TRANSCRIPTION NOTES:
* the English translation was placed after the Portuguese text (it was
originally side by side with the Portuguese text)
* critical edition notes were placed after the Portuguese text
* critical notes which refer to the play's introduction, before the line
numbering, were labelled '0.'
* ^ is used for superscript.
❧ COPILACAM DE
TODALAS OBRAS DE GIL VICENTE, A QVAL SE
REPARTE EM CINCO LIVROS O PRIMEYRO HE DE TODAS
suas cousas de deuaçam. O segundo as comedias.
O terceyro as tragicomedias. No quarto as farsas.
No quinto as obras meudas.
[Illustration]
¶ Empremiose em a muy nobre & sempre leal cidade de Lixboa
em casa de Ioam Aluarez impressor del Rey nosso senhor
Anno de M D LXII
¶ Foy visto polos deputados da Sancta Inquisiçam.
COM PRIVILEGIO REAL.
(⁂)
¶ Vendem se a cruzado em papel em casa de Francisco fernandez na rua
noua.
TITLE-PAGE OF THE FIRST (1562) EDITION OF GIL VICENTE'S WORKS
FOUR PLAYS OF GIL VICENTE
Edited from the _editio princeps_ (1562), with Translation and Notes, by
AUBREY F. G. BELL
Θαρρε̂ιν χρ̀η τ̀ον κὰι σμικρόν τι δυνάμεηοη
ἐις τ̀ο πρόσθεν ̓αὲι προϊέναι.
PLATO, _Sophistes_.
CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1920
KRAUS REPRINT CO.
New York
1969
TO ALL THOSE WHO HAVE LABOURED IN THE VICENTIAN VINEYARD
LC 24-15201
_First Published 1920_
_Reprinted by permission of the Cambridge University Press_
KRAUS REPRINT CO.
A U. S. Division of Kraus-Thomson Organization Limited
Printed in U. S. A.
PREFACE
Gil Vicente, that sovereign genius[1], is too popular and indigenous for
translation and this may account for the fact that he has not been
presented to English readers. It is hoped, however, that a fairly
accurate version, with the text in view[2], may give some idea of his
genius. The religious, the patriotic-imperial, the satirical and the
pastoral sides of his drama are represented respectively by the _Auto da
Alma_, the _Exhortação_, the _Almocreves_ and the _Serra da Estrella_,
while his lyrical vein is seen in the _Auto da Alma_ and in two
delightful songs: the _serranilha_ of the _Almocreves_ and the
_cossante_ of the _Serra da Estrella_. Many of his plays, including some
of the most charming of his lyrics, were written in Spanish and this
limited the choice from the point of view of Portuguese literature, but
there are others of the Portuguese plays fully as well worth reading as
the four here given.
The text is that of the exceedingly rare first edition (1562). Apart
from accents and punctuation, it is reproduced without alteration,
unless a passage is marked by an asterisk, when the text of the _editio
princeps_ will be found in the foot-notes, in which variants of other
editions are also given.
In these notes A represents the _editio princeps_ (1562): _Copilaçam de
todalas obras de Gil Vicente, a qual se reparte em cinco livros. O
primeyro he de todas suas cousas de deuaçam. O segundo as comedias. O
terceyro as tragicomedias. No quarto as farsas. No quinto as obras
meudas. Empremiose em a muy nobre & sempre leal cidade de Lixboa em casa
de Ioam Aluarez impressor del Rey nosso senhor. Anno de MDLXII_. The
second (1586) edition (B) is the _Copilaçam de todalas obras de Gil
Vicente... Lixboa, por Andres Lobato, Anno de MDLXXXVJ_. A third edition
in three volumes appeared in 1834 (C): _Obras de Gil Vicente, correctas
e emendadas pelo cuidado e diligencia de J. V. Barreto Feio e J. G.
Monteiro_. Hamburgo, 1834. This was based, although not always with
scrupulous accuracy, on the _editio princeps_, and subsequent editions
have faithfully adhered to that of 1834: _Obras_, 3 vol. Lisboa, 1852
(D), and _Obras_, ed. Mendes dos Remedios, 3 vol. Coimbra, 1907, 12, 14
[_Subsidios_, vol. 11, 15, 17][3] (E). Although there has been a
tendency of late to multiply editions of Gil Vicente, no attempt has
been made to produce a critical edition. It is generally felt that that
must be left to the master hand of Dona Carolina Michaëlis de
Vasconcellos[4]. Since the plays of Vicente number over forty the
present volume is only a tentative step in this direction, but it may
serve to show the need of referring to, and occasionally emending, the
_editio princeps_ in any future edition of the most national poet of
Portugal[5].
AUBREY F. G. BELL.
_8 April 1920._
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Este soberano ingenio._ Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, _Antologia_,
tom. 7, p. clxiii.
[2] Although the text has been given without alteration it has not been
thought necessary to provide a precise rendering of the coarser
passages.
[3] The Paris 1843 edition is the Hamburg 1834 edition with a different
title-page. The _Auto da Alma_ was published separately at Lisbon in
1902 and again (in part) in _Autos de Gil Vicente. Compilação e prefacio
de Affonso Lopes Vieira_, Porto, 1916; while extracts appeared in
_Portugal. An Anthology, edited with English versions, by George Young_.
Oxford, 1916. The present text and translation are reprinted, by
permission of the Editor, from _The Modern Language Review_.
[4] I understand that the eminent philologist Dr José Leite de
Vasconcellos is also preparing an edition.
[5] Facsimiles of the title-pages of the two early editions of Vicente's
works are reproduced here through the courtesy of Senhor Anselmo
Braamcamp Freire.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE v
INTRODUCTION ix
AUTO DA ALMA (THE SOUL'S JOURNEY) 1
EXHORTAÇAO DA GUERRA (EXHORTATION TO WAR) 23
FARSA DOS ALMOCREVES (THE CARRIERS) 37
TRAGICOMEDIA PASTORIL DA SERRA DA ESTRELLA 55
NOTES 73
LIST OF PROVERBS IN GIL VICENTE'S WORKS 84
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF GIL VICENTE 86
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF GIL VICENTE'S LIFE AND WORKS 89
INDEX OF PERSONS AND PLACES 95
* * * * *
FACSIMILE OF TITLE-PAGE OF THE FIRST EDITION (1562)
OF GIL VICENTE'S WORKS _Frontispiece_
FACSIMILE OF TITLE-PAGE OF THE SECOND EDITION
(1586) _page_ lii
INTRODUCTION
I. LIFE AND PLAYS OF GIL VICENTE
Those who read the voluminous song-book edited by jolly Garcia de
Resende in 1516 are astonished at its narrowness and aridity. There is
scarcely a breath of poetry or of Nature in these Court verses. In the
pages of Gil Vicente[6], who had begun to write fourteen years before
the _Cancioneiro Geral_ was published, the Court is still present, yet
the atmosphere is totally different. There are many passages in his
plays which correspond to the conventional love-poems of the courtiers
and he maintains the personal satire to be found both in the
_Cancioneiro da Vaticana_ and the _Cancioneiro de Resende_. But he is
also a child of Nature, with a marvellous lyrical gift and the insight
to revive and renew the genuine poetry which had existed in Galicia and
the north of Portugal before the advent of the Provençal love-poetry,
had sprung into a splendid harvest in rivalry with that poetry and died
down under the Spanish influence of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. He was moreover a national and imperial poet, embracing the
whole of Portuguese life and the whole rapidly growing Portuguese
empire. We can only account for the difference by saying that Gil
Vicente was a genius, the only great genius of that day in Portugal, and
the most gifted poet of his time. It is therefore all the more
tantalizing that we should know so little about him. A few documents
recently unearthed, one or two scanty references by contemporary or
later authors, are all the information we have apart from that which may
be gleaned from the rubrics and colophons of his plays and from the
plays themselves. The labours of Dona Carolina Michaëlis de
Vasconcellos, Dr José Leite de Vasconcellos[7] and Snr Anselmo Braamcamp
Freire are likely to provide us before long with the first critical
edition of his plays. The ingenious suppositions of Dr Theophilo
Braga[8] have, as usual, led to much discussion and research. He is the
Mofina Mendes of critics, putting forward a hypothesis, translating it a
few pages further on into a certainty and building rapidly on these
foundations till an argument adduced or a document discovered by another
critic brings the whole edifice toppling to the ground. The documents
brought to light by General Brito Rebello[9] and Senhor Anselmo
Braamcamp Freire[10] enable us to construct a sketch of Gil Vicente's
life, while D. Carolina Michaëlis has shed a flood of light upon certain
points[11]. The chronological table at the end of this volume is founded
mainly, as to the order of the plays, on the documents and arguments
recently set forth by one of the most distinguished of modern historical
critics, Senhor Anselmo Braamcamp Freire. The plays, read in this order,
throw a certain amount of new light on Gil Vicente's life and give it a
new cohesion. Whether we consider it from the point of view of his own
country or of the world, or of literature, art and science, his life
coincides with one of the most wonderful periods in the world's history.
At his birth Portugal was a sturdy mediaeval country, proud of her
traditions and heroic past. Her heroes were so national as scarcely to
be known beyond her own borders. Nun' Alvarez (1360-1431), one of the
greatest men of all time, is even now unknown to Europe. And Portugal
herself as yet hardly appraised at its true worth the life and work of
Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460), at whose incentive she was still
groping persistently along the western coast of Africa. His nephew
Afonso V, the amiable grandson of Nun' Alvarez' friend, the Master of
Avis, and the English princess Philippa of Lancaster, daughter of John
of Gaunt, was on the throne, to be succeeded by his stern and resolute
son João II in 1481. In his boyhood, spent in the country, somewhere in
the green hills of Minho or the rugged grandeur and bare, flowered
steeps of the Serra da Estrella, all _ossos e burel_[12], Gil Vicente
might hear dramatic stories of the doings at the capital and Court, of
the beginning of the new reign, of the beheadal of the Duke of Braganza
in the Rocio of Evora, of the stabbing by the King's own hand of his
cousin and brother-in-law, the young Duke of Viseu, of the baptism and
death at Lisbon of a native prince from Guinea.
The place of his birth is not certain. Biographers have hesitated
between Lisbon, Guimarães and Barcellos: perhaps he was not born in any
of these towns but in some small village of the north of Portugal. We
can at least say that he was not brought up at Lisbon. The proof is his
knowledge and love of Nature and his intimate acquaintance with the ways
of villagers, their character, customs, amusements, dances, songs and
language. It is legitimate to draw certain inferences--provided we do
not attach too great importance to them--from his plays, especially
since we know that he himself staged them and acted in them[13]. His
earliest compositions are especially personal and we may be quite sure
that the parts of the herdsman in the _Visitaçam_ (1502) and of the
mystically inclined shepherd, Gil Terron, in the _Auto Pastoril
Castelhano_ (1502) and the _rustico pastor_ in the _Auto dos Reis Magos_
(1503) were played by Vicente himself. It is therefore well to note the
passage in which Silvestre and Bras express surprise at Gil's learning:
_S._ Mudando vas la pelleja,
Sabes de achaque de igreja!
_G._ Ahora lo deprendi....
_B._ Quien te viese no dirá
Que naciste en serranía.
_G._ Dios hace estas maravillas.
It is possible that Gil Vicente, like Gil Terron, had been born _en
serranía_. Dr Leite de Vasconcellos was the first to call attention to
his special knowledge of the province of Beira, and the reference to
the Serra da Estrella dragged into the _Comedia do Viuvo_ is of even
more significance than the conventional _beirão_ talk of his peasants.
Nor is the learning in his plays such as to give a moment's support to
the theory that he had, like Enzina, received a university education,
or, as some, relying on an unreliable _nobiliario_, have held, was tutor
(_mestre de rhetorica_) to Prince, afterwards King, Manuel. The King,
according to Damião de Goes, 'knew enough Latin to judge of its style.'
Probably he did not know much more of it than Gil Vicente himself. His
first productions are without the least pretension to learning: they are
close imitations of Enzina's eclogues. Later his outlook widened; he
read voraciously[14] and seems to have pounced on any new publication
that came to the palace, among them the works of two slightly later
Spanish playwrights, Lucas Fernández and Bartolomé de Torres Naharro.
With the quickness of genius and spurred forward by the malicious
criticism of his audience, their love of new things and the growing
opposition of the introducers of the new style from Italy, he picked up
a little French and Italian, while Church Latin and law Latin early
began to creep into his plays. The parade of erudition (which is also a
satire on pedants) at the beginning of the _Auto da Mofina Mendes_ is,
however, that of a comparatively uneducated man in a library, of rustic
Gil Vicente in the palace. Rather we would believe that he spent his
early life in peasant surroundings, perhaps actually keeping goats in
the scented hills like his Prince of Wales, Dom Duardos: _De mozo guardé
ganado_, and then becoming an apprentice in the goldsmith's art, perhaps
to his father or uncle, Martim Vicente, at Guimarães. It is extremely
probable that he was drawn to the Court, then at Evora, for the first
time in 1490 by the unprecedented festivities in honour of the wedding
of the Crown Prince and Isabel, daughter of the Catholic Kings, and was
one of the many goldsmiths who came thither on that occasion[15]. If
that was so, his work may have at once attracted the attention of King
João II, who, as Garcia de Resende tells us, keenly encouraged the
talents of the young men in his service, and the protection of his wife,
Queen Lianor. He may have been about 25 years old at the time. The date
of his birth has become a fascinating problem, over which many critics
have argued and disagreed. As to the exact year it is best frankly to
confess our ignorance. The information is so flimsy and conflicting as
to make the acutest critics waver. While a perfectly unwarranted
importance has been given to a passage in Vicente's last _comedia_, the
_Floresta de Enganos_ (1536), in which a judge declares that he is 66
(therefore Gil Vicente was born in 1470), sufficient stress has perhaps
not been laid on the lines in the play from the Conde de Sabugosa's
library, the _Auto da Festa_, in which Gil Vicente is declared to be
'very stout and over 60.' This cannot be dismissed like the former
passage, for it is evidently a personal reference to Gil Vicente. It was
the comedian's ambition to raise a laugh in his audience and this might
be effected by saying the exact opposite of what the audience knew to be
true: e.g. to speak of Gil Vicente as very stout and over 60 if he was
very young and spectre-thin. But Vicente was certainly not very young
when this play was written and we may doubt whether the victim of
_calentura_ and hater of heat (he treats summer scurvily in his _Auto
dos Quatro Tempos_) was thin. We have to accept the fact that he was
over 60 when the _Auto da Festa_ was written. But when was it written?
Its editor, the Conde de Sabugosa, to whom all Vicente lovers owe so
deep a debt of gratitude[16], assigned it to 1535, while Senhor
Braamcamp Freire, who uses Vicente's age as a double-edged weapon[17],
places it twenty years earlier, in 1515. This was indeed necessary if
the year 1452 was to be maintained as the date of his birth. The theory
of the exact date 1452 was due to another passage of the plays: the old
man in _O Velho da Horta_, formerly assigned to 1512, is 60 (III. 75).
Yet there is something slightly comical in stout old Gil Vicente
beginning his actor's career at the age of 50 and keeping it up till he
was 86. Other facts that may throw light on his age are as follows: in
1502 he almost certainly acted the boisterous part of _vaqueiro_ in the
_Visitaçam_[18]. In 1512 he is over 40 and married (inference from his
appointment as one of the 24 representatives of Lisbon guilds in that
year). In 1512 a 'son of Gil Vicente' is in India. His son Belchior is a
small boy in 1518. In 1515 he received a sum of money to enable his
sister Felipa Borges to marry. In 1531 he declares himself to be 'near
death'[19], although evidently not ill at the time. He died very
probably at the end of 1536 or beginning of 1537[20]. Accepting the fact
that the _Auto da Festa_ was written before the _Templo de Apolo_ (1526)
I would place it as late as possible, i.e. in the year 1525, and
subtracting 60 believe that the date _c._ 1465 for Gil Vicente's birth
will be found to agree best with the various facts given above.
The wedding of the Crown Prince of Portugal and the Infanta Isabel was
celebrated most gorgeously at Evora. The Court gleamed with plate and
jewellery[21]. There were banquets and tournaments, _ricos momos_ and
_singulares antremeses_, pantomimes or interludes produced with great
splendour--e.g. a sailing ship moved on the stage over what appeared to
be waves of the sea, a band of twenty pilgrims advanced with gilt
staffs, etc., etc.--all the luxurious show which had made the
_entremeses_ of Portugal famous and from which Vicente must have taken
many an idea for the staging of his plays. Next year the tragic death of
the young prince, still in his teens, owing to a fall from his horse at
Santarem, turned all the joy to ashes. Gil Vicente was certainly not
less impressed than Luis Anriquez, who laments the death of Prince
Afonso in the _Cancioneiro Geral_, or Juan del Enzina, who made it the
subject of his version or paraphrase of Virgil's 5th eclogue. Vicente's
acquaintance with Enzina's works may date from this period, although we
need not press Enzina's words _yo vi_ too literally to mean that he was
actually present at the Portuguese Court. Vicente may have accompanied
the King and Queen to Lisbon in October of this year, but for the next
ten years we know as much of his life as for the preceding twenty, that
is to say, we know nothing at all. The only reference to his sojourn at
the Court of King João II occurs in the mouth of Gil Terron (I, 9):
¿Conociste a Juan domado
Que era pastor de pastores?
Yo lo vi entre estas flores
Con gran hato de ganado
Con su cayado real.
A note in the _editio princeps_ declares the reference to be to King
João II. If we read _domado_ it can only be applied to the indomitable
João II in the sense of having yielded to the will of Queen Lianor in
acknowledging as heir her brother Manuel in preference to his
illegitimate son Jorge. Perhaps however it is best to read _damado_,
which recurs in the same play. Perhaps we may even see in the passage an
allusion merely to an incident occurring in the time of João II and not
to the King himself[22]. We may surmise that about this time, perhaps as
early as 1490, Vicente became goldsmith to Queen Lianor. The events of
this wonderful decade must have moved him profoundly, events sufficient
to stir even a dullard's imagination as new world after new world swept
into his ken: the conquest of Granada from the Moors in 1492, the
arrival of Columbus at Lisbon from America in 1493, the similar return
of Vasco da Gama six years later from India, the discovery of Brazil in
1500. Two years later Vicente emerges into the light of day. King Manuel
had succeeded to the throne on the death of King João (25 Oct. 1495) and
had married the princess Maria, daughter of the Catholic Kings. Their
eldest son, João, who was to rule Portugal as King João III from 1521 to
1557, was born on June 6, 1502, on which day a great storm swept over
Lisbon. On the following evening[23] or on the evening of June 8 Gil
Vicente, dressed as a herdsman, broke into the Queen's chamber in the
presence of the Queen, King Manuel, his mother Dona Beatriz, his sister
Queen Lianor, who was one of the prince's godmothers, and others, and
recited in Spanish a brief monologue of 114 lines. Having expressed
rustic wonder at the splendour of the palace and the universal joy at
the birth of an heir to the throne he calls in some thirty companions to
offer their humble gifts of eggs, milk, curds, cheese and honey. Queen
Lianor was so pleased with this 'new thing'--for hitherto there had been
no literary entertainments to vary either the profane _serãos de dansas
e bailos_ or the religious solemnities of the court--that she wished
Vicente to repeat the performance at Christmas. He preferred, however,
to compose a new _auto_ more suitable to the occasion and duly produced
the _Auto Pastoril Castelhano_. King Manuel had just returned to Lisbon
from a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in thanksgiving
for the discovery of the sea-route to India. He found the Queen in the
palace of Santos o Velho and was received _com muita alegria_. But no
allusion to great contemporary events troubles the rustic peace of this
_auto_, which is some four times as long as the _Visitaçam_, and which
introduces several simple shepherds to whom the Angel announces the
birth of the Redeemer. Queen Lianor was delighted (_muito satisfeita_)
and a few days later, on the Day of Kings (6 Jan. 1503), a third
pastoral play, the _Auto dos Reis Magos_, was acted, the introduction of
a knight and a hermit giving it a greater variety. The _Auto da Sibila
Cassandra_ has been assigned to the same year, and the _Auto dos Quatro
Tempos_ and _Quem tem farelos?_ to 1505, but there are good reasons for
giving them a later date. The only play that can be confidently asserted
to have been produced by Vicente between January 1503 and the end of
1508 is the brief dialogue between the beggar and St Martin: the _Auto
de S. Martinho_, in ten Spanish verses _de rima cuadrada_, recited
before Queen Lianor in the Caldas church during the Corpus Christi
procession of 1504. The reasons for this silence are not far to seek. In
September 1503, Dom Vasco da Gama returned from his second voyage to
India with the first tribute of gold: 'The lords and nobles who were
then at Court went to visit him on his ship and accompanied him to the
palace. A page went before him bearing in a bason the 2000 _miticaes_ of
gold of the tribute of the King of Quiloa and the agreement made with
him and the Kings of Cananor and Cochin. Of this gold King Manuel
ordered a monstrance to be wrought for the service of the altar, adorned
with precious stones, and commanded that it should be presented to the
Convent of Bethlehem[24].' At this monstrance, still the pride of
Portuguese art, Gil Vicente worked during three years (1503-6). He was
perhaps already living in the Lisbon house in the _Rua de Jerusalem_
assigned to him by his patroness, Queen Lianor[25]. There were other
reasons for his silence. The death of Queen Isabella of Spain in 1504
and again the death of King Manuel's mother, Dona Beatriz, in 1506,
threw the Portuguese Court into mourning. Plague and famine raged at
Lisbon from 1505 to 1507, while, after the awful massacre of Jews at
Easter 1506, during which some thousands were stabbed or burnt to death,
the city of Lisbon was placed under an interdict which was not raised
till 1508.
Let us take advantage of Vicente's long silence to explain why it can be
asserted so confidently that he was now at work on the Belem _custodia_.
The burden of producing some definite document to show that Gil Vicente
the poet and Gil Vicente the goldsmith were two different persons rests
on the opponents of identity. The late Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo,
whose death in 1912 was a great blow to Portuguese as well as to Spanish
literature, would certainly have changed his view if he had lived. In
his brilliant study of Gil Vicente, a 'sovereign genius,' 'the most
national playwright before Lope de Vega[26],' 'the greatest figure of
our primitive theatre[27],' he remarked that if Vicente had been a
goldsmith and one of such skill he must infallibly have left some trace
of it in his dramatic works and that the contemporaries who mention him
would not have preserved a profound silence as to his artistic
talent[28]; yet Menéndez y Pelayo himself speaks of Vicente's _alma de
artista_[29] and of the plastic character which the most fantastic
allegorical figures receive at his hands[30]. If we were assured that
the dreamy Bernardim Ribeiro had fashioned the Belem monstrance we might
well remain sceptical, but Vicente stands out from among the vaguer
poets of Portugal in having, like Garcia de Resende, an extremely
definite style, and his imagination, as in his dream of fair women in
the _Templo de Apolo_, coins concrete figures, not intellectual
abstractions. Resende, we know, was a skilled draughtsman as well as
poet, chronicler and musician, and it is curious that the very phrase
applied by Vicente to Resende, _de tudo entende_ (II, 406), is used of
Vicente himself in an anecdote quoted by Senhor Braamcamp Freire. As to
his own silence and that of his contemporaries, their silence[31]
concerning the presence of two Gil Vicentes at Court would be quite as
astonishing, especially as they distinguish between other homonyms of
the time, and the silent satellite dogged the poet Vicente's steps with
the strangest persistence. According to the discoveries or inventions of
the Visconde Sanches de Baena[32] he was the poet's uncle; according to
Dr Theophilo Braga they were cousins[33]. The poet, as many passages in
his plays show, was interested in the goldsmith's art[34]; the goldsmith
wrote verses[35]. The poet made his first appearance in 1502, the artist
in 1503. Splendid as was the Portuguese Court and although its members
had almost doubled in number in less than a century[36], the King did
not keep men there merely on the chance of their producing 'a new
thing.' The sovereign of a great and growing empire had something better
to do than to indulge in forecasts as to the potential talents of his
subjects. When Gil Vicente in 1502 produced a new thing in Portugal his
presence in the palace can only be explained by his having an employment
there, and since we know that Queen Lianor had a goldsmith called Gil
Vicente who wrote verses and since the poet wrote all his earlier plays
for Queen Lianor[37], it is rational to suppose that this employment was
that of goldsmith to the Queen-Dowager. His presence at Court was
certainly not by right of birth: Vicente was not a 'gentleman of good
family,' as Ticknor and others have supposed, but the noble art of the
goldsmith (its practice was forbidden in the following century to slaves
and negroes) would enable him to associate familiarly with the
courtiers. In 1509 or later[38] the poet joined, at the request of Queen
Lianor, in a poetical contest concerning a gold chain, in which another
poet, addressing Vicente, refers especially to necklaces and jewels. In
the same year Gil Vicente is appointed overseer of works of gold and
silver at the Convent of the Order of Christ, Thomar, the Hospital of
All Saints, Lisbon, and the Convent of Belem. At the Hospital of All
Saints the poet staged one of his plays. To Thomar and its fevers he
refers more than once and presented the _Farsa de Ines Pereira_ there in
1523. In 1513 he is appointed _Mestre da Balança_, in 1517 he resigns
and in 1521 the poet alludes to the goldsmith's former colleagues: _os
da Moeda_, while his production as playwright increases after the
resignation and his complaints of poverty become more frequent[39]. In
1520 Gil Vicente the goldsmith is entrusted by King Manuel with the
preparations for the royal entry into Lisbon, an _auto_ figuring in the
programme. If there was nothing new in a goldsmith writing verses the
drama of Vicente was an innovation and João de Barros would quite
naturally refer (as André de Resende before him) to the poet-goldsmith
as _Gil Vicente comico_. On the other hand there is an almost brutal
egoism in the silence concerning his unfortunate uncle (or cousin)
maintained by Gil Vicente, who refers to himself as poet more than once,
with evident pride in his _autos_. Recently General Brito Rebello
(1830-1920), whose researches helped to give shape and substance to Gil
Vicente's life, discovered a document of 1535 in which the poet's
signature differs notably from that of the goldsmith in 1515[40]. It is,
however, possible to maintain that the former signature is not that of
Gil Vicente at all and that the words of the document _per seu filho
Belchior Vicente_ mean that Belchior signed in his father's name; or,
alternatively, we can only say that Gil Vicente's handwriting had
changed, a change especially frequent in artists. To those who examine
all the evidence impartially there can remain very little doubt that Gil
Vicente was first known at Court for his skill as goldsmith, and that he
began writing verses and plays at the suggestion of his patroness, Queen
Lianor.
On March 3, 1506, Vicente momentarily resumed his literary character and
composed for Queen Lianor a long lay sermon, spoken before the King on
the occasion of the birth of the Infante Luis (1506-55), who was himself
a poet and the friend and patron of men of letters. The envious feared
that Vicente was playing too many parts and contended that this was no
time for a sermon by a layman, but Vicente excused himself with the
saying, commonly attributed to Garci Sanchez de Badajoz, that if they
would permit him to play the fool this once he would leave it to them
for the rest of their lives, and launched into the exposition of his
text: _Non volo, volo et deficior_. His next play _Quem tem farelos?_
is assigned by Senhor Braamcamp Freire to December 1508 or January
1509[41]. The reference to the _embate_ in Africa in all probability
alludes to the siege of Arzila in 1508. King Manuel had made
preparations to set sail for an African campaign in 1501 and 1503, but
the word _embate_ implies something more definite. The later date (it
was formerly assigned to 1505) is more suitable to the finished art of
this first farce and to the fact that its success--so great that the
people gave it the name by which it is still known, i.e. the first
three words of the play--would be likely to cause its author to produce
another farce without delay. Its successor, the _Auto da India_, acted
before Queen Lianor at Almada in 1509, has not the same unity and its
action begins in 1506 and ends in 1509. It displays a broader outlook
and the influence of the discovery of India on the home-life of
Portugal. In 1509 the fleet sailed from Lisbon under Marshal Coutinho on
March 12 and _Maio_ (III. 28) might be a misprint for _Março_; the
_partida_ alluded to, however, is that of Tristão da Cunha and Afonso de
Albuquerque in 1506. It is just possible that _Quem tem farelos?_ was
begun in 1505 (the date of its rubric) and the _Auto da India_ in 1506.
Early in this year 1509 (Feb. 15) Vicente received the appointment of
_Vedor_ and at Christmas of the following year he produced a play at
Almeirim, a favourite residence of King Manuel, who spent a part of most
winters there in the pleasures of the chase[42]. This _Auto da Fé_ is
but a simple conversation between Faith and two peasants, who marvel at
the richness of the Royal Chapel. In 1511, perhaps at Carnival[43], the
_Auto das Fadas_ further shows the expansion, perhaps we may say the
warping, of his natural genius, for although we may rejoice in the
presentation of the witch Genebra Pereira, the play soon turns aside to
satirical allusions to courtiers, while the Devil gabbles in picardese.
Peasants' _beirão_ with a few scraps of biblical Latin had hitherto been
Vicente's only theatrical resource as regards language. The _Farsa dos
Fisicos_ is now[44] assigned to 1512, early in the year. It is leap year
(III. 317) and Senhor Braamcamp Freire sees in the lines (III. 323):
Voyme a la huerta de amores
Y traeré una ensalada
Por Gil Vicente guisada
Y diz que otra de mas flores
Para Pascoa tien sembrada
a reference to _O Velho da Horta_, acted before King Manuel in 1512. In
August of the following year James, Duke of Braganza, set sail from
Lisbon with a fleet of 450 ships to conquer Azamor:
Foi hũa das cousas mais para notar
Que vimos nem vio a gente passada[45].
Gil Vicente was in the most successful period of his life. In December
1512 he was chosen by the Guild of Goldsmiths to be one of the
twenty-four Lisbon guild representatives and some months later he was
selected by the twenty-four to be one of their four proctors, with a
seat in the Lisbon Town Council. On February 4, 1513, he had become
Master of the Lisbon Mint. For the departure of the fleet against Azamor
he comes forward as the poet laureate of the nation and vehemently
inveighs against sloth and luxury while he sings a hymn to the glories
of Portugal. The play alludes to the gifts sent to the Pope in the
following year and this probably led to the date of the rubric (1514),
but it also refers to the royal marriages of 1521, 1525 and 1530, and we
may thus assume that it was written in 1513 and touched up for a later
production or for the collection of Vicente's plays. Perhaps at
Christmas of this year was acted before Queen Lianor in the Convent of
Enxobregas at Lisbon the _Auto da Sibila Cassandra_, hitherto placed ten
years earlier. Senhor Braamcamp Freire points out that the Convent was
only founded in 1509[46]. A scarcely less cogent argument for the later
date is the finish of the verse and the exquisiteness of the lyrics,
although the action is simple and the reminiscences of Enzina are
many[47] (a fact which does not necessarily imply an early date:
Enzina's echo verses are imitated in the _Comedia de Rubena_, 1521). We
may note that the story of Troy is running in Vicente's head as in the
_Exhortação_ of 1513 (he had probably just read the _Cronica Troyana_).
The last lyric, _A la guerra, caballeros_, is out of keeping with the
rest of the play, but fighting in Africa was so frequent that it cannot
help to determine the play's date. It is in this period (1512-14) that
it is customary to place the death of Vicente's first wife Branca
Bezerra, leaving him two sons, Gaspar and Belchior. She was buried at
Evora with the epitaph:
Aqui jaz a mui prudente
Senhora Branca Becerra
Mulher de Gil Vicente
Feita terra.
This gives the _Comedia do Viuvo_, acted in 1514, a personal note, which
is emphasized by the names of the widower's daughters, Paula, the name
of Gil Vicente's eldest daughter, and Melicia, the name of his second
wife. In the following year private grief was merged in the growing
renown of Portugal in the _Auto da Fama_, which the rubric attributes to
1510, although it alludes to the siege of Goa (1510), the capture of
Malaca (1511), the victorious expedition against Azamor (1513), and the
attack on Aden (1513). It was acted first before Queen Lianor and then
before King Manuel at Lisbon, and we may surmise that it was written or
begun when the first news of Albuquerque's successes reached Lisbon and
recast in 1515. The year 1516 has also been suggested, but the death of
King Ferdinand the Catholic in January of that year and the death of
Albuquerque in December 1515 render this date unsuitable. Even if the
play was acted at Christmas 1515, there is the ironical circumstance
that, at the moment when the Court was ringing with praises of the
Portuguese deeds in India, the great Governor was lying dead at Goa. The
date of the _Auto dos Quatro Tempos_ is equally problematic. It was
acted before King Manuel at the command of Queen Lianor in the S. Miguel
Chapel of the Alcaçova palace on a Christmas morning. The name of the
palace indicates the year 1505 or an earlier date[48], and it has been
assigned to the year 1503 or 1504; but the superior development of the
play's structure and even of its thought (e.g. I. 78), its resemblance
to the _Triunfo do Inverno_ (1529), the introduction of a French song,
of the gods of Greece and of a psalm similar to that in the _Auto da
Mofina Mendes_ (1534)[49] and the perfection of the metre all indicate a
fairly late date, while imitations of Enzina[50] are not conclusive. On
the whole the intrinsic evidence counterbalances the statement of the
rubric as to the Alcaçova palace and we may boldly assign this
delightful piece to Christmas 1516[51], while admitting that in a
rougher form it may have been presented to Queen Lianor[52] at a much
earlier date.
The approximate date of the next play, the _Auto da Barca do Inferno_,
is certain. This first part of Vicente's remarkable trilogy of _Barcas_
was acted 'in the Queen's chamber for the consolation of the very
catholic and holy Queen Dona Maria in the illness of which she died in
1517.' If we manipulate the commas so as to make the date refer to the
play as well as to the Queen's death, the remedy proved fatal, for she
died on March 7, but it is possible that it was acted earlier, towards
the end of 1516. The subject was a gloomy one but its treatment was
intended to raise many a laugh and it ends with the famous brief
invocation of the Angel to the knights who had died fighting in Africa.
On August 6, 1517, Vicente resigned the post of Master of the Mint in
favour of Diogo Rodriguez and probably about this time he married his
second wife, Melicia Rodriguez. The second and third parts of the
_Barcas_ trilogy were given in 1518 and 1519, but between the first and
third parts Senhor Braamcamp Freire now places the _Auto da Alma_, and
his scholarly suggestion[53] is amply borne out by the maturity and
perfection of this beautiful play[54] and by the likelihood that Vicente
when he wrote it was acquainted with Lucas Fernández' _Auto de la
Pasion_ (1514). The _Auto da Barca do Purgatorio_ was acted before Queen
Lianor on Christmas morning, 1518, at the _Hospital de Todolos Santos_
(Lisbon). King Manuel had been at Lisbon in July of this year, going
thence to Sintra, Collares, Torres Vedras and Almeirim, whence at the
end of November he proceeded to Crato to welcome his new Queen, Dona
Lianor. They returned together to Almeirim and the next months were
spent there 'in great bullfights, jousts, balls and other entertainments
till the beginning of Spring [May] when the King went to Evora[55].' The
_Auto da Barca da Gloria_ was played before his Majesty in Holy Week,
1519, and the fact that it is in Spanish and treats not of 'low
figures,' but of nobles and prelates, reveals the taste of the Court and
the wish to please the young Queen. In the following year (Nov. 29,
1520) Vicente was sent from Evora to Lisbon to prepare for the entry of
the King and Queen into their capital (January 1521). He seems to have
worked hard in arranging and directing the festivities, and in the same
year (1521) he staged both the _Comedia de Rubena_ and the _Cortes de
Jupiter_. The latter is the only Vicente play of which we have a
contemporary description. It was acted on the departure of the King's
daughter, Beatriz, at the age of sixteen to espouse the Duke of Savoy.
Her dowry, including precious stones, pearls and necklaces, was
magnificent, and after brilliant rejoicings at Lisbon she embarked on a
ship of a thousand tons in a fleet commanded by the Conde de Villa Nova.
She was accompanied by the Archbishop of Lisbon and many nobles. On the
evening of August 4, in the Ribeira palace 'in a large hall all adorned
with rich tapestry of gold, well carpeted, with canopy, chairs and
cushions of rich brocade, began a great ball in which the King our lord
danced with the lady Infanta Duchess his daughter and the Queen our
lady with the Infanta D. Isabel, and the Prince our lord and the Infante
D. Luis with ladies they chose; and so all the courtiers danced who were
going to Savoy and many other gentlemen and courtiers for a long space.
And the dancing over, began an excellent and well devised comedy with
many most natural and well adorned figures, written and acted for the
marriage and departure of the Infanta; and with this very skilful and
suitable play the evening ended[56].'
Twenty weeks after these splendid scenes and the _alegrias d'aquelas
naves tam belas_[57] the King was dead. He died (13 Dec. 1521) in the
full tide of apparent prosperity. As he watched the slow funeral
procession passing in the night from the palace to Belem amid 600
burning torches[58] Gil Vicente must have thought of his own altered
position. King Manuel had treated his sister's goldsmith generously[59]
and had personally attended the acting of many of his plays. The
diversion of elephant and rhinoceros had been only a momentary
backsliding, and he had sat through the whole of the _Barca da Gloria_,
in which a King and an Emperor fared so lamentably at the hands of the
modern Silenus. But he does not appear to have done anything to secure
the poet's well-being. King Manuel's sister, Vicente's faithful
patroness, was, however, still alive, and he had much to hope from the
new king who had grown up along with the Vicentian drama. Vicente's
first literary production had celebrated his birth, at the age of nine
the prince had been given a special verse in the _Auto das Fadas_ (III.
111), at the age of twelve he had actually intervened in the acting of
the _Comedia do Viuvo_ (II. 99), although his part was confined to a
single sentence. Finally, in the very year of his accession, he had been
represented as a second Alexander in the _Cortes de Jupiter_, and the
_Comedia de Rubena_ had been acted especially for him[60]. But King João
III had not the careless temperament or graceful magnificence of his
father, and while he evidently trusted Vicente and showed him constant
goodwill--we have the proof in the pensions received by Vicente during
this reign--the favourite of one king rarely finds the same atmosphere
in the _entourage_ of his successor, however friendly the king himself.
Thus while João III brooded over affairs of Church and State the
_detractores_ had more opportunity to attack the Court dramatist. On
December 19 the new king was proclaimed at Lisbon and Vicente, placed
too far away to hear what was said at the ceremony, invented verses
which he placed on the lips of the various courtiers as they kissed
hands (III. 358-64). It was not only the king but the times that had
changed, and King Manuel died not a moment too soon if he wished not to
see the reverse side of the brightly coloured tapestry of his reign.
Vicente ends his verses with the significant words:
Diria o povo em geral:
Bonança nos seja dada,
Que a tormenta passada
Foi tanta e tam desigual.
In the following year he wrote a burlesque lamentation and testament,
entitled _Pranto de Maria Parda_, 'because she saw so few branches in
the streets of Lisbon and wine so dear, and she could not live without
it[61].' In the late summer of 1523 in the celebrated convent of Thomar
he presented one of his most famous farces before the King: _Farsa de
Ines Pereira_. The critics were already gaining ground and 'certain men
of good learning' doubted whether he was the author of his plays or
stole them from others, a doubt suggested perhaps by the somewhat close
resemblance of the _Barca da Gloria_ to the Spanish _Danza de la
Muerte_.
Vicente vindicated his originality by taking as his theme the proverb
'Better an ass that carries me than a horse that throws me,' and
developing it into this elaborate comedy. At Christmas of the same year
at Evora, in the introductory speech of the _Auto Pastoril Portugues_,
placed in the mouth of a _beirão_ peasant, the audience is informed that
poor Gil who writes plays for the King is without a farthing and cannot
be expected to produce them as splendidly as when he had the means (I.
129). He was probably disappointed that the 6 milreis which he had
received that year (May 1523) was not a regular pension. His complaint
fell on listening ears and in 1524 (the year of Camões' birth) he was
granted two pensions, of 12 and of 8 milreis, while in January 1525 he
received a yet further pension of three bushels of wheat. Thus, although
his possession of an estate near Torres Vedras, not far from Lisbon, has
been proved to be a myth and we know that the entire fortune of his
widow consisted in 1566 of ten milreis and that of his son Luis of
thirty[62], and while we must remember his expenses in travelling and in
the production of his plays, his financial position compares very
favourably with that of Luis de Camões half a century later.
The _Fragoa de Amor_, wrongly assigned to 1525, belongs to the year
1524, the occasion being the betrothal of King João III to Catharina,
sister of the Emperor Charles V[63]. The year 1525 is the most discussed
date in the Vicentian chronology. Two plays are doubtfully assigned to
it and we may perhaps add a third, the _Auto da Festa_, as well as the
_trovas_ addressed to the Conde de Vimioso. Senhor Braamcamp Freire[64]
plausibly places in this year the _Farsa das Ciganas_, although the date
of the rubric is 1521, the year perhaps in which the idea of this slight
piece took shape in the poet's brain. There is a more definite reason
for assigning _Dom Duardos_ to this year. It is a play based on the
romance of chivalry commonly known as _Primaleon_, of which a new
edition appeared at Seville in October 1524[65], and we know from Gil
Vicente's dedication that Queen Lianor († 17 Dec. 1525) was still
alive[66]. Yet we are still in the region of hypothesis, for the
adventures of Dom Duardos were in print since 1512 (Salamanca)[67], and
we may perhaps doubt whether this 'delicious idyl[68],' the longest of
Vicente's works, was ready a year after the publication of the Seville
edition, although as Senhor Braamcamp Freire points out[69], the
betrothal of the Emperor Charles V to the King's sister was a suitable
occasion for the production of the play[70]. The only play assigned with
some certainty to 1525 is that in which the husband of Ines Pereira
reappears as a rustic judge _à la Sancho Panza: O Juiz da Beira_, acted
before the King at Almeirim.