Plegomi otrosi oir muchas vegadas
Libros de devaneos e mentiras probadas,
Amadis e Lanzarote, e burlas a sacadas,
En que perdi mi tiempo á mui malas jornadas.
[360] Barbosa, Bib. Lusitana, Lisboa, 1752, fol., Tom. III. p. 775, and the many authorities there cited, none of which, perhaps, is of much consequence except that of João de Barros, who, being a careful historian, born in 1496, and citing an older author than himself, adds something to the testimony in favor of Lobeira.
[361] Gomez de Zurara, in the outset of his “Chronicle of the Conde Don Pedro de Meneses,” says that he wishes to write an account only of “the things that happened in his own times, or of those which happened so near to his own times that he could have true knowledge of them.” This strengthens what he says concerning Lobeira, in the passage cited in the text from the opening of Chap. 63 of the Chronicle. The Ferdinand to whom Zurara there refers was the father of John I. and died in 1383. The Chronicle of Zurara is published by the Academy of Lisbon, in their “Colecção de Libros Ineditos de Historia Portuguesa,” Lisboa, 1792, fol., Tom. II. I have a curious manuscript “Dissertation on the Authorship of the Amadis de Gaula,” by Father Sarmiento, who wrote the valuable fragment of a History of Spanish Poetry to which I have often referred. This learned Galician is much confused and vexed by the question;—first denying that there is any authority at all for saying Lobeira wrote the Amadis; then asserting, that, if Lobeira wrote it, he was a Galician; then successively suggesting that it may have been written by Vasco Perez de Camões, by the Chancellor Ayala, by Montalvo, or by the Bishop of Cartagena;—all absurd conjectures, much connected with his prevailing passion to refer the origin of all Spanish poetry to Galicia. He does not seem to have been aware of the passage in Gomez de Zurara.
[362] The Saint Graal, or the Holy Cup which the Saviour used for the wine of the Last Supper, and which, in the story of Arthur, is supposed to have been brought to England by Joseph of Arimathea, is alluded to in Amadis de Gaula (Lib. IV. c. 48). Arthur himself—“El muy virtuoso rey Artur”—is spoken of in Lib. I. c. 1, and in Lib. IV. c. 49, where “the Book of Don Tristan and Launcelot” is also mentioned. Other passages might be cited, but there can be no doubt the author of Amadis knew some of the French fictions.
[363] See the end of Chap. 40, Book I., in which he says, “The Infante Don Alfonso of Portugal, having pity on the fair damsel, [the Lady Briolana,] ordered it to be otherwise set down, and in this was done what was his good pleasure.”
[364] Ginguené, Hist. Litt. d’Italie, Paris, 1812, 8vo, Tom. V. p. 62, note (4), answering the Preface of the Conte de Tressan to his too free abridgment of the Amadis de Gaula, Œuvres, Paris, 1787, 8vo, Tom. I. p. xxii.
[365] The fact that it was in the Arveiro collection is stated in Ferreira, “Poemas Lusitanas,” (Lisboa, 1598, 4to,) where is the sonnet, No. 33, by Ferreira in honor of Vasco de Lobeira, which Southey, in his Preface to his “Amadis of Gaul,” (London, 1803, 12mo, Vol. I. p. vii.,) erroneously attributes to the Infante Antonio of Portugal, and thus would make it of consequence in the present discussion. Nic. Antonio, who leaves no doubt as to the authorship of the sonnet in question, refers to the same note in Ferreira to prove the deposit of the manuscript of the Amadis; so that the two constitute only one authority, and not two authorities, as Southey supposes. (Bib. Vetus, Lib. VIII. cap. vii. sect. 291.) Barbosa is more distinct. (Bib. Lusitana, Tom. III. p. 775.) But there is a careful summing up of the matter in Clemencin’s notes to Don Quixote, (Tom. I. pp. 105, 106,) beyond which it is not likely we shall advance in our knowledge concerning the fate of the Portuguese original.