BERNARDIM RIBEYRO.
This poet received such a literary education as was in those times required for the study of the law, and a subsequent residence at court. King Emanuel, conferred on him the appointment of moço fidalgo (gentleman of the chamber). Ribeyro found at the court of that sovereign an object capable of fixing his poetic fancy, but not his future happiness; for from that time forward the heart of this sentimental enthusiast appears to have been incessantly agitated by sad emotions. Portuguese writers insinuate that the Infanta Dona Beatrice, the king’s daughter, was the lady of whom the unfortunate Ribeyro was enamoured. It is evident from his writings, that he has studiously thrown a veil over the secret of his heart. We are not informed how he reconciled this passion with his domestic relations, or whether at the period of his marriage he had emancipated himself from those romantic illusions which at other times exercised so powerful a dominion over him. It is related that he frequently retired to the woods where he passed the night alone, singing to the murmuring brooks his songs of passion and despair. But it is also said that he tenderly loved his wife, and after her death showed no inclination to enter, a second time, into the married state. There is no possibility of reconciling these psychological inconsistencies, since it is not known at what period of his life Ribeyro retired from court. Neither is it recorded at what period or at what age he died. But that he cherished romantic fancies in real life, as well as in his poetry, is a fact which is sufficiently confirmed by the accounts which have been preserved of his conduct and by the general character of his writings.[29]
Among the poetic works of Ribeyro, so far as they are known, his eclogues are particularly distinguished. If not the very oldest, they are certainly among the most ancient compositions of the kind in Portuguese and Spanish literature; and when compared with those of Juan del Enzina, who flourished about the same time in Spain, they may, in every respect, claim the priority. Juan del Enzina ingeniously sported with simple ideas; but Ribeyro sang from his inmost soul. However, even Ribeyro is poor in ideas. His language and composition are very remote from classical correctness, and his prolixity is tedious. But amidst the monotony of Ribeyro’s homely verses, there appears a spirit of truth and poetic feeling, which no art or study could have produced. The eclogues, which are unquestionably the production of Ribeyro’s pen, are four in number; but a fifth in the same style is attributed to him. They are all composed in Redondilhas, arranged in stanzas of nine or ten lines each, called decimas. Like most compositions in the class to which they belong, these eclogues assume the form of tales; but the lyric garb in which the simple materials are clothed, is the most interesting circumstance of the whole. Ribeyro has described in his eclogues only the scenery of his native country. The Tagus, the Mondego, the sea on the coast of Portugal, and even sometimes the city of Coimbra, and other towns, are exhibited in a poetic point of view. The names usually given to the shepherds are, Fauno, Persio, Franco, Jano, Sylvestre; but among the shepherdesses we find, a Catharina and a Joana introduced. Certain peculiarities and mysterious allusions sufficiently betray the object of the poet, which was to represent the romantic situations and events of the fashionable circles in which he moved at the court of Lisbon, under the poetic disguise of situations and events of pastoral life. In conformity with the notions of the age, this kind of disguise was, from its affinity to allegory, highly valued; and it afforded the poet an opportunity of unfolding the sentiments of his heart, to the mistress whom he dared not name, without the fear of compromising either her or himself. Ribeyro’s fancy revelled in this union of truth and fact with truth of poetic feeling. The characters in all his eclogues are nearly the same under different names, and among them an unhappy lover is always the most conspicuous. The fervent expression of tenderness and despair on the part of the lover, forms the soul of these little pastoral pictures.
Ribeyro’s poetic style is in its principal features the old romance style, only here and there somewhat more luxuriant, and occasionally interspersed with antiquated conceits. The unaffected truth of some of the descriptions is heightened by a peculiar kind of rural grace,[30] and even the uniform repetitions and plays of words in the lyric passages are, in general, not destitute of poetic interest.[31] The enthusiast must be forgiven for the application, certainly not very ingenious, of his own name, which he has sometimes allegorically disguised by the word Ribeyra, (a river,) and sometimes introduced as the real name of a shepherd; but the shepherd is in the same way reminded of a beautiful river, which is intended as the allegorical representative of a lady, who under the name of Ribeyra, is the object of Ribeyro’s adoration.[32] Some of these antiquated conceits are, however, dignified by warmth of expression.[33] But upon the whole, Ribeyro’s eclogues are nothing more than the heartfelt effusions of a poet, who with all his tenderness and depth of sentiment had not sufficient energy to strike out a new course for himself.[34]
The Cantigas of Bernardim Ribeyro unquestionably bear the characteristic stamp of the fifteenth century. They may be ranked on an equality with the best pieces of the same kind in the old Spanish Cancionero. Like them they paraphrase an idea which is set down at the head of the poem, and thus appear in the form of glosses, without being confined within a certain number of lines. The idea is as in Spanish, called the mote (motto). That which the Spaniards term a glosa, is by the Portuguese denominated a volta (turn); and the title Cantiga, which the Portuguese give to a composition of this kind, seems, like the Spanish term Villancico, to have been borrowed from the ecclesiastical hymns.[35] One of Ribeyro’s Cantigas is remarkable for the boldness with which the poet, in his character of a married man, very unequivocally marks the distinction between his wife and the lady who is the object of his regard, and assures this lady that only his hand and not his heart is wedded.[36] If this Cantiga be really founded on truth, a question with which the critic has, generally speaking, little concern, it not only weakens the authenticity of the accounts respecting Ribeyro’s tender attachment to his wife, but also serves to explain the studied obscurity of the allusions which prevail throughout the whole of his writings; and in this last respect the question is of some interest to the critic. A sextina imitated from the Italian forms, but in trochaic verses, which are besides pure redondilhas, is likewise among the number of Ribeyro’s poems. In addition to these Cantigas, which are, however, but little known,[37] there has been preserved a narrative romance of the idyllic kind, which by some favourable accident has even found a place in one of the old Spanish Cancioneros, where it is also attributed to Ribeyro.[38] This romance, which is allegorical, contains plays on the name of Ribeyro, and veils the glowing anguish of the poet under a singular obscurity of ideas and images. The romantic mysticism and deep fervour of expression, which distinguish it, sufficiently attest its authenticity.[39]
But a work, by this author, which is of greater extent, and which exhibits the first remarkable attempt towards the improvement of romantic prose in the Portuguese language, remains to be noticed. This work is a kind of romance which Ribeyro appears to have written in his mature years, and which he did not complete. The name given to it Menina e Moça, (meaning “a young and innocent maiden,”) is a repetition of the three first words with which the story begins, and therefore is not susceptible of precise translation in the form of a title.[40] In point of intricacy this fragment has no parallel in the whole range of romantic literature. The mysterious Ribeyro has here employed all the powers of his inventive fancy, in giving utterance to his enthusiastic feelings, and in minutely expressing the sentiments of his heart; while at the same time he has confounded and changed characters and events so as to secure every circumstance and allusion against malicious interpretation. Thus a reader in the nineteenth century is at a loss to unravel the entangled composition, and it being merely a fragment, is a circumstance which increases the difficulty. No alchymist ever bestowed more pains on the enigmatical dressing of his doctrine of the philosopher’s stone, than Ribeyro has taken to envelope his romance in a veil of obscurity. It is asserted, nevertheless, that with all this caution he was afraid to lay it openly before the public; and in fact the book did not become known until after his death. It is impossible to form any probable conjecture as to the ultimate object of the author. The commencement of the tale, or if it must be so called, the preface, is put into the mouth of a sentimental female character who has withdrawn from the gay world to a wild solitary spot on the Portuguese coast. This lady, whose name is not mentioned, relates that while she was yet Menina e Moça, she was carried from her father’s house to foreign lands. From that period, doomed to lead a life of wretchedness, alone, among the rugged cliffs, she bewails her never-ending sorrows, beholding only on the one hand the unchangeable mountain tops, and on the other the ever restless waves of the sea.[41] In this manner the anonymous female continues her narrative, and describes her inconsolable condition. She states, that by way of amusement, though of a melancholy kind, she has devoted herself to the task of writing “this little book,” (este livrinho), which is intended to unfold her sufferings and her errors. From this introduction the reader impatiently expects the history of the nameless lady, who has now excited his interest. But here the confusion and intricacy commences. The supposed authoress states, that in her solitude she had discovered another lady no less unfortunate than herself. She introduces this lady, who in her turn begins to relate her history. This new character throws the first completely into the back ground. She expatiates on the virtues befitting knights and ladies, and sheds tears of regret for the departed days of chivalry. She states that the wild valleys to which she has retired, were once the scenes of memorable and brilliant events: and here the reader is again disappointed, for instead of relating her own adventures, as is naturally expected, she commences an intricate and romantic story of love and heroism, the period of which is laid in the ages of chivalry. This story is in fact the romance which Ribeyro wished to write. What the author intended by the two-fold frame-work of his romance, and the superfluous history related by the one lady to the other, is an enigma that cannot be solved without a knowledge of the private life of the poet, circumstances of which are supposed to be ingeniously concealed under these forms of art. Ribeyro very dextrously makes his fair narrator observe that, as a woman, she is not qualified to speak minutely, and at length concerning the achievements of knighthood; but that with respect to the affairs of the heart she is enabled to say all that is necessary. Thus he has spared himself the trouble of exercising his descriptive talent on a branch of the history, the details of which he was not inclined to follow.
It would be impossible to furnish an abstract of the tale of love and heroism which forms the subject of this romance. Even on a perusal of the whole, so great is the obscurity, that nothing can be comprehended of the circumstances, without the utmost effort of attention. That Ribeyro has clothed in the disguise of this story, the most interesting events of his own life, is a fact which admits of no doubt; for the contrivance which he adopted with the view of concealing his personal implication, by the intricate arrangement of his romance, is disclosed with the greatest simplicity. The really artless Ribeyro, having so far disguised himself, conceived that by transposing the letters of real names, he did all that was necessary to avoid compromising the individuals of his acquaintance, whom he introduced in his romance, arrayed in the garb of ancient chivalry. Thus Alvaro is converted into Avalor, Joana into Aonia, and Bernardim, the christian name of Ribeyro himself, is changed into Bimnarder and Narbindel. The unconscious simplicity of these transpositions corresponds with the whole tone and style of the romance. The monotony of incessant love complaints renders the prolixity of the narrative still more tedious; but even amidst that monotony and prolixity, it is easy to recognise a spirit truly poetic, more remarkable, however, for susceptibility than for energy. Some of the sentimental passages are distinguished by the charm of a most tender and pathetic sweetness. This characteristic appears even in the introduction, where a story is told of the death of a nightingale, which being perched on the branch of a tree overhanging a brook, dies while singing, and dropping into the brook is carried away by the current, along with the fallen leaves.[42] The reader is surprised by these delicate plays of feeling, no less than by many occasional reflexions, which though trivial in the present day, were at the commencement of the sixteenth century by no means common. Thus allusion is made to the absurd notion of women in imagining they can secure the heart of a lover by the same persevering service which pleases themselves in the other sex.[43] By traits of this kind, and by the simple truth of description, this old Portuguese romance is sufficiently distinguished from the common class of romances of chivalry, which during the sixteenth century, became in a great measure the fashionable reading of the Spaniards and Portuguese. Spanish literature at that period could not boast of any work written in so cultivated a style, and yet that style soon afterwards became somewhat antiquated. From some passages in which allusion is made to Galician phrases, it is evident that the Portuguese in the age of Ribeyro, carefully distinguished their native tongue as a cultivated language, from the Galician, which had now become a common popular idiom.
In the polite literature of Portugal, Bernardim Ribeyro stands on the boundary of the old national and the modern taste, which at the commencement of the sixteenth century, began to be developed in Portugal as well as in Spain, in consequence of the imitation of the Italian style. In spite of all their defects and deformities, Ribeyro’s verses as well as his prose romance, deserve to be honourably remembered, since they present remarkable monuments of the romantic character of the Portuguese at the period when the national greatness of that poetically organized people began suddenly to decline. A remnant of that character must, however, still be preserved, even by the Portuguese of the present day, otherwise a new edition of Ribeyro’s romance would not at the end of the eighteenth century, have been presented to the Portuguese public, as a proof of the excellence of a language in which such a work was written.[44]