intelligible to a foreigner possessing a knowledge of
latin. Ferreira’s latinity of expression extends even to metrical
scanning in which he assumed new freedoms;[106] and the title under
which he published his poems, and which they still retain, has a sort
of latin air.[107] Ferreira has therefore never been a favourite poet
with the great mass of the Portuguese public. There was indeed a
time during the seventeenth century in which he was despised even by
the polite world as a learned pedant;[108] but a later posterity has
rendered justice to his merits. Precisely such a poet as Ferreira was
wanting to create among the Portuguese that taste for sound good sense
in poetry, which they but too soon lost, and which, in these latter
times, they have tardily endeavoured to recover. Ferreira himself
takes various opportunities of explaining the principles by which he
was guided in the composition of his works. In an epistle to Diogo
Bernardes, he says--his first rule is to be as distrustful of himself
as he is of superficial censurers; to follow his natural feelings, and
to avoid a forced use of art; to respect only the judgment of those
who are capable of judging; to follow the counsel of well informed and
sincere friends; and to polish the rudeness of genius by industry and
judicious imitation.[109]
Ferreira’s sonnets which amount to a considerable number, are divided
into two books. They were all, as has already been remarked, written
by the poet at an early period of life. The study of the Petrarchian
sonnet is every where manifest in those attempts to emulate the pure
Italian style, which, though imitations, are free of all traces
of effort and affectation. In general, however, Ferreira’s tender
complaints exhibit only feeble glimmerings of the intensity and
grace of Petrarch; but on the other hand they are disfigured by
fewer extravagancies than the similar effusions of passion by other
Portuguese and Spanish poets; and the energy of the expression is
usually ennobled by classic grace of diction. Some of these amatory
sonnets may be regarded as models.[110] In others, however, the poet
speaks of “burning snow and freezing fire.”[111] Among the best are
some which occur in the second book, in which the poet laments the
death of his mistress.[112] Ferreira seems to have felt no inclination
to imitate Petrarch’s didactic sonnets probably, because he had at an
early period given to his didactic poetry a different form, and one
which bore a more decided resemblance to his favourite Horace.
In the composition of odes Ferreira unquestionably endeavoured to
form his style on the model of Horace. But among the thirteen poems,
which in the collection of Ferreira’s works are ranged under the title
of _Odas_, and which notwithstanding their scanty number are divided
into two books, there is not one which exhibits a truly lyric flight
of fancy. In all the language is excellent; the sentiment noble;
and the didactic tone and the dignity of the whole manner are in
admirable unison with the sonorous melody of the metre; but no new and
energetic ideas, no lyric boldness, which, at first sight, might seem
irregularity, surprise and charm the reader. Ferreira indeed expressly
proposed to himself to soar even as a writer of odes above “the
ignorant multitude;”[113] but by his frequent repetition of certain
pompous and sonorous phrases, he widely departs from the character
of the Horatian style.[114] Even the moral energy of sentiment which
appears in Ferreira’s odes, is not the energy of Horace.[115] It would
appear that the Italian canzoni with their superfluity of beautiful
words and phrases had influenced Ferreira to an extent of which he was
unconscious. Some of his odes have precisely the metrical form of the
canzone, with the exception of the concluding flourish or apostrophe
of the poet to his poem. Others have shorter stanzas like those of
the Spanish odes of Luis de Leon.[116] Is possible that Ferreira may
have been acted upon by the example of Luis de Leon, as they were
contemporaries and almost of equal age; or, perhaps, the Spaniard was
influenced by the Portuguese poet. This, however, is a subject to
which writers of neither country make allusion; but it is certain that
the character of Ferreira had nothing in common with the tranquil yet
captivating enthusiasm of Luis de Leon. Nevertheless in the composition
of the ode he became a model for the poets of his own nation, as Luis
de Leon was for those of Spain; and every poem to which the title of
ode has subsequently been given in Portuguese literature, exhibits
nearly the same character and metrical form of which he set the
example. In Ferreira’s odes the descriptive passages are usually the
best.[117]
The elegies of Ferreira, at the period at which they were written, had
also the advantage of the charm of novelty in the literature of his
country; for with the exception of the single elegy of Saa de Miranda
no poem of that class existed in the Portuguese language. Ariosto
seems to have been the model whom Ferreira particularly copied in
elegiac composition. Like Ariosto, he very happily seized the idea of
the pleasing voluptuous elegy of the ancients, which was soon after
neglected and continued long lost to modern literature. His elegy
on May is a classic masterpiece.[118] He was less successful in
plaintive elegy. Among the elegies of this kind which he composed,
several deserve only to be regarded as occasional poems on the death
of distinguished persons. Others are properly epistles, abounding in
moral reflexions and observations on the uncertainty of human affairs,
but wanting in that tone of tender melancholy which is essential to the
true plaintive elegy.[119] A few free translations from the Greek of
Moschus and Anacreon are annexed to this collection of elegies.
Ferreira’s eclogues possess little poetic merit; and, excellent as is
the diction, the style is not sufficiently bucolick. Ferreira was no
less susceptible than Saa de Miranda of the philosophic enjoyment of a
country life and the beauties of rural nature; but an ideal pastoral
world was foreign to the scope of his genius, and bucolick simplicity
was not at all reconcilable with his taste, which invariably inclined
him to masculine reflexion, clothed in a tone of didactic seriousness.
He would not, therefore, had he even possessed the natural requisites
for pastoral poetry, have been disposed to prefer that style as the
poetic form for occasional compositions, however agreeable it might
be to the individuals of the royal family to have their festivals
poetically illustrated by such contributions to the general gallantry
of the court.
Ferreira’s epistles occupy the chief portion of the first volume of his
poems; and they are, upon the whole, entitled to the first rank in the
poet’s works. It is worthy of remark, that these epistles retain the
old title of _Cartas_ instead of that of _Epistolas_, notwithstanding
Ferreira’s predilection for latinity in his choice of words. But they
differ in so many various ways from the poetic _Cartas_ of Saa de
Miranda, that they may be regarded as the first productions of their
kind in Portuguese literature. Their contents evidently shew that
they were all written when the poet had attained the age of maturity.
At that period he resided at court, and from his practical philosophy,
for which he was partly indebted to his literary studies, he deduced
the maxims which daily received confirmation from the events of real
life. Yet the more he was tied to the great world, the more valuable
did retirement appear to him. The natural nobleness of his turn of
mind was constantly at variance with the manners and characters of
the persons by whom he was surrounded. In this state of feeling he
wrote his epistles. They are for the most part addressed to men of the
first rank, with whom Ferreira was more or less intimate, and among
whose names appear those of the most celebrated poets who laboured in
common with him for the classic improvement of the national taste. The
didactic poems addressed by Ferreira to these men are nearly all in the
same strain. The delicacy of the didactic tone of Horace was not to be
attained by a poet who had to open the first path for the restoration
of classical style in a country in which the old romantic character
in poetry, and the scholastic theological spirit in philosophy,
were only beginning to yield to the influence of a more liberal
cultivation. Neither was Ferreira, with all his elegance, sufficiently
cultivated for that Horatian gaiety, which frequently rises to wanton
sportiveness, and jests with the very precepts it inculcates. The
characteristics of his philosophy are dignified gravity and sound
judgment, unalloyed by any thing like pedantry or pretension. But the
philosophic medium through which he viewed the vicissitudes of fortune
and the follies of mankind, partook more of religious austerity than
of epicurean pleasantry; and notwithstanding his general correctness
in epistolary composition, even in that respect, he falls, like almost
every other modern poet, far short of the energetic precision of the
Horatian style. As an epistolary poet, therefore, Ferreira is no more
a Portuguese Horace than the two Argensolas are Horaces in Spanish
literature.[120] But the sound judgment and noble feeling, which may
be said to form the moral soul of these poems, are expressed in that
natural, unostentatious, pleasing and varied manner, which belongs
to the true spirit of the didactic epistle; and the poet’s fancy
has scattered as many flowers on the path of ornate wisdom, as are
necessary to distinguish it from the high road of moralizing prose.
Patriotism and zeal for the national greatness of Portugal give a
peculiar colouring to these epistles. In the spirit of this feeling
Ferreira extols the union of Portuguese military glory, with the
improvement of manners and the cultivation of the understanding; and
with regard to cultivation, according to models, he says--one should
seek to “excel others in what is best, and only in other respects to
imitate.”[121] He zealously exhorts his friend Andrade Caminha not
to make the muses in Portugal speak any thing but Portuguese.[122] He
expresses his dissatisfaction at the little encouragement which in his
opinion was extended to genius at that period in Portugal. He also
inveighs against the perverted appreciation of good and bad, right and
wrong.[123] Within the limits of his faith, he himself discourses
exquisitely on the beauty of reason.[124] But the soft language of
feeling more particularly glows in those epistles in which he speaks
of the joys of friendship and the pleasures of rural life.[125]
Occasionally Ferreira’s didactic style takes an ironic jocular turn,
and then only does it present true Horatian facility.[126] Upon the
whole if the poetry of reason and sentiment be not more lightly
esteemed than the poetry of luxuriant fancy, Ferreira’s epistles must
be numbered among the best in modern literature.
Ferreira endeavoured to introduce epigrams, composed after the manner
of the ancients, into the poetry of his native country. But he did not
succeed in seizing the spirit of the ancient epigram. Ausonius was his
model; and the _epigrammas_ and _epitaphios_ which appear among the
works of Ferreira are not distinguished either by the tenderness or
the energy of the esteemed Greek poems of the same class. Their chief
merit is an elegant precision of language conveyed in the metrical form
of the Italian octaves; but it is only in a few instances that this
elegant precision is in any degree poignant and pleasing.[127] The
epitaphs are in general dedicated to the memory of men distinguished in
Portuguese history.
Ferreira is the author of a tale written in honour of a female national
saint, named _Colomba_, or, according to the popular pronunciation,
_Comba_. Beauty of language also constitutes the whole poetic merit
of this piece; and even the introduction, which is long and tedious,
sufficiently proves that when Ferreira undertook to celebrate the
virtues of St. Colomba he stepped out of his sphere. The subject of
the tale is a legend which might have formed the ground-work of a
better production. The fair saint, a Portuguese shepherdess, tending
her flocks and singing pious songs, becomes the object of the ardent
passion of a Moorish king, who discovers her in one of his hunting
excursions. The king pursues her until she has no longer any hope
of saving herself by flight. In this extremity she implores a rock
to open and receive her. The miracle takes place. The disappointed
king strikes his lance against the rock, and a clear fountain gushes
forth, the waters of which continue to possess miraculous properties.
The narrative is, however, much too cold for such a subject; and the
description given of the Moorish king is so extremely grotesque, that
it is difficult to conceive how a man of Ferreira’s taste could have
brought himself to sketch so rude a picture. He has represented the
king as being covered with shag like a bear; and in addition to this
ornament has given to one side of his head the ear of an ass, and to
the other the ear of a dog.[128]
Ferreira likewise wished to introduce into the dramatic poetry of
Portugal a classical style, approximating to that of the ancients as
closely as the difference of times and manners would permit. Among
his dramatic works there are a tragedy and two comedies. Ferreira’s
patriotic feeling induced him to borrow the subject of his tragedy
from the history of Portugal; and he selected the story of Inez de
Castro, which has since been so frequently handled by Portuguese poets,
though before Ferreira’s time it seems to have been untouched. When
it is recollected that at the same period the Dominican Bermudez was
engaged in writing a Spanish tragedy on the same story, and according
to similar principles,[129] the conclusion that one of these tragedies
in some measure owes its existence to the other is not easily avoided.
Both present a striking similarity in invention and arrangement. But
neither poet alludes in any way to his contemporary; and even the
critics who notice the one work are silent with respect to the other.
The prize of tragic art must, however, be awarded to the Inez de Castro
of Bermudez. Ferreira’s _Castro_ (for so the tragedy is briefly called
by the Portuguese) contains many beautiful passages; but throughout
the whole piece there is a deficiency of true pathos; the imitation
of the Greek style in form and manner is painfully elaborate; the
dramatic, interest of the composition is extremely feeble, and the
dignity of tragic poetry is maintained in the language alone. Inez de
Castro with her attendant or nurse (_ama_), the Infante Don Pedro with
his secretary, King Alphonso with his three inhuman counsellors, and
finally a messenger, are the acting or rather the speaking characters;
and a chorus of Coimbrian women are brought into co-operation with
these characters in the same manner as in the tragedy of Bermudez.
Ferreira, like Bermudez, deviates from the strict laws of the Greek
drama only in the neglect of the unities of time and place; and it is
evident that this liberty is by both poets only taken from necessity,
because they had not sufficient art otherwise to connect the requisite
scenes. Both tragedies contain in appearance five acts; but Ferreira
has also rendered his fifth act merely an historical appendage. In
the opening of Ferreira’s tragedy Inez enters with her attendant, and
after some preliminary complaints circumstantially relates the way
in which she became connected with the Prince, and through him with
the royal family; though it may be presumed that these particulars
must have been sufficiently well known to her confidante long before.
The scene changes, and the Infante appears accompanied by the female
chorus, which Bermudez has more suitably introduced in connection with
Inez. The Infante engages in a long discussion with his secretary on
the situation of a Prince who has to maintain a conflict between love,
and duty and policy. A hymn to love by the chorus closes the first
act. The following acts are constructed in a similar manner. At the
close of the fourth act the death of Inez is announced by the chorus;
and in the fifth a messenger relates the event to the Prince. The
lyric passages are the best in the whole tragedy, and among them the
hymn to love is particularly beautiful.[130] The lines which Inez
delivers on her first entrance indicate at once the lyric character
of the piece. The dialogue is elegant throughout, but it frequently
exhibits over-strained antitheses. The observations occasionally
delivered by the chorus, in a metre formed on the model of the sapphic,
are sufficiently moral, though they are in general of the commonest
character. The decisive scene, in which Inez appears before the king,
approaches nearest to true pathos, but never completely attains that
height.[131] Upon the whole Ferreira was not a tragic poet. He totally
failed in seizing the true idea of modern tragedy.