Joy is in the heart of song;
Songs, too, to the Virgin ringing
Came once from the angel throng.)
Illiterate Poets.
Anyone with a spirit of enterprise and a thorough knowledge of Portuguese might collect a goodly crop of such cantigas, together with thousands of delightful expressions and sayings peculiar to each region of Portugal. Minho especially, that charming province of crystal streams and cool maize-fields, offers a wide scope. But it is a narrowing opportunity, since education, however slow its progress in Portugal, is gradually advancing. Many of the cantigas, composed by illiterate persons, are not intended to survive the occasion that gave them birth. Hence their naturalness and charm. The lovely Greek epigrams show a more conscious art. They are the perfect daffodils and hyacinths, whereas the Portuguese cantigas are the forgotten celandines and primroses of the lanes and woods. In 1911 died an old workman of Setubal, Antonio Maria Euzebio (born in 1820), who could neither read nor write, but had composed verses with great ease from an early age. A volume of his verses was published in 1901, with introduction by Snr. Theophilo Braga and Snr. Guerra Junqueiro. Of a poetic art as such he had no glimmering, but, in Portugal at least, such ignorance would help rather than injure him as a poet.
Nature and Art.
The Portuguese are richly gifted by nature, but, in matters of art or in artificial surroundings, their natural taste sometimes seems to desert them. Corruptio optimi. Under circumstances which do not allow them to be themselves some of the aspersions of an eighteenth century writer may be true of them: “Ils sont jaloux au suprême degré,” wrote the author of the Description de la ville de Lisbonne (Amsterdam, 1738), “dissimulés, vindicatifs, railleurs, vains et présomptueux sans sujet.” (The same writer admits that they have great virtues: “Ils ont avec beaucoup de vivacité et de pénétration un attachement extraordinaire pour leur Prince; ils sont fort secrets, fidèles amis, généreux, charitables envers leurs parens, sobres dans leur manger, ne mangeant presque que du poisson, ris, vermicelli, légumes, confitures, et ne buvant pour l’ordinaire que de l’eau.”) The family life of a Portuguese, especially in some country quinta, is extremely attractive, and he only becomes uninteresting when he follows the customs of foreign nations. So long as he is natural, few nations excel him; when he ceases to be natural he lags woefully behind in the ruts of foreign imitation. There was a grain of truth in the remark of a critic that Camões, with a great lyrical gift, was unsuccessful in the sonnet owing to his attempt to introduce naturalness into an essentially artificial form. The Portuguese, where their love of nature does not help them, are left at the mercy of extravagance and tawdriness.
Artistic Sense.
Not that the ordinary artisan does not turn out much good honest work. Indeed, while the Spanish make things for show rather than for use, and the French for a little of both, the Portuguese agrees with the English in making them with a regard for comfort and a sublime unconcern for the look of them. And in this no doubt they show their good sense. But they are not artistic. This is shown in a thousand ways, in the curve of a chair, the finish of a book-case, in their buildings, in the colour of their dress and of the wash for their houses, in which squashed hues, and especially pink, predominate; in the shape of the water-jars, in which the soul of a Latin people is often expressed. (The Portuguese jars are often rather useful than ornamental, squat in shape, fashioned to contain the greatest possible quantity of water, and with but one handle, for use, instead of two, for art’s sake.) In the construction of modern houses, as in many matters of daily life, the Portuguese makes comfort or a saving of trouble the principal consideration. Their ancient buildings in which, indeed, foreign architects had no little part—Batalha, for instance, or Alcobaça—can vie in beauty with those of any country. But, although Manoeline architecture in some cases may have justified its existence, in principle it was an outrage against pure Gothic, and a similar tastelessness may be noted in daily life at the present time. The undertakers add a horror to death in other cities besides Lisbon, but in no other can the grandest funerals be marked by a more grotesque and fantastic ugliness. Nor is it easy to forget a coffin at a funeral in the provinces—not that of a child. It was bright pink with silver scales. It is most curious, this tendency to tinsel on the part of a people which appears to have natural good taste. Perhaps it is an importation from the East.