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.'