68 The following passage with which this eclogue commences, affords a fair specimen of Miranda’s style, while at the same time it presents nothing very obscure to the foreign reader:—
69 The following elegant and simple stanzas form the commencement of the first cantiga which is sung by the complaining shepherd Gonçalo:—
70 For example:—
71 For example:—
72 He says in his fifth epistle:—
73 The following are the two first stanzas of the Cançaõ à Nossa Senhora.
75 The following passage will afford a specimen of the style of this elegy:—
76 See the History of Italian Literature, vol. ii. p. 171.
77 Only a short specimen can conveniently be quoted here. In the fifth act of the Estrangeiros a servant who has met with a misfortune in the street calls aloud for justice, and an old man, named Reynaldo, interposes his remarks. Callidio. Regedores, Cidadães, homens de bem, os grandes, et os pequenos todos me acodi, todos me valei que a todos releva, se aqui ha alguma lembrança de liberdade, et justiça.
Reynaldo. Tamanhas duas cousas cuydavas tu d’achar assipollas ruas?
Callidio. No meyo do dia, no meyo de Palermo naõ me ouve ninguem, naõ me acode ninguem.
Reynaldo. Callate ora com teu mal.
Callidio. Que fazem aqui tantas varas de justiça?
Reynaldo. Que riso!
Callidio. Todo o mundo dorme?
Reynaldo. Dormes? tu sonhas? tu tresvalias?
Callidio. Ah cidadães que todos somos escravos.
Reynaldo. Ja vay entrando em seu acordo.-
Callidio. Assi ha isto de passar? Esfoloume, açoutoume, matoume, se me a justiça, naõ acode acaberey de entender que faz cada hum nesta terra o que lhe vem à vontade, e farey tambem o que me a minha mais der que faça.
78 In his dedication of the Estrangeiros to Cardinal Henry, he says:—
A comedia qual he, tal vay, aldeaã e mal ataviada. Esta sò lembranza lhe fiz à partida, que se naõ desculpasse de querer as vezes arremedar Plauto e Terencio, &c.
79 Thus in the Vilhalpandos a young lover discourses with himself in the following way:—
Este meu coraçaõ enlheeyro em que praticas começa entrar comigo, naõ me queria elle pouco ha saltar do peito fóra que a naõ podia eu soffrer? Deixoume elle mais dormir, nem assossegar? Agora que aconteceo de novo, mandouselhe por ventura desculpar alguem, ou chora, et sospira alguem de todos nós senaõ eu como? et tamanha injuria, et tam rezente, podelhe lembra outra nenhuma cousa? Ainda naõ quer, ainda naõ cansa. Em quanto ouve que dar durou o amor, voou a fazenda, voou elle juntamente. Ah, isto he o que pintaõ ao amor com asas, voou, fugio, desappareceo, sem nenhuma lembrança de mim se som vivo se morto. Como? et taõ pouco duro o amor? cuytado de mim, que fazia fundamentos delle pera toda minha vida, assi se põe tudo atras abrindo as maõs et çarrando? &c.
This is not a third part of the soliloquy.
80 From the new edition of the works of Saa de Miranda, which has already been mentioned, it appears that the Portuguese still appreciate the merits of this poet, or rather that his writings have again been restored to favour. But in this new edition the punctuation is as faulty as in Portuguese books of older date; and thus the foreigner experiences additional difficulty in studying a poet whose works, even if correctly printed, would not be very easily understood.
81 Nicolas Antonio and Barbosa Machado are the authorities for the particulars here collected. Dieze has likewise quoted from the above-mentioned writers, the account given in his appendix to Velasquez, p. 86, respecting Gil Vicente, and Paula Vicente, the daughter of the poet.
82 The library of the University of Göttingen contains a copy of this old edition, entitled:—
Compliaçam de todalas obras de Gil Vicente &c.—Empremiose em a muy nobre e sempre leal cidade de Lisboa, anno 1562, in folio.
The complete title may be found in Dieze’s edition of Velasquez, p. 87. The text of the dramas is printed in gothic characters, but the introduction which precedes each piece is printed in the modern roman type. In the dramas themselves the Portuguese and Spanish languages are indiscriminately employed, and though the introductions are chiefly written in Portuguese, some of them are also in Spanish. I know of no later edition of Gil Vicente’s works. Barbosa Machado mentions none of subsequent date. How can the Portuguese public so completely forget an old favourite? Only a few of Gil Vicente’s Autos were printed singly in the seventeenth century.
84 He does not merely use the words—“por ser cousa nova;” but he expressly says—“por ser cousa nova em Portugal.”
86 The Santa Fè speaks and the peasant Bras (Blas) replies as follows. The old orthography is, with the exception of filling up some contractions, preserved in this and the following passages, quoted from the Autos of Gil Vicente.
87 The Seraph’s proclamation is in old versos de arte mayor, with the middle and ending lines short:—
88 The Devil speaks as follows:—
89 She tells, with a humorous simplicity, that her ungrateful husband has robbed her garden of its fruits before they were ripe; that he never does any thing, but leads a sottish life, eating and drinking all day, &c.
90 The words Aquella he a minha froxa have a very comic effect in the original Portuguese from the way in which they are introduced.
92 It is a Vilancete resembling the Spanish Villancicos.
93 The word Floresta has a two-fold meaning. In Portuguese it usually signifies a flower garden or a park. In Spanish it also bears the meaning of the Italian Foresta. Gil Vicente so frequently confounds Spanish and Portuguese together, that in the present instance it is necessary to guess the meaning he wishes to attach to the word Floresta, which seems to be that of a flower garden.
94 Both converse in Spanish in the following extract.
96 The usual titles with which the demons address the pious necromancer, are “Thief” and “Blackguard.”
97 The following is a specimen selected from a long nautical scene of this kind. It is not necessary to quote the names of the characters at length.
98 Hence in both languages the word farsante or farçante is a general term, signifying a comedian.
100 In this extract the reader will perceive the manner in which the old Portuguese orthography represented first, the barking, and secondly, the howling of dogs. Each forms a rhyme in the place in which it occurs:—
101 The old woman begins thus:—
These burlesque antitheses are continued in the same style throughout a whole page.
102 Mais quero asno que me leve, que cavallo que me derrube.
103 The following passage is selected from one of the most burlesque scenes. Pero Marquez, the simpleton suitor, takes his seat next his mistress with his back turned towards her. He is about to produce some pears, which he intended to present to her in complimentary allusion to her name, for Pereyra in Portuguese signifies a pear tree. The lover has, however, lost the destined present:—
104 The following is the whole of the stanza:—
A OS BONS ENGENHOS.
105 The biographical sketch here given is collected from the well written Vida do Doutor Antonio Ferreira, prefixed to the new edition of Ferreira’s Poemas Lusitanos, Lisboa, 1771, in 2 volumes octavo. This edition, though not remarkable for elegance, is printed with tolerable correctness, and contains also the author’s dramas. Notices extracted from Nicolas Antonio and Barbosa Machado, respecting the older editions of Ferreira’s works, may be found in Dieze’s Remarks on Velasquez.
106 Ferreira in scanning, avails himself of the peculiarity of the Portuguese diphthongs, in order to omit at pleasure, as in latin verse, the m at the termination of words; for the Portuguese m in that situation is not an alphabetic character, but merely denotes the nasal sound which may also be marked by a circumflex over the diphthongs according to the fancy of the writer. Ferreira, for example, thus scans a line in his beautiful elegy on spring:—
Huns s’ou | vem, huns | nos tron | cos fi | cam escri | tos.
Here the m in the word ouvem concludes a metrical syllable, which it does not in the word ficam.
107 Poemas Lusitanos is a title which in the sixteenth century no Portuguese poet except Ferreira would have applied to his writings. The word Poema has never been received into the language of common life in Portugal.
108 Manuel de Faria y Sousa in his preface to the 4th vol. of the Fuente de Aganippe, alluding to Ferreira’s eclogues, says, they are written con perdurable dureza y poca dicha en pensamientos y afectos (with tedious frigidity and but little happiness of thought and sentiment.) As far as regards the eclogues, this observation is not altogether erroneous; but in general Faria y Sousa was by no means competent to pronounce an opinion on Ferreira’s works. See History of Spanish Literature, p. 428.
110 For instance the following:—
111 One sonnet commences with an association of ideas of this fantastic kind:—
112 These sonnets please, by the beauty of expression, even when the thoughts are unimportant, for instance:—
113 An imitation of the Odi profanum vulgus forms also the overture to Ferreira’s odes. His first ode commences thus:—
114 In an ode A os principes D. Joaõ e a D. Joana, every stanza commences with the following pompous words:—
115 As for instance in the following passage:—