The odes are followed by some Sextinas, the artificial beauty of which Camoens has not failed to render pleasing. His one-and-twenty elegies are, however, more worthy of particular attention. Next to the Lusiad these compositions may in general be numbered among the longer poems of the author, and also among those in which the poet is most frequently represented in his real character as a man. Camoens had, however, no correct notion of the elegiac style. Like Ferreira, he blended it with the epistolary. But such a junction is no less detrimental to the tenderness than to the unity of the elegiac character, and in general deprives elegy of half its poetic interest. Were the language less copious and facund, this method of confounding the boundaries of the elegiac and the epistolary styles, would be still more striking. But the harmonious softness and rich flow of the expression, even where it approaches to prolixity, establish, at least, in a certain degree, a unity of character among the heterogeneous ingredients of which the elegy of Camoens is composed.[174] The feeble and tedious passages are readily overlooked, as they are amply counterbalanced by others possessing real elegiac beauty:[175] and the occasional deficiencies of these elegies in the poetry appropriate to their class, are compensated by the inappropriate, in which the poetic character of Camoens is every where prominent. The romantic soul of the unfortunate poet is completely unveiled in his elegiac compositions. His earliest productions in this class were written in his youth, when he was exiled to Belem; the others are expressive of the feelings which he experienced in his oriental voyages and adventures. There he fondly cherished recollections of the tranquil happiness which he persuaded himself he had enjoyed in his native country, though he had indignantly abandoned it as a place to existence in which he could not be reconciled. The common fate of humanity, which, independently of his personal circumstances, he always viewed profoundly and poetically, was in India more than ever present to his imagination; and in his elegies he has poured forth, without restraint, all the feelings of his heart. Thus is sympathy more powerfully excited by these compositions than by many of the same class, the beauties of which are of a less prosaic character. No other works of the poet so irresistibly command the reader’s regret for his misfortunes, and love for him as a man.
A few poems, widely differing from each other in character, are printed under the common title of estancias, (stanzas) because they are all composed in Italian octaves. Camoens seems to have felt that in Portuguese, as in Italian, this measure was, in universality of application, nearly equivalent to the Greek hexameter, because it was capable of being united and blended with most of the romantic poetic forms, in the same manner as that hexameter with the different styles of ancient poetry. The three first poems which occur under the title of estancias, are truly poetic epistles, and at the same time faithful mirrors of the character and principles of the poet. Through them Camoens, in a spirit of fervent loyalty, but with a no less honest zeal for truth and justice, addresses useful advice to his sovereign. The estancias which immediately succeed these epistles, are glosses in the Spanish manner on two of the author’s own sonnets. A tender epistle addressed to a lady, is the subject of the next: and the last estancias form an epic legend, which, with some alterations, also appears among the works of Bernardes. It is founded on the history of St. Ursula. Whether this epic legend be really the production of Camoens, or of his admirer Bernardes, it far excels Ferreira’s similar talc of St. Colomba, though the materials are less poetic.
Among the miscellaneous poems of Camoens, the eclogues occupy a considerable space, particularly if we include those of which Bernardes claimed to be the author. Much care appears to have been taken to give them an elegant polish. By the Portuguese they are regarded as models; and according to the received idea of the modern eclogue, particularly in Spain and Portugal, they certainly deserve that distinction. But with all their unquestionable merits, they do not reach the pure eclogue style of Saa de Miranda. The rural character which they ought to possess, is besides much impaired, in consequence of Camoens having, like Ferreira, employed the bucolic form merely to give a poetic interest to events borrowed from real life. This indeed was a custom which had been more or less followed in Portuguese poetry since the time of Ribeyro, and of which even Saa de Miranda did not disdain to avail himself. But those Portuguese poets who endeavoured to form their eclogue style after Saa de Miranda, were in general content with pastoral names and pastoral scenes, when they wished to throw a bucolic disguise over known characters and events; and thus the spirit of pastoral poetry often entirely vanished in those compositions in which its form was most ostentatiously displayed. The eclogues of Camoens partake of this essential fault. Still, however, they are sufficiently pleasing even without the aid of the historical key, with which the reader would doubtless willingly dispense. The descriptive passages are in general the best. In the expression of sentiment these eclogues perfectly resemble the sonnets, canções, and similar poems with which in reality they constitute one species. Passages in the Spanish language are occasionally interspersed.
In the collected works of Camoens, a separation is made of his poems in the Italian style and the Italian syllabic measure, from those which are composed in redondilhas, and which afford examples of an improved national style. In this style also he has enriched every species of poetic composition practised in Portugal and Spain. Much and justly celebrated are the redondilhas in which he poured forth the inmost feelings of his soul, on his return from Macao to Goa, after he had narrowly escaped death by shipwreck.[176] The number of his smaller poems, in all the possible forms of the old lyric style, proves how much, as a poet, he was attached to his native country. Romantic, gallant and comic plays of fancy and wit, glossed mottos in the Spanish style, voltas[177] in the genuine Portuguese manner, and other poetic trifles in the Portuguese and Spanish languages, appear to have been dealt out at every opportunity with a profuse hand by Camoens. In these compositions he paid no rigid attention to the correctness and elegance of the ideas, and indeed no mental sport of this kind seems to have been too homely for him. He even composed in honour of a lady, a romantic mythological a b c in redondilhas, in which, in correspondence with the initial letters, the names Artemisia, Cleopatra, Dido, Eurydice, Phædra, (spelt Fedra, according to the Italianized orthography of Camoens) Galatæa, &c. are played on in succession. But in some of these compositions, the simplicity and amenity of the old lyric style are combined with a peculiar grace, which alternately defies[178] and disarms[179] the severity of criticism.
The same national spirit which prevented the patriotic Camoens from rejecting the old lyric forms of the Portuguese poetry, induced him to write several dramas, and thus to leave no kind of poetic composition unattempted. It is not known at what period of his life these dramatic works were produced; but it is probable that they were written previously to his departure for India. They belong more completely to the age of Camoens than to the poet himself. They are, however, highly deserving of attention, though they should be merely considered as the last proofs of the poetic versatility and plastic genius of an author who comprised his whole age within himself, as far as a Portuguese national poet could accommodate himself to his age. Camoens was too much a poet to wish to supplant the national drama of his native country, however rude it then might be, by a prosaically modelled imitation of the ancient drama. He adhered to the party formed by the Spanish dramatist Naharro, and his ingenious countryman Gil Vicente. But his determination to dramatic poetry was not sufficiently decided to enable him to fix, by his productions, the taste of the Portuguese nation. Had the genius which animates the Lusiad, taken a dramatic direction, Camoens would have been the Calderon of Portugal, before a Lope de Vega had arisen in Spain. But Camoens in the composition of his dramas contented himself with slightly overstepping the bounds of Gil Vicente’s manner, and with refining, also, only in a slight degree, the construction of the plot and the language. The rudest of the three dramas, which are now attached as a supplement to the other works of the author, is, El Rey Seleuco, (King Seleucus) a singular production, founded on the well known anecdote of the history of that monarch, who resigned his wife Stratonice to his son Antiochus, lest the youth should fall a sacrifice to the passion of love. Camoens seems to have had no idea of treating this delicate subject in a sentimental way. The burlesque prelude or prologue, as it is called, in prose, is calculated to raise the expectation of a farce rather then of a serious drama. The theatrical manager, a lad who acts as his servant, a man of condition, who presents himself as a spectator, and his escudeiro, (attendant) are the characters in this prologue. The manager’s servant is the gracioso of the piece, and his jokes are at least so far useful that they afford an idea of the kind of wit which was at that time relished by the fashionable world in Lisbon. The drama itself, to which this prologue is the introduction, is entitled a comedy in the Spanish acceptation of the term, and is likewise denominated an auto, probably because royal personages are brought upon the scene, a circumstance which according to the Portuguese notions of poetry in that age elevated the piece above a mere comedy. The historical material is moulded according to the romantic forms; the composition is not only inartificial but trivial; and in the execution the ludicrous is quite as prevalent as the comic. The king and queen first enter, to converse on the melancholy state of the prince, and the king takes the opportunity of lamenting that he is no longer young enough for so fair a consort. The prince next appears attended by his pages, to whom he complains of his passion, but without naming the beloved object. The king and queen in vain endeavour to ascertain the cause of the prince’s grief, and orders are given to prepare a bed for him. A bed is introduced on the stage, and a chamber-maid who is engaged in making it, is surprised by her lover in disguise, who is a porteiro (usher) of the castle. This scene is altogether an interlude in the romantic style. The prince again enters, and after many tender complaints betakes himself to bed. A band of music arrives to sooth him while he reposes. One of the musicians named Alexander de Fonseca, enters into conversation with the usher and a page, concerning the melancholy of the prince. With the consent of the prince the usher sings a romance, and the queen again enters with an attendant. Various scenes thus succeed each other, until the physician by feeling the prince’s pulse, discovers the secret. The catastrophe is merely a representation of the dose of the anecdote, without any reference to the queen, who is resigned by the father to the son, like an article of household furniture. The physician in this comedy is a Spaniard. He is made a native of Castile in order that one of the characters might speak Spanish, and thus introduce a variety into the dialogue which it appears was agreeable to a Lisbon audience. The dialogue is in other respects natural, and the versification in redondilhas is pleasing and not devoid of elegance. But there is not a single excellent scene to compensate for the grotesque frivolity of the composition. It is impossible to consider this work as any thing else than a mere juvenile essay of such a poet as Camoens.
The second comedy of Camoens, Os Amphitryões, (the Amphitryons), was, however, a valuable contribution to the dramatic literature of Portugal. The merit of the invention of this purely comic piece, belongs indeed to Plautus, whose Amphitryon Camoens has freely imitated. But even the imitation must have marked an epoch in the history of the dramatic literature of Portugal, had the public been inclined to favour so happy a combination of the national and ancient forms. Any one unacquainted with the Amphitryon of Plautus would regard the Portuguese comedy as an original. The whole story of the piece is modernized without weakening the comic force of the situations. Jupiter indeed remains unchanged; but Mercury who attends him in his disguise, performs the servant in the true Portuguese style. Amphitryon is a sea captain, according to the Portuguese idea of that character. The servant of Amphitryon is converted into a perfect gracioso, who speaks Spanish, but still retains the name of Sosia. The humour of the burlesque scenes in which Sosia appears, is heightened by making Mercury, who converses with Jupiter in Portuguese, always speak Spanish, when he plays his part as the pseudo Sosia. It would be worth while to ascertain whether this pleasant comedy is ever performed in Lisbon.
Filodemo, the third comedy of Camoens, is one of those dramatized novels, of which the Spanish theatre afterwards afforded many examples. It is not a drama of intrigue, but a variegated collection of grave and half comic scenes, which are combined together as a whole by their common reference to the result of a singular event. That event is the saving of two twins, a boy and a girl, whose mother is a princess of Denmark. A shepherd finds the twins and brings them up. Shepherds and shepherdesses, gentlemen and ladies, a waiting woman, a hunter, and other characters of a similar kind, form the romantic groupe. The scene is sometimes in town in the open streets, or within a house; sometimes in the country, and among barren mountains. The denouement is the most trivial part of the whole composition. It is brought about by a shepherd initiated in the art of magic, who, by his necromantic skill, discovers the parentage of the twins, and by this discovery removes the obstacles which impede the happy issue of two parallel love stories. In this drama Camoens has interspersed, and evidently not without design, scenes in prose among scenes in verse. In conformity with his inclination to unite all manners, he was desirous of approximating to the party, which on the pretext of adhering strictly to nature endeavoured to banish verse from Portuguese comedy. He accordingly gives the dialogue in prose where the conversation is entirely of a popular character; and whenever the style becomes somewhat elevated, redondilhas are again introduced. Some of the shepherds speak Spanish, and among them a lad who is the bobo (buffoon) of the piece. Thus it would appear that Camoens in all his dramas, sought to exercise the right of retaliation upon the Spanish poets, who were fond of making their gracioso, or buffoon, express himself in Galician or Portuguese. The jokes in the Spanish language which Camoens has in this instance put into the mouth of his gracioso, would be sufficiently unpolished even if they were less broad and spiritless.[180]
MONTEMAYOR.
From Camoens, whose name now becomes a waymark for the whole domain of Portuguese poetry, the historian of that poetry cannot properly revert to the classic school of Ferreira, without previously reviving the recollection of Jorge de Montemayor, who was a contemporary of Camoens and Ferreira. The history of the life and writings of this excellent poet, belongs indeed rather to the literature of Spain than to that of Portugal.[181] But the spirit of the pastoral romance of Diana, by which Montemayor gained immortal fame, is in fact the spirit of Portuguese poetry transfused into the Spanish language. Without being an imitator of Ribeyro,[182] Montemayor followed in the same path with the same kind of susceptibility to impressions. But the cultivated delicacy of his feeling, and the romantic enthusiasm of his imagination, rendered him the first poet who enlarged and dignified the plain antiquated form of the Portuguese pastoral romance. He renewed and riveted the old link of connection between the Spanish and the Portuguese poetry. Had he confined himself to writing in his native tongue, he would probably have been succeeded by a Portuguese Gil Polo;[183] and the romantic pastoral poetry of the Portuguese would then have remained single in its kind. But Montemayor composed verses in the Portuguese language only for the sake of variety, and not with the view of extending the sphere of Portuguese poetry.[184]