Four Plays of Gil Vicente Part 43

The result was that the old rustic jollity which Vicente had known so well in his youth was dying out, and the very songs of the peasants took a plaintive air:

E no mais triste ratinho s'enxergava hua alegria que agora no tem caminho.

Se olhardes as cantigas do prazer acostumado todas tem som lamentado, carregado de fadigas, longe do tempo pa.s.sado.

O d' ento era cantar e bailar como ha de ser, o cantar pera folgar, o bailar pera prazer, que agora e mao d'achar[155].

Nor could it be expected that the rich _parvenu_, the mushroom courtier, the _fidalgo 'que no sabe se o e,'_ the palace page fresh from keeping goats in the _serra_, the Court chaplain anxious to hide his humble origin, would greatly relish Vicente's plays which satirized them and in which rustic scenes and songs and memories appeared at every turn. It was much like mentioning the rope in the house of the hanged, and these dainty and sophisticated persons would turn with relief to the revival of the more decorous ancient drama inaugurated by Trissino in Italy and in Portugal by Sa de Miranda.

3 _este Arnado_. Cf. Bernardo de Brito, _Chronica de Cister_, III, 18: 'se foi [Afonso Henriquez] ao longo do Mondego por um campo ~q ento e no tempo de agora se chama o Arnado, trocado ja pelas enchentes do rio de campo cuberto de flores em um areal esteril e sem nenhua verdura.'

Cf. _Cancioneiro da Vaticana_, No. 1014: 'en Coimbra caeu ben provado, caeu en Runa ata en o Arnado.'

7 See the Spanish _romance_ (ap. Menendez y Pelayo. _Antologia_, t.

VIII, p. 124): 'Yo me estaba alla en Coimbra que yo me la hube ganado.'

8, 9 The sense of these two obscure lines is apparently: 'Since Coimbra so chastises us that we are left without a penny.' Ruy Moniz in the _Canc. Geral_, vol. II (1910), p. 142, has _cimbrar ou casar_. In Spanish _cimbrar_ = 'to brandish a rod,' 'to bend.' In the _Auto del Repelon_, printed in 1509, Enzina has: _El palo bien a.s.simado Cimbrado naquella tiesta_ (_Teatro_ (1893), p. 236) and Fernandez (p. 25) _No vos cimbre yo el cayado_. Cf. Antonio Prestes, _Autos_ (ed. 1871), p. 211: _E o vilo vindo me zimbra: reprender-me!_ and Joo Gomes de Abreu (_C.

Ger._ vol. IV (1915), p. 304) _seraa rrijo cimbrado_. _preto_ = _real preto_, contrasted with the white (i.e. silver) _real_.

12 _Pelos campos de Mondego cavaleiros vi somar_ were two very well-known lines apparently belonging to a real historical Portuguese _romance_ on the death of Ines de Castro. They occur in Garcia de Resende's poem on her death. See C. Michaelis de Vasconcellos, _Estudos sobre o romanceiro peninsular_.

13 Cf. _Tragicomedia da Serra da Estrella_ (1527): _Pedem-lhe em Coimbra cevada E elle da-lhe mexilhes_.

19 _milham_, green maize cut young for fodder.

32 _ratinhos_, peasants from Beira. They play a large part in Portuguese comedy.

80 _azemel_ = _almocreve_. Both words are of Arabic origin. Cf.

_almofreixe_ infra.

93 _Endoencas_ = _indulgentiae_. _Semana de Endoencas_ = Holy Week.

103 In the _Auto da Lusitania_ Vicente says jestingly, perhaps in imitation of the Spanish _romances_, that he was born at Pederneira (a small sea-side town in the district of Leiria). He mentions it again in the _Cortes de Jupiter_ and in the _Templo de Apolo_.

109 Cf. Alvaro Barreto in _Cancioneiro Geral_, vol. I (1910), p. 322: _po~e me tudo em huu item_.

120 It was the plea of Arias Gonzalo that the inhabitants of Zamora were not answerable for the guilt of Vellido Dolfos who had treacherously killed King Sancho:

Que culpa tienen los viejos? que culpa tienen los ninos?

que culpa tienen los muertos...?

129 _balcarriadas_. Cf. _Auto das Fadas_: _Venhas muitierama com tuas balcarriadas;_ _Auto da Festa_: _to gro balcarriada_; _Auto da Barca do Purgatorio_: _Nunca tal balcarriada Nem mare to desastrada_. Couto, _Asia_, VII, 5, vii: _Tal balcarriada_ (act of folly) _foi esta_. The _Canc. Geral_, vol. IV (1915), p. 370, has the form _barquarryadas_.

134 Cf. _Auto da Lusitania_: _um aito bem acordado Que tenha ave e pios_ (= well-proportioned).

135 The numerous servants of the starving _fidalgos_ are satirized by Nicolaus Clenardus and others. Like the English as described by a German in the 18th century they were 'lovers of show, liking to be followed wherever they go by whole troops of servants' (_A Journey into England_, by Paul Hentzer. Trans. Horace Walpole, 1757). Clenardus in his celebrated letter from Evora (1535) says that a Portuguese is followed by more servants in the streets than he spends sixpences in his house.

He mentions specifically the number eight.

141 Alcobaca is the town famous for its beautiful Cistercian convent.

161 _Alifante._ Cf. infra, _avangelho_. _A_ for _e_ is still common in Galicia: e.g. _mamoria_ (memory). Cf. Span. Basque _barri_ (new), for Fr. Basque _berri_.

165 The Dean was Diogo Ortiz de Vilhegas ( 1544) successively Bishop of So Tome (1534) and Ceuta (1540). See A. Braamcamp Freire in _Revista de Historia_, No. 25 (1918), p. 3.

224 _basties = _besties_, figures in relief. Gomez Manrique has _bestiones_ in this sense.

247 In Antonio Prestes' play _Auto do Mouro Encantado_ the golden apples prove to be pieces of coal. So Mello in his _Apologos Dialogaes_ speaks of the treasure of _moiras encantadas_ which all turns to coal.

269 _In Rey_, the popular form of _El-Rei_ (the king) is frequent also in the plays of Simo Machado, who died about a century after Vicente.

272 It is tempting to add the word _madraco_ (fool, ignoramus) for the sake of the rhyme. If _O recado que elle da_ were spoken very fast the line would bear the addition.

293 Here, as often, the deeper purpose of Vicente's satire appears beneath his fun. The growing depopulation of the provinces was becoming painfully evident to those who cared for Portugal.

302 Jorge Ferreira, _Ulysippo_, III, 5: _no haveria corpo, por mais que fosse de aco milanes, que podesse sofrer quanta costura lhe seria necessaria_; _ib._ III, 7: _temos muita costura esta noite; muita costura e tarefa_; Antonio Vieira, _Cartas_: _tambem aqui teremos costura_ (1 de agosto de 1673).

310 _trapa_ in Port. = 'a gin,' 'a trap,' but in Sp., as perhaps here, = 'noise,' 'uproar.'

327 Cf. _Farsa dos Fisicos_: _Praticamos ali O Leste e o Oeste e o Brasil_ and III, 377; Chiado, _Auto da Natural Invencam_, ed. Conde de Sabugosa (1917), p. 74.

348 The carrier comes along singing s.n.a.t.c.hes of a _pastorela_ of which we have other examples, of more intricate rhythm, in the _Cancioneiro da Vaticana_ and the poems of the Archpriest of Hita and the Marques de Santillana. A modern Galician _cantiga_ says that

O cantar d'os arrieiros E um cantarino guapo: Ten unha volta n'o medio Para dicir 'Arre macho.'

(Perez Ballesteros, _Cancionero Popular Gallego_, vol II, p. 215.)

355 Cf. _O Clerigo da Beira_: _Nuno Ribeiro Que nunca paga dinheiro E sempre arreganha os dentes_; and _Ah Deos! quem te furta.s.se Bolsa, Nuna Ribeiro. Homem vai buscar dinheiro, A todo ele disse: Ja dinheiro feito e_.

360 _uxtix_, _uxte_. Ferreira de Vasconcellos, _Eufrosina_, II, 4: _Tanto me deu por uxte como por arre_.

_atafal_. Cf. _Barca do Purgatorio_ (I, 258): _amanhade-lhe o atafal_ (not _amanh de-lhe_).

363 Candosa, a village of some 1400 inh. in the district of Coimbra.

369 _xulo_ = _chulo_, _picaro_. The derivation of _chulo_ is uncertain (v. Goncalvez Viana, _Apostilas_, vol. I (1906), p. 299). While Dozy derives it from Arabic _xul_, A. A. Koster suggests the same origin as that of Fr. _joli_, It. _giulivo_, Catalan _joliu_ [= gay. Cf. Eng.

_jolly_ and the Portuguese word used by D. Joo de Castro: _joliz_], viz. the Old German word _jol_ (gaiety). Vid. _Quelques mots espagnols et portugais d'origine orientale_ (_Zeitschrift fur rom. Philologie_, Bd. 38 (1914), S. 481-2). The Valencian form for July (_Choliol_) may strengthen this view.

372 Tareja is the old Portuguese form of Theresa.

375 _bareja_ = _mosca varejeira_.

379 Aveiro. A town of about 7500 inh., 40 miles S. of Oporto. It was nearly taken by the Royalists in 1919.

398 For the naturalness of this conversation cf. that of the peasants Amancio Vaz and Deniz Lourenco in the _Auto da Feira_.

410 Pero Vaz' point is that the mules will not stop to feed in the cool shade of the trees but do so in the shelterless _charneca_.

429 Cf. the act of D. Joo de Castro (1500-48) as before him of Afonso de Albuquerque in p.a.w.ning hairs of his beard, and the proverb _Queixadas sem barbas no merecem ser honradas_.

435 _O juiz de camora_. In the _romance Ya se sale Diego Ordonez_ Arias Gonzalo of Zamora says: 'A Dios pongo por juez porque es justo su juicio.' So that the judge of Zamora = G.o.d.

438-9 No one was better situated than Gil Vicente to criticize--and suffer the slights of--the brand-new n.o.bility of the Portuguese Court.