[162] Lopez himself was probably of humble birth. It appears from
a document presented by Dr. Pedro de Azevedo at a meeting of the
_Sociedade Portuguesa de Estudos Historicos_ in July 1916 that his
wife’s niece was married to a shoe-maker.
[163] Zurara, _Cron. D. Joam_, cap. 2.
[164] i.e. eighty-nine years before the first English translation of
Froissart was published. Needless to say, no English translation of
Lopez exists.
[165] A facsimile of a page of this lengthy document is given in Snr.
Braamcamp Freire’s excellent edition of the _Primeira Parte da Crónica
de D. Joam I_ (1915).
[166] See A. Braamcamp Freire, ibid., pp. xl-xlii.
[167] _Fez todas as chronicas dos Reis té seu tempo, começando do
Conde dom Henrique, como prova Damião de Goes_ (Gaspar Estaço, _Varias
Antigvidades de Portugal_ (1625), cap. 21, § 1); cf. Goes, _Cron. de D.
Manuel_, iv. 38.
[168] _Nosso desejo foi em esta obra escrever verdade--nuamente--a nua
verdade_ (_Cr. D. Joam_, _Prologo_).
[169] Zurara, _Cr. D. Joam_, cap. 2. Cf. Lopez’ preface to his _Cr.
D. Joam_: _Oo com quamto cuidado e diligemçia vimos gramdes vollumes
de livros, de desvairadas linguageẽs e terras; e isso meesmo pubricas
escprituras de muitos cartarios e outros logares nas quaaes depois de
longas vegilias e gramdes trabalhos mais çertidom aver nom podemos da
contheuda em esta obra_ (1915 ed., p. 2).
[170] Usually he does this without naming the offender, but he refutes
the _razões_ of Martim Afonso de Mello, a person well known at the
Court of King João I and author of a technical book on the art of war,
_Da Guerra_ (see Zurara, _Cr. D. Joam_, cap. 99). Mello refused the
governorship of captured Ceuta in 1415. A work on a similar subject,
_Tratado da Milicia_, is ascribed to Zurara’s friend and patron. King
Afonso V (Barbosa Machado, i. 19).
[171] _Cr. del Rei D. Fern._, cap. 2: _a ordenança de nossa obra_; _Cr.
D. Joam_, 1915 ed., p. 51: _Certo he que quaaesquer estorias muito
melhor se entemdem e nembram se som perfeitamente e hem hordenadas_;
_Cr. del Rei D. Fern._, cap. 139: _guardando a regra do philosopho_ [of
cause and effect].
[172] _Antología_, iv, p. xx: _Nada hay semejante en las literaturas
extranjeras antes de fin del siglo xv._ The words apply more accurately
to Fernam Lopez.
[173] _Leixados os compostos e afeitados razoamentos_ (_Cr. D. Joam_,
_Prologo_).
[174] The references in cap. 76 and 80 to events of 1451 and 1461 are
evidently later additions.
[175] Cf. _Cr. do Cond._, cap. 14 and 15, with _Cr. del Rei Fern._,
cap. 166.
[176] A. Braamcamp Freire, _Cr. de D. Joam_ (1915), _Introdução_, p.
xxi.
[177] By Matheus de Pisano (whom some have considered the son of
Christine de Pisan). He wrote in Latin: _De Bello Septensi_ (_Ined.
de Hist. Port._, vol. i, 1790), Portuguese tr. Roberto Correia Pinto:
_Livro da Guerra de Ceuta_ (1916).
[178] _Não seja porem algum de tam simples conhecimento que presuma que
este é o teor propria_, &c. (cap. 95).
[179] But he can also be picturesque in expressing time (like Lopez,
who for ‘early morning’ says, ‘at the time when people were coming from
Mass’), e.g. _Cr. D. Joam_, cap. 102 _ad fin._: Ceuta had been captured
so swiftly that ‘many had left the corn of their fields stored in their
granaries and returned in time for the vintage’. The whole description
of the expedition against Ceuta and the attack and sack of the city are
extremely clear.
[180] Cf. Goes, _Cr. D. Manuel_: _escrevia com razoamentos prolixos e
cheos de metaforicas figuras que no estilo historico não tem lugar_;
_Cr. do Princ. D. Joam_, cap. 17: _com a superflua abundancia e copia
de palavras poeticas e metaforicas que usou em todalas cousas que
screveo_. His style is less involved than is often said. Some of his
sentences may contain as many as 500 words and yet be perfectly plain
and straightforward, whereas Mallarmé could be obscure in five words.
[181] Cf. cap. 2: _Oo tu principe pouco menos que devinal!_ and _Tua
gloria, teus louvores, tua fama enchem assi as minhas orelhas e ocupam
a minha vista que nom sei a qual parte acuda primeiro._ This chronicle
has the same plethora of learned quotations. Chapter 1 quotes St.
Thomas, Solomon, Tully, the Book of Esther, and introduces Afonso V,
King Duarte, the French duke Jean de Lançon, the Cid, Nun’ Alvarez,
Moses, Fabricius, Joshua, and King Ramiro.
[182] He re-wrote the _Cronica do Conde D. Pedro de Meneses_ twice.
João de Barros, who was inclined to slight earlier and contemporary
historians, acknowledges his great debt to Zurara. Damião de Goes
regards him less favourably.
[183] November 22, 1467 (_Coll. Liv. Ined._ iii. 3-5). There is also an
affectionate letter from King Pedro of Aragon to Zurara, dated June 11,
1466, or 1460.
[184] Zurara, on the other hand, with feigned diffidence represents
himself as ‘a poor scholar’, ‘a man almost entirely ignorant and
without any knowledge’, and if he has any learning it is but the crumbs
from King Afonso’s table (_Cr. D. Pedro_, cap. 2). He can rise to
real eloquence, as in the beginning of cap. 25 of the _Cr. da Guiné_:
_Oo tu cellestrial padre, que com tua poderosa maão, sem movimento
de tu devynal essencia, governas toda a infiinda companhya da tua
sancta cidade_, &c., or sober down into a Tacitean phrase such as
that of cap. 26, describing the fate of natives of Africa brought to
Portugal: _morriam, empero xraãos_ (they died, but Christians). He has
a misleading trick of saying ‘The author says--_diz o autor_’, meaning
himself.
[185] _Nunca me em ello quis leixar obrar segundo meu desejo_ (_Cr. D.
Pedro_, cap. 1).
[186] His son Fernam de Pina became _Cronista Môr_ in 1523. The
immediate successor of Zurara as _Cronista Môr_ was VASCO FERNANDEZ
DE LUCENA, whose life must have coincided almost exactly with the
sixteenth century. He represented King Duarte at the Council of Basel
in 1435, and according to Barbosa Machado, who calls him _um dos varões
mais famosos da sua idade assim na profundidade da litteratura como na
eloquencia da frase_, he was still living in 1499. Unfortunately none
of his works have survived. His manuscript translation of Cicero’s _De
Senectute_ and other works were destroyed in the Lisbon earthquake
(1755).
[187] Much later, in the first third of the seventeenth century,
CASPAR DIAZ DE LANDIM wrote a _copiosa relação_ from a point of view
unfavourable to D. Pedro and dedicated it to the Duke of Braganza: _O
Infante D. Pedro, Chronica Inedita_, 3 vols. (1893-4).
[188] _Tudo o contheudo no siguiente trautado eu o uy e ouuy_ (1911
ed., p. 2).
[189] 1911 ed., p. 117: Ichoa (= Blind). The fact that no other name is
given shows that then as now Basques were known by their nicknames. The
same name figures in ‘Pierre Loti’s’ _Ramuntcho_ (1897): Itchoua. In
the sixteenth century Martim Ichoa and João de Ychoa appear among the
_moradores_ of King Manuel’s household (1518). The substantive _ichó_
(= _armadilha_), derived from _ostiolum_, is used by Diogo Fernandez
Ferreira (_Arte da Caça_) and Garcia de Resende (_Cron. João II_).
[190] The extremely interesting list of his important library has been
published in _Provas Genealogicas_, i. 544, in the 1842 ed. of _Leal
Conselheiro_, and edited by Dr. T. Braga in _Historia da Univ. de
Coimbra_, i. 209. It contained _O Acypreste de Fysa_ (= the Archpriest
of Hita) and _O Amante_, i. e. the translation by Robert Payne, Canon
of Lisbon, of Gower’s _Confessio Amantis_.
[191] p. 9, _Fiz tralladar em el alguus capitullos doutros livros_: the
_Vita Christi_, St. Thomas Aquinas, Diogo Afonso Mangancha on Prudence,
Cicero, _De Officiis_, St. Gregory.
[192] It contains papers written at various times (between 1428 and
1438). The date 1435 occurs p. 474. Cf. p. 169, King João I (†1433),
_cuja alma Deos aja_.
[193] His modern editor, José Ignacio Roquette (1801-70), comments (p.
37) on the passage _he bem de lavrar e criarem_ as a great grammatical
_discordancia_ and _erro_, but it is by no means certain that King
Duarte did not omit one of the personal infinitives deliberately, for
the sake of euphony, as the _-mente_ is omitted in the case of two or
more adverbs.
[194] _Corregendo e acrecentando o que entendeo ser compridoiro acabou
o liuro adeante scripto._
[195] Damião de Goes (_Cr. do Pr. D. Joam_, cap. 88) says 1476. His
father Diogo Fernandez was _Reposteiro Môr_ at the Court of King
Duarte, and his mother a half-sister of the Archbishop of Braga. One of
his sons was the famous and unfortunate Viceroy of India (1505-9), D.
Francisco de Almeida.
[196] Seventy-four black-letter double column folios, unnumbered, of
fifty lines each. The colophon runs: _Acabouse do_ [so] _emprimir este
lyuro chamado boosco delleytoso solitario p. Hermã de cãpos bombardeiro
del Rey nosso Sẽhor cõ graça & preuilegio de sua alteza em ha muy
nobrem_ [so] _& sempre leal çidad_ [so] _de lixboa cõ muy grande
dilligencia. Ano da encarnaçã de nosso Saluador & Redentor jhesu x̃po.
De mil & quinientos & quinze a vinte quatro de Mayo_ (_Bib. Nacional
de Lisboa_, Res. 176 A [lacking f. 1]). Nicolás Antonio thus refers
to the work (_Bib. Nova_, ii. 402): _Anonymus, Lusitanus, scripsit &
nuncupavit Serenissimae Eleonorae Reginae Ioanis II Portugalliae Regis
Coniugi librum ita inscriptum. Bosco deleitoso. Olisipone 1515._
[197] He can do _ho que lhe praz_; at sunrise he goes up _alguũ outeiro
de boo & saaom aar_ far from the _delleytaçoões do mundo_, _arroydo do
segre_ and _os auollimentos & trasfegos das çidades_.
[198] The _malauẽturado negociador que ̃qr seer rico tostemẽte_.
[199] See _Grundriss_, p. 249, and _Divi Lavrentii Ivstiniani
Protopatriarchae Veneti opera Omnia_ (Coloniae, 1616), pp. 728-70: _De
Vita Solitaria_.
[200] Cf. 1910 ed., pp. 1, 4. The writer claims to be only a compiler:
_começo este livro nom como autor e achador das cousas em elle
contheudas mas como simprez aiuntador dellas em huũ vellume_. It has
been attributed to the Infante D. Pedro and to João I.
[201] e.g. p. 85: _Ca per entender entende o entendedor e per entender
é entendido o entendido e o entendedor entende que elle mesmo é Deos._
[202] The title is simply _Ho Flos Sctõrȝ em lingoajẽ ̃porgueˢ_. The
colophon says that it _se chama ystorea lombarda pero comuũmente se
chama flos sanctorum_.
[203] _Aqui se começa ha payxam do eterno Principe christo Jhesu nosso
Senhor & saluador segundo os sanctos quatro euangelistas._
[204] The only known copy exists in the Biblioteca Nacional, Lisbon.
The colophon (in Spanish) gives the alternative title (_das tres
virtudes_). The French original was also called _Trésor de la Cité des
Dames_.
[205] See J. Leite de Vasconcellos, _Lições de Philologia Portuguesa_,
p. 137.
§ 4
_The Cancioneiro Geral_
The silence that falls on Portuguese poetry after the early
_Cancioneiros_ lasts for over a century, scarcely interrupted by the
twilight murmurings of the later Galician poets, and is only broken
for us by the publication of the _Cancioneiro Geral_ five years before
the death of King Manuel. The native _trovas_ had no doubt continued
to be written by many poets in a country where poetry is scarcely
rarer than prose, far commoner than good prose. But no one had cared
to preserve them in a collection corresponding to the _Cancionero de
Baena_ in Spain. When Portuguese poetry again emerges into the clear
light of day Spanish influence is in full swing and behind it looms
that of Italian poetry, the natural continuation of one side of the
_Cancioneiro da Vaticana_. No Spanish poet now writes in Portuguese,
many Portuguese in Spanish. Popular poetry and royal troubadours have
alike disappeared, leaving a narrow circle of Court rhymesters. It is
to one of these that we owe the collection which embraces the poetry
of the day, from the middle of the fifteenth century to the actual
year of publication, 1516. Stout, good-natured GARCIA DE RESENDE (_c._
1470-1536), a favourite alike with king and courtiers, often the butt
of the Court poets’ wit--he is a tunny, a barrel, a wineskin, a melon
in August--belonged to an old family which in the sixteenth century
distinguished itself in literature. Born at Evora and brought up in
the palace as page and then as secretary of King João II, he had every
opportunity of observing the events which he so graphically describes
in his _Vida de Dom João II_ (1545).[206] Talented and many-sided,
Resende continued in high favour during the succeeding reigns: in
1498 as secretary he accompanied King Manuel to Castille and Aragon,
and in 1514 was chosen for the much coveted post of secretary to
Tristão da Cunha’s mission to Rome with wonderful presents for Pope
Leo X. Resende not only drew and wrote verses but was a musician and
an accomplished singer: _de tudo intende_ laughed his friend Gil
Vicente. Perhaps it only required the stress of adversity to inspire
to greatness this blunted, prosperous courtier--_fidalgo da casa del
Rei_. He was not a great poet, although he excelled the Court poets of
the fifteenth century. As historian he has been unjustly condemned. If
in his Chronicle of João II he made use of Ruy de Pina’s manuscript
chronicle, first published in 1792, it must be remembered that it was
customary for the official historians to regard their predecessors as
existing mainly for purposes of plagiarism. Herculano called Resende’s
chronicle a poor bundle of anecdotes,[207] and no doubt Resende was not
a Herculano nor a Fernam Lopez but a more limited Court chronicler.
He is none the less delightful because he deals not in tendencies
and abstractions but in concrete details and persons, Court persons.
With an artist’s eye for the picturesque he makes his readers see the
event described, and his chronicle is throughout singularly vivid and
dramatic. He is certainly an attractive writer, and perhaps he is
also instructive. The incident, for instance, of the Duke of Braganza
being kept waiting while a scaffold of the latest Paris pattern is
being erected for his execution (1483), which a grander historian
might have omitted, is possibly not without its significance and
shows _francesismo_ in action four centuries before Eça de Queiroz.
Besides various minor works in prose Resende composed, not without
misgiving,[208] a long survey of the events of his day in some 300
_decimas_: _Miscellania e Variedade de Historias_, which throws curious
and valuable light on the times. His literary work was prompted by a
real desire to serve his country. His delicate appreciation of the
past appears in his remarkable and charming verses on the death of
Inés de Castro; and wishing in so far as lay in his power to remedy
the Portuguese neglect which had allowed so many poems and records and
_gentilezas_ to perish, he collected what he could of past and present
poets and published them in one great volume which he dedicated to
the Infante João: _Cancioneiro Geral_ (1516), often known as the
_Cancioneiro de Resende_ to distinguish it from the Spanish _Cancionero
General_ (1511). Resende wrote to the poets of his acquaintance
requesting them in verse to send him their poems, and they sent him
answers, also in verse, accompanying their poems.[209] The receipt of
these he would acknowledge as editor, promising, still in verse, to
have them printed. Politeness no doubt induced him to include more
than his judgement warranted, for his own poems are superior to those
of most of his contemporaries. A large number of the _Cancioneiro’s_
poems--some 1,000 poems by between 100 and 200 poets--should scarcely
have been included, for, however well they might answer their purpose
as occasional verse, they were not intended as a possession for ever,
and massed together produce an effect of dull and endless triviality.
These love poems can indeed be as monotonous, the satiric poems as
coarse, licentious, and irreverent, as those of the _Cancioneiro da
Vaticana_. One of the poets, D. João Manuel, like King Alfonso X of
old, does beseech his colleagues to cease singing of Cupid and Macias
and turn to religious subjects. But it was not Garcia de Resende’s
purpose to include religious verse. Poems recording great deeds and
occasions he would gladly have printed in larger number, but, as he
(among others) complained in his preface, it was characteristic of the
Portuguese not to record their deeds in literary form. Satiric verses
he included in plenty, satire being one of the recognized functions
of the poet’s art: _per trouas sam castigados_.[210] But if we turn
to the poems of his collection we are amazed by the pettiness of the
subjects, and our amazement grows when we remember that this was the
period in the world’s whole history most calculated to awe and inspire
men’s minds with the thought of vast new horizons. While Columbus
was discovering America, Bartholomeu Diaz rounding the Cape of Good
Hope, Vasco da Gama sailing to India, or Afonso de Albuquerque making
desperate appeals for men and money to enable him to maintain his
brilliant conquests, the Court poets were versifying on an incorrectly
addressed letter, a lock of hair, a dingy head-dress, a very lean
and aged mule, the sad fate of a lady marrying away from the Court
in Beira, a quarrel between a tenor and soprano, a courtier’s velvet
cap or hat of blue silk, a button more or less on a coat, the length
of spurs, fashions in sleeves: themes, as José Agostinho de Macedo
might say, ‘prodigiously frivolous’. When news reached Lisbon of the
tragic death of D. Francisco de Almeida and of the defeat of Afonso
de Albuquerque[211] and the Marshal D. Fernando de Coutinho before
Calicut, with the death of the latter, Bras da Costa wrote to Garcia
de Resende that at this rate he would prefer to have no pepper, and
Resende answered that for his part he certainly had no intention of
embarking. But, as a rule, such events received not even so trivial a
comment, and no doubt the poets felt that the verse which served to
pass the time at the _serões_ was inadequate to any great occasion.
But the _trovador segundo as trovas de aquelle tempo_[212] had little
idea of what subjects were suitable or unsuitable to poetry. A typical
instance of the themes in which they delighted is an event which seems
to have produced a greater impression than the discovery of new worlds:
the return from Castille of a gentleman of the Portuguese Court wearing
a large velvet cap. For over 300 lines of verse this cap is bandied
to and fro by the witty poets. It must weigh four hundredweight, says
one. Another advises him to lock it up _em arcaaz_ until he can turn it
into a doublet; another bids him sell it in the Jews’ quarter. Small
wonder, chimes in a fourth, that no galleys come now with velvet from
Venice.[213] ‘I would not wear it at a _serão_, not for a million,’
says another. ‘A Samson could not wear it all one summer,’ is the
comment of a sixth. Another remarks that he would rather read Lucan
(or Lucian) (_antes leria por luçam_) in the heat of the day than
wear it. ‘He will need a cart to bring it to the _serão_,’ says yet
another. The wit, it will be seen, is not brilliant, although it may
have effectively nipped this budding Castilian fashion and enlivened an
evening. But there were duller contests. For score on score of pages
the rival merits of sighing and of loving in silence are discussed by
poet after poet (_O Cuidar e Sospirar_). Such a subject once started
tended to accumulate verses like a snowball. But the _Cancioneiro_
also contains poems on serious topics, although they are rarer, as
well as delicate, airy nothings (_sutiles nadas_) like Vimioso’s
_vilancetes_.[214] There are two poems on the death of King João II,
there is Luis Anriquez’ lamentation on the death of the Infante Afonso
(1491), that of Luis de Azevedo on the death of the Infante Pedro, Duke
of Coimbra, at Alfarrobeira, and a few poets, like Resende himself,
stand out from the rest. Besides the elaborate Spanish poem by that
noble prince the Constable D. Pedro we have several long poems dealing
with high matters of the soul or the State. The sixty-one interesting
stanzas by the querulous, satirical, intolerant ALVARO DE BRITO
PESTANA treat of the condition of the city of Lisbon and the decay of
morals. The correspondent of Gomez Manrique and contemporary of his
nephew Jorge, in the metre of whose famous _Coplas_ he wrote, he was
present at the battle of Alfarrobeira. His _trovas_ on the death of
Prince Afonso, with the recurrent _choremos perda tamanha_, are wooden
and artificial and his sixteen alliterative verses scarcely belong
to literature, but at least he chose themes which were not concerned
with passing Court fashions. The few simple lines written as he lay
dying show him at his best.[215] His friend and distant relative
FERNAM DA SILVEIRA, _o Coudel Môr_, is concerned with more mundane
matters. A man of noble birth and high character, he was held in great
honour by Afonso V and João II. The latter, a keen judge of men, had
implicit confidence in the justice of this upright magistrate, who
was also a soldier, a poet, and a finished courtier. He deals with
affairs of State, writes an account in _trovas_ of six syllables of
the _Cortes_ held by the king at Montemôr in 1477 and a short poem, on
the appointment of various bishops in 1485. Or he sends a poem to his
nephew Garcia de Mello with detailed instructions as to how he should
dress and behave at Court. His _trovas_ are thoroughly Portuguese,
vigorous, concise, and picturesque. He is less at home in the _trovas
de poesia_ (i. e. _de arte mayor_) written on a journey from Évora to
Thomar, but he could skilfully turn a short love poem, and for a wager
of capons for Easter (with Álvaro de Brito) wrote a stanza containing
as many rhymes as it has words. In fine he belonged to his age, but
his poetry bears the impress of his strong character and his love of
Portuguese ways. On the other hand, the younger brother of the Conde
de Cantanhede, D. JOÃO DE MENESES (†1514), wrote indifferently in
Portuguese or Spanish. He fought for many years in Africa, although
his slight love poems, fluent and harmonious, give no sign of a life
of action, and died in the expedition against Azamor.[216] Another
soldier, courtier, and poet marked out by birth and ability was D. JOÃO
MANUEL (_c._ 1460-99), son of the Bishop of Guarda. Legitimized in 1475
and brought up at Court with the prince Manuel, he continued to be a
favourite after the latter’s accession, became Lord High Chamberlain,
and was sent to the Court of Castille in 1499 to arrange the marriage
of the king with the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. In Spanish
octaves he had written a lament on the death of Prince Afonso, which
both in feeling and technique excels the verses of Álvaro de Brito on
the same subject. Towards the end of his poem he introduces the saying
of St. Augustine that ‘our soul exists not where it lives but where
it loves’, which in the following century was quoted by two writers
so different as Ferreira de Vasconcellos and Frei Heitor Pinto and
soon became a commonplace. In other works he shows a high seriousness,
sometimes a sententious strain, combined with a very real poetical
talent. His death during his mission to Castille was a loss for the
Court and for Portuguese poetry. By another writer, FERNAM DA SILVEIRA
(†1489), we have but a few poems, the principal of which is a lament
for his own death, in the metre of Manrique, which he places on the
lips of various ladies of the Court. His death was tragic, for, having
succeeded his father as secretary to King João II, he took part in
the ill-fated conspiracy of the Duke of Viseu. After lying hidden in
the house of a friend he fled in disguise to Castille and thence to
France, but, although he thus succeeded in prolonging his life for
five years, the king’s justice relentlessly pursued and he was stabbed
to death at Avignon. A favourite of João II, especially before his
accession, was NUNO PEREIRA (fl. 1485), _homem galante, cortesão e bom
trovador_, who married the daughter of the _Coudel Môr_ and valiantly
sustained the part of _Cuidar_ against his relative Jorge da Silveira’s
_Sospirar_ in the great literary tournament of the courtiers. Later,
after serving as Governor (_Alcaide_) of the town of Portel, he retired
to live in the country, and presents a happy picture of himself in the
midst of harvesters and pruners. He finds, he says, more pleasure in
his vines, in the chase, in digging and watering his garden, than in
being a favourite at Court. He had not always thought thus, for when
the lady he was courting married a rival he could devise no worse fate
for her than to bid her go and die among the chestnut groves of Beira.
He had, indeed, made a name for himself by his courtly satire, which
he turned to good use in ridiculing those who came back from Castille
with a supercilious disdain for everything Portuguese. It is pleasant
to find him bidding them not speak their ‘insipid Castilian’ in his
presence. DIOGO BRANDAM (†1530) of Oporto wrote an elaborate poem in
octaves on the death of King João II. He also used the octosyllabic
metre with breaks of single lines (_quebrados_) of four syllables, so
familiar in Gil Vicente’s plays, and in his _Fingimento de Amores_
(27 verses of 8 octosyllabic lines), under Spanish-Italian influence,
he touches a richer, more generous vein of poetry: the poet-lover
descends into the region of Proserpine, the dominion of Pluto, and sees
the torments of Love’s followers. His _vilancete_ to the Virgin is in
the same metre with the difference that the verses have seven lines
only (_abbaacc_). The spirit of Jorge de Manrique is absent from the
stanzas written in the metre of his _Coplas_ by LUIS ANRIQUEZ on the
fatal accident which ended the life of Prince Afonso in his teens.
His lamentation on the death of King João II is written in octaves, as
that of Diogo Brandam, which they resemble. Both poets invoke Death: _Ó
morte que matas quem é prosperado_ (Brandam); _Ó morte que matas sem
tempo e sazam_ (Anriquez). Other historical poems by Anriquez in the
same metre are the verses written on the occasion of the transference
of the remains of João II and thirty-five stanzas addressed to James,
Duke of Braganza, when he left Lisbon with his fleet to attack Azamor
in 1513. If we turn from these somewhat heavy pieces to Anriquez’
other poems we find a hymn in praise of the Virgin, written more in
the manner of Alfonso X, and various love _cantigas_. The nephew of
D. João de Meneses, Joam rroiz de saa, that is, JOAM RODRIGUEZ DE
SÁ E MENESES (1465?-1576), studied in Italy as a disciple of Angelo
Poliziano (†1594) and died a centenarian. He wrote a poem in _decimas_
describing the arms of the noble families of Portugal, and translated
into _trovas_ three long letters from the Latin which by their spirit
of _saudade_ appealed to Portuguese taste: Penelope to Ulysses,
Laodamia to Protesilaus, and Dido to Aeneas. He was also versed in
the Greek language, and for his noble character and courtly ways as
well as for his learning and poetical talent was venerated by the
younger generation into which he lived: Antonio Ferreira salutes him
as the ‘ancient sire of the muses of this land’. The ‘most discreet’
D. FRANCISCO DE PORTUGAL, first Conde de Vimioso (†1549), although he
did not live to be a centenarian, also survived most of the poets of
João II’s reign and died towards the end of that of João III. Son of
the Bishop of Evora and great-grandson of the first Duke of Braganza,
he was created a count by King Manuel in 1515, and was equally renowned
as soldier, statesman, courtier, and poet, ‘wise and prudent in peace
and war’. His _Sentenças_ (1605), over one hundred of which are rhymed
quatrains, were published by his grandson D. Anrique de Portugal. Some
of these moral sayings have considerable subtlety, and they reveal a
fine character and insight into the character of others.[217] Most of
his poems, in Spanish and Portuguese, preserved in the _Cancioneiro_
are brief _cantigas_ which prove him to have been a skillful versifier
and a typical Court poet. On the other hand, a feeling for Nature, a
constant command of metre, and a certain passionate sadness mark out
an earlier poet, DUARTE DE BRITO (fl. 1490), the friend of D. João
de Meneses, from most of the other writers in Resende’s song-book.
The _redondilha_ in his hands is no wooden toy but a living, moving
instrument. His most celebrated poem, _em que conta o que a ele & a
outro lhaconteçeo com huũ rrousinol & muitas outras cousas que vio_,
is written after the fashion of Diogo Brandam’s _Fingimento de Amores_
and Garci Sanchez de Badajoz’ _Infierno de Amor_, in imitation of the
Marqués de Santillana’s _El Infierno de los Enamorados_; but there
is real feeling in these eighty verses of eleven lines (of which the
eighth and eleventh are of four, the rest of eight syllables). The
Italian influence, working through Spanish, was already present in
Portuguese poetry in the fifteenth century, although Brito writes
exclusively in _redondilhas_, as indeed does the introducer of the new
style, Sá de Miranda, in the few and short poems which he contributed
to the _Cancioneiro_ immediately before its publication. Duarte de
Brito did not condescend to those artificial devices which give us
in this _Cancioneiro_ a poem of sixty lines all ending in _dos_,
alliterative stanzas, and other verbal tricks. The real business of the
_serões_, so far as poetry was concerned, was _ouvir e glosar motes_.
These _glosas_ and the similar _cantigas_ and _esparsas_, short poems
of fixed form, often written with skill and spontaneous charm, were
merely one of the necessary accomplishments of a courtier. Such a view
of poetry could scarcely give rise to great poets, and these versifiers
indeed styled themselves _trovadores_, reserving the name of poet for
those who wrote, often but clumsily, in _versos de arte mayor, de muita
poesia_. But, worse still, the poets of the _Cancioneiro_ were often
scarcely Portuguese.[218] Many wrote in Spanish, and Spanish influence
is to be found at every turn: that of Juan de Mena, Gomez and Jorge
Manrique, Rodriguez de la Cámara, Macias, Santillana. Unlike Macias,
who is but a name, Santillana is not mentioned, but his influence is
constantly felt. On the other hand, King Dinis, unexpectedly introduced
once as a poet by Pedro Homem (fl. 1490)--_invoco el rei dom Denis
Da licença Daretusa_--is nowhere imitated. By method, subject, and
foreign imitation, this Court poetry was thus inevitably artificial and
uninspired. Perhaps in the whole _Cancioneiro_ the only poem marked by
authentic fire is that of the obscure FRANCISCO DE SOUSA--the few lines
beginning _Ó montes erguidos, Deixai-vos cair_. The contributions of Sá
de Miranda, as those of three other famous poets, give no sign of the
coming greatness of the contributor. The names of the other three are
Bernardim Ribeiro, Cristovam Falcão, and the prince of all these poets,
here the humblest of Cinderellas, Gil Vicente.