[30] Kazwînî ap. Reinhart Dozy, _Spanish Islam_, trans. F. G. Stokes,
London, 1913, p. 663.
[31] C. A. 38. It is a _cantiga de meestria_, of two verses, each of
eight octosyllabic lines (_abbaccde bfbaccde_).
[32] Although neither English nor Portuguese, it is a name for these
poems, of lines _pariter plangentes_, less clumsy than _parallelistic
songs_ adopted by Professor Henry R. Lang (who also uses the words
_serranas_--but see C. D. L., p. cxxxviii, note 2; Dr. Theophilo
Braga had called them _serranilhas_--and _Verkettungslieder_),
_Parallelstrophenlieder_ (D. Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcellos),
_cantigas parallelisticas_ (D. Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcellos
and Snr. J. J. Nunes), _chansons à répétitions_ (M. Alfred Jeanroy).
_Cantos dualisticos_, _cantos de danza prima_, and _bailadas
encadeadas_ have also been proposed.
[33] Perhaps = rhyme (_consoante_), but more probably it is derived
from _cosso_, an enclosed place, which would be used for dancing:
cf. Cristobal de Castillejo, _Madre, un caballero Que estaba en este
cosso (bailia)_. In the _Relacion de los fechos del mui magnifico é
mas virtuoso señor el señor Don Miguel Lucas_ [_de Iranzo_] _mui digno
Condestable de Castilla_, p. 446 (A.D. 1470), occurs the following
passage: _Y despues de danzar cantaron un gran rato de cosante_
(_Memorial Histórico Español_, tom. viii, Madrid, 1855). Rodrigo Cota,
in the _Diálogo entre el Amor y un Viejo_, has _danças y corsantes_,
and Antón de Montoro (el Ropero) asks _un portugues que vido vestido
de muchos colores_ if he is a _cantador de corsante_ (v. l. _cosante_)
(_Canc. General_, ed. Biblióf. Esp., ii. 270, no. 1018).
[34] In the _Grundriss_ (1894), _Randglossen_ (1896-1905), and
especially vol. ii of the _Cancioneiro da Ajuda_ (1904).
[35] Or _Solo ramo verde granado_: the green branch in (red) flower.
[36] Translations of Chinese poems resembling the _cossantes_ are given
by Dr. Theophilo Braga, C. V. B., _Introd._, p. ci, and Professor H. R.
Lang, C. D. L., _Introd._, p. cxlii. A Provençal poem with resemblance
to a _cossante_ is printed in Bartsch, p. 62: _Li tensz est bels, les
vinnesz sont flories_.
[37] Any one who has heard peasants at a _Stabat_ singing the hymn
Stabat Mater dolorosa
_Jussa crussa larimosa
Du penebat_ Filius
realizes that the words for them have no meaning, but that they will
long remember tune and rhythm. Compare, for the form, the Latin hymn to
the Virgin by the Breton poet Adam de Saint Victor (†1177):
Salve Verbi sacra parens,
Flos de spinis spinis carens,
Flos spineti gloria.
[38] Cf. Luis José Velázquez, _Orígenes de la Poesía Castellana_
(Málaga, 1754) ap. C. M. (1889), i. 168: _las cantares y canciones
devotas de los peregrinos que iban en romería a visitar la iglesia de
Compostela mantuvieron en Galicia el gusto de la poesía en tiempos
bárbaros_. A Latin hymn composed in the twelfth century by Aimeric
Picaud is printed in _Recuerdos de un Viaje á Santiago de Galicia_ por
el P. Fidel Fita y D. Aureliano Fernández-Guerra (Madrid, 1880), p. 45:
_Jacobi Gallecia Opem rogat piam Glebe cujus gloria Dat insignem viam
Ut precum frequentia Cantet melodiam. Herru Sanctiagu! Grot Sanctiagu!
Eultreja esuseja! Deus, adjuva nos!_
[39] Cf. Simão de Vasconcellos, _Cronica da Companhia de Jesu do Estado
do Brazil_ (1549-62), 2nd ed. (1865), Bk. I, § 22: _chegamos a huma
praça_ [in Santiago de Compostela] _onde vimos hum ajuntamento de
mulheres Gallegas com grande risada e galhofa; e querendo o irmão meu
companheiro pedir-lhe esmola vio que estavão todas ouvindo a huma que
feita pregadora arremedava, como por zombaria, o sermão que eu tinha
pregado_.
[40] One has but to watch a Rogation procession passing through the
fields in the Basque country (which until recently preserved customs of
immemorial eld and still calls the Feast of Corpus Christi, introduced
by Pope Urban IV in 1262, ‘the New Feast--_Festa Berria_’) to realize
the singularly impressive effect of the singing, first the girls’
treble _Ave Ave Ave Maria, Ave Ave Ave Maria_, then the answering bass
of the men far behind, _Ave Ave Ave Maria, Ave Ave Ave Maria_ (with the
slow ringing of the church bell for a refrain like the _contemplando_
and _tan callando_ in the _Coplas de Manrique_).
[41] Cf. Gil Vicente, _Tambor em cada moinho_. It is a curious
coincidence that the word _citola_ (the _jogral’s_ fiddle) =
mill-clapper. Cf. also _moinante_ in Galicia = _pícaro_.
[42] Cf. the _leixapren_ and refrain of the _cantiga_ danced and sung
at the end of Gil Vicente’s _Romagem de Aggravados_ (_Por Maio era, por
Maio_). The parallelism and _leixapren_ are present also in religious
poems by Alfonso X: C. M. 160, 250, 260. Snr. J. J. Nunes has noted
that in modern peasant dances, accompanied with song, the dancers
sometimes pause while the refrain is sung.
[43] C. V. contains many striking pilgrimage songs, sometimes wrongly
called _cantigas de ledino_. The word probably originated in a
printer’s error (_de ledino for dele dino_) in a line of _Chrisfal:
cantou canto de ledino_.
[44] Cf. the wailing refrains of C. V. 415, 417; and, for the _form_,
compare _e de mi, louçana!_ with _¡ay de mi, Alfama!_ In the _sense_ of
the two refrains lies all the difference between the poetry of Portugal
and Spain.
[45] C. C. B. 135 (= C. A. 389); C. V. 119, 181, 220, 527, 758, 964.
[46] _Endurar_, _besonha_, _greu_, _gracir_, _cousir_, _escarnir_,
_toste_, _entendedor_, _veiro_ (_varius_, Fr. _vair_, C. M. 213 has
_egua veira_), _genta_ (_genser_, _gensor_).
[47] C. V. 242-51, 979; C. C. B. 159-71 (= C. A. 70-81, 402).
[48] C. V. 414-16, 824-5; C. A. 281.
[49] Meen di nho in the C. V. M. index. Thus he is scarcely even a name.
[50] Or Esquio (? = _esquilo_, ‘squirrel’).
[51] Or Corpancho (Broade) or Campancho (Broadacre); but the word
_carpancho_ (= basket) exists in the region of Santander (_La
Montaña_). There is a modern Peruvian poet Manuel Nicolás Corpancho
(1830-63).
[52] This is the most probable form of his name, although modern
critics have presented him with various others.
[53] M. Alfred Jeanroy (_Les Origines_, 2ᵉ ed., 1904, p. 320) compares
with this _bailada_ the fragments _Tuit cil qui sunt enamourat Vignent
dançar, li autre non_ and _N’en nostre compaignie ne soit nus S’il
n’est amans_, but even if there was direct imitation here, which
is doubtful, that would not affect the indigenous character of the
_cossantes_.
[54] Or, according to D. C. Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, Moogo (from
_monachus_). _Meogo_ (= _meio_) occurs in C. M. 65 and 161, _moogo_ (=
monk) in C. M. 75 and 149.
[55] C. V. 392-402, 424-30, 1158-9; C. A. 246-56. Chariño is buried at
Pontevedra, in the Franciscan convent which he founded.
[56] Cf. the modern _Ai lé lé lé, marinheiro vira á ré_ or _Ai lé lé lé
Ribamar e S. José_.
[57] For later reminiscences of the _pastorela_ see C. Michaëlis de
Vasconcellos, _João Lourenço da Cunha, a ‘Flor de Altura’ e a cantiga
Ay Donas por qué em tristura?_ (_Separata da Revista Lusitana_, vol.
xix) Porto (1916), pp. 14-15.
[58] See _supra_, p. 23.
[59] A modern Portuguese quatrain runs
Passarinho que cantaes
Nesse raminho de flores,
Cantae vos, chorarei eu:
Assim faz quem tem amores.
[60] By the margin of a river Went a maiden singing, ever Of love sang
she:
Up the stream the boats came gliding Gracefully. All along the
river-bent The fair maiden singing went Of love’s dream: Fair to see
the boats came gliding Up the stream.
[61] _Poetica_ (C. C. B., p. 3, ll. 50-1).
[62] It probably does not rhyme (_e morre_ or _corre_) purposely. D.
Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcellos proposes _gracioso_ or _friolo_ (_A
Saudade Portuguesa_, Porto, 1914, pp. 84, 140).
[63] _España Sagrada_, xx. 211.
[64] C. A. M. V. ii. 928-36. Almeida Garrett had written in a general
sense: _os vestigios d’essa poesia indigena ainda duram_ (_Revista
Univ. Lisbonense_, vol. v (1846), p. 843).
[65] At Rebordainhos, in Tras-os-Montes, e.g. _Na ribeirinha ribeira
Naquella ribeira Anda lá um peixinho vivo (bravo) Naquella ribeira_.
Other examples of the _i-a_ sequence are _amigo_ (_amado_), _cosido_
(_assado_), _villa_ (_praça_), _ermida_ (_oraga_), _linda_ (_clara_),
_Abril_ (_Natal_), _ceitil_ (_real_). See J. Leite de Vasconcellos,
_Annuario para o estudo das tradições populares portuguezas_ (Porto,
1882), pp. 19-24. Cf. the modern Asturian song with its refrain _¡Ay
Juana cuerpo garrido, ay Juana cuerpo galano!_
[66] Francisco Alvarez, _Verd. Inf._, p. 125, speaks of _cantigas de
bailhos e de terreiro_ (dance-songs).
[67] Cf. Barros, _Dial. em lovvor da nossa ling._, 1785 ed., p. 226:
_Pois as cantigas compostas do povo, sem cabeça, sem pees, sem nome ou
verbo que se entenda, quem cuidas que as traz e leva da terra? Quem as
faz serem tratadas e recebidas do comum consintimento? O tempo._
§ 2.
_The Cancioneiros_
If, besides the _Cancioneiros da Vaticana_, _Colocci-Brancuti_, and _da
Ajuda_, we include King Alfonso X’s _Cantigas de Santa Maria_ (C. M.)
we have over 2,000 poems, by some 200 poets. Of these the _Cancioneiro
da Ajuda_ (C. A.) contains 310. Preserved in the Lisbon _Collegio dos
Nobres_ and later in the Royal Library of Ajuda at Lisbon, it was
first published in an edition of twenty-five copies by Charles Stuart
(afterwards Lord Stuart of Rothesay), British Minister at Lisbon
(C. A. S.). Another edition, by Varnhagen, appeared in 1849 (C. A.
V.), and the splendid definitive edition by D. Carolina Michaëlis de
Vasconcellos in 1904 (C. A. M. V.). C. A. M. V. contains 467 poems, in
part reproduced from C. V. M. and C. C. B. The third volume, of notes,
is still unpublished.
Of the _Cancioneiro_ preserved as Codex Vaticanus 4803, and now
commonly known as _Cancioneiro da Vaticana_ (C. V.), fragments were
published soon after its rediscovery: viz. that portion attributed to
King Dinis, edited by Moura in 1847 (C. D. M.). This part received a
critical edition at the hands of Professor H. R. Lang in 1892; 2nd
ed., with introduction, Halle, 1894 (C. D. L.). A few more crumbs were
given to the world by Varnhagen in 1870, 2nd ed. 1872 (C. T. A.), and
in 1873 (C. A. P.) and 1875 (C. L.) by Ernesto Monaci, who printed his
diplomatic edition of the complete text (1,205 poems) in the latter
year (C. V. M.), and with it an index of a still larger _Cancioneiro_
(it has 1,675 entries) compiled by Angelo Colocci in the sixteenth
century and discovered by Monaci in the Vatican Library (codex 3217).
Dr. Theophilo Braga’s critical edition appeared in 1878 (C. V. B.).
In this very year a large _Cancioneiro_ (355 ff.), corresponding nearly
but not precisely to the Colocci index, was discovered in the library
of the Conte Paolo Antonio Brancuti (C. C. B. For convenience’ sake
C. C. B. also = the fragment published by Enrico Gasi Molteni), and
the 442 of its poems, lacking in C. V. (but nearly half of which are
in C. A.), were published in diplomatic edition by Enrico Molteni
in 1880 (C. C. B.). All these (C. A., C. V., and C. C. B.) were in
all probability derived from the _Cancioneiro_ compiled by the Conde
de Barcellos. When his father, King Dinis, died, silence fell upon
the poets. The new king, Afonso IV, showed no sign of continuing to
collect the smaller _Cancioneiros_ kept by nobles and men of humbler
position, a custom inaugurated by his grandfather, Afonso III (if
the _Livro de Trovas del Rei D. Afonso_ in King Duarte’s library was
his), continued by King Dinis (_Livro de Trovas del Rei D. Dinis_),
and perhaps revived by King Duarte a century later (_Livro de Trovas
del Rei_). It was thus a time suitable for a ‘definitive edition’, and
Count Pedro, who was the last of the _Cancioneiro_ poets and who was
more collector than poet, probably took the existing _Cancioneiros_
(of Afonso III and Dinis) and added a third part consisting of later
poems. Besides the chronological order there was a division by subject
into _cantigas de amor_, _cantigas de amigo_, and _cantigas d’escarnho
e de maldizer_ (Santillana’s _cantigas_, _serranas e dezires_, or
_cantigas serranas_, the Archpriest of Hita’s _cantares serranos e
dezires_). C. V. is divided into these three kinds; in the older
and incomplete C. A. 304 of the 310 poems are _cantigas de amor_.
Eleven years after the death of King Duarte the Marqués de Santillana
wrote (1449) to the Constable of Portugal, D. Pedro, describing the
Galician-Portuguese _Cancioneiro_--_un grant volume_--which he had
seen in his boyhood in the possession of D. Mencia de Cisneros. (This
may have been the actual manuscript compiled by D. Pedro, Conde de
Barcellos and bequeathed by him in 1350 to Alfonso XI of Castille and
Leon--a few days _after_ Alfonso XI’s death. Or it may have been a copy
of the _Cancioneiro_ of D. Pedro or the _Cancioneiro_ of Afonso III or
of Dinis.) It is significant that in this very important letter it is
a foreigner informing a Portuguese. Under the predominating influence
first of Spain then of the Renaissance, the old Portuguese poems, even
if they were known to exist, excited no interest in Portugal. They
were _musas rusticas, musas in illo tempore rudes et incultas_.[68]
With this disdain the _Cancioneiro_ became a real will-o’-the-wisp.
Even as late as the nineteenth century one disappeared mysteriously
from a sale, another emerged momentarily (see C. T. A.) from the
shelves of a Spanish grandee only to fall back into the unknown. In the
sixteenth century the evidence as to its being known is contradictory.
Duarte Nunez de Leam in 1585 says of King Dinis that _extant hodie
eius carmina_. Antonio de Vasconcellos in 1621 declares that time has
carried them away: _obliviosa praeripuit vetustas_.
A few vague allusions (as that of Sá de Miranda concerning the echoes
of Provençal song) were all that was vouchsafed in Portugal to the
_Cancioneiro_, although prominent Portuguese men of letters--as Sá de
Miranda, André de Resende, Damião de Goes--travelled in Italy and met
there Cardinal Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), who had probably owned the
_Cancioneiros_ (copies by an Italian hand of a Portuguese original)
acquired by Angelo Colocci; yet at this very time Colocci (†1549) was
eagerly indexing and annotating the _Cancioneiros_ in Rome. It is
this Portuguese neglect and indifference to the things of Portugal
which explains the survival of the _cossantes_ only in Rome while the
more solemn and less indigenous poems of the _Cancioneiro da Ajuda_
remained in the land of their birth. A fuller account of the Portuguese
_Cancioneiros_, with the fascinating and complicated question of their
descent and interrelations, will be found in the _Grundriss_ (pp.
199-202) and D. Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcellos’ edition of the
_Cancioneiro da Ajuda_ (vol. ii, pp. 180-288).[69]
When the poetry of the troubadours flourished in Provence Portugal
was scarcely a nation. The first Provençal poet, Guilhaume, Comte de
Poitou (1087-1127), precedes by nearly a century Sancho I (1154-1211),
second King of Portugal, who wrote poems and married the Princess
Dulce of Aragon; and the Gascon Marcabrun, the first foreign poet to
refer to Portugal, in his poems _Al prim comens del ivernaill_ and
_Emperaire per mi mezeis_, in the middle of the twelfth century, spoke
not of her poetry but of her warrior deeds: _la valor de Portegal_.
Gavaudan similarly refers at the end of the twelfth century to the
Galicians and Portuguese among other (Castille, &c.) barriers against
the ‘black dogs’ (the Moors). It was in Spain that the Portuguese had
opportunity of meeting Provençal poets. The Peninsula in the thirteenth
century was, like Greece of old, divided into little States and
Courts, each harbouring exiles and refugees from neighbouring States.
Civil strife or the death of a king in Portugal would scatter abroad
a certain number of noblemen on the losing side, who would thus come
into contact with the troubadours as Provençal poetry spread to the
Courts of Catalonia and Aragon, Navarre, Castille and Leon. The first
King of Portugal, although a prince of the House of Burgundy, held
his kingdom in fief to Leon, and all the early kings were in close
touch with Leon and Castille. Fernando III, King of Castille and Leon
(St. Ferdinand), was a devoted lover of poetry, and his son Alfonso X
gathered at his _cort sen erguelh e sen vilania_ a galaxy of talented
troubadours, Provençal and Galician. Portugal came into more direct
touch with France in other ways, but the influence might have been
almost exclusively that of the _trouvères_ of the North had not the
more generous enthusiasm of Provence penetrated across the frontier
into Spain. Trade was fairly active in the thirteenth century between
Portugal and England, North France and Flanders. Many of the members
of the religious orders--as the Cluny Benedictines--who occupied
the territory of the Moors in Portugal were Frenchmen. With foreign
colonists the new towns were systematically peopled. The number of
French pilgrims was such that the road to Santiago became known as
the ‘French Road’. The Crusades also brought men of many languages
to Portugal.[70] The Court by descent and dynastic intermarriage
was cosmopolitan; but indeed the life of the whole Peninsula was
cosmopolitan to an extent which tallies ill with the idea of the Middle
Ages as a period of isolation and darkness. The Portuguese had already
begun to show their fondness for _novedades_. Yet it was they who
imposed their, the Galician, language. As the Marqués de Santillana
observed and the _Cancioneiros_ prove, lyric poets throughout the
Peninsula used Galician.[71] Probably the oldest surviving instance of
this language in verse by a foreigner is to be found (ten lines) in a
_descort_ (_descordo_) written by Raimbaud de Vaqueiras (1158-1217)
at the Court of Bonifazio II of Montferrat towards the end of the
twelfth century. We cannot doubt that the character and conditions
of the north-west of the Peninsula had permitted a thread of lyric
poetry to continue there ever since Silius Italicus had heard the youth
of Galicia wailing (_ululantem_) their native songs, and that both
language and literature had the opportunity to develop earlier there
than in the rest of Spain. The tide of Moorish victory only gradually
ebbed southward, and the warriors in the sterner country of Castille,
with its fiery sun and battles and epics, would look back to the green
country of Galicia as the idyllic land of song, a refuge where sons
of kings and nobles could spend their minority in comparative peace.
When from the ninth century Galicia became a second Holy Land its
attractions and central character were immeasurably increased. Pilgrims
thither from every country would return to their native land with some
words of the language, and those acquainted with Provençal might note
the similarity and the musical softness of Galician.[72] It is not
certain that the eldest of the ten children of San Fernando, ALFONSO
X (1221?-84), _el Sabio_, King of Castille and Leon, Lord of Galicia,
and brother-in-law of our Edward I, passed his boyhood in Galicia. But
when he was compiling a volume of poems referring to many parts of the
world besides Spain, to Canterbury and Rome, Paris and Alexandria,
Lisbon, Cologne, Cesarea, Constantinople, he would naturally choose
Galician not only, or indeed chiefly, because it was the more graceful
and pliant medium for lyric verse but because it was the most widely
known, and, like French, _plus commune à toutes_ _gens_.[73] He had
no delicate ear for its music and made such poor use of its pliancy
that it often becomes as hard as the hardest Castilian in his hands.
His songs of miracles offer a striking contrast to contemporary
Portuguese lyrics in the same language. Their jingles are only possible
as a _descort_ in the Portuguese _Cancioneiros_. At the same time
he would be influenced in his choice of language by his knowledge
of Galicia as the traditional home of the lyric, of the encouraging
patronage extended to Galician poets by his son-in-law Afonso III, of
the Santiago school of poets, and of the promising future before the
Galician language in the hands of the conquering Portuguese. _Multas
et perpulchras composuit cantilenas_, says Gil de Zamora, and likens
him to David. But when we remember the prodigious services rendered by
Alfonso X to Castilian prose, the first question that arises is whether
he was indeed the author of the 450 poems in Galician[74] that we
possess under his name. Of these poems 426, or, cancelling repetitions,
420, are of a religious character, written, with one or two exceptions,
in honour of the Virgin: _Cantigas de Santa Maria_. Many of these poems
themselves provide an answer to the question: they record his illnesses
and enterprises and his _trobar_ in such a way that they could only
have been written by himself: he is the _entendedor_ of Santa Maria
(C. M. 130), he exhorts other _trobadores_ to sing her praises (C. M.
260), he himself is resolved to sing of no other _dona_ (C. M. 10: _dou
ao demo os otros amores_); and his attractive and ingenuous pride in
these poems accords ill with an alien authorship. When he lay sick at
Vitoria and was like to die it was only when the _Livro das Cantigas_
was placed on his body that he recovered (C. M. 209), and he directed
that they should be preserved in the church in which he was buried.
There is little reason to doubt that he was the author, in a strictly
limited sense, of the majority of the poems, although not of all.
Various phrases seem to imply a double method. C. M. 219 says: ‘I will
have that miracle placed among the others’; C. M. 295: ‘I ordered it to
be written.’ On the other hand, C. M. 47 is ‘a fair miracle of which I
made my song’; C. M. 84 ‘a great miracle of which I made a song’; of
106 ‘I know well that I will make a goodly song’; of 64 ‘I made verses
and tune’; for 188 ‘I made a good tune and verses because it caught my
fancy’; for 307 ‘according to the words I made the tune’; of 347 ‘I
made a new song with a tune that was my own and not another’s’. The
inference seems to be that, the personal poems and the _loas_ apart, if
a miracle especially attracted the king he took it in hand; otherwise
he might leave it to one of the _joglares_, and he would perhaps revise
it and be its author to the extent that the Portuguese _jograes_ were
authors of the early _cossantes_. We know that he had at his Court a
veritable factory of verse. The vignettes[75] to these _Cantigas_ show
him surrounded by scribes, pen and parchment in hand, by _joglares_ and
_joglaresas_. Poets thronged to his Court and he was in communication
with others in foreign lands. Some of the miracles might come to him
in verse, the work of a friendly poet or of a sacred _jogral_ such as
Pierres de Siglar, whom C. M. 8 shows reciting his poems from church
to church: _en todalas eigreias da Uirgen que non a par un seu lais
senpre dizia_,[76] and this would account for the variety of metre and
treatment. Of raw material for his art there was never a scarcity,
nor was the idea of turning it into verse original. In France Gautier
de Coincy (1177-1236) had already written his _Miracles de la Sainte
Vierge_ in verse, and the Spanish poet Gonzalo de Berceo (1180-1247)
had composed the _Milagros de Nuestra Sennora_. But there was no need
for direct imitation. If the starry sky were parchment and the ocean
ink, the miracles could not all be written down, says King Alfonso
(C. M. 110). Churches and rival shrines preserved an unfailing store
for collectors. Gautier de Coincy spoke of _tant miracles_, a _grant
livre_ of them, and King Alfonso chooses one from among 300 in a book
(C. M. 33), finds one written in an ancient book (265) written among
many others (258), in a book among many others (284), and refers to
a book full of them at Soissons. The miracles were recorded more
systematically in France, and the books of Soissons and Rocamadour
(_Liber Miraculorum S. Mariae de Rupe Amatoris_) provided the king with
many subjects, as did also Vincent de Beauvais’ _Speculum Historiale_,
of which he possessed a copy. But the sources in the Peninsula were
very copious, as, for instance, the Book of the Miracles of Santiago,
of which a copy, in Latin, exists in the Paris Bibliothèque Nationale.
Of other miracles the king had had personal experience, or they were
recent and came to him by word of mouth. Thus he often does not profess
to invent his subject: he merely translates it into verse and sometimes
appraises it as he does so. It is ‘a marvellous great miracle’ (C.
M. 257), ‘very beautiful’ (82), ‘one in which I have great belief’
(241), ‘one almost incredible’, _mui cruu de creer_ (242), or ‘famous’
(195), ‘known throughout Spain’ (191). Many of these miracles occurred
to the peasants and unlettered: then as now the humbler the subject
the greater the miracle. Accordingly we find the king in his poems
dealing not with the conventional shepherdesses of the _pastorelas_ but
with lowly folk of real life, peasants, gleaners, sailors, fishermen,
beggars, pilgrims, nuns; and it is one of the king’s titles to be
considered a true poet that he takes an evident pleasure in these
themes and retains their graphic, artless presentment. The collection
abounds in charming glimpses of the life of the people. Indeed, in many
of the poems there is more of the people than of King Alfonso,[77]
and he sings diligently of the misdeeds of clerics and usurers, of
the incompetence of doctors, and of massacres of Jews. He seems to
have followed the originals very closely, and evident traces of their
language remain, French, English, and perhaps Provençal. The poems are
often of considerable length, sometimes twenty or thirty verses, and
as a rule the last line of each verse must rhyme with the refrain. The
attention thus necessarily bestowed upon the rhymes sometimes mars the
pathos of the subject, and the reader is reminded that he has to do
with a skilful, eager, and industrious craftsman but not with a great
original poet. In the remarkable _Ben vennas Mayo_ and in many of his
other poems materialism and poetical ecstasy go hand in hand. Yet in
several of the more beautiful legends the poet proves himself equal to
his theme. Some of these legends are still famous, that of the Virgin
taking the place of the nun (C. M. 55 and 94), of the knight and the
pitcher (155), of the stone miraculously warded from the statue of the
Virgin and Child (136 and 294), of the monk’s mystic ecstasy at the
_lais_ of the bird in the convent garden (103). Others had probably an
equal celebrity in the Middle Ages, as that of the captive miraculously
brought from Africa and awaking free in Spain at dawn (325),[78] of
the painter with whom the Devil was wroth for always painting him so
ugly (74), or of the peasant whose vineyard alone was saved from the
hail (161). Every tenth poem (the collection was intended originally
to consist of one hundred) interrupts the narratives of miracles by a
purely lyrical _cantiga de loor_, and some of these, written with the
fervour with which the king always sang _as graças muy granadas_ of
the _Madre de Deus Manuel_, are of great simplicity and beauty. The
king had not always written thus, and of his profane poems we possess
thirty[79] (since no one who has read the lively essay by Cesare de
Lollis will doubt that C. V. 61-79 and C. C. B. 359-72 (= 467-78) were
written by Alfonso X). The most important of these are historical, and
invoke curses on false or recalcitrant knights, _non ven al mayo!_ C.
V. 74 is a battle-scene description so swift and impetuous that we must
go to the _Poema del Cid_ for a parallel. And indeed some of the old
spirit peeps out from the _Cantigas de Santa Maria_, as when he prays
to be delivered from false friends or praises the Virgin for giving his
enemies ‘what they deserved’.
From the return and enthronement of Afonso III imitation of French and
Provençal poetry was in full swing in Portugal. The long sojourn of
the prince in France, accompanied by several noblemen who figure in
the _Cancioneiros_ (as Rui Gomez de Briteiros and D. Joan de Aboim),
had an important bearing on the development of Portuguese poetry.
He came back determined to act the part of an enlightened patron of
letters; he encouraged the immigration of men of learning from France
and maintained three _jograes_ permanently in his palace.[80] Princes
and nobles as _trobadores_ for their own pastime, the _segreis_,[81]
knights who went from Court to Court and received payment for the
recital of their own verses, the _jograes_, belonging to a lower
station, who recited the poems of their patrons the _trobadores_, all
vied in imitation of the love songs of Provence. In general, i. e.
in the structure of their poems, the resemblance is close and clear
enough. The decasyllabic love song in three or four stanzas with an
_envoi_, the satirical _sirventes_, the _tenson_ (_jocs-partits_) in
which two poets contended in dialogue, the _descort_ in which the
discordant sounds expressed the poet’s distress and grief, the _balada_
of Provence, the _ballette_ and _pastourelle_ of North France, were all
faithfully reproduced.
If, on the other hand, we look for imitations in detail it is perhaps
natural that we should find them less frequently.[82] The conventional
character of the Portuguese poems would sufficiently account for this,
and moreover their models were probably more often heard than read, so
that reproduction of the actual thought or words would be difficult.
When Airas Nunez in a poem of striking beauty, which is almost a sonnet
(C. V. 456), wrote the lines:
Que muito m’eu pago d’este verão
Por estes ramos et por estas flores
Et polas aves que cantan d’amores,
he need not have read Peire de Bussinac’s lines:
Quan lo dous temps d’Abril
Fa ’ls arbres secs fulhar
E ’ls auzels mutz cantar
Quascun en son lati,
in order to know that birds sing and trees grow green in spring.
And generally it is not easy to say whether an apparent echo is a
direct imitation or merely a stereotyped phrase. The Portuguese
_trobadores_ introduced little of the true spirit of the Provençal
_troubadours_--that had passed to Palestine and to the Lady of Tripoli.
In their _cantigas de amor_ is no sign of action--unless it be to die
of love; no thought of Nature. Jaufre Rudel (1140-70), that prince
of lovers, had ‘gone to school to the meadows’ and might sing in his
_maint bons vers_ of _la flor aiglentina_ or of _flors d’albespis_, but
in the Portuguese _cantigas_ nothing relieves the conventional dullness
and excessive monotony (which likewise marked the Provençal school of
poets in Sicily). Composed for the most part in iambic decasyllables
they describe continually the poet’s _coita d’amor, grave d’endurar_,
his grief at parting, his loss of sleep, his pleasure in dying for his
_fremosa sennor_. She is described merely as beautiful, or, at most, as
Tan mansa e tan fremosa e de bon sen (C. C. B. 206).
Fremosa e mansa e d’outro ben comprida (C. C. B. 278).
Vocabulary and thought are spectre-thin. Indeed, it was part of the
convention to sing vaguely. _Eu ben falarei de sa fremosura_, says
one poet[83] (C. C. B. 337)--he will sing of her beauty, but not in
such a way that the curious who _non o poden adevinhar_ should guess
his secret. As to allusions to Nature, perhaps the climate, with less
marked divisions than in Provence, furnished less incentive to sing
of spring and the earth’s renewal or to imitate Guiraut de Bornelh in
going to school all the winter (_l’ivern estava a escola a aprender_)
and singing only with the return of spring. King Dinis, perhaps in
reference to that troubadour, declares that his love is independent of
the seasons and more sincere than that of the singers of Provence:
Proençaes soen mui ben trobar
E dizen eles que é con amor,
Mais os que troban no tempo da frol
E non en outro sei eu ben que non
An tan gran coita ... (C. V. 127)
and even as he wrote the words he was unconsciously imitating the
thought of the Provençal poet Gace Brulé, who had spoken of _les
faus amoureus d’esté_. The exceeding similarity of the _cantigas
de amor_ did raise doubts as to the sincerity of all this dying of
love (cf. C. V. 353 and C. V. 988) and as to whether a poem was a
_cantar novo_ or an article at second hand (C. V. 819). Yet the
poets evidently had talent and poetic feeling; indeed, their skill
in versification contrasts remarkably with their entire absence of
thought or individuality. They appear to revel in monotony of ideas
and pride themselves on the icy smoothness of their verse. All their
originality consisted in the introduction of technical devices, such as
the repetition at intervals of certain words (_dobre_), or of different
tenses of the same verb (_mordobre_, as C. V. 681), to carry on the
poem without stop from beginning to end by means of ‘for’, ‘but’, &c.,
at the beginning of each verse (_cantigas de atafiinda_,[84] as C.
V. 130, C. A. 205), to begin and end each verse with the same line
(_canção redonda_, as C. V. 685), to repeat the last line of one verse
as the first line of the next (_leixapren_), to use the same word at
the end of each line (as _vi_ in C. A. 7). The poet who addressed
_cantigas de amor_ to his lady also provided her with poems for her
to sing, _cantigas de amigo_ in complicated form, or as the simpler
_cossante_, which the _cantigas de amigo_ include. These are poems with
more life and action, often in dialogue. Perhaps the _dona_ herself,
wearied by the monotonous _cantigas de amor_, had pointed to the songs
of the peasant women, and the form of these _cantigas de amigo_ was a
compromise between the Provençal _cantiga de meestria_ and the popular
_cantiga de refran_. The peasant woman composed her own songs, and
the poet places his song on the lips of his love: thus we find her
describing herself as beautiful, _eu velida_; _eu fremosa_; _trist’ e
fremosa_; _fremosa e de mui bon prez_; _o meu bon semelhar_. Poetical
shepherdesses sing these _cantigas de amigo_; the fair _dona_ sings
them as she sits spinning (C. V. 321). The old _Poetica_ (II. 2-12)
distinguishes between the _cantigas de amor_, in which the _amigo_
speaks first, and the _cantigas de amigo_, in which the first to speak
is the _amiga_. Both were artificial forms, but the latter are clearly
more popular in theme (the _amiga_ waiting and wailing for her lover),
and in treatment sometimes convey a real intensity of feeling.[85] The
favourite subject of the _cantiga de amigo_ is that the cruel mother
prevents the lovers from meeting. The daughter is kept in the house:
_a manda muito guardar_ (C. V. 535). She reproaches and entreats her
mother, who answers her as choir to choir; she bewails her lot to her
friends, or to her sister. She is dying of love and begs her mother to
tell her lover. Her mother and lover are reconciled. Her lover is false
and fails to meet her at the trysted hour. She waits for him in vain,
and her mother comforts her in her distress. She pines and dies of
love while her _amigo_ is away serving the king in battle or _en cas’
del rei_.
The third section of the _Cancioneiro da Vaticana_ does not sin by
monotony. We may divide Pope’s line, since if the _cantigas de amor_
are ‘correctly cold’ many of the satiric poems are ‘regularly low’.
In these verses, containing violent invective and abuse (_cantigas de
maldizer_) or more covert sarcasm and ridicule (_cantigas d’escarnho_),
the themes are often scandalous, the language ribald and unseemly. They
were written with great zest, although without the fiery indignation
of the Provençal and Catalan _sirventeses_. They are concerned with
persons: the haughty _trobador_ may take a _jogral_ to task for writing
verses that do not rhyme or scan, but even then it is a personal matter
and he rebukes his insolence for daring to raise his thoughts to _altas
donas_ in song. Some of these poems should never have been written or
printed, but many of them give a lively idea of the society of that
time. They laugh merrily or venomously at the poverty-stricken knight
with nothing to eat; at the knight who set his dogs on those who called
near dinner-time; the _jogral_ who knows as much of poetry as an ass of
reading; the poet who pretended to have gone as a pilgrim to the Holy
Land but never went beyond Montpellier; the physician (Mestre Nicolas)
whose books were more for show than for use (_E sab’ os cadernos ben
cantar quen[86] non sabe por elles leer_, C. V. 1116); the Galician
unjustifiably proud of his poetical talent (_non o sabia ben_, C. V.
914); the _jogral_ who gave up poetry--shaved off his beard and cut
his hair short about his ears--in order to take holy orders, in hope
of a fat living, but was disappointed; the _jogral_ who played badly
and sang worse; the poet who was the cause of good poetry in others;
the gentleman who spent most of his income on clothes and wore gilt
shoes winter and summer. We read of the excellent capon, kid, and pork
provided by the king for dinner; of the fair _malmaridada_, married or
rather sold by her parents; of the impoverished lady, one of those for
whom later Nun’ Alvarez provided; of the poet pining in exile not of
love but hunger; of the lame lawyer, the unjust judge; the _parvenu
villão_, the knighted tailor, the seers and diviners (_veedeiros_,
_agoreiros_, _divinhos_). These _cantigas d’escarnho e de maldizer_
were a powerful instrument of satire from which there was no escape. A
hapless _infançon_, slovenly in his ways, drew down upon himself the
wit of D. Lopo Diaz, who in a series of eleven songs (C. V. 945-55)
ridiculed him and his creaking saddle till at Christmas he was fain to
call a truce. But the implacable D. Lopo forthwith indited a new song:
‘I won’t deny that I agreed to a truce about the saddle, but--it didn’t
include the mare’,[87] and so no doubt continued till _pascoa florida_
or _la trinité_. But the majority of these verses are not so innocently
merry. Many of the poets of the _Cancioneiros_ wrote in all three
kinds: _cantigas de amor_, _de amigo_, and _de maldizer_. Of JOAN DE
GUILHADE[88] (fl. 1250) we have over fifty poems.[89] He imitated both
French and Provençal models, and, having learnt lightness of touch from
them, would appear to have contented himself with writing _cantigas
de amigo_ (besides _cantigas de amor_ and _escarnho_) without having
recourse to the _cossante_. There is life and poetical feeling as well
as facility of technique in his poems.
PERO GARCIA DE BURGOS (fl. 1250) is, with Joan de Guilhade, one of
the more voluminous writers of the _Cancioneiros_. He shows himself
capable of deep feeling in his love songs, but speaks with two voices,
descending to sad depths in his poems of invective. His contemporary,
the _segrel_ PERO DA PONTE, is also an accomplished poet of love, in
the even flow of his verse far more accomplished than Pero Garcia,
and in his satirical poems wittier and, as a rule, more moderate.
He placed his poetical gift at the service of kings to sing their
praises for hire, and celebrated San Fernando’s conquest of Seville
in 1248; Seville, of which, he says, ‘none can adequately tell the
praises’. To satire almost exclusively the powerful courtier of King
Dinis’ reign, STEVAM GUARDA, devoted his not inconsiderable talent,
and the _segrel_ PEDR’ AMIGO DE SEVILHA (fl. 1250) shone in the same
kind with a great variety of metre as well as in numerous _cantigas
de amigo_. MARTIN SOAREZ (first half 13th c.), born at Riba de Lima,
and considered the best _trobador_ of his time (by those who could not
appreciate the charm of the indigenous poetry), wrote no _cossante_ nor
_cantiga de amigo_, and in his satirical poems displayed a contemptuous
insolence--towards those whom he regarded as his inferiors in lineage
or talent--which places him in no attractive light. A notable poet
at the Courts of Spain and Portugal was JOAN AIRAS of Santiago de
Compostela (fl. 1250), of whom we have over twenty _cantigas de amor_
and fifty _cantigas de amigo_. Contemporary criticism apparently viewed
their quantity with disfavour,[90] for he complains that _Dizen que
meus cantares non valen ren porque tan muitos son_ (C. V. 533). But if
his poems lack the variety of those of King Dinis, which they almost
rival in number, they are nevertheless marked not only by harmony but
by many a touch of real life. Of most of the other singers we have far
fewer poems. Like Meendinho and Estevam Coelho, PERO VYVYÃES (first
half 13th c.) is known chiefly for a single song: his _bailada_ (C. V.
336). By D. JOAN SOAREZ COELHO (_c._ 1210-80) there are two _cossantes_
(C. V. 291, 292) and numerous other poems. He was prominent at the
Court of Afonso III (1248-79) and in the conquest of Algarve, as was
also D. JOAN DE ABOIM (_c._ 1215-87), whose poems are less numerous
but include a dozen _cantigas de amigo_ and a _pastorela_ (C. V. 278:
_Cavalgava noutro dia per hun caminho frances_), and FERNAN GARCIA
ESGARAVUNHA,[91] whose _cantigas de amor_ show characteristic life
and vigour, and a good command of metre. There is an engaging grace
and spirit in the _cantigas de amigo_ written in dancing rhythm by
FERNAN RODRIGUEZ DE CALHEIROS (fl. in or before 1250), who preceded
those soldier poets; deep feeling and melancholy in the _cantigas de
amor_ of D. JOAN LOPEZ DE ULHOA, their contemporary. Neither of these,
however, possessed the poetical genius and versatility of the priest
of Santiago, AIRAS NUNEZ (second half 13th c.)--the name appears in a
marginal note to one of King Alfonso’s _Cantigas de Santa Maria_ (C.
M. 223 in the manuscript j. b. 2)--whose poems show a perfect mastery
of rhythm and a true instinct for beauty. He wrote a _pastorela_ in
the manner of the _trouvères_, and combined it with some of the most
exquisite specimens of the indigenous poetry.[92] The fact that one
of these was by Joan Zorro makes it probable that Nunez’ celebrated
_bailada_ (C. V. 462) is but a development of Zorro’s (C. V. 761),
unless both drew from a common popular source. Another of his poems
(C. V. 468) reads like an anticipatory slice out of Juan Ruiz’ _Libro
de Buen Amor_. Great importance has been attached to another (C. V.
466) as a remnant of a _cantar de gesta_, but D. Carolina Michaëlis
de Vasconcellos has shown that it was written to commemorate a
contemporary event, probably in 1289.[93] More than any other poet of
the _Cancioneiros_, with the exception, perhaps, of King Dinis, Nunez
anticipated that _doce estylo_, the introduction of which cost Sá de
Miranda so many perplexities.
The _Cancioneiros_ contain poems by high and low, prince and, one would
fain say, peasant, noble _trobador_ and humble _jogral_, soldiers
and civilians, priests and laymen, singers of Galicia, Portugal, and
Spain, but more especially of Galicia and North Portugal. As in the
case of C. V. 466, the interest of many of the poems is historical:
C. V. 1088, for instance, written by a partisan of the dethroned King
Sancho II; or C. V. 1080, a _gesta de maldizer_ of fifty-six lines in
three rhymes, with the exclamation _Eoy!_ at the change of the rhyme,
which was written by D. AFONSO LOPEZ DE BAYAN (_c._ 1220-80), clearly
in imitation of the _Chanson de Roland_.[94] Almost equally prominent,
though not from any historical associations, is the curiously modern
C. A. 429 (= C. C. B. 314) among the _cantigas de amor_. It tells
of a girl forced against her will to enter a convent, and who says
to her lover: ‘My dress may be religious, but God shall not have my
heart.’ (For the metre, cf. C. V. 342.) Its author was the _fidalgo_
D. RODRIG’ EANEZ DE VASCONCELLOS, one of the pre-Dionysian poets. But
indeed no further proofs are needed to show that, even had King Dinis
never existed, the contents of the early Portuguese _Cancioneiros_
would have been remarkable for their variety and beauty. When Alfonso
X died his grandson DINIS (1261-1325)[95] had sat for five years on
the throne of Portugal. Plentifully educated by a Frenchman, Ayméric
d’Ébrard, afterwards Bishop of Coimbra, married to a foreign princess,
Isabel of Aragon (the Queen-Saint of Portugal), profoundly impressed,
no doubt, by the world-fame of Alfonso X, to whom he was sent on a
diplomatic mission when not yet in his teens, he became nevertheless
one of the most national of kings. If he imitated Alfonso X in his love
of literature, he showed himself a far abler and firmer sovereign,
being more like a rock than like the sea, to which the poet compared
Alfonso. Far-sighted in the conception of his plans and vigorous in
their execution, the _Rei Lavrador_, whom Dante mentions, though not
by name: _quel di Portogallo_ (_Paradiso_ xix), fostered agriculture,
increased his navy, planted pine-forests, fortified his towns, built
castles and convents and churches, and legislated for the safety of the
roads and for the general welfare and security of his people. Among his
great and abiding services to his country was the foundation of the
first Portuguese University in the year 1290, and in the same spirit
he ordered the translation of many notable books from the Spanish,
Latin, and Arabic into Portuguese prose, including the celebrated
works of the Learned King, so that it is truer of prose than of poetry
to say that he inaugurated a golden age.[96] Had he written no line
of verse his name must have been for ever honoured in Portugal as
the real founder of that imperishable glory which was fulfilled two
centuries later. But he also excelled as a poet, _d’amor trobador_. It
had no doubt been part of his education to write conventionally in the
Provençal manner, but his skill in versification, remarkable even in
an age in which Portuguese poetry had attained exceptional proficiency
in technique, would have availed him, or at least us, little had he
not also possessed an instinct for popular themes, perhaps directly
encouraged by Alfonso X. The _Declaratio_ placed by Guiraut Riquier of
Narbonne on the lips of that king in 1275 marked the coming asphyxia of
Provençal poetry, for it showed the tendency to take the _jogral_[97]
away from tavern and open air and to cut off his poetry from the life
of the people. It was owing to the personal encouragement of Dinis that
the waning star of both Provençal and indigenous poetry continued to
shine in Portugal for another half-century. The grandson of Alfonso X
was the last hope of the _trobadores_ and _jograes_ of the Peninsula.
From Leon and Castille and Aragon they came to reap an aftermath of
song and _panos_ at his Court, and after his death remained silent or
unpaid (C. V. 708). The poems of King Dinis are not only more numerous
but far more various than those of any other _trobador_, with the
exception of Alfonso X, and it may perhaps be doubted whether they are
all the work of his own hand. In poetry’s old age he might well wish to
collect specimens of various kinds for his _Livro de Trovas_. But many
of the 138 poems[98] that we possess under his name are undoubtedly
his, and display a characteristic force and sincerity as well as true
poetic delicacy and power. Among them are some colourless _cantigas
de amor_ and others more individual in tone, _pastorelas_ (C. V. 102,
137, 150), _cantigas de amigo_ (more Provençal than Portuguese in their
spirit of vigorous reproach are C. V. 186: _Amigo fals’ e desleal_,
and C. V, 198: _Ai fals’ amigo e sen lealdade_), a jingle worthy of
the _Cantigas de Santa Maria_ (C. V. 136), a poem in 8.8.4.8 metre
(C. V. 131), _atafiindas_ (e. g. C. V. 130), a _mordobre_ in _querer_
(C. V. 113, _Quix ben, amigos, e quer’ e querrei Ũa molher que me
quis e quer mal E querrá_), and _cossantes_ of an unmistakably popular
flavour: _Ay flores, ay flores do verde pino_ (C. V. 171), two _albas_
(C. V. 170, 172), C. V. 168, 169, with their refrains _louçana_ and
_ai madre, moiro d’amor_, C. V. 173 with its quaint charm: _Vede-la
frol do pinho--Valha Deus_, and the _bailada-cossante_ (C. V. 195: _Mia
madre velida, Voum’ a la bailia Do amor_). If the king wrote these
_cossantes_ he must be reckoned not only as a musical and skilful
versifier but as a great poet. And certainly, at least, his _graciosas
e dulces palavras_ well earned him the reputation of being not only the
best king but the best poet of his time in the Peninsula.
It would seem that, unlike his grandfather, who had begun with
profane and ended with religious verse, King Dinis, no doubt at his
grandfather’s bidding, who would be delighted to find a disciple
(_Dized’, ai trobadores, A Sennor das Sennores Por que a non loades?_),
began writing songs in honour of the Virgin and sent them to the
Castilian king. His book of _Louvores da Virgem Nossa Senhora_ is said
to have been seen in the Escorial Library and in the Lisbon Torre do
Tombo, and it is impossible altogether to set aside the statements
of Duarte Nunez de Leam[99] and Antonio de Sousa de Macedo, who says
that he read religious poems by King Dinis at the Escorial.[100] On
the other hand, it must be remembered that it was the common opinion
that King Dinis had been the first to write Portuguese poetry, and
the temptation to attribute ancient poems to him would be strong. The
possibility of confusion with the _Livro de Cantigas_ of Alfonso X
(to which his grandson may well have contributed poems)[101] is also
obvious. But the statement of Sousa de Macedo, who was no passing
traveller in a hurry, and who had wide experience of books and
libraries,[102] is very precise. No trace or
memory of the existence of this manuscript exists, however, at
the Escorial Library, nor is to be found in the _Catálogo de los
Manuscritos existentes antes del incendio de 1671_. The subjects of
King Dinis’ ten[103] satirical poems are trivial, but he had too much
force of character to descend to such vilenesses as were common among
_profaçadores_. (His concise definition of a bore: _falou muit’ e mal_
(C. C. B. 411) is worthy of Afonso de Albuquerque.) Of his illegitimate
sons, besides D. Afonso Sanchez, D. Pedro, Conde de Barcellos, long had
a reputation as a poet almost equal to that of his father, owing to the
association of his name with the _Cancioneiro_; but of his ten poems
six (C. V. 1037-42) are satirical, and the four _cantigas de amor_ (C.
V. 210-13) are perhaps the heaviest and most prosaic in the collection.
It was as a prose-writer and editor of the _Livro de Linhagens_ that he
worthily carried on the literary tradition of King Dinis.