TEXTUAL VARIANT NOTES:
[inc].Esta tragecomedia pastoril foy feyta B
com hum parvo & diz C.
[2]. estrella B
[4]. Castella B
[7]. yr B
[24]. despaña B
[34]. quant'elle C.
[53, 54]. Imperatriz, Imperador C.
[100]. faz un rey cousas B
[102]. atraues B a través C.
[109]. tós C.
[116]. dá-lhe C.
[123]. phantesia C.
[125]. querera B
[127]. seguem dous açores C.
[135]. reccado C.
[152]. lendes C.
[159]. porque A, B C, D, E. porqu'é ?
[161]. cures A, B cuides C.
[167]. do melão A, B de melão C.
[172]. Arrenega tu A, B Arrenego eu C.
[179]. outra A, B outrem C.
[196]. tem-te C.
[197]. Inda C.
[231]. com tigo A, B comtigo C.
[261]. sês C.
[265]. rogoto A. rogo-te C.
[276]. alma A. a alma C.
[284]. do A. de C.
[299, 300]. ver-te-has C.
[308]. ca mão A, B ca a mão C.
[327]. libara B
[328]. querelo A, B querê-lo C, D, E.
[332]. bem A, B vem C, D, E.
[353]. eu amargura B
[354]. quasi A, B qu'assi C.
[378]. lhe basta C.
[392]. vayamonos A. vayamos C.
[407]. maas A. mais C.
[408]. descortees A. descortes B descortez C.
[427]. moncarraz A, B Monçarraz C.
[456]. mami A. a mi C.
[469]. a creatura C.
[477]. escriptas C.
[482]. & diz Fernando A. & diz o Ermitão C.
[487]. Escri. A. (Lê o Ermitão o escrito) C.
[498]. alto, nome C.
[499-500]. Escrito A. (Lê o Ermitão) C.
[530]. amigo A, B C, D, E. marido ?
[545]. D'infindo C.
[608]. Cea C.
[609]. recentes C.
[613]. duzentas C.
[618]. tan grossa, tam san.B
[628]. Aguias reaes.B
[630]. penedos.B Penados.C.
[635]. brocados.C.
[645-6]. Desunt hum se chama. et outro. in C. Iorge.C.
[647]. extremo.C.
[649]. Castelhanos.C.
[655]. estrella B
[660]. ham A. ha hi C.
[668]. auia, havia A, B C, D, E. queria?
[685-6]. Cantiga B
[711]. chacotezinha A, B chacotazinha C.
[713-4]. he a seguinte Cantiga C.
[ad fin]. ¶ Laus Deo B
NOTES
AUTO DA ALMA
The Auto da Alma, produced probably in 1518, which in some sense forms a Portuguese pendant to the Recuerde el alma of Jorge Manrique (1440?-79), is a Passion play, corresponding to the modern Stabat on the eve of Good Friday, and was suggested, perhaps, by Juan del Enzina's Representacion a la muy bendita pasion y muerte de nuestro precioso Redentor. It was not, however, acted in a convent or church, but in the new riverside palace which saw so many splendid serões during King Manuel's reign (1495-1521). King Manuel was now in the full tide of prosperity. His sister, Queen Lianor or Eleanor (1458-1525), Gil Vicente's patroness, who so keenly encouraged Portuguese art and literature, was the widow (and first cousin) of his predecessor, King João II. The theme of the play, the contention of Angel and Devil for the possession of a human soul, was far from new. Its treatment, however, was original and the versification is clear-cut and well sustained throughout, while a deep sincerity and glowing fervour raise the whole play to the loftiest heights. The metre is mostly in verses of seven short (8848484) lines (abcaabc) with an occasional slight variation. There is a French version of the play, presumably in verse (see Durendal, No. 10: Oct. 1913: Le Mystère de l'Âme; tr. J. Vandervelden and Luis de Almeida Braga), but the difficult task of translating it would require, to be successful, the delicate precision of a Théophile Gautier. In his hands it might have become in French a thing of beauty and a joy for ever, as it is in the original Portuguese. As to the text, without emulating the pedantry of the critic who added a fourth season to Shelley's three, and thereby provoked a splendid outburst of wrath from Swinburne, we may assume that in passages where Vicente appears to have gone out of his way to avoid a required rhyme, this is merely a case of corruption repeated in successive editions. Thus in the Auto Pastoril Portugues, where Catalina minha dama rhymes with toucada we may perhaps substitute fada for dama. (Cf. Serra da Estrella, l. 530: amigo for marido.) So here verse 114 must read tristeza, not tristura, to rhyme with crueza. In 3 one of the mantimentos should perhaps be alimentos: see Lucas Fernández, Farsas (1867), p. 247 (cf. the two vaydades in 14); in 26 fortunas should probably read farturas (cf. essas farturas in the Dialogo sobre a Ressurreiçam); in 35 the words mui fermosos, or a single longer word, have evidently dropped out; in 54 tendes was perhaps an alteration by some critic who did not realize that the Angel might naturally associate itself with the Church (or with the Soul) and say temos; the last line of 100 was perhaps the word pecadora or e senhora (cf. Fr. Luis de León, Los Nombres de Cristo, Bk I: mi única abogada y señora); in 108 also a line is missing and a rhyme required for figura (lavrado must go with Deos, triste with vereis, omitting seu). On the other hand it is hardly necessary to alter 42 or 45 (although here esmaltado is in the air) or 46 so as to make them exactly fit the metre.
[1] perigos dos immigos, cf. Os Trabalhos de Jesus, 1665 ed. p. 94: o caminho do Ceo he cercado de inimigos e perigos para o perder. Qualibus in tenebris vitae quantisque periclis Degitur hoc aevi quodcunque est!
[7] Cf. Newman, The Dream of Gerontius, l. 292 et seq.:
O man, strange composite of heaven and earth,
Majesty dwarfed to baseness, fragrant flower, etc.
[7-10] These exquisite verses have something of the scent and perfection of wild flowers, and that mystic rapture which is not to be found in Goethe's more worldly Faust. We may, if we like, call the Auto da Alma (as also the witch-scene in the Auto das Fadas) a 16th century Faust, but really no parallel can be drawn between the two plays. The ethereal beauty of Vicente's lyrical auto, carved in delicate ivory, is far less varied and human: it has scarcely a touch of the cynicism and not a touch of the coarseness of Goethe's splendid work cast in bronze. It can be compared at most with such lyrical passages as Christ ist erstanden or Ach neige, Du Schmerzenreiche, Dein Antlitz gnädig meiner Not, and as a whole is a mere lily of the valley by the side of a purple hyacinth.
[9] Planta sois e caminheira. Cf. the white-flowered 'wayfaring tree.'
[16-17] This passage resembles those in the Spanish plays Prevaricación de Adán and La Residencia del Hombre quoted in the Revista de Filología Española, t. IV (1917), No. 1, p. 15-17.
[17] Cf. The Dream of Gerontius, l. 280 et seq.: 'Then was I sent from Heaven to set right, etc.'
[18] porá grosa, attack, criticize, gloss. (= glosar. Cf. the modern 'to grouse.')
[35] Cf. Antonio Prestes, Auto dos Cantarinhos (Obras, 1871 ed. p. 457): todo Valença em chapins. The chapim was rather a high-heeled shoe than a slipper. The reference is to the Spanish city Valencia del Cid. Cf. Fr. Juan de la Cerda ap. R. Altamira, Historia de España, III, 728: 'En una mujer ataviada se ve un mundo: mirando los chapines se verá a Valencia'; Alonso Jerónimo de Salas Barbadillo in El Cortesano Descortés (1621) speaks of 'un presente de chapines valencianos'; and in La Pícara Justina (1912 ed. vol. I, p. 70) we have 'un chapin valenciano.'
[38] marcante. In the Auto da Feira the Devil is similarly a bufarinheiro (pedlar) and mercante.
[43] a for da corte. For = foro (v. Gonçalvez Viana, A postilas, vol. I, p. 353).
[58] Cf. Plato, Respublica, 365: α̃̓δικητέον καὶ θυτέον ἀπὸ τω̑ν αδικημάτων, κ.τ.λ. Vicente in his plays often inculcates the need of something more than a formal religion.
xiquer. Cf. Auto da Barca do Inferno: Isto hi xiquer irá.
[59]-60 These two verses are in the true spirit of Goethe's Mephistopheles.
[62] esta peçonha. Would Vicente have written thus (cf. 66 and Obras, III, 344, sermon addressed to Queen Lianor; and also Garcia de Resende, Miscellanea, 1917 ed. p. 50) of the soul had there been the slightest gossip or suspicion that his patroness, Queen Lianor, had poisoned her husband? (See the most interesting studies in Critica e Historia, por Anselmo Braamcamp Freire, vol. I. Lisbon, 1910.)
[71] Cf. The Dream of Gerontius,. l. 210-1:
Nor do I know my attitude,
Nor if I stand or lie or sit or kneel.
[73] day passada = perdoai, dai licença. Cf. Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcellos, Eufrosina, II, 5. 1616 ed. f. 79 v.
[77] In Basque pastorales one of the main attributes of the devils and the wicked is that they are never quiet on the stage. In the Auto da Cananea (1534), a play in many ways resembling the Auto da Alma, the line Como andas desosegado recurs, addressed by Belzebu to Satanas. It is the 'incessant pacing to and fro' of The Dream of Gerontius (l. 446). In its beauty and intensity as a whole and in many details Cardinal Newman's The Dream of Gerontius is strikingly similar to the Auto da Alma. But in it the strife is o'er, the battle won, and the sanctified soul, rising refreshed from sleep with a feeling of 'an inexpressive lightness and sense of freedom,' passes serenely, accompanied by its guardian angel, above the 'sullen howl' of the demons in the middle region. Cf. Calte por amor de Deus, leixai-me, não me persigais with 'But hark! upon my sense Comes a fierce hubbub which would make me fear Could I be frighted' (l. 395-7).
[80] Cf. Amador Arraez, Dialogos, No. 1, 1604 ed. f. lv.: S. Jeronimo diz que é grande o reino, potencia e alçada das lagrimas...atormentam mais aos Demonios que a pena infernal.
[84] The author of the Vexilla regis hymn was Venantius Fortunatus (530-600).
[95] Cf. Antonio Feo, Trattados Quadragesimais (1609), II f. 23: assy na Cruz como no monte Oliueto chorou porque vio vir a quem ouuera de chorar.
[97] Cf. Gomez Manrique, Fechas para la Semana Santa (ap. M. Pelayo, Antología, t. III, p. 92).
[108] Cf. Juan del Enzina, Teatro (1893), p. 39: Veis aqui donde vereis Su figura figurada Del original sacada.
[116] dais o seu a cujo he, cf. Triunfo do Inverno: Porque se devem de dar As cousas a cujas são; C. Res. I (1910), p. 64: dar o seu a cujo hee.
[121] Cf. Gomez Manrique, Fechas (Antolog. t. III, p. 93):
Y vamos, vamos al huerto
Do veredes sepultado
Vuestro fijo muy prouado
De muy cruda muerte muerto.
EXHORTAÇAO DA GUERRA
The expedition to capture from the Moors the important town of Azamor in N. W. Africa consisted of over 400 ships (Luis Anriquez in his poem in the Cancioneiro Geral says 450) and a force of 18,000 soldiers, of which 3000 were provided by James, Duke of Braganza, who commanded the expedition. It set sail from Lisbon on the 17th of August, 1513. (Damião de Goes and Osorio say the 17th, Luis Anriquez the 15th, which was evidently the day (the Feast of the Assumption) fixed for departure.) It was entirely successful and the news of the fall of Azamor caused great rejoicings both at Lisbon and Rome. The play was evidently touched up afterwards, for it includes the sending of the elephant to Rome (1514) and the marriages of the princesses. It is barely possible that it was written after the victory, in which case the words na partida would be retrospective and the date given in the 1st edition was not a slip. Parts of the play suit 1514 better than 1513. Tristão da Cunha's special mission (cf. lines 195-6) to the Pope (with Garcia de Resende for secretary) left early in 1514 and entered Rome on March 12. One of the objects of the mission was to obtain a grant of the tithes (ll. 194, 224) for the Crown to use for the war in Africa. (The request was granted but King Manuel subsequently renounced them in return for 150,000 gold coins.) The exhortations of l. 351 et seq., l. 514 et seq., l. 559 et seq. are better suited to a time when more men and money were needed actively to continue the war than when an army of 18,000 was equipped and ready to leave. The Pope in 1514 promised indulgences to all those who should contribute money for the African war and also granted King Manuel a portion of church property in Portugal (cf. ll. 475-84 and 535-48) for the same object (l. 546: pera Africa conquistar). The King's aim is now to build a cathedral in Fez (l. 573-4). There is no mention of Azamor. This was the first of the great patriotic outbursts (cf. the Auto da Fama and other plays) in which Vicente appears not as a satirist or religious reformer but as an enthusiastic imperialist, and which still delight and stir his countrymen.
[18] Prince Luis (1506-55), one of the most gallant, talented and interesting of Portuguese infantes, was no doubt present at the serão and would be delighted by this reference. (The youngest princes, Afonso, born in 1509, and Henrique, born in 1512, are not mentioned. They both became Cardinals and the latter King of Portugal, 1578-80.) The princes are similarly addressed in the Cortes de Jupiter in 1521.
[46] Mercury opens the Auto da Feira with a similar string of absurdities (suggested by Enzina's perogrulladas), e.g. Que se o ceo fora quadrado Não fora redondo, Senhor; E se o sol fora azulado D'azul fora seu cor. (If square the sky were found then it would not be round, and if the sun were blue then blue would be its hue.) Os disparates de 'Joan de Lenzina' (Ferreira, Ulys. IV, 7) were well-known in Portugal.
[94], [113], [129] No meaning is to be squeezed out of these cabbalistic words.
[116] We have an even more detailed description in the Sumario da Historia de Deos:
A furna das trevas, ponte de navalhas,
o lago dos prantos, a horta dos dragos,
os tanques da ira, os lagos da neve,
os raios ardentes, sala dos tormentos,
varanda das dores, cozinha dos gritos,
Açougue das pragas, a torre dos pingos,
o valle das forcas.
[125] Vicente was more tolerant than most contemporary writers who inveighed against the blindness and malice of the Jews.
[132] The necromancer evokes spirits which he is unable to control. He calls them brothers but they answer in effect: 'Du gleich'st dem Geist den du begreif'st, nicht mir.'
[151] The almude = 12 gallons.
[156] Cabrela e Landeira is a village near Montemôr-o-Novo. Cf. Sum. da Hist. de Deos:
Satanas: Sabes Rio-frio e toda aquela terra,
aldea Gallega, a Landeira e Ranginha
e de Lavra a Coruche? Tudo é terra minha.
[157] Cartaxo, a small town in the district of Santarem.
[158] The village of Lumiar is now connected with Lisbon by a tramway.
[159] Mealhada, a parish in the district of Aveiro.
[162] Cf. uva terrantes (indigenous).
[164] Ribatejo = the country along the river Tejo (Tagus). Cf. Auto da Feira: Vai-te ao sino do Cranguejo, Signum Cancer, Ribatejo.
[168] Arruda dos Vinhos and Caparica are villages in a vine-growing district on the left bank of the Tagus opposite Lisbon, near Almada.
[173] estrema = marco (Sp. mojon). Cf. Auto da Festa, ed. Conde de Sabugosa (1906), p. 110: Este he da pedra do estremo.
[174] diadema is usually masculine, but Antonio Vieira has it both ways.
[176] Seixal (2500-3000 inh.) in the district of Almada.
[177] Almada, formerly Almadãa (Arab = the mine, but as Englishmen settled there in the 12th century it was later given the fanciful derivation All made or All made it), a town of 10,000 inh., opposite Lisbon on the left bank of the Tagus.
[179] Tojal (= whin-moor, gorse-common), a small village near Olivaes (= olive groves), in the Lisbon district.
[195] The impression produced by the arrival in Rome of King Manuel's elephant, panther and other magnificent gifts was vividly described by several writers. Cf. Damião de Goes, Chron. de D. Manuel, Pt 3, cap. 55, 56, 57 (1619 ed. f. 223 v.-227). According to Ulrich von Hutten the elephant 'fuit mirabile animal, habens longum rostrum in magna quantitate; et quando vidit Papam tunc geniculavit ei et dixit cum terribili voce bar, bar, bar' (apud Theophilo Braga, Gil Vicente e as Origens do Theatro Nacional (1898), p. 191). Cf. also Manuel Bernardez, Nova Floresta, V, 93-4. The head of this celebrated elephant forms the background to a portrait of Tristão da Cunha (head of the embassy to the Pope) reproduced in Senhor Joaquim de Vasconcellos' edition of Francisco de Hollanda's Da Pintura Antigva (Porto, 1918).
[229] In 1517 among other exotic presents a rhinoceros was sent to the Pope. It was however shipwrecked and drowned on the way. It had the honour of being drawn by Albrecht Dürer.
[238] Vicente seems to have coined this intensive of bellisima.
[243]-4 Cesar = King Manuel. Hecuba = his second wife, Queen Maria, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain.
[249] Prince João, born in 1502, afterwards King João III (1521-57).
[259] The Infanta Isabel (1503-39) married her first cousin the Emperor Charles V, and in her honour on that occasion Vicente composed his Templo de Apolo (1526). Her marriage may have already been planned in 1513, but more probably Vicente altered the passage when he was preparing the 1st edition of his works during the last months of his life. Gil Vicente more than once refers to her great beauty. Her portrait by Titian in the Madrid Prado fully bears out his praises and the expression on her face places this among the most fascinating portraits of women. The Empress is sitting by a window looking on to a beautiful country of woods and blue mountains, in her hand is a book; but one feels that she is thinking of neither book nor scenery but that her thoughts go back in saudade to the soft air and merry days of Lisbon. It might indeed be a picture of Saudade. There is a slight flush on her pale oval face. Her almond-shaped eyes are grey-green, her nose delicately aquiline. In the eyes and in the general expression there is a look of undeniable sadness. Her dress of plum, cherry-pink, gold and brown gives a gorgeously mellow effect and the curtain at the back is plum-brown. If the colouring seems at first too rich this is due to the criminal gold frame which clashes with the dress and the chestnut-golden hair. In a dark frame the picture would be twice as beautiful. The Empress' dress gleams with pearls and she has a jewel with pearls—set perhaps by Gil Vicente—in her hair, large pearl earrings and a necklace of large pearls. She died at Toledo at the age of 36 and lies in the grim Pantheon of the Kings in the Escorial crypt.
[266] Of Prince Fernando, born in 1507, Damião de Goes, who knew him personally, says: 'assi na mocidade como depois de ser homem foi de bom parecer e bem disposto, muito inclinado a letras e dado ao estudo das historias verdadeiras e imigo das fabulosas... Era colerico e apressado em seus negocios e muito animoso, com mostra e desejo de se achar em algun grande feito de guerra, mas nem o tempo nem o estudo do Regno deram pera isso lugar' (Chron. de D. Manuel, II, xix). Cf. Osorio, De Rebvs Emmanvelis (1571), p. 189: 'Fuit in antiquitate pervestiganda valde curiosus: maximarum rerum studio flagrabat multisque virtutibus illo loco dignis praeditus erat.'
[275] Princess Beatrice as a matter of fact married Charles, Duke of Savoy, and on the occasion of her departure from Lisbon by sea with a magnificent suite Vicente wrote the Cortes de Jupiter (1521) with the romance:
Nina era la Ifanta, Dona Beatriz se dezia,
Nieta del buen Rei Hernando, el mejor rei de Castilla,
Hija del Rei Don Manuel y Reina Doña Maria, etc.
[284] Cf. the Auto das Fadas (with which this play has many points of resemblance): Feiticeira (ao principle e infantes): ó que joias esmaltadas, ó que boninas dos ceos, ó que rosas perfumadas!
[331]-2 Cf. Divisa da Cidade de Coimbra: Vai delas a eles tão grande avantagem... como haverá...do vivo a hũa imagem.
[341] Godos, Goths, i.e. of ancient race, 'Norman blood.'
[346] For dioso = idoso v. C. Geral, vol. II (1910), p. 153. Fernam Lopez, Chron. J. I. Pt. 2, cap. 10, has deoso.
[384] pequenas quadrilhas. When Afonso de Albuquerque began his glorious career (1509-15) there were in India but a few hundred Portuguese fighting men, and most of these badly armed. The whole population of Portugal during this time of fighting and discovery in N.-West, West and East Africa and India is by some calculated at a million and a half, by others at between two and three millions.
[416] Prov. mais são as vozes que as nozes.
[418] For this line cf. Pedro Ferrus: Que por todo el mundo suena (ap. Menéndez y Pelayo, Antología, t. I, p. 159 and Enzina, Egloga, V (ib. t. VII, p. 57)).
[420] pois que...pessoa, a homely version of Goethe's Was du ererbt von deinen Vätern hast Erwirb' es um es zu besitzen.
[470]-4 These lines are translated from the Spanish poet Gomez Manrique (1415?-1490?). See Menéndez y Pelayo, Antología, t. VII, p. ccx.
Cf. Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcellos, Ulysippo, V, 7: Vos quando vos tirarem de Ansias e passiones mias e guando Roma conquistava.
[487] dom zote. Cf. supra zopete and Sp. zote, zopo, zopenco, zoquete (a dolt); low Latin sottus; Dutch zot; Fr. sot; Eng. sot (bebe sem desfolegar). Zote occurs twice in the Auto Pastoril Portugues: muito gamenho (cf. Fr. gamin) zote and Auto da Fé, l. 5.
[534] trepas is the Span. form (Port, tripas?).
[538] soyços the old, soldados the new, word for 'soldiers.' Cf. Lucas Fernández, Farsas (1867), p. 89: Entra el soldado, o soizo, o infante.
[559] This rousing chorus fitly ends a play from every page of which breathes the most ardent patriotism. Small wonder that King Sebastião (1557-78), with his visions of conquest and glory, read Vicente with pleasure as a boy.
[561] Cf. Gaspar Correa, Lendas da India, IV, 561-2: o Governador logo sobio e o frade diante dele bradando a grandes brados, dizendo: 'O fieis Christãos, olhai para Christo, vosso capitão, que vai diante' (1546).
FARSA DOS ALMOCREVES
This is one of the most famous of those lively farces with which Gil Vicente for a quarter of a century delighted the Portuguese Court and which still hold the reader by their vividness and charm. Its fame rests on the portraiture of the poverty-stricken but magnificent nobleman who has been a favourite object of satire with writers in the Peninsula since the time of Martial, and who in a poem of the Cancioneiro Geral is described in almost the identical words of Vicente's prefatory note:
o gram estado
e a renda casi nada
(Arrenegos que que fez Gregoryo Affonsso).
An alternative title of the play is Auto do Fidalgo Pobre, but the extremely natural presentment of the two carriers in the second part justifies the more popular name. The Court, fleeing from plague at Lisbon, was in the celebrated little university town of Coimbra on the Mondego and here Gil Vicente in the following year staged his Divisa da Cidade de Coimbra, the Farsa dos Almocreves, and (in October) the Tragicomedia da Serra da Estrella and Sá de Miranda, in open rivalry, produced his Fabula do Mondego. But Gil Vicente was not to be silenced by the introduction of the new poetry from Italy and to these two years, 1526 and 1527, belong no less than seven (or perhaps eight) of his plays. Yet what a difference in his own position and in the state of the nation since his first farce—Quem tem farelos? twenty years before! The magnificent King Manuel was dead, and his son, the more care-ridden João III, was on the throne:
tão ocupado
co'este Turco, co'este Papa
co'esta França.
There was plague and famine in the land. The discovery of a direct route to the East and its apparently inexhaustible wealth had not brought prosperity to the Portuguese provinces. There the chief effect had been to make men discontented with their lot and to lure away even the humblest workers to seek their fortune and often to find death or a far less independent poverty:
até os pastores
hão de ser d'el-Rei samica.
The result was that the old rustic jollity which Vicente had known so well in his youth was dying out, and the very songs of the peasants took a plaintive air:
E no mais triste ratinho
s'enxergava hũa alegria
que agora não tem caminho.
Se olhardes as cantigas
do prazer acostumado
todas tem som lamentado,
carregado de fadigas,
longe do tempo passado.
O d' então era cantar
e bailar como ha de ser,
o cantar pera folgar,
o bailar pera prazer,
que agora é mao d'achar[154].
Nor could it be expected that the rich parvenu, the mushroom courtier, the fidalgo 'que não sabe se o é,' the palace page fresh from keeping goats in the serra, the Court chaplain anxious to hide his humble origin, would greatly relish Vicente's plays which satirized them and in which rustic scenes and songs and memories appeared at every turn. It was much like mentioning the rope in the house of the hanged, and these dainty and sophisticated persons would turn with relief to the revival of the more decorous ancient drama inaugurated by Trissino in Italy and in Portugal by Sá de Miranda.
[3] este Arnado. Cf. Bernardo de Brito, Chronica de Cister, III, 18: 'se foi [Afonso Henriquez] ao longo do Mondego por um campo q̃ então e no tempo de agora se chama o Arnado, trocado ja pelas enchentes do rio de campo cuberto de flores em um areal esteril e sem nenhũa verdura.' Cf. Cancioneiro da Vaticana, No. 1014: 'en Coimbra caeu ben provado, caeu en Runa ata en o Arnado.'
[7] See the Spanish romance (ap. Menéndez y Pelayo. Antología, t. VIII, p. 124): 'Yo me estaba allá en Coimbra que yo me la hube ganado.'
[8], 9 The sense of these two obscure lines is apparently: 'Since Coimbra so chastises us that we are left without a penny.' Ruy Moniz in the Canc. Geral, vol. II (1910), p. 142, has çimbrar ou casar. In Spanish cimbrar = 'to brandish a rod,' 'to bend.' In the Auto del Repelon, printed in 1509, Enzina has: El palo bien assimado Cimbrado naquella tiesta (Teatro (1893), p. 236) and Fernández (p. 25) No vos cimbre yo el cayado. Cf. Antonio Prestes, Autos (ed. 1871), p. 211: E o vilão vindo me zimbra: reprender-me! and João Gomes de Abreu (C. Ger. vol. IV (1915), p. 304) seraa rrijo çimbrado. preto = real preto, contrasted with the white (i.e. silver) real.
[12] Pelos campos de Mondego cavaleiros vi somar were two very well-known lines apparently belonging to a real historical Portuguese romance on the death of Ines de Castro. They occur in Garcia de Resende's poem on her death. See C. Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, Estudos sobre o romanceiro peninsular.
[13] Cf. Tragicomedia da Serra da Estrella (1527): Pedem-lhe em Coimbra cevada E elle dá-lhe mexilhões.
[19] milham, green maize cut young for fodder.
[32] ratinhos, peasants from Beira. They play a large part in Portuguese comedy.
[80] azemel = almocreve. Both words are of Arabic origin. Cf. almofreixe infra.
[93] Endoenças = indulgentiae. Semana de Endoenças = Holy Week.
[103] In the Auto da Lusitania Vicente says jestingly, perhaps in imitation of the Spanish romances, that he was born at Pederneira (a small sea-side town in the district of Leiria). He mentions it again in the Cortes de Jupiter and in the Templo de Apolo.
[109] Cf. Alvaro Barreto in Cancioneiro Geral, vol. I (1910), p. 322: poẽ me tudo em huũ item.
[120] It was the plea of Arias Gonzalo that the inhabitants of Zamora were not answerable for the guilt of Vellido Dolfos who had treacherously killed King Sancho:
¿Qué culpa tienen los viejos? ¿qué culpa tienen los niños?
¿qué culpa tienen los muertos...?
[129] balcarriadas. Cf. Auto das Fadas: Venhas muitieramá com tuas balcarriadas; Auto da Festa: tão grão balcarriada; Auto da Barca do Purgatorio: Nunca tal balcarriada Nem maré tão desastrada. Couto, Asia, VII, 5, vii: Tal balcarriada (act of folly) foi esta. The Canc. Geral, vol. IV (1915), p. 370, has the form barquarryadas.
[134] Cf. Auto da Lusitania: um aito bem acordado Que tenha ave e piós (= well-proportioned).
[135] The numerous servants of the starving fidalgos are satirized by Nicolaus Clenardus and others. Like the English as described by a German in the 18th century they were 'lovers of show, liking to be followed wherever they go by whole troops of servants' (A Journey into England, by Paul Hentzer. Trans. Horace Walpole, 1757). Clenardus in his celebrated letter from Evora (1535) says that a Portuguese is followed by more servants in the streets than he spends sixpences in his house. He mentions specifically the number eight.
[141] Alcobaça is the town famous for its beautiful Cistercian convent.
[161] Alifante. Cf. infra, avangelho. A for e is still common in Galicia: e.g. mamoria (memory). Cf. Span. Basque barri (new), for Fr. Basque berri.
[165] The Dean was Diogo Ortiz de Vilhegas († 1544) successively Bishop of São Tomé (1534) and Ceuta (1540). See A. Braamcamp Freire in Revista de Historia, No. 25 (1918), p. 3.
[224] bastiães = bestiães, figures in relief. Gomez Manrique has bestiones in this sense.
[247] In Antonio Prestes' play Auto do Mouro Encantado the golden apples prove to be pieces of coal. So Mello in his Apologos Dialogaes speaks of the treasure of moiras encantadas which all turns to coal.
[269] In Rey, the popular form of El-Rei (the king) is frequent also in the plays of Simão Machado, who died about a century after Vicente.
[272] It is tempting to add the word madraço (fool, ignoramus) for the sake of the rhyme. If O recado que elle dá were spoken very fast the line would bear the addition.
[293] Here, as often, the deeper purpose of Vicente's satire appears beneath his fun. The growing depopulation of the provinces was becoming painfully evident to those who cared for Portugal.
[302] Jorge Ferreira, Ulysippo, III, 5: não haveria corpo, por mais que fosse de aço milanes, que podesse sofrer quanta costura lhe seria necessaria; ib. III, 7: temos muita costura esta noite; muita costura e tarefa; Antonio Vieira, Cartas: tambem aqui teremos costura (1 de agosto de 1673).
[310] trapa in Port. = 'a gin,' 'a trap,' but in Sp., as perhaps here, = 'noise,' 'uproar.'
[327] Cf. Farsa dos Fisicos: Praticamos ali O Leste e o Oeste e o Brasil and III, 377; Chiado, Auto da Natural Invençam, ed. Conde de Sabugosa (1917), p. 74.
[348] The carrier comes along singing snatches of a pastorela of which we have other examples, of more intricate rhythm, in the Cancioneiro da Vaticana and the poems of the Archpriest of Hita and the Marqués de Santillana. A modern Galician cantiga says that
O cantar d'os arrieiros
E um cantariño guapo:
Ten unha volta n'o medio
Para dicir 'Arré macho.'
(Pérez Ballesteros, Cancionero Popular Gallego, vol II, p. 215.)
[355] Cf. O Clerigo da Beira: Nuno Ribeiro Que nunca paga dinheiro E sempre arreganha os dentes; and Ah Deos! quem te furtasse Bolsa, Nuna Ribeiro. Homem vai buscar dinheiro, A todo ele disse: Ja dinheiro feito é.
[360] uxtix, uxte. Ferreira de Vasconcellos, Eufrosina, II, 4: Tanto me deu por uxte como por arre.
atafal. Cf. Barca do Purgatorio (I, 258): amanhade-lhe o atafal (not amanhã dé-lhe).
[363] Candosa, a village of some 1400 inh. in the district of Coimbra.
[369] xulo = chulo, pícaro. The derivation of chulo is uncertain (v. Gonçalvez Viana, Apostilas, vol. I (1906), p. 299). While Dozy derives it from Arabic xul, A. A. Koster suggests the same origin as that of Fr. joli, It. giulivo, Catalan joliu [= gay. Cf. Eng. jolly and the Portuguese word used by D. João de Castro: joliz], viz. the Old German word jol (gaiety). Vid. Quelques mots espagnols et portugais d'origine orientale (Zeitschrift für rom. Philologie, Bd. 38 (1914), S. 481-2). The Valencian form for July (Choliol) may strengthen this view.
[372] Tareja is the old Portuguese form of Theresa.
[375] bareja = mosca varejeira.
[379] Aveiro. A town of about 7500 inh., 40 miles S. of Oporto. It was nearly taken by the Royalists in 1919.
[398] For the naturalness of this conversation cf. that of the peasants Amancio Vaz and Deniz Lourenço in the Auto da Feira.
[410] Pero Vaz' point is that the mules will not stop to feed in the cool shade of the trees but do so in the shelterless charneca.
[429] Cf. the act of D. João de Castro (1500-48) as before him of Afonso de Albuquerque in pawning hairs of his beard, and the proverb Queixadas sem barbas não merecem ser honradas.
[435] O juiz de çamora. In the romance Ya se sale Diego Ordoñez Arias Gonzalo of Zamora says: 'A Dios pongo por juez porque es justo su juicio.' So that the judge of Zamora = God.
[438]-9 No one was better situated than Gil Vicente to criticize—and suffer the slights of—the brand-new nobility of the Portuguese Court. The nearer they were to the plough the more disdainful were they likely to be to a mere goldsmith and poet.
[454] desingulas (= dissimulas). Cf. Auto Pastoril Portugues: não o dessengules mais. Duarte Nunes de Leão, Origem da Lingva Portvgvesa (1606), cap. 18, includes dissingular (= dissimular) among the vocabulos que vsão os plebeios ou idiotas que os homens polidos não deuem vsar.
[467] For the form Diz cf. Auto das Fadas: Estevão Dis, and O Juiz da Beira: Anna Dias, Diez, Diz (= Diaz).
[473] Pero Vaz evidently did not know the cantiga:
A molher do almocreve
Passa vida regalada
Sem se importar se o marido
Fica morto na estrada.
Cf. the Galician quatrain (Pérez Ballesteros, Canc. Pop. Gall. II, 219):
A vida d'o carreteiro
É unha vida penada,
Non vai o domingo á misa
Nin dorme n'a sua cama.
[478] Vicente refers to the Medina fair in the Auto da Feira and again in O Juiz da Beira: morador en Carrion Y mercader en Medina.
[498] Folgosas. There are two small villages in Portugal called Folgosa, but reference here is no doubt to an inn or small group of houses.
[506] Vicente several times refers to Val de Cobelo, e.g. Comedia de Rubena: E achasse os meus porquinhos Cajuso em Val de Cobelo, and the shepherd in the Auto da Barca do Purgatorio: estando em Val de Cobelo.
[529]-30 Cf. Sá de Miranda, 1885 ed., No. 108, l. 261: Inda hoje vemos que em França Vivem nisto mais á antiga, etc. Couto (Dec. v, vi, 4) speaking of the mingling of classes, says: 'no nosso Portugal anda isto mui corrupto.'
[537] Cf. Comedia de Rubena: E broslados (= bordados) uns letreiros Que dizem Amores Amores.
[559] The ancient town of Viseu or Vizeu (9000 inh.) in Beira has now sunk from its former importance.
[560] pertem for pertence.
[565] arauia = algaravia. So ingresia, germania, etc. (cf. the French word charabia).
[586] Cf. O Juiz da Beira: pois tem a morte na mão (= not 'there is death in that hand' as was said of Keats, but 'he is at death's door').
[591] The original reading da sertãy (rhyming with mãy in l. 588) is confirmed by the Auto da Lusitania: rendeiro na Sertãe. The town of Certã in the district of Castello Branco now has some 5000 inh.
[603] Cf. Jorge Ferreira, Aulegrafia, I, 4: Ó senhor, grão saber vir.
[657] tam mancias, i.e. Macias, o Namorado, the prince of lovers. For the form Mancias cf. palanciana used for palaciana.
[671] los tus cabellos niña. Cf. Ferreira de Vasconcellos, Aulegrafia, f. 113: Sob los teus cabelos, ninha, dormiria.
[675] Cf. Jorge Ferreira, Eufrosina. Prologo: Eu por mim digo com a cantiga se o dizem digão, etc.; Cortes de Jupiter: Cantará c'os atabaques: Se disserão digão, alma minha and Barbieri, Cancionero Musical, No. 127: Si lo dicen digan, Alma mia, etc. E wrongly gives the words alma minha to the next quotation.
[676] Cf. Auto da India: Quem vos anojou, meu bem, Bem anojado me tem.
[707] Cf. Auto das Fadas: Son los suspiros que damos In hac vita lachrymarum.
[713] Camões, Filodemo, iv, 4, has tudo terei numa palha, 'I will not care a straw' (cf. Vicente in the Auto da Festa: Que os homens verdadeiros não são tidos numa palha), but here the meaning is different.
TRAGICOMEDIA PASTORIL DA SERRA DA ESTRELLA
It is remarkable that just at the time when Sá de Miranda had returned to Portugal with the new metres from Italy and was frankly contemptuous of Gil Vicente's rough mirth and rustic verse, Gil Vicente felt his position strong enough to present this lengthy play before the King and Court at Coimbra on occasion of the birth of the King's daughter Maria. There is no action in the play, and King Manuel would perhaps have yawned at these shepherds' quarrels, relieved not at all by the parvo's wit or the hermit's grossness and only occasionally by a touch of lyric poetry; but perhaps these simple scenes were welcome to the growing artificiality of the Court. For us the beautiful cossante Um amigo que eu havia stands out like a single orange gleaming from a dark-foliaged tree. The interest lies in the customs of the shepherds and their snatches of song and in the intimate knowledge of the Serra da Estrella shown by the author.
[10] The Serra da Estrella, the highest mountain-range in Portugal (6500 ft), is in the province of Beira.
[17] meyrinhas = maiorinho (merino).
[30] esperauel (as here and in Comedia de Rubena), or esparavel. Cf. Damião de Goes, Chron. de D. Manuel (1617), f. 25 v.: a modo de sobreceo d'esparavel.
[32] Cf. the vilão's complaints of God in the Romagem de Aggravados.
[35] nega = senão.
[51] As in Browning's A Grammarian's Funeral they are advancing as they converse: 'thither our path lies.'
[103] Nega se meu embeleco = se não me engano. This line occurs in the Templo de Apolo. The Auto da Festa text has nego se meu embaleco.
[113] mancebelhões. Cf. Correa, Lendas, IV, 426: Folgara de ser mais mancebelhão.
[127] The corresponding a-lines might be:
Dous açores que eu amava
Aqui andam nesta casa.
[172] argem for prata. Similarly in Spanish there is the old form argen for argento (= plata). Cf. the proverb Quien tiene argen tiene todo bien.
[190] somana for semana. So romendo for remendo and v. infra: perem for porem.
[225] gingrar. Nuno Pereira in the Cancioneiro Geral (1910 ed., vol. I, p. 305) has o gingrar de meu caseiro. Cf. Enzina, Auto del Repelon: Hora déjalos gingrar (Teatro, 1893, p. 241).
[241] sois. Cf. Barca do Purgatorio: sem sois motrete de pão; Farsa dos Fisicos: não vos quer sois olhar.
[290]-1 = odi et amo.
[322] As a rule Vicente's shepherds are natural enough but we may be permitted to doubt whether any shepherdess of the Serra da Estrella would have spoken of 'ending like Queen Dido.' She had probably been reading Lucas Fernández, Farsas (1867), p. 56.
[328] A, B C, D and E unaccountably print querê-lo (through the bad attraction of malo) although querer is needed to rhyme with quer.
[367] pintisirgo = pintasilgo.
[410] grauisca. Vicente appears to have coined the word from grave and arisca.
[427] Fronteira, a village of nearly 3000 inh. in the district of Portalegre. Monsarraz is of about the same size, in the district of Evora.
[435] tinhosa cada mea hora. Cf. Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcellos, Aulegrafia, f. 89: he hũa tinhosa que ontem guardava patas em Barquerena.
[440] cartaxo. Cf. Aulegrafia, f. 10: figo bafureiro em unhas de cartaixo.
[443] A pleasant sketch of the presumptuous peasant, then become a common type in Portugal. Felipa considers that to marry a shepherd would be beneath her and her heart leaps up when she beholds a courtier in velvet slippers.
[462] The hermit was of course a part of the stock-in-trade of mediaeval plays. He appears in Vicente as early as 1503 (Auto dos Reis Magos). The most interesting alteration in the heavily censored (1586) edition of the Serra da Estrella is not the excision of over a hundred lines about the evil-minded hermit but the substitution in l. 100 of un rey for Dios. Regalist Vicente would never have allowed himself to say that 'a king sometimes acts awry.'
[530] For amigo we should probably read marido to rhyme with atrevido.
[564] moxama = salted tuna (Sp. mojama or almojama).
[566] Cf. J. Ferreira de Vasconcellos, Aulegrafia (1619), f. 84: sejais bem casada com a filha do juiz.
[608] Sea, Cea or Ceia, a pleasant little town of some 3000 inh. in the heart of the Serra. (Sea, Sintra, etc. is the 16th cent, spelling, now restored.)
[616] Gouvea or Gouveia in the same district and about the same size as Sea. The three other Gouveas in Portugal are smaller villages.
[621] Manteigas, a small picturesque town immediately below the highest part of the Serra and nearly 2500 ft above sea-level.
[623] Covilham, a larger town (15000 inh.), still known for its cloth factories.
[652] Sardoal has about 5000 inh. For its ancient reputation for dancing cf. O Juiz da Beira:
Eu bailei em Santarem,
Sendo os Iffantes pequenos,
E bailei no Sardoal.
[666] This cossante needs for its completion a fourth verse. This was so obvious that it was omitted in the writing of the play.
[684] Esse he outro carrascal, a rural form of the phrase une autre paire de manches. The contrast is between the rustic cossante and the more 'cultivated' or Court cantigas that follow (Ja não quer and Não me firais).
[711] The chacota, chacotasinha was a peasant's dance accompanied by a simple song the structure of which answered to the movements of the dance. Here, however, it is danced to the sound of the organ and the words of a Court song in which, nevertheless, the repetition of the rustic dance-cossantes is preserved.
[724] Cf. Farsa de Ines Pereira: Eu vos trago um bom marido...diz que em camisa vos quer (= 'sans dot').