[1] A few Portuguese sixteenth-century writers in touch with Italy may
have known of their existence. But they were neglected as _rusticas
musas_. The references to King Dinis as a poet by Antonio Ferreira
and once in the _Cancioneiro Geral_ do not of course imply that his
poems were known and read. André de Resende seems to have been more
interested in tracing an ancestor, Vasco Martinez de Resende, than
in the poets among whom this ancestor figured (see C. Michaëlis de
Vasconcellos, _Randglosse_ XV in _Ztft. für rom. Phil._, xxv. 683).
[2] _Illud vero poemation quod vulgo circumfertur de Lessa ... nunc
vera cum plurimum illud appetant_ ... (Soares, _Theatrum_). Cf. F.
Rodriguez Lobo, _Primavera_, ed. 1722, pp. 240, 356, 469; Eloy de Sá
de Sottomayor, _Ribeiras do Mondego_, f. 27 v., 28 v., 120-1, 186;
_Canc. Geral_ of A. F. Barata (1836-1910), p. 235; Jeronimo Bahia, _Ao
Mondego_ (_Fenix Ren._, ii. 377-9). Cf. Brito, _Mon. Lus._ 1. ii. 2: _O
rio Leça celebre pelas rimas de nosso famoso poeta_.
[3] The documents of the Torre do Tombo are now in the able keeping of
Dr. Pedro de Azevedo and Snr. Antonio Baião.
[4] Even its title was inaccurately given, as _O Fiel Conselheiro_
(Bernardo de Brito), _De Fideli Consiliario_ (N. Antonio, _Bib.
Vetus_, ii. 241), _Del Buen Consejero_ (Faria e Sousa); correctly by
Duarte Nunez de Leam. A _Conselheiro Fiel_ by Frei Manuel Guilherme
(1658-1734) appeared in 1727.
[5] _De que não ha noticia_ (Goes, _Cronica de D. João_, cap. 6).
[6] _D. Francisco Manuel de Mello. Esboço biographico._ Coimbra, 1914,
an admirably clear and very important work, in which much light from
new documents is thrown on Mello’s life.
[7] It would be interesting to know how many English-speaking persons
have ever heard of the great men and writers that were King Dinis,
Fernam Lopez, Bernardim Ribeiro, Diogo Bernardez, Heitor Pinto, Frei
Thomé de Jesus, Ferreira de Vasconcellos, Frei Luis de Sousa, Antonio
Vieira, Manuel Bernardes. Their neglect has been largely due to the
absence of good or easily available texts; there is still nothing to
correspond to the Spanish _Biblioteca de Autores Españoles_ or the
many more modern Spanish collections. But is not even Camões still ‘an
abused stranger’, as Mickle called him in 1776?
[8] See F. de Figueiredo, _O que é a Academia das Sciencias de Lisboa_
(1779-1915) in _Revista da Historia_, vol. iv, 1915.
[9] His valuable study on Zurara, which has not been superseded by any
later work on the subject, is dated 1896.
[10] She has, indeed, laid the Portuguese people under an obligation
which it will not easily redeem. That no formal recognition has been
bestowed in England on her work (as in another field on that of Dr.
José Leite de Vasconcellos, of Snr. Braamcamp Freire, and of the late
Dr. Francisco Adolpho Coelho) is a striking example of our insularity.
[11] It does not include living writers. Its dates must be received
with caution.
[12] It has been found necessary to publish the bibliography separately.
[13] e. g. King Sancho II’s _Foros da Guarda_, printed, from a 1305
manuscript, in vol. v (1824) of the _Collecção de Ineditos_, or the
_Foros de Santarem_ (1385). The _Livro Vermelho do Senhor D. Affonso
V_, printed in the _Collecção de Livros Ineditos_, vol. iii (1793), is
also full of interest.
[14] e.g. the fourteenth-century _Livro de Cetreria_ of PERO MENINO;
MESTRE GIRALDO’S _Tratado das Enfermidades das Aves de Caça_ and
_Livro d’Alveitaria_; the _Arte da Cavallaria de gineta e estardiota_
(1678) by ANTONIO GALVAM DE ANDRADE (1613?-89); _Correcçam de abusos
introduzidos contra o verdadeiro methodo da medicina_ (2 pts., 1668-80)
by the Carmelite FREI MANUEL DE AZEVEDO (†1672); _Agricultura das
Vinhas_ (1711) by Vicente Alarte (i.e. SILVESTRE GOMEZ DE MORAES
(1643-1723)); _Compendia de Botanica_ (2 vols., 1788) by FELIX DE
AVELLAR BROTERO (1744-1828).
[15] Many will be found in _Portugalia_ and the _Revista Lusitana_.
[16] In the beginning of the sixteenth century Galician is already
despised in Portugal, and became more so as Portuguese grew more
latinized. Cf. Gil Vicente, ii. 509: _Pera que he falar galego Senão
craro e despachado?_; Chiado, _Auto das Regateiras: Eu não te falo
galego_.
[17] _Por ser lingua mais jêral_ (Vera, _Lovvores_), _mais universal_
(Sousa de Macedo). _Os grandes ingenios não se contentão de ter por
espera de seu applauso a hũa só parte do mundo_ (D. Francisco de
Portugal). Cf. Osorio, writing in Latin, _De Rebus_, p. 4, and Pedro
Nunez’ reason for translating his _Libro de Algebra_ into Spanish: _he
mais comum_, and the advice given to Luis Marinho de Azevedo to write
in Spanish or Latin as _mais geral_ (_Primeira Parte da Fundação,
Antiguidades e Grandezas da mvi insigne cidade de Lisboa. Prologo_).
Faria e Sousa condemns the practice of writing Spanish _glosas_ to a
Portuguese _mote_, and declares that he himself wrote in Spanish _con
gran pesar mío_. Frei Antonio da Purificaçam considered that had he
written his _Cronica_ in Latin or Spanish _fora digno de grande nota_,
in this following Frei Bernardo de Brito, who indignantly rejected
the exhortation to use Latin or Spanish (_Mon. Lus._ i, _Prologo_),
although he wrote under Spanish rule. Bernarda Ferreira de Lacerda
wrote in Spanish _por ser idioma claro y casi comun_. Simão Machado
explains why he wrote _Alfea_ in Spanish as follows (f. 72 v.): _Vendo
quam mal aceitais As obras dos naturais Fiz esta em lingoa estrangeira
Por ver se desta maneira Como a eles nos tratais._
[18] Portuguese spelling is a vexed and vexing question, complicated by
the positive dislike of the Portuguese for uniformity (the same word
may be found spelt in two ways on the same page both in modern and
ancient books; the same person will spell his name Manoel and Manuel).
In proper names their owners’ spelling has been retained, although
no one now writes Prince Henry the Navigator’s name as he wrote it:
Anrique. Thus Mello (modern Melo); Nunez (13th c.), Nunes (19th c.);
Bernardez (16th c.), Bernardes (17th-18th c.). The late Dr. Gonçalves
Vianna himself adopted the form Gonçalvez Viana. In quoting ancient
Portuguese texts the only alteration made has been occasionally to
replace _y_ and _u_ by _i_ and _v_.
[19] _Este desejo (de sempre ver e ouvir cousas nouas) he moor que
nas outras nações na gente Lusitana._ André de Burgos, _Ao prudente
leitor_ (_Relaçam_, Evora, 1557). It is displayed in their fondness for
foreign customs, for the Spanish language, for India to the neglect of
Portugal, the description of epic deeds rather than of ordinary life,
high-flown language as opposed to the common speech (_da praça_), &c.
Antonio Prestes calls the Portuguese _estranho no natural, natural no
estranjeiro_.
[20] In Spain it has had fervent admirers, notably Gracián. More
recently Juan Valera spoke of it as _riquísima_, and Menéndez y Pelayo
explored this wealth.
[21] F. Denis, _Résumé_ (1826), p. xx.
[22] Wilhelm Storck, _Luis de Camoens’ Sämmtliche Werke_, Bd. I (1880).
[23] Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple.
[24] For a good instance of this _descuido portugues_ see Manuel
Pereira de Novaes, _Anacrisis Historial_ (a history of the city of
Oporto in Spanish), vol. i (1912), _Preámbulo_, p. xvii. It is lamented
by the editors of the _Cancioneiro Geral_ (1516) and _Fenix Renascida_
(1716).
[25] Portuguese literature begins for most Portuguese with Camões and
Barros, and its most charming and original part thus escapes them. Cf.
F. Dias Gomes, _Obras Poeticas_ (1799), p. 143: Camões ‘without whom
there would have been no Portuguese poetry’; and ibid., p. 310: Barros
‘prepared the beautiful style for our epic writers’. Faria e Sousa’s
homely phrase as to the effect of Camões on preceding poets (_echólos
todos a rodar_) was unfortunately true.
[26] Much of their finest prose is of lyrical character, personal,
fervent, mystic. As to philosophy proper the greatest if not the only
Portuguese philosopher, Spinoza, a Portuguese Jew, left Portugal as a
child, and Francisco Sanchez (_c._ 1550-_c._ 1620), although probably
born at Braga, not at _a soberba_ Tuy, lived in France and wrote in
Latin. He tells us that he in 1574 finished his celebrated treatise
_Quod nihil scitur_, published at Lyon in 1581, in which, at a time of
great intolerance, he revived and gave acute and curious expression
to the old theory that nothing can be known. To modern philosophy Dr.
Leonardo Coimbra (born in 1883) has contributed a notable but somewhat
abstruse work entitled _O Criacionismo_ (Porto, 1912).
[27] Or political, or anticlerical, or anything except literary.
The critics seem to have forgotten that an _auto-da-fé_ does not
necessarily make its victim a good poet, and that even a priest
may have literary talent. A few literary critics, as Dias in the
eighteenth, Guilherme Moniz Barreto in the nineteenth century, are
only exceptions to the rule. It has been the weakness of Portuguese
criticism, more lenient than the gods and booksellers of ancient Rome,
to suffer _mediocres_ gladly.
[28] _C. da Vat._ 979 (cf. Jorge Ferreira, _Eufrosina_, v. 5: _como
dizia o Galego: de longas vias longas mentiras_).
[29] _Poesias, Sat._ 2. The remark of Garrett still holds good: _Em
Portugal ha mais talento e menos cultivação que em paiz nenhum da
Europa_.
I
1185-1325
§ 1
_The Cossantes_
Under the Moorish dominion we know that poetry was widely cultivated in
the Iberian Peninsula, by high and low. At Silves in Algarve ‘almost
every peasant could improvise’.[30] But the early Galician-Portuguese
poetry has no relation with that of the Moors, despite certain
characteristics which may seem to point to an Oriental origin. The
indigenous poems of Galicia and Portugal, of which thirteenth-century
examples have survived, are so remarkable, so unlike those of any other
country, that they deserve to be studied apart from the Provençal
imitations by the side of which they developed. Half buried in the
_Cancioneiros_, themselves only recently discovered, these exquisite
and in some ways astonishingly modern lyrics are even now not very
widely known and escape the attention of many who go far afield in
search of true poetry. The earliest poem dated (1189) by D. Carolina
Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, in which Pay Soarez de Taveiroos, a nobleman
of Galicia or North Portugal, addresses Maria Paez Ribeira, the lovely
mistress of King Sancho I, _mia sennor branca e vermelha_, does not
belong to these lyrics[31]; but the second earliest (1199), attributed
to King SANCHO I (1185-1211) himself, is one of them (C.C.B.348). This
unique form of lyric requires a distinctive name, and if we adopt that
used by the Marqués de Santillana’s father, Diego Furtado de Mendoza
(†1404), we shall have a word well suited to convey an idea of their
striking character.[32] His Spanish poem written in parallel distichs,
_A aquel arbol_, is called a _cossante_.[33] In an age when all that
seemed most Spanish, the _Poema del Cid_, for instance, or the _Libro
de Buen Amor_, has been proved to derive in part from French sources,
it is peculiarly pleasant to find a whole series of early poems which
have their roots firmly planted in the soil of the Peninsula. The
indigenous character of the _cossantes_ is now well established, thanks
chiefly to the skilful and untiring researches of D. Carolina Michaëlis
de Vasconcellos.[34] They are wild but deliciously scented single
flowers which now reappear in all their freshness as though they had
not lain pressed and dead for centuries in the library of the Vatican.
One of the earliest is quoted by Airas Nunez (C. V. 454) and completed
in _Grundriss_, p. 150:
1. Solo ramo verde frolido
Vodas fazen a meu amigo,
E choran olhos d’amor.
2. Solo verde frolido ramo[35]
Vodas fazen a meu amado,
E choran olhos d’amor.
What first strikes one in this is its Oriental immobility. The second
distich adds nothing to the sense of the first, merely intensifying it
by repetition. Neither the poetry of the _trouvères_ of the North of
France nor that of the Provençal _troubadours_ presents any parallel.
The scanty Basque literature contains nothing in this kind. But it is
unnecessary to go for a parallel to China.[36] None more remarkable
will be found than those contained in the books of that religion which
came from the East and imposed its forms if not its spirit on the
pagans of the Peninsula. Verses 8, 9 of Psalm 118 are very nearly a
_cossante_ but have no refrain. The resemblance in Psalm 136, verses
17, 18, is still more marked:
To him which smote great kings,
For his mercy endureth for ever,
And slew famous kings,
For his mercy endureth for ever.
The relations between Church and people were very close if not always
very friendly. The peasants maintained their ancient customs, and their
pagan jollity kept overflowing into the churches to the scandal of
the authorities. Innumerable ordinances later sought to check their
delight in witchcraft and mummeries, feasts and funerals (the delight
in the latter is still evident in Galicia as in Ireland and Wales).
Men slept, ate, drank, danced, sang profane songs, and acted plays and
parodies in the churches and pilgrimage shrines. The Church strove to
turn their midsummer and May-day celebrations into Christian festivals,
but the change was rather nominal than real. But if the priests and
bishops remained spiritually, like modern politicians, shepherds
without sheep, the religious services, the hymns,[37] the processions
evidently affected the people. Especially was this the case in Galicia,
since the great saint Santiago, who farther south (as later in India)
rode into battle on a snow-white steed before the Christians, gave
a more peaceful prosperity to the North-west. Pilgrims from all
countries in the Middle Ages came to worship at his shrine at Santiago
de Compostela. They came a motley company singing on the road,[38]
criminals taking this opportunity to escape from justice, tradesmen and
players, jugglers and poets making a livelihood out of the gathering
throngs, as well as devout pilgrims who had ‘left alle gamys’ for their
soul’s good, _des pélerins qui vont chantant et des jongleurs_. Thus
the eyes of the whole province of Galicia as the eyes of Europe were
directed towards the Church of Santiago in Jakobsland. The inhabitants
of Galicia would naturally view their heaven-sent celebrity with pride
and rejoice in the material gain. They would watch with eager interest
the pilgrims passing along the _camino francés_ or from the coast
to Santiago, and would themselves flock to see and swell the crowds
at the religious services. When we remember the frequent parodies
of religious services in the Middle Ages and that the Galicians did
not lag behind others in the art of mimicry,[39] we can well imagine
that the Latin hymns sung in church or procession might easily form
the germ of the profane _cossante_. A further characteristic of the
_cossante_ is that the _i_-sound of the first distich is followed by
an _a_-sound in the second (_ricercando ora il grave, ora l’acuto_)
and this too maybe traced to a religious source, two answering choirs
of singers, treble and bass.[40] It is clear at least that these
alternating sounds are echoes of music: one almost hears the clash
of the _adufe_ in the _louçana_ (answering to _garrida_) or _ramo_
(_pinho_). The words of these poems were, indeed, always accompanied by
the _son_ (= music). But if born in the Church, the _cossante_ suffered
a transformation when it went out into the world. The rhythm of many
of the songs in the _Cancioneiros_ is so obtrusive that they seem to
dance out of the printed page. One would like to think that in the
ears of the peasants the sound of the wheel mingled with the echo of a
hymn and its refrain as they met at what was, even then, no doubt, a
favourite gathering-place--the mill[41]--and thus a lyric poem became a
dance-song. The _cossante Solo ramo_ would thus proceed, sung by ‘the
dancers dancing in tune’:
(Verses 3 and 4) Vodas fazen a meu amigo (amado)
Porque mentiu o desmentido (perjurado)
E choran olhos d’amor,
the first line of the third distich repeating the second line of the
first (and in the same way the first line of the fifth the second
line of the third), in _leixa-pren_ (_laisser prendre_) corresponding
evidently to the movements of the dance.[42] The love-lorn maidens
danced together, the men forming a circle to look on. St. Augustine
considered the dance to be a circle of which the Devil was the centre;
in real life the Devil was often replaced by a tree (or by a _mayo_).
The refrain was a notable feature of the _cossante_ in all its phases
as it went, a _bailada_ (dance-song) from the _terreiro_, to become
a _serranilha_ on the hills, or at pilgrimage shrines a _cantiga de
romaria_,[43] or a _barcarola_ (boat-song) or _alvorada_ (dawn-song).
A marked and thoroughly popular characteristic of the _cossante_ is
its wistful sadness,[44] the _soidade_ which is already mentioned more
than once in the _Cancioneiros_,[45] and, born in Galicia, continued
in Portugal, combined with a more garish tone under the hotter sun of
the South. Thus we have the melancholy Celtic temperament, absorbed in
Nature, acting on the forms suggested by an alien religion till they
become vague cries to the sea, to the deer of the hills, the flower
of the pine. The themes are as simple and monotonous--the monotony of
snowdrops or daffodils--as the form in which they are sung. A girl in
the gloom of the pine-trees mourning for her lover, the birds in the
cool of the morning singing of love, the deer troubling the water of a
mountain-stream, the boats at anchor, or bearing away _meus amores_, or
gliding up the river _a sabor_. The _amiga_ lingers at the fountain,
she goes to wash clothes or to bathe her hair in the stream, she meets
her lover and dances at the pilgrim shrine, she waits for him under
the hazel-trees, she implores the waves for news of him, she watches
for the boats _pelo mar viir_. The language is native to the soil,
far more so, at least, than in the _cantigas de amor_ and _cantigas
de amigo_ written under foreign influence. Their French or Provençal
words and learned forms[46] are replaced in the _cossante_ by forms
Galician or Spanish. Despite its striking appearance to us now among
_sirventes senes sal_ in the _Cancioneiro Colocci-Brancuti_, it must
be confessed that the early _cossante_ of King Sancho has a somewhat
meagre, vinegar aspect, and the _genre_ could hardly have developed
so successfully in the next half-century had it not been fixed in the
country-side, ever ready to the hand of the poet in search of fresh
inspiration. It is possible to exaggerate the effect of war on the life
of the peasant. Portugal in the twelfth century was only gradually
and by constant conflict winning its territory and independence. It
had no fixed capital and Court at which the Provençal poets might
gather. But while king and nobles and the members of the religious and
military orders were engaged with the Moors to the exclusion of the
Muses, so that they had no opportunity to introduce the new measures,
the peasants in Galicia and Minho no doubt went on tilling the soil
and singing their primitive songs. In the thirteenth century Provençal
poetry flourished in Portugal, but so monotonously that it failed to
kill the older lyrics, and they reacted on the imported poetry. In the
trite conventions with which the latter became clothed the _cossante_
had a new opportunity of life. _Trobadores_ wearied by their own
monotony, _jograes_ wishing to please a patron with a _novidade_, had
recourse to the _cossante_. The _jogral_ wandering from house to house
and town to town necessarily came into close touch with the peasants.
Talented men among them, prompted by patrons of good taste, no doubt
exercised the third requisite of a good _jogral_ (_doair’ e uoz e
aprenderdes ben_, C. C. B. 388)--a good memory--not only in learning
his patron’s verses to recite at other houses but in remembering the
songs that he caught in passing from the lips of the peasants, songs of
village mirth and dance, of workers in the fields and shepherds on the
hills. These, developed and adorned according to his talent, he would
introduce to the Court among his _motz recreamens e prazers_. When
Joan de Guilhade in the middle of the thirteenth century complained
that _os trobadores ja van para mal_ (C. V. 370), he might almost be
referring to the fact that the stereotyped poems of the Portuguese
_trobadores_ could no longer compete with the fresh charm of the
_cossante_. Alfonso X reproached Pero da Ponte for not singing like a
Provençal but, rather, like Bernaldo de Bonaval (first half 13th c.).
King Dinis in the second half of the century viewed the _cossante_
with such favour that he wrote or collected some of the most curious
and delightful that we possess. But although King Dinis set his name
to a handful of the finest _cossantes_, most of the _cossante_-writers
belonged to an earlier period and were men of humble birth. Of NUNO
FERNANDEZ TORNEOL[47] (first half 13th c.), poet and soldier, besides
conventional _cantigas de amor_ we have eight simple _cossantes_ of
which the _alvorada_ (C. V. 242), the _barcarola_ (C. V. 246), and C.
V. 245 with its dance rhythm are especially beautiful. PEDR’ ANEZ
SOLAZ[48] (early 13th c.) wrote a _cossante_ (C. V. 415) celebrated
for its refrain, _lelia doura, leli leli par deus leli_, in which some
have seen a vestige of Basque (_il_ = dead). Of MEENDINHO (first half
13th c.) we have only one poem, a _cantiga de romaria_ (C. V. 438), but
its beauty has brought him fame;[49] and another _jogral_, FERNAND’
ESGUIO[50] (second half 13th c.), is remembered in the same way chiefly
for C. V. 902: _Vayamos, irmana_. Bernaldo de Bonaval, one of the
earliest Galician poets, and the _jograes_ Pero de Veer, Joan Servando,
Airas Carpancho,[51] Martin de Ginzo,[52] Lopo and Lourenço, composed
some charming pilgrimage songs in the second third of the thirteenth
century. This was a popular theme, but the two poets who seem to have
felt most keenly the attraction of the popular poetry and to have
cultivated it most successfully are JOAN ZORRO (fl. 1250) and PERO
MEOGO (fl. 1250). The _cossantes_ of Zorro, one of the most talented
of all these singers, tell of Lisbon and the king’s ships and the sea.
In this series of _barcarolas_ (C. V. 751-60) and in his delightful
_bailada_ (C. V. 761)[53] he evidently sought his inspiration in
popular sources, as with equal felicity a little later did Pero
Meogo,[54] whose _cossantes_ (C. V. 789-97), each with its biblical
reference to the deer of the hills (_cervos do monte_), are as singular
as they are beautiful. MARTIN CODAX at about the same time was singing
graceful songs of the _ondas do mar_ of Vigo (C. V. 884-90). But the
real poet of the sea was the Admiral of Castille, PAY GOMEZ CHARIÑO[55]
(†1295). He belonged to an ancient family of Galicia, was prominent at
the Courts of Alfonso X (between whose character and the sea he draws
an elaborate parallel in C. A. 256) and of his son Sancho IV, played an
important part in the troubled history of the time, and fought by land
and sea in Andalucía, at Jaen in 1246 and Seville in 1247. On the lips
of his _amiga_ he places a touching _cantiga de amigo_ (C. V. 424: she
expresses her relief that her _amigo_ has ceased to be _almirante do
mar_; no longer will she listen in sadness to the wind, now her heart
may sleep and not tremble at the coming of a messenger) and the two sea
_cossantes_ C. V. 401, with its plaining refrain:
E van-se as frores d’aqui ben con meus amores,
idas son as frores d’aqui ben con meus amores,
--one can imagine it sung as a chanty[56]--and C. V. 429, in which she
prays Santiago to bring him safely home: ‘Now in this hour Over the
sea He is coming to me, Love is in flower.’ Beauty of expression and
a loyal sincerity are conspicuous in his poems, as well as a certain
individuality and vigour. He escaped the perils of the sea, the _mui
gran coita do mar_ (C. A. 251), but to fall by the hand of an assassin
on shore. His sea lyrics are only excelled by the enchanting melody
of the poem (C. V. 488) of his contemporary and fellow-countryman ROY
FERNANDEZ (second half 13th c.), who was apparently a professor at
Salamanca University, Canon of Santiago, and Chaplain to Alfonso the
Learned. Of the later poets ESTEVAM COELHO, perhaps father of one of
the assassins of Inés (†1355), wrote a _cossante_ of haunting beauty
(C. V. 321):
Sedia la fremosa, seu sirgo torcendo,
Sa voz manselinha fremoso dizendo
Cantigas d’amigo,
and D. AFONSO SANCHEZ (_c._ 1285-1329) in C. V. 368 (_Dizia la
fremosinha--Ay Deus val_) proved that he had inherited part of his
father King Dinis’ genius and instinct for popular poetry. King Dinis,
having thrown wide his palace doors to these thyme-scented lyrics,
would turn again to the now musty chamber of Provençal song (C. V. 123):
Quer’eu en maneira de provençal
Fazer agora un cantar d’amor.
The _cossantes_ had become so familiar that Airas Nunez, of Santiago,
could string them together, as it were, by the head, without troubling
himself to give more than the first lines, precisely as Gil Vicente
treated _romances_ three centuries later. The reader or listener would
easily complete them. His _pastorela_ (C. V. 454) would be an ordinary
imitation of a _pastourelle_ of the _trouvères_[57] were it not for the
five _cossante_ fragments inserted. Riding along a stream he hears a
solitary shepherdess singing and stays to listen. First she sang _Solo
ramo verde frolido_,[58] then--as if to prove that she is a shepherdess
of Arcady, not of real life--
Ay, estorniño do avelanedo,
Cantades vos e moir’eu e peno,
D’amores ei mal,
an impassioned cry of the heart only comparable with
Thine earth now springs, mine fadeth:
Thy thorn without, my thorn my heart invadeth;
or that wonderful line of a wonderful poem: