[104] Portuguese is then _uma lingua coherente, clara, um instrumento
perfeito para a expressão do pensamento, cuja maior plasticidade
dependerá apenas da cultura litteraria_, F. Adolpho Coelho, _A Lingua
Portugueza_ (1881), p. 87.
[105] See _supra_, p. 48.
[106] See p. 160.
[107] Cf. for the seventeenth century Galhegos’ preface and _Mon.
Lusit._ V. xvi. 3: _achandose neste reino poucos que escrevão versos e
não seja na lingua estranjeira de Castilla_.
[108] e. g. _E matou a grande serpente dallagoa de lerne que auja sete
cabeças. E persegujo as pias filhas de finees que lhe aujã odio e o
queriã desherdar. E foy cõ jaasson o que adusse o velloso dourado da
ylha de colcos. E destroyu troya_, &c.
[109] Cf. _Por este exemplo este doutor nos mostra_, or _este poeta
nos dá ensinamento_, &c. The Fables of Aesop were translated into
Portuguese prose by Manuel Mendez, a schoolmaster at Lagos (Algarve):
_Vida e Fabulas do Insigne Fabulador Grego Esopo_. Evora, 1603.
[110] e. g. of an earthquake: _Era de mil e quatrocentos e quatro
desoito dias do mez de Junho tremeo a terra ao serão muy rijamente e
foi por espaço que disserom o Pater tres vezes._
[111] The _Cronica Troyana_, edited in 1900 by the Spanish
scholar and patient investigator D. Andrés Martínez Salazar, is a
fourteenth-century Galician version of Benoît de Saint-More’s _Roman de
Troie_.
[112] The name _Nobiliario_ is one of the erudite words which in
the sixteenth century, here as in so many other cases, ousted the
indigenous.
[113] Its object was _por saberem os homens fidalgos de Portugal de
qual linhagem vem e de quaes coutos, honras, mosteiros e igreias som
naturaes_.
[114] His successful wile is similar to the stratagem in _Macbeth_: _e
pois que a nave entrou pela foz cobrío-a de panos verdes em tal guisa
que cuidassem que eram ramos, ca entonce o Douro era cuberto de hũa
parte e da outra darvores_.
[115] _A escritura de maior utilidade que temos em Espanha_ (Frei
Francisco Brandão, _Mon. Lus._ V. xvii. 5).
[116] i. e. the copy printed in _Portug. Mon. Hist._ from the only
existing manuscript (= the copy by Gaspar Alvarez de Lousada Machado
(1554-1634) in the Lisbon Torre do Tombo).
[117] The ‘songs of Cornwall’ are mentioned in C. V. 1007. Cf. 1140.
[118] See C. Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, _Cancioneiro da Ajuda_, ii.
479-525. They are called _lais_, _layx_ (C. C. B. 7, 8).
[119] _En la grand demanda de Santo Greal Se lee._ _Gral_ is still a
common Portuguese word (= _almofariz_, a mortar).
[120] ruberte de borem is mentioned, 1887 ed., p. 44.
[121] Not to speak of _certas_, _onta_, _febre_ (= _faible_), _a voso
sciente_, which may be found in other Portuguese works of the fifteenth
century, _san_ (p. 136 _ad fin._) apparently = Fr. _s’en_.
[122] Cf. _asi como o conto a ja deuisado_ (1887 ed., p. 7).
[123] 1905 ed., p. 95.
[124] 1887 ed., p. 43: _despois uespesiom os eyxerdou e os destruio_.
[125] 1905 ed., pp. 17, 23, 106.
[126] _De Institutione Christianae Feminae_, Bk. I, cap. 5: ‘Tum et de
pestiferis libris cuiusmodi sunt in Hispania [= the whole Peninsula],
Amadisius, Splandianus, Florisandus, Tirantus, Tristanus, quarum
ineptiarum nullus est finis; quotidie prodeunt novae: Caelistina
laena, nequitiarum parens, carcer amorum: in Gallia Lancilotus a Lacu,
Paris et Vienna, Ponthus et Sydonia, Petrus Provincialis et Magelona,
Melusina, domina inexorabilis: in hac Belgica Florius et Albus Flos,
Leonella et Cana morus, Curias et Floreta, Pyramus et Thisbe’ (_Ioannis
Ludovici Vivis Valentini Opera Omnia_, 7 vols., Valentiae Edetanorum,
1782-8, iv. 87). A Portuguese _Tristan_ may have existed, a Portuguese
original of _Tirant lo Blanch_ less probably, although Pedro Juan
Martorell, who began it in the Valencian or Lemosin _a ii de Giner de
lany 1460_, declares that he had not only translated it from English
into Portuguese but (_mas encara_) from Portuguese into Valencian. He
dedicated it to the _molt illustre Princep_ Ferdinand of Portugal. Very
probably the fame and origin of _Amadis_ accounted for this ‘English’
original, as mythical as the Hungarian origin of _Las Sergas de
Esplandian_, and for its alleged translation into Portuguese.
[127] Braunfels, _Versuch_: ‘Montalvo hatte, um einer Uebersetzung
den Ruhm des mustergiltigen Styls und des reinsten Kastilianisch zu
verschaffen, ein Geist ersten Rangs sein müssen, was er nicht war.’
Montalvo was probably not the real author even of the fourth book.
The words (in this _Prólogo_ of his _Amadis_), _que hasta aquí no es
memoria de ninguno ser visto_, refer not to the fourth book but to
Montalvo’s _Sergas de Esplandian_, which is conveniently replaced by
dots in T. Braga, _Questões_ (1881), p. 99, and _Hist. da Litt. Port._,
i (1909), p. 313, and which the priest in _Don Quixote_ properly
consigned to the flames.
[128] His connexion with Portugal was not voluntary. It was probably
when he was a prisoner after the battle of Aljubarrota (1385) that he
wrote the _Rimado de Palacio_, in which (st. 162) _Amadis_ is mentioned.
[129] For the later writers of Galician (second half 14th c.) see
Professor Lang’s _Cancioneiro Gallego-Castelhano_ (1902).
[130] _Lua_ (glove), _cedo_, &c., of course occur in early Spanish
prose. _Soledad_ certainly occurs in the first three books more
frequently than in other Spanish prose. The Portuguese atmosphere is
altogether absent in _Las Sergas_.
[131] Cap. 63: _o Livro d’Amadis, como quer que soomente este fosse
feito a prazer de hum homem que se chamava Vasco Lobeira em tempo d’El
Rey Dom Fernando, sendo todalas cousas do dito Liuro fingidas do Autor._
[132] _Libro das Antiguidades_ (1549), f. 32 v.: _E daqui_ [_do Porto_]
_foi natural uasco lobeira ̃q fez os primʳᵒˢ 4 libros de amadis, obra
certo muj subtil e graciosa e aprouada de todos os gallantes, mas
comos_ [so] _estas couzas se secão em nossas mãos os Castelhanos lhe
mudarão a linguoagem e atribuirão a obra assi_ [so]. This passage is,
however, absent in the earliest manuscript. The spelling _couzas_
implies a late date for its introduction.
[133] So did Faria e Sousa, but he, too, had his Lobeira doubts, and
after noting that Vasco de Lobeira was knighted by King João I says:
‘si ya no es que era otro del mismo nombre. Pero la Escritura de Amadis
se tiene por del tiempo deste Rey don Iuan’ (_Fvente de Aganipe_
(Madrid, 1646), § 10). The obvious sympathy of the author for the
_escudero viejo_ who is knighted in _Amadis_ (ii. 13, 14) amidst the
laughter of the Court ladies is perhaps significant.
[134] _Cronica de D. Fernando_, cap. 177. The year of his death, given
as 1403, is quite uncertain. Soares de Brito in the _Theatrum_ forms
no independent opinion: ‘Vascus de Lobeyra inter Lusitanos Scriptores
enumeratur a Faria.... Floruit tempore Fernandi Regis.’ Antonio
Sousa de Macedo, in _Flores de España_, also follows Faria: Vasco de
Lobeira _fué el primero que con gentil habilidad escribió libros de
caballerías_. Nicolás Antonio (1617-84), _Bib. Nov._, 1688 ed., ii.
322, says that Vasco de Lobeira _vulgo inter cives suos existimari
solet auctor celeberrimi inter famosa scripti_ Historia de Amadis
de Gaula ... _cuius laudes nos inter Anonymos curiose collegimus.
Ostendere autem Lusitanos Amadisium hunc Lusitane loquentem, uti
Castellani Castellanum ostendunt, ius et aequum esset in dubia re
ne verbis tantum agerent._ The challenge in the last sentence is of
interest, as coming in date between the two statements (by Leite
Ferreira and the Conde da Ericeira) asserting the existence of the
Portuguese text.
[135] There was a Canon of Santiago of this name in 1295, and he may
have come to the Portuguese Court on business concerning certain
privileges of the Chapter which King Dinis confirmed in 1324.
[136] _Hist. da Litt. Port._ i (1909).
[137] In the document the only son mentioned is named Gonçalo.
[138] Zurara, loc. cit., _cousas fingidas_; López de Ayala, _mentiras
probadas_. According to D. Francisco de Portugal (_Arte de Galantería_,
p. 146) such lies could only be written in Spanish (_en la Portuguesa
no se podía mentir tanto_). Portugal was writing in Spanish.
[139] _Agiologio Lusitano_, i (1652), p. 410: _E por seu mandado_ [of
the Infante Pedro, son of João I] _trasladou de Frances em a nossa
lingua Pero Lobeiro_ [so], _Tabalião d’Eluas, o liuro de Amadis._
§ 2
_Epic and Later Galician Poetry_
Some of the poems of the early _Cancioneiros_, as we have seen, have
an historical character, but they are all written from a personal
point of view. Portuguese history, with its heroic achievements such
as the conquest of Algarve, seems to have begun just too late to be
the subject of great anonymous epics, or rather the temperament of the
Portuguese people eschewed them. Of five poems, long believed to be the
earliest examples of Portuguese verse but no longer accepted by any
sane critic as genuine, only one belongs to epic poetry. This _Poema da
Cava_ or _da Perda de Espanha_ was an infant prodigy indeed, since it
was supposed to have been written (in _oitavas_) in the eighth century.
With a discretion passing that of Horace it kept itself from the world
not for nine but nine hundred years, and was first published in Leitão
de Andrada’s _Miscellanea_ (1629)[140]: _O rouço da Cava imprio de tal
sanha_, &c.
Of the four other spurious poems, two[141] were alleged to be love
letters of Egas Moniz Coelho, a cousin of the celebrated Egas Moniz
Coelho of the twelfth century; another, published by Bernardo de
Brito,[142] _Tinherabos nam tinherabos_, has a real charm as gibberish.
Fascination, of a different kind, attaches also to the fifth:
No figueiral figueiredo, no figueiral entrei:
Tres niñas encontrara, tres niñas encontrei,
for if this poem is not genuine, and the fact that it was first
published by Brito[143] at once lays it open to grave suspicion, it
is nevertheless undoubtedly based on popular tradition of a yearly
tribute of maidens to the Moors such as the Greeks paid to the
Minotaur, and must be the echo of some Algarvian song. Its simple
repetitions have a haunting rhythm, but they are perhaps a little
too emphatic. The impression is that its author had been struck by
the repetitions in songs heard on the lips of the people, perhaps
crooned to him in his infancy (cf. _Miscellanea_, p. 25: _sendo eu
muito menino_), and worked them up in this poem. One early epic poem
Portugal undoubtedly possessed, the _Poema da Batalha do Salado_, by
AFONSO GIRALDEZ, who himself probably took part in the battle (1340).
The subject of the poem is the same as that of the Spanish _Poema de
Alfonso Onceno_, but whether its treatment was similar we cannot say,
as only forty lines of the Galician-Portuguese poem survive. Since
the authorship of the Spanish poem is doubtful and its rhymes run
more naturally in Galician than in Spanish, the theory has arisen,
among others, that Rodrigo Yannez, whose name perhaps denotes a
connexion with Galicia, merely translated the poem of Afonso Giraldez.
But against this it is argued that Yannez or Eanez was a Galician
or wrote Galician lyrics (there are several poets of that name in
the _Cancioneiro da Vaticana_), and when called upon to compose an
epic--for Spain a late epic--chose Castilian, the traditional language
of such poetry, and in executing his design found that his enthusiasm
had outrun his knowledge of Castilian.[144] It is not strange if so
brilliant a victory inspired two poets independently with its theme.
It is perhaps more extraordinary that both should have chosen a metre
(8 + 8) which has called for remark as showing the _romance_ through
the _cantar de gesta_.[145] Frei Antonio Brandão, indeed, called the
Portuguese poem a _romance_, a type of poem which did not exist in the
fourteenth century. Since the battle was fought in Spain it would be
considered in Brandão’s day a proper subject for a _romance_, but would
be noticeable as being written in Galician. Castilian was throughout
the Peninsula regarded as the fitting medium for the _romance_, as
for its father the epic, just as, a century earlier, Galician was the
universal language of the lyric.[146] Portuguese poets, if they wrote
a _romance_, would usually do so in Spanish. The best-known instance
is Gil Vicente’s fine poem (_muy sentido y galan_ as the 1720 editor
says) of _D. Duardos e Flerida_, which only belongs to Portuguese
literature through the excellent ‘translation of the Cavalheiro de
Oliveira’, among whose papers Garrett professed to have found it.
Portugal possessed no epic _cantares de gesta_ of her own, had not
therefore the stuff out of which the _romances_ were formed, and the
birth of the _romance_ coincided with the predominance of Spanish
influence in Spain. It is therefore surprising to find in Portugal a
large number of _romances_ unconnected with Spain, the explanation
being that, having accepted with characteristic enthusiasm the new
thing imported from abroad, the Portuguese turned to congenial themes,
of love, religion, and adventure. Had the _romances_ been elaborated
in the same way as in Spain, we might have expected a large number of
anonymous Portuguese _romances_ dealing with the Breton cycle, and
indeed with early Portuguese history, so rich in heroic incidents.
The fact that this is not the case and the number of _romances_
collected in Tras-os-Montes alike point to their Spanish origin, while
their frequency in the Azores denotes how popular they became later
in Portugal. In the sixteenth century their Spanish character was
recognized. The poor _escudeiro_ in _Eufrosina_ is bidden go to Spain
to gloss _romances_, and in the seventeenth century, as a passage
in Mello’s _Fidalgo Aprendiz_ well shows, they were better liked if
written in Spanish. The partiality for Spanish applied to poetry of
other kinds, and Manuel de Galhegos says (1635) that it is a bold
venture to publish poetry in Portuguese.[147] But it did not as a rule
extend to popular poetry. It is therefore noteworthy that the nurse
in Gil Vicente sings _romances_ in Spanish.[148] Dr. Theophilo Braga,
who considers Spanish influence on the _romances_ in Portugal to have
been ‘late and insignificant’,[149] is obliged, in order to support
his argument, to quote not Portuguese but Spanish _romances_.[150] Nor
is it a happy contention that Portuguese _romances_ were not printed
owing to _desleixo_, since the publication of Spanish _romances_ at
Lisbon cannot be attributed merely to a craze for things foreign.
More persuasive is the theory, developed by D. Carolina Michaëlis de
Vasconcellos,[151] that many _romances_ in Spanish were the work of
Portuguese poets, especially those related to the Breton cycle, such as
_Ferido está Don Tristan_, those concerned with the sea, and those of
a soft lyrical character, as _Fonte Frida_ and _La Bella Malmaridada_.
However that may be, the fact that _romances_ appear on the lips of
the people in Gil Vicente, that is, before the publication of the
_romanceros_, indicates how rapidly their popularity spread,[152]
and accounts for their numerous progeny in Portugal, collected in
the nineteenth century. True historical _romances_ the Portuguese
did not possess, unless we are to consider that certain lines which
occur in Vicente’s parody of _Yo me estaba allá en Coimbra_, in Garcia
de Resende’s _Trovas_, and elsewhere, are echoes of a Portuguese
_romance_ on the death of Inés de Castro.[153] But that is not to
say that they did not possess _romances_, and many of these might be
almost as old as their Spanish models, although not derived directly
from _cantares de gesta_. These Portuguese _romances_ or _xacaras_ (in
the Azores _estorias_ and _aravias_) often differ from the Spanish
in a certain vagueness of outline and sentimental tone. They are
frequently of considerable length. Many of them are undoubtedly of
popular origin and have a large number of variants in different parts
of the country. If there are none to compare with _Fonte Frida_ or
_Conde Arnaldos_ (which belong to Castilian literature, whatever
the nationality of their authors), they nevertheless, with a total
lack of concentration, present many natural scenes and incidents of
affecting pathos and an attractive simplicity. One of the best and
most characteristically Portuguese is _A Nau Catharineta_, and others
almost equally famous are _Santa Iria_, _Conde Nillo_, and _Brancaflor
e Flores_. The second edition of Dr. Theophilo Braga’s _Romanceiro_
runs to nearly two thousand pages. The first two volumes contain over
150 _romances_ (together with numerous variants). Of these 5 belong to
the Carolingian, 8 to the Arthurian cycle, 63 are _romances sacros_
or _ao divino_, 11 treat of the cruel husband or unfaithful wife.
In the third volume are reprinted _romances_ composed by well-known
Portuguese authors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It must
be admitted that Spain generously repaid to Portugal the loan of the
Galician language for lyrical composition--although in each case it was
the lender’s literature that profited (especially if some of the most
beautiful Spanish _romances_ were the work of Galician or Portuguese
poets). But even after the birth of the _romance_ Spain continued to
cultivate the Galician lyric, until the second half of the fifteenth
century. The last instance is supposed to be a Galician poem by Gomez
Manrique (1412-91), uncle of the author of _Recuerde el alma dormida_,
No. 65 in the _Cancioneiro Gallego-Castelhano_. This collection,
published by Professor Lang at the suggestion of D. Carolina Michaëlis
de Vasconcellos, contains the meagre crop of Portuguese verse of the
transition period from 1350 to 1450, meagre in quality and quantity.
One name dominates the period. The love and tragic fate of MACIAS
(second half 14th c.), _o Namorado, idolo de los amantes_, gave him a
renown similar to but far exceeding that of D. Joan Soarez de Paiva
in the preceding century. As the ideal lover he is met with at every
turn in the Portuguese poetry of the fifteenth century,[154] and later
became the subject of Lope de Vega’s _Porfiar hasta morir_ (1638). Of
his story we know definitely nothing, but some lines in one of his
poems, _En meu_ _cor tenno ta lança_ and _Aquesta lança. .. me ferio_,
would appear to have inspired the famous legend which dates from the
end of the fifteenth century. Imprisoned at Arjonilla in Andalucía
for paying court to his _sennora_, he continued to address her in
song and was killed by the lance that her infuriated husband hurled
through the prison window. In an older version, that of the Constable
D. Pedro in his _Satira de felice e infelice vida_, he saved the lady
of his heart from drowning, and afterwards, as he lingered where she
had stood, was struck down by the jealous husband. According to Argote
de Molina,[155] both he and the husband served in the household of D.
Enrique de Villena (1385-1434), who was perhaps only six when Macias
died. Most of the twenty poems ascribed to Macias that survive are
written in Galician, and of many, as _Loado sejas amor_,[156] the
authorship is doubtful. Clearly his fame would act as a strong magnet
to poems of uncertain origin. The matter is of the less importance in
that these poems, however love-sick, have but little literary merit.
If the Galician JUAN RODRIGUEZ DE LA CÁMARA, a native, like Macias, of
Padron, was the real author of the _romance_ of _Conde Arnaldos_ (which
is improbable), he was a far greater poet than his friend. Both the
lyrics and the prose of his _El Sieruo libre de Amor_ are in Castilian.
Of the other two fourteenth-century Galician poets mentioned by
Santillana, FERNAM CASQUICIO and VASCO PEREZ DE CAMÕES (†1386?),[157]
no poems have survived. The latter, a knight well known at the Court
of King Ferdinand and an ancestor of Luis de Camões, played a leading
part in the troubles preceding the battle of Aljubarrota, He had come
to Portugal from Galicia, and his name appears frequently in the pages
of Fernam Lopez (where it is written Caamoões) till the year 1386. In
the middle of the sixteenth century he is mentioned by Sá de Miranda’s
brother-in-law as a Court poet corresponding to Juan de Mena in Spain.
But there were other poets whose verse was probably not inferior to
that of Perez de Camões and Casquicio. Besides Macias the _Cancioneiro
Gallego-Castelhano_ contains the names of sixteen writers whose poems
may not attain high distinction but prove that the Galician lyric
continued to be cultivated by poets in the fourteenth and first half
of the fifteenth century in Castille and Leon, Aragon and Catalonia.
The Archdeacon of Toro, GONÇALO RODRIGUEZ (fl. 1385),[158] was one of
a group of such poets; a man with a keen zest of living and capable of
vigorous verse, in which he took a characteristic delight (_a minna
boa arte de lindo cantar_). In his farewell poem _A Deus Amor, a Deus
el Rei_, which Cervantes perhaps remembered, he bids good bye to the
_trobadores con quen trobei_, and in a quaint humorous testament he
mentions a number of friends and relatives, two of whom, at least, his
cousin Pedro de Valcacer or Valcarcel and Lope de Porto Carreiro, also
wrote verse. In the last of the sixteen stanzas (_abbacca_) of this
_testamento_ the Archdeacon appoints his namesake Gonçalo Rodriguez
de Sousa and Fernan Rodriguez to be his executors. He may have been
alive in 1402, for a Doctor Gonçalo Rodriguez, Archdeacon of Almazan,
is mentioned as one of the witnesses to the oath taken by the city of
Burgos to the Infante María in that year.[159] In that case he must
have been transferred to Almazan, some 150 miles farther up the Duero.
More chequered was the career of GARCI FERRANDEZ DE GERENA (_c._
1340-_c._ 1400). Having married one of King Juan I’s dancing girls
(_una juglara_) in the belief that she was rich, he repented when he
found _que non tenia nada_. He next became a hermit near Gerena, and,
this not proving more congenial than married poverty, he embarked
ostensibly for the Holy Land, but in fact landed at Malaga with his
wife and children. At Granada he turned Moor, satirized the Christian
faith, and deserted his wife for her sister. After such proven
inconstancy we may perhaps doubt the sincerity of his repentance when
he returned to Christianity and Castille at the end of the fourteenth
century. But for all his weakness and folly he seems not to have sunk
utterly out of the reach of finer feelings; he sang various episodes
of his life, e.g. when he went to his hermitage (_puso se beato_), in
lyrics of some charm, and addressed the nightingale in a dialogue, as
did his contemporary, ALFONSO ALVAREZ DE VILLASANDINO (_c._ 1345-_c._
1428). This Castilian Court poet, born at Villasandino near Burgos
and possessed of property at Illescas, was of a sleeker and more
subservient mind than Garci Ferrandez and prospered accordingly, _en
onra e en ben e en alto estado_. He wrote to order and was considered
the ‘crown and king of all the _poetas e trovadores_ who had ever
existed in the whole of Spain’. This extravagant claim of his admirers
need not prevent us from recognizing that there is often real feeling
and music in his poems, of which the _Cancionero de Baena_ has
preserved over twenty. He writes in varying metres with unfailing ease
and harmony, rarely sinks into mere verbal dexterity, and well deserves
to be considered the best of these later Galician poets. Side by side
with the lyric the _cantiga d’escarnho_ continued to flourish. Alfonso
Alvarez (C. G. C. 48) upbraids Garci Ferrandez for renouncing the
Christian faith and leaguing himself with the Devil (_gannaste privança
do demo mayor_); Pero Velez de Guevara (†1420), uncle of the Marqués de
Santillana, addresses a satiric poem to an old maid, and an anonymous
poet in a vigorous _sirventes_ attacks degenerate Castille, _cativa,
mezela Castela_, perhaps, as Professor Lang thinks, immediately after
the Portuguese victories of Trancoso, Aljubarrota, and Valverde in
1385. Five fragmentary poems belong to the Infante D. PEDRO (1429-66),
Constable of Portugal. There are, besides his three short Portuguese
poems in the _Cancioneiro de Resende_, only forty-one lines in all, for
while Galician, already separated from her twin sister of Portugal,
went to sleep--a sleep of nearly four centuries--in these last accents
of her muse preserved in the _Cancionero de Baena_, the Infante Pedro
turned definitely to the new forms of lyric appearing in Castille. As
a transition poet he may be mentioned here before his father D. Pedro,
Duke of Coimbra, since his prose works, which would naturally place
him with his father and with D. Duarte, his uncle, belong, together
with most of his poetry (_prosas_ and _metros_) to Spanish literature.
By stress of circumstance rather than any set purpose he inaugurated
the fashion of writing in Castilian, a fashion so eagerly taken up by
his fellow-countrymen during the next two centuries. After the tragic
death of his father at Alfarrobeira (1449) he escaped from Portugal,
of which his sister Isabel was queen,[160] spent the next seven years
as an exile in Castille, and after returning to his native land died
an exile, but now as King of Aragon (1464-6). His life of thirty-seven
years was thus as full of wandering adventure as that of any troubadour
of old. To him Santillana addressed his celebrated letter on the
development of poetry, and his own influence on Portuguese literature
was important, for he introduced not only a new style of poetry,
including _oitavas de arte maior_, but the habit of classical allusion
and allegory. His first work, _Satira de felice e infelice vida_, was
written in Portuguese before he was twenty, but re-written by himself
in Castilian, the only form in which it has survived. This firstfruit
of his studies was dedicated to his sister, Queen Isabel, whose death
(1455) he mourned in his _Tragedia de la Insigne Reyna Doña Isabel_
(1457), a work of deep feeling and some literary merit, first published
by D. Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcellos 444 years after Queen Isabel’s
death. His longest and most important poem, in 125 octaves, _Coplas
del menosprecio e contempto de las cosas fermosas del mundo_ (1455),
reflects the misfortunes of his life and the high philosophy they had
brought him. Under a false attribution to his father, the Duke of
Coimbra[161] (his Portuguese poems were also wrongly ascribed to King
Peter I of Portugal, through confusion with the later King Peter, of
Aragon), it was incorporated in the _Cancioneiro de Resende_, which
appeared half a century after the Constable’s death.