[657] tam mancias, i.e. Macias, o Namorado, the prince of lovers. For the form Mancias cf. palanciana used for palaciana.
[671] los tus cabellos niña. Cf. Ferreira de Vasconcellos, Aulegrafia, f. 113: Sob los teus cabelos, ninha, dormiria.
[675] Cf. Jorge Ferreira, Eufrosina. Prologo: Eu por mim digo com a cantiga se o dizem digão, etc.; Cortes de Jupiter: Cantará c'os atabaques: Se disserão digão, alma minha and Barbieri, Cancionero Musical, No. 127: Si lo dicen digan, Alma mia, etc. E wrongly gives the words alma minha to the next quotation.
[676] Cf. Auto da India: Quem vos anojou, meu bem, Bem anojado me tem.
[707] Cf. Auto das Fadas: Son los suspiros que damos In hac vita lachrymarum.
[713] Camões, Filodemo, iv, 4, has tudo terei numa palha, 'I will not care a straw' (cf. Vicente in the Auto da Festa: Que os homens verdadeiros não são tidos numa palha), but here the meaning is different.
TRAGICOMEDIA PASTORIL DA SERRA DA ESTRELLA
It is remarkable that just at the time when Sá de Miranda had returned to Portugal with the new metres from Italy and was frankly contemptuous of Gil Vicente's rough mirth and rustic verse, Gil Vicente felt his position strong enough to present this lengthy play before the King and Court at Coimbra on occasion of the birth of the King's daughter Maria. There is no action in the play, and King Manuel would perhaps have yawned at these shepherds' quarrels, relieved not at all by the parvo's wit or the hermit's grossness and only occasionally by a touch of lyric poetry; but perhaps these simple scenes were welcome to the growing artificiality of the Court. For us the beautiful cossante Um amigo que eu havia stands out like a single orange gleaming from a dark-foliaged tree. The interest lies in the customs of the shepherds and their snatches of song and in the intimate knowledge of the Serra da Estrella shown by the author.