The restoration of the Portuguese language to its original purity is an essential condition, since it is vain to hope to gather figs from thistles. The late Gonçalves Vianna, Julio Moreira, and others watched over Portuguese with loving care, and it is now under the protection of the celebrated philologist and folk-lorist, Dr. José Leite de Vasconcellos. But all may do their share by forswearing and rooting out Gallicisms to the best of their knowledge (Snr. Candido de Figueiredo does excellent service here), and when the ground has been cleared of these noxious weeds—Gallicisms, abstractions, trailing circumlocutions—Portuguese literature is likely to thrive as it has not thriven for the last three hundred years.
CHAPTER IX
PLAYS—GIL VICENTE
Portuguese Drama.
Portuguese writers have never shown a marked genius for dramatic action in their works, and although several hundreds of autos were written in the sixteenth century, and Antonio Ferreira (1528-69) introduced the classical drama into Portugal, yet drama might almost be said not to exist in Portugal were it not for two great writers: Gil Vicente, of the sixteenth century, and Almeida Garrett, of the nineteenth. Living Portuguese writers include some dramatic authors of remarkable merit, and the theatre has its devoted followers in Lisbon. But the opera and the cinematograph are the great favourites, and plays often owe their success to the scenic effects rather than to the drama in itself. Gil Vicente’s plays in the sixteenth century were, we know, accompanied by lavish scenic display, but their dialogue is so spirited, life-like and natural that they scarcely require alien adornments. Several of these plays have been recently revived, adapted or translated (from Spanish to Portuguese) by the poet Snr. Affonso Lopes Vieira, and favourably received at Lisbon.
Frei Luiz de Sousa.
As, together with the totally different plays of Garrett, with the principal of which, Frei Luiz de Sousa, English readers are familiar in the translation by Mr. Edgar Prestage (Elkin Mathews, 1909), these plays of Gil Vicente, lyric poet, satirist, goldsmith, playwright and actor, form the chief dramatic baggage of the Portuguese, it will not be amiss to give a few extracts from them. But, of course, to be fully appreciated, they must be read whole, and a forthcoming critical edition will make this less difficult for the ordinary reader than it has hitherto been.
THE BITER BIT
Servant Girl. Sir, an honest lady is here and would speak with you.