Chapter IV: Originality and Influence (1)

In 1523 the 'men of good learning' doubted Vicente's originality. They might point to the imitations of Enzina or to the resemblance between the trilogy of _Barcas_ and the _Danza de la Muerte_ or they might reveal the origin of many a verse and phrase used by Vicente in his plays and already familiar in the song-books of Spain and Portugal. Vicente could well afford to let his critics strain at these gnats. He had the larger originality of genius and while realizing that 'there is nothing new under the sun[130]' he could transform all his borrowings into definite images or lyrical magic. (There are flashes of poetry even in the absurd _ensalada_ of III. 323-4.) He was the greatest lyrical poet of his day and, in a strictly limited sense, the greatest dramatist. He is Portugal's only dramatist, without forerunners or successors, for the playwrights of the Vicentian school lacked his genius and only attain some measure of success when they closely copy their master, while the classical school produced no great drama in Portugal: it is impossible to except even Antonio Ferreira's _Ines de Castro_ from this sweeping assertion. But that is not to say that Vicente stands entirely isolated, self-sufficing and self-contained. Genius is never self-sufficing. Talent may live apart in an ivory palace but genius overflows in many relations, is acted on and reacts and has the generosity to receive as well as to give. The influences that acted upon Gil Vicente were numerous: the Middle Ages and the humanism of the first days of the Renaissance, the old national Portugal with its popular traditions and the new imperial Portugal of the first third of the sixteenth century, the Bible and the _Cancioneiro de Resende_, the whole literature of Spain and Portugal, the services of the Church, the book of Nature. But before examining how these influences work out in his plays it may be well to consider whether their sources may be yet further extended.

Court relations between Portugal and France had never entirely ceased and the 1516 _Cancioneiro_ contains many allusions to the prevailing familiarity with things French. But Vicente's genius was not inspired by the Court: it would be truer to say that, while he was encouraged by Queen Lianor and the King, the Court's taste for new things, superficial fashions and personal allusions tended to thwart his genius. When he introduces a French song in his plays this does not imply any intimate acquaintance with the lyrical poetry of France but rather deference to the taste of the Court. He would pick up words of foreign languages with the same quickness with which he initiated himself into the way of witch or pilot, fishwife or doctor, but we have an excellent proof that his knowledge of neither French nor Italian was profound. We know how consistently he makes his characters speak each in his own language. Yet in the _Auto da Fama_, whereas the Spaniard speaks Spanish only, the Frenchman and Italian murder their own language and eke it out with Portuguese[131]. Vicente read what he could find to read, but we may be sure that his reading was mainly confined to Portuguese and Spanish. The very words in his letter to King João III in which he speaks of his reading are another echo of Enzina[132], and although it cannot be asserted that he was not acquainted with this or that piece of French literature and with the early French drama, it may be maintained that whatever influence France exercised upon him came mainly through Spain, whether the connecting link is extant, as in the case of the _Danza de la Muerte_, or lost, as in that of the _Sumario da Historia de Deos_. Probably Vicente knew of French _mystères_ little more than the name[133]. As to the literature of Greece, Rome and Italy the conclusion is even more definite. Vicente had not read Plautus or Terence, his knowledge of _el gran poeta Virgilio_ (III. 104) does not extend beyond the quotation _omnia vincit amor_. Aristotle is a name _et praeterea nihil_. With the classical tragedy of Trissino and others he had nothing in common, and if he lived to read or see Sá de Miranda's _Cleopatra_ he probably had his own very marked opinion as to its value. Dante was, of course, a closed book to him as to most of his contemporaries. With Spanish literature the case is very different. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were the most Spanish period of Portuguese literature. The _Cancioneiro de Resende_ is nearly as Spanish as it is Portuguese. Portuguese poets were, almost without exception, bilingual. The horsemen stationed to bring the news of the wedding from Seville to Evora in 1490 were emblematic of the close relations between the two countries. Men were in continual expectation that they would come to form one kingdom[134]. King Manuel's infant son was heir to Spain and Portugal and the empires in Africa and America.

Vicente's close acquaintance with Spanish literature shows itself at every turn, and if we examine his plays we find but slight traces of the influence of any other literature. His first pieces were written in Spanish, and the Spanish is that of Enzina. Lines and phrases are taken bodily from the Spanish poet and words belonging to the conventional _sayagués_ (in which there was already a Portuguese element: cf. _ollos_ for _ojos_) placed on the lips of _charros_ by Enzina are transferred from Salamanca to Beira. The Enzina eclogues imitated by Vicente were based on those of Virgil, but in Vicente's imitation there is no vestige of any knowledge of the classics. The only Latin that occurs is the quotation by Gil Terron of three lines from the Bible. A little later the hungry _escudero_ of _Quem tem farelos?_ was in all probability derived from Spanish literature, either from the Archpriest of Hita's _Libro de Buen Amor_ or from some popular sketch such as that contained later in _Lazarillo de Tormes_ (1554)[135]. The only French element in the _Auto da Fé_ is the _fatrasie_ or _enselada_ 'which came from France,' but its text is not given. The classical allusions to Virgil and the Judgment of Paris in the _Auto das Fadas_ are perfectly superficial. A little medical Latin is introduced in the _Farsa dos Fisicos_. _O Velho da Horta_, which opens with the Lord's Prayer, half in Latin, half in Portuguese[136], is written in Portuguese with the exception of the fragment of song and the lyric _¿Cual es la niña?_ There is a reference to Macias, a name which had become a commonplace in Portuguese poetry as the type of the constant lover. Spanish influence is shown in the introduction of the _alcouviteira_ Branca Gil, probably suggested by Juan Ruiz' _trotaconventos_ or by Celestina. The _Exhortação da Guerra_ begins with humorous platitudes, _perogrulladas_, after the fashion of Enzina. Gil Terron has increased his classical lore, and Trojan and Greek heroes are brought from the underworld, the _dramatis personae_ including Polyxena, Penthesilea, Achilles, Hannibal, Hector and Scipio. The influence of Enzina is still evident in the _Auto da Sibila Cassandra_, the _bellíssimo auto_ wherein Menéndez y Pelayo saw the first germ of the symbolical _autos_ in which Calderón excelled[137], and in the _Auto dos Quatro Tempos_. The immediate influence on the _Barcas_ is plainly Spanish, this being especially marked in the _Barca da Gloria_. When the _Diabo_ addresses the King:

Nunca aca senti
Que aprovechase aderencia
Ni lisonjas, crer mentiras
... Ni diamanes ni zafiras (I. 285)

he is copying the words of Death in the _Danza de la Muerte_:

non es tiempo tal
Que librar vos pueda imperio nin gente
Oro nin plata nin otro metal[138].

Vicente's Devil taxes the Archbishop with fleecing the poor (I. 294) in much the same words as those of the Spanish Death to the Dean (t. 2, p. 12). The Devil in the _Barca do Purgatorio_ (I. 251) and Death (t. 2, p. 17) both reproach the _labrador_ with the same offence: surreptitiously extending the boundaries of his land. It must be admitted that these signs of imitation are more direct than the French traces indicated in the introduction of the 1834 edition of Vicente's works. The whole treatment of the _Barcas_ closely follows the _Danza de la Muerte_. The idea of a satirical review of the dead is of course nearly as old as literature. In the _Barca da Gloria_ Vicente begins to quote Spanish _romances_[139], and this is continued on a larger scale in the _Comedia de Rubena_ (cf. also the Spanish songs in the _Cortes de Jupiter_) and in _Dom Duardos_, in which reference is also made to two Spanish books, Diego de San Pedro's _Carcel de Amor_ and Hernando Diaz' translation _El Pelegrino Amador_[140]. Maria Parda's will was probably suggested rather by such burlesque testaments as that of the dying mule in the _Cancioneiro de Resende_ than by the _Testament de Pathelin_. The criticism of the _homens de bom saber_ seems to have turned Vicente to more peculiarly Portuguese themes in the _Farsa de Ines Pereira_ and the _Auto Pastoril Portugues_, and in the _Fragoa de Amor_, written for the new Queen from Spain, he presents national types: _serranas_, pilgrims, nigger, monk, idiot. In the _Ciganas_ we have a passing reference to 'the white hands of Iseult,' a lady already well known in Spanish and Portuguese literature. _Dom Duardos_ is of course based entirely on a Spanish romance of chivalry. In _O Juiz da Beira_ he returns to the _escudeiro_ and _alcouviteira_; the figures are, however, thoroughly Portuguese with the exception of a new Christian from Castille. The title of the _Nao de Amores_ already existed in Spanish literature[141]. After this we have a group of thoroughly Portuguese plays, those presented at Coimbra, the anticlerical _Auto da Feira_, the _Triunfo do Inverno_, _O Clerigo da Beira_. It is not till _Amadis de Gaula_ that Vicente again has recourse to Spanish literature[142], and we may be sure that if he had known of a Portuguese text he would have written his drama in Portuguese.

Although Vicente owed much to Spanish literature we have only to compare his plays with those of Juan del Enzina or Bartolomé de Torres Naharro, or his first attempts with his later dramas to realize his genius and originality. The variety of his plays is very striking and the farce _Quem tem farelos?_ (1508?), the patriotic _Exhortação_ (1513), the _Barca_ trilogy (1517-9), the religious _Auto da Alma_ (1518), the three-act _Comedia de Rubena_ (1521), the character comedy _Farsa de Ines Pereira_ (1523), the idyllic _Dom Duardos_ (1525?) mark new departures in the development of his genius. No doubt his plays are 'totally unlike any regular plays and rude both in design and execution[143].' Vicente divided them into religious plays (_obras de devaçam_), farces, comedies and tragicomedies, but the kinds overlap and there is nothing to separate some of the comedies and tragicomedies from the farces, while some of the farces are religious both in subject and occasion. How artificial the division was may be seen from the rubric to the _Barca do Inferno_, which informs us that the play is counted among the religious plays because the second and third parts (_Barca do Purgatorio_ and _Barca da Gloria_) were represented in the Royal Chapel, although this first part was given in the Queen's chamber, as though the subject and treatment of the three plays were not sufficient to class them together. Again, the rubric of the _Romagem de Aggravados_ runs: 'The following tragicomedy is a satire.' Really only its length separates it from the early farces. Vicente's plays were a development of the earlier Christmas, Holy Week and Easter _representaciones_, religious shows to which special pomp was given at King Manuel's Court. When he began to write the classical drama was unknown and it is absurd to judge his work by the Aristotelean theory of the unities of time and place. His idea of drama was not dramatic action nor the development of character but realistic portrayal of types and the contrast between them. His first piece, _Auto da Visitaçam_, has not even dialogue--its alternative title is _O Monologo do Vaqueiro_--and for comic element it relies on the contrast between Court and country as shown by the herdsman's gaping wonder. The _Auto Pastoril Castelhano_ contains six shepherds and contrasts the serious mystical Gil with his ruder companions.

The action of the _Auto dos Reis Magos_ is as simple as that of the two preceding plays. _Quem tem farelos?_ however is a quite new development. 'The argument,' says the rubric, 'is that a young squire called Aires Rosado played the viola and although his salary [as one of the Court] was very small he was continually in love.' He is contrasted with another penniless _escudeiro_ who gives himself martial airs and willingly speaks of the heroic deeds of Roncesvalles, but runs away if two cats begin to fight. Only five persons appear on the stage, but with considerable skill Vicente enlarges the scene so as to include a vivid picture of the second squire as described by his servant as well as the barking of dogs, mewing of cats and crowing of cocks and the conversation of Isabel with Rosado, which is conjectured from his answers. No doubt the two _moços_ owe something to Sempronio and Parmeno of the _Celestina_, but this first farce is thoroughly Portuguese and gives us a concrete and living picture of Lisbon manners. Not all the farces have this unity. The _Auto das Fadas_ loses itself in a long series of verses addressed to the Court. The _Farsa dos Fisicos_ has no such extraneous matter: it confines itself to the lovelorn priest and the contrast between the four doctors. The _Comedia do Viuvo_ is not a farce and only a comedy by virtue of its happy ending. A merchant of Burgos laments the death of his wife and is comforted by a kindly priest and by a friend who wishes that his own wife were as the merchant's (the simple mediaeval contrast common in Vicente). Meanwhile Don Rosvel, Prince of Huxonia, has fallen in love with both the daughters of the merchant, whom he agrees to serve in all kinds of manual labour as Juan de las Brozas. His brother, Don Gilberto, arrives in search of him and a quaintly charming and technically skilful play ends with a double wedding (the Crown Prince of Portugal, present at the acting of this play, had to decide for Don Rosvel which daughter he should marry).

The _Auto da Fama_ is Vicente's second great hymn to the glory of Portugal. Portuguese Fame, in the person of a humble girl of Beira, is envied and wooed in vain by Castille, France and Italy--England and Holland were then scarcely in the running--and narrates in ringing verses the deeds of the Portuguese in the East, without, however, mentioning the great name of Albuquerque, a name which inspired many of the courtiers with more fear than affection. The _Auto dos Quatro Tempos_ is a pastoral-religious play, the main theme being, as its title indicates, a contrast between the four seasons. David appears as a shepherd and Jupiter also takes a considerable part in the conversation. Action there is none.

Vicente's satirical vein found excellent occasion in the ancient theme of scrutinizing the past lives of men as Death reaps them, high and low, but his profoundly religious temperament raises the _Barcas_ into an atmosphere of sublime if gloomy splendour, which is surpassed in the _Auto da Alma_, the most perfect and consistent of his religious plays--even the symbolical character of the latter part can hardly be called a defect. In the _Comedia de Rubena_ the development of Vicente's art is perhaps more superficial than real. It is divided into three long scenes or acts and is thus more like a regular comedy than his other plays. The acts, however, are isolated, the action occupies fifteen years and occurs in Castille, Lisbon and Crete. English readers of the play must be struck by its resemblance to _Pericles, Prince of Tyre_. Written fifty-five years before Lawrence Twine's _The Patterne of Painful Adventures_ (1576) and eighty-seven before George Wilkins and William Shakespeare produced their play (1608), the _Comedia de Rubena_ is in fact a link in a long chain beginning in a lost fifth century Greek romance concerning Apollonius of Tyre and continued after Gil Vicente's death in Timoneda's _Tarsiana_ and in _Pericles_. Vicente, however, in all probability did not derive his Cismena, cold and chaste predecessor of Marina, from the _Gesta Romanorum_ or the _Libro de Apolonio_ but from the version in John Gower's _Confessio Amantis_, of which a translation, as we know, was early available in Portugal. After an exclusively Court piece, the _Cortes de Jupiter_, Vicente wrote the _Farsa de Ines Pereira_, in which there is more action and development of character than in his preceding, or indeed his subsequent, plays. He represents the aspirations and repentance of Ines, the 'very flighty daughter of a woman of low estate.' Despite the warnings of her sensible mother she rejects the suit of simple and uncouth Pero Marques for that of a gentleman (_escudeiro_) whose pretensions are far greater than his possessions. The mother gives them a house and retires to a small cottage. But the _escudeiro_ married confirms the wisdom of the Sibyl Cassandra (I. 40). He keeps his wife shut up 'like a nun of Oudivellas.' The windows are nailed up, she is not allowed to leave the house even to go to church. Thus the hopes and ambitions of Ines Pereira de Grãa are tamed, although she was never a shrew[144]. Presently, however, the _escudeiro_ resolves to cross over to Africa to win his knighthood:

ás partes dalem
Vou me fazer cavaleiro,

and he leaves his wife imprisoned in their house, the key being entrusted to the servant (_moço_). Ines, singing at her work, is declaring that if ever she have to choose another husband _on ne m'y prendra plus_ when a letter arrives from her brother announcing that her husband, as he fled from battle towards Arzila, had been killed by a Moorish shepherd. The faithful Pero Marques again presses his suit. He is accepted and is made to suffer the whims and infidelity of the emancipated Ines. The question of women's rights was a burning one in the sixteenth century.

Vicente's versatility enabled him to laugh at his critics to the end of the chapter. In _Dom Duardos_ he gave them an elaborate and very successful dramatization of a Spanish romance of chivalry. The treatment has both unity and lyrical charm. It was so successful that the experiment was repeated in 1533 with the earlier romance of _Amadis de Gaula_ (1508), out of which Vicente wrought an equally skilful but less fascinating play[145]. But Vicente had not given up writing farces and the sojourn of Ines Pereira's husband in town enables the author to introduce various Lisbon types in _O Juiz da Beira_. It indeed completely resembles the early farces, while the _Auto da Festa_ with its peasant scene and allegorical _Verdade_ is of the _Auto da Fé_ type but adds the theme of the old woman in search of a husband. The _Templo de Apolo_, composed for a special Court occasion, shows no development, but in the _Sumario_ we have a fuller religious play than he had hitherto written. It proves, like _Dom Duardos_, his power of concentration and his skill in seizing on and emphasizing essential points in a long action (the period here covered is from Adam to Christ[146]). It is closely moulded on the Bible and contains, besides an exquisite _vilancete_ (_Adorae montanhas_), passages of noble poetry and soaring fervour--Eve's invocation to Adam:

Ó como os ramos do nosso pomar
Ficam cubertos de celestes rosas (I. 314);

Job's lament 'Man that is born of woman' (I. 324); the paraphrase or rather translation of 'I know that my Redeemer liveth' (I. 322). Nothing here, surely, to warrant the complaints of Sá de Miranda as to the desecration of the Scriptures. This play was followed by the _Dialogo sobre a Ressurreiçam_ by way of epilogue; it is a conversation between three Jews and is treated in the cynical manner that Browning brought to similar scenes. The _Sumario_ or _Auto da Historia de Deos_ was acted before the Court at Almeirim and must have won the sincere admiration of the devout João III. If the courtiers were less favourably impressed they were mollified by the splendid display of the _Nao de Amores_ with its much music, its Prince of Normandy and its miniature ship fully rigged. Vicente was now fighting an uphill battle and in the _Divisa da Cidade de Coimbra_ he attempted a task beyond the strength of a poet and more suitable for a sermon such as Frei Heitor Pinto preached on the same subject: the arms of the city of Coimbra. Even Vicente could not make this a living play; it is, rather, a museum of antiquities and ends with praises of Court families. It is pathetic to find the merry satirist reduced to admitting (in the argument of this play) that merely farcical farces are not very refined. Yet we would willingly give the whole play for another brief farce such as _Quem tem farelos?_:

Ya sabeis, senhores,
Que toda a comedia começa em dolores,
E inda que toque cousas lastimeiras
Sabei que as farças todas chocarreiras
Não sam muito finas sem outros primores (II. 108).

Fortunately he returned to the plain farce in _Os Almocreves_, the _Auto da Feira_ and _O Clerigo da Beira_ (which, however, ends with a series of Court references) with all his old wealth of satire, touches of comedy and vivid portraiture. He also returned to the pastoral play in the _Serra da Estrella_, while his exquisite lyrism flowers afresh in the _Triunfo do Inverno_, a tragicomedy which is really a medley of farces. It is not a great drama but it is a typical Vicentian piece, combining vividly sketched types with a splendid lyrical vein. Winter, that banishes the swallows and swells the voice of ocean streams, first triumphs on hills and sea and then Spring comes in singing the lovely lyric _Del rosal vengo_ in the Serra de Sintra. The play ends on a serious and mystic note, for Spring's flowers wither but those of the holy garden of God bloom without fading:

E o santo jardim de Deos
Florece sem fenecer.

The _Auto da Lusitania_ is divided into two parts, the first of which is complete in itself and gives a description of a Jewish household at Lisbon, while the second is a medley which contains the celebrated scene of Everyman and Noman: Everyman seeks money, worldly honour, praise, life, paradise, lies and flattery; Noman is for conscience, virtue, truth. In the _Romagem de Aggravados_ the fashionable and affected Court priest, Frei Paço, is the connecting link for a series of farcical scenes in which a peasant brings his son to become a priest, two noblemen discourse on love, two fishwives lament the excesses of the courtiers, Cerro Ventoso and Frei Narciso betray their mounting ambition, civil and ecclesiastic, the poor farmer Aparicianes implores Frei Paço to make a Court lady of his slovenly daughter, two nuns bewail their fate and two shepherdesses discuss their marriage prospects. The _Auto da Mofina Mendes_ is especially celebrated because Mofina Mendes, personification of ill-luck, with her pot of oil is the forerunner of La Fontaine's _Pierrette et son pot au lait_: it was perhaps suggested to Vicente by the tale of Doña Truhana's pot of honey in _El Conde Lucanor_; the theme of counting one's chickens before they are hatched also forms the subject of one of the _pasos_, entitled _Las Aceitunas_, of the goldbeater of Seville, Lope de Rueda[147]. Vicente's piece consists, like some picture of El Greco, of a _gloria_, called, as Rueda's scenes, a _passo_, in which appear the Virgin and the Virtues (Prudence, Poverty, Humility and Faith) and an earthly shepherd scene. It is thus a combination of farce and religious and pastoral play. Vicente's last play, the _Floresta de Enganos_, is composed of scenes so disconnected that one of them is even omitted in the summary given after the first deceit: that in which a popular traditional theme, derived directly or indirectly from a French (perhaps originally Italian) source, _Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_, is presented, akin to that so piquantly narrated by Alarcón in _El Sombrero de Tres Picos_ in the nineteenth century, the judge playing the part of the Corregidor and the malicious and sensible servant-girl that of the miller's wife.

In these last plays we see little or no advance: there is no attempt at unity or development of plot. We cannot deny that the creator of the penniless-splendid nobleman and the mincing courtier-priest and the author of such touches as the death of Ines' husband or the sudden ignominious flight of the judge possessed a true vein of comedy, but he remained to the end not technically a great dramatist but a wonderful lyric poet and a fascinating satirical observer of life. His influence was felt throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Portugal, by Camões and in the plays of Chiado, Prestes and a score of less celebrated dramatists, as well as in a considerable number of anonymous plays, but confined itself to the _auto_, which, combated by the followers of the classical drama and the Latin plays of the Jesuits, soon tended to deteriorate and lose its charm. In Spain his influence would seem to have been more widely felt, which is not surprising when we remember how many of his plays were Spanish in origin or language[148]. We may be sure that Lope de Rueda was acquainted with his plays and that several of them were known to Cervantes--the servant Benita insisting on telling her simple stories to her afflicted mistress is Sancho Panza to the life:

_Benita._ Diz que era un escudero....

_Rubena._ O quien no fuera nacida:
¿Viendome salir la vida
Paraste a contar patrañas?

_Benita._ Pues otra sé de un carnero....

Lope de Vega was likewise certainly familiar with some of Vicente's plays. If we consider these passages in _El Viaje del Alma_, the _representación moral_ contained in _El Peregrino en su Patria_ (1604), we must be convinced that the trilogy of _Barcas_, the _Auto da Alma_, and perhaps the _Nao de Amores_ were not unknown to him:

Alma para Dios criada
Y hecha a imagen de Dios, etc.;
Hoy la Nave del deleite
Se quiere hacer a la mar:
¿Hay quien se quiera embarcar?;
Esta es la Nave donde cabe
Todo contento y placer[149].

The alleged imitation by Calderón in _El Lirio y la Azucena_ is perhaps more doubtful. Vicente was already half forgotten in Calderon's day. In the artificial literature of the eighteenth century he suffered total eclipse although Correa Garção was able to appreciate him, nor need we see any direct influence in that of the nineteenth[150] except that on Almeida Garrett: the similar passages in Goethe's _Faust_ and Cardinal Newman's _Dream of Gerontius_ were no doubt purely accidental. Happily, however, we are able to point to a certain influence of the great national poet of Portugal on some of the Portuguese poets of the twentieth century. The promised edition of his plays will increase this influence and render him secure from that neglect which during three centuries practically deprived Portugal and the world of one of the most charming and inspired of the world's poets.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] _Falamos do nosso Shakespeare, de Gil Vicente_ (A. Herculano, _Historia da Inquisição em Portugal_, ed. 1906, vol. I. p. 223). The references throughout are to the Hamburg 3 vol. 1834 edition.

[7] See infra _Bibliography_, p. 86, Nos. 42, 62, 79.

[8] _Bibliography_, Nos. 21, 24, 25, 26, 30, 51, 52, 59, 89.

[9] _Bibliography_, Nos. 29, 48, 57, 66, 83, 95.

[10] _Bibliography_, Nos. 53, 73, 82, 88, 97.

[11] _Bibliography_, Nos. 44, 84, 90, 101, 102.

[12] Guerra Junqueiro, _Os Simples_.

[13] Cf. André de Resende, _Gillo auctor et actor_. (For the accurate text of this passage see C. Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, _Notas Vicentinas_, I. p. 17.)

[14] _Os livros das obras que escritas vi_ (Letter of G. V. to King João III).

[15] 'E assi mandou de Castella e outras partes vir muitos ouriveis para fazerem arreos e outras cousas esmaltadas.' (Garcia de Resende, _Cronica del Rei D. João II_, cap. 117.)

[16] _Bibliography_, Nos. 70, 71.

[17] He argues that Vicente was not old enough to be King Manuel's tutor, but in other passages he is clearly in favour of the date 1460 or 1452. He is born 'considerably before' 1470 (_Revista de Historia_, t. 21, p. 11), in 1460? (_ib._ p. 27), in 1452? (_ib._ pp. 28, 31, and t. 22, p. 155), 'about 1460' (t. 22, p. 150), he is from two to seven years younger than King Manuel, born in 1469 (t. 21, p. 35). He is nearly 80 in 1531 (_ib._ p. 30). His marriage is placed between 1484 and 1492, preferably in the years 1484-6 (_ib._ p. 35).

[18] Gil Terron in the same year is _alegre y bien asombrado_ (I. 12).

[19] Cf. _Nao de Amores_ (1527), _Viejo, vuestro mundo es ido_, and II. 478 (1529).

[20] See A. Braamcamp Freire in _Revista de Historia_, t. 26, p. 123.

[21] _Grandes baxillas y pedraria_ (_Canc. Geral_, vol. III. (1913), p. 57).

[22] Cf. _Canc. Geral_, vol. I. (1910), p. 259:

Vejam huns autos Damado,
Huũ judeu que foi queimado
No rressyo por seu mal.

[23] There is a slight confusion. The 'second night of the birth' of the rubric may mean the night following that of the birth (June 6-7), i.e. the evening of June 7, or the second night _after_ the birth, i.e. the evening of June 8; but the former is the more probable.

[24] Damião de Goes, _Chronica do felicissimo Rey Dom Emanuel_, Pt I. cap. 69.

[25] See A. Braamcamp Freire in _Revista de Historia_, vol. XXII. (1917), p. 124 and _Critica e Historia_, vol. I. (1910), p. 325; Brito Rebello, _Gil Vicente_ (1902), p. 106-8.

[26] _Antología de poetas líricos castellanos_, t. 7, p. clxiii.

[27] _Orígenes de la Novela_, t. 3, p. cxlv.

[28] _Antol._ t. 7, p. clxvi.

[29] _Ib._ p. clxxvi.

[30] _Ib._ p. clxiv.

[31] Especially that of Garcia de Resende, who in one verse (185) of his _Miscellanea_ mentions the goldsmiths and in the next verse the plays of Gil Vicente.

[32] _Bibliography_, No. 45.

[33] Cf. his earlier studies, in favour of identity, with his later works, maintaining cousinhood.

[34] Cf. _Obras_, I. 154 (Jupiter is the god of precious stones), I. 93, 286; II. 38, 46, 47, 210, 216, 367, 384, 405; III. 67, 70, 86, 296, etc. Cf. passages in the _Auto da Alma_ and especially the _Farsa dos Almocreves_. Vicente evidently sympathizes with the goldsmith to whom the _fidalgo_ is in debt, and if the poet took the part of _Diabo_ in the _Auto da Feira_ (1528) the following passage gains in point if we see in it an allusion to the debts of courtiers to him as goldsmith:

Eu não tenho nem ceitil
E bem honrados te digo
E homens de muita renda
Que tem divedo comigo (I. 158).

[35] The MS. note by a sixteenth century official written above the document appointing Gil Vicente to the post of _Mestre da Balança_ should be conclusive as to the identity of poet and goldsmith: _Gil V^te trouador mestre da balança_ (_Registos da Cancellaria de D. Manuel_, vol. XLII. f. 20 v. in the _Torre do Tombo_, Lisbon).

[36] Garcia de Resende († 1536) was of opinion that it had no rival in Europe:

nam ha outra igual
na Christamdade no meu ver.

(_Miscellanea_, v. 281, ed. Mendes dos Remedios (1917), p. 97.)

It contained 5000 _moradores_ (_ibid._). In the days of King Duarte (1433-8) the number was 3000.

[37] Cf. the dedication of _Dom Duardos_ (_folha volante_ of the Bib. Municipal of Oporto, N. 8. 74) to Prince João: 'Como quiera Excelente Principe y Rey mui poderoso que las Comedias, Farças y Moralidades que he compuesto en servicio de la Reyna vuestra tia....'

[38] The date 1509 is not barred by the reference to the _Sergas de Esplandian_, which certainly existed in an earlier edition than the earliest we now possess (1510). A certain Vasco Abul had given a girl at Alenquer a chain of gold for dancing a _ballo vylam ou mourysco_ and could not get it back from the _gentil bayladeyra_. Gil Vicente contributes but a few lines: _O parecer de gil vycente neste proceso de vasco abul á rraynha dona lianor_.

[39] It is absurd to argue that during the years of his chief activity as goldsmith he had not time to produce the sixteen plays that may be assigned to the years 1502-17.

[40] _Gil Vicente_ (1912), p. 11-13.

[41] The dates in the rubrics are given in Roman figures and the alteration from MDV to MDIX is very slight.

[42] Cf. Bartolomé Villalba y Estaña, _El Pelegrino Curioso y Grandezas de España_ [printed from MS. of last third of sixteenth century]. _Bibliófilos Españoles_, t. 23, 2 t. 1886, 9, t. 2, p. 37: 'Almerin, un lugar que los reyes de Portugal tienen para el ynvierno, con un bosque de muchas cabras, corzos y otros generos de caza.'

[43] See A. Braamcamp Freire in _Revista de Historia_, vol. XXII. p. 129.

[44] A. Braamcamp Freire in _Rev. de Hist._ vol. XXII. p. 133-4.

[45] Luis Anriquez in _Canc. Geral_, vol. III. (1913), p. 106.

[46] See _Rev. de Hist._ vol. XXII. p. 122; vol. XXIV. p. 290.

[47] E.g. the words _ahotas_ and _chapado_ and the expression _en velloritas_ (I. 41), cf. Enzina, _Egloga_ I.: _ni estaré ya tendido en belloritas_ = in clover, lit. in cowslips: _belloritas de jacinto_ (_Egl._ III.).

[48] A. Braamcamp Freire in _Rev. de Hist._ vol. XXIV. p. 290.

[49] There are, however, several such psalms in the works of Enzina.

[50] Cf. I. 85: _huele de dos mil maneras_ with Enzina, _Egloga_ II: _y ervas de dos mil maneras_. In the _Auto da Alma_, probably written about this time, there are imitations of Gomez Manrique (_c._ 1415-90). Cf. the passage in the _Exhortação_.

[51] That the illness of the Queen would not prevent the entertainment is proved by the fact that in the month before her death King Manuel was present at a fight between a rhinoceros and an elephant in a court in front of Lisbon's India House. We do not know if Vicente was present nor what he thought of this new thing.

[52] In December 1517 El Bachiller de la Pradilla published some verses in praise of _la muy esclarecida Señora Infanta Madama Leonor, Rey[na] de Portugal_ (v. Menéndez y Pelayo, _Antología_, t. 6, p. cccxxxviii).

[53] He argues that such a form as MD & viii was never used and must be a misprint for MDxviii.

[54] Cf. also the resemblance of certain passages in the _Auto da Alma_ and in the _Auto da Barca da Gloria_ (1519). They must strike any reader of the two plays.

[55] Goes, _Chronica_, IV. 34.

[56] Garcia de Resende, _Hida da Infanta Dona Beatriz pera Saboya_ in _Chronica...del Rey Dom Ioam II_, ed. 1752, f. 99 V.

[57] Gil Vicente, _Á morte del Rei D. Manuel_ (III. 347).

[58] Gil Vicente, _Romance_ (III. 350).

[59] Goes says generally that King Manuel _foi muito inclinado a letras e letrados_ (_Chronica_, 1619 ed., f. 342. _Favebat plurimum literis_, says Osorio, _De rebus_, 1561, p. 479).

[60] II. 4: _Foi feita ao muito poderoso e nobre Rei D. João III. sendo principe, era de MDXXI_ (rubric of _Comedia de Rubena_).

[61] II. 364. Although 'good wine needs no bush' the custom of hanging a branch above tavern doors still prevails.

[62] A. Braamcamp Freire in _Rev. de Hist._ vol. XXII. p. 162.

[63] _Id. ib._ vol. XXIV. p. 307. It is astonishing how slight errors in the rubrics of Vicente's plays have been permitted to survive, just as Psalm LI, of which Vicente perhaps at about this time wrote a remarkable paraphrase, still appears in all editions of his works as Ps. L.

[64] _Ib._ vol. XXIV. p. 312-3.

[65] Th. Braga, _Historia da Litteratura Portuguesa. II. Renascença_ (1914), p. 85.

[66] J. I. Brito Rebello, _Gil Vicente_ (1902), p. 64.

[67] H. Thomas, _The Palmerin Romances_ (London, 1916), p. 10-12.

[68] M. Menéndez y Pelayo, _Antología_, t. 7, p. cci; _Oríg. de la Novela_, I. cclxvii: _toda la pieza es un delicioso idilio_.

[69] _Rev. de Hist._ vol. XXIV. p. 315.

[70] It should be noted that the lines in _Dom Duardos_ (II. 212):

Consuelo vete de ahi
No perdas tiempo conmigo

are from the song in the _Comedia de Rubena_ (1521):

Consuelo vete con Dios (II. 53).

[71] Cf. _O Clerigo da Beira: não fazem bem [na corte] senão a quem menos faz_ (III. 320); _Auto da Festa: os homens verdadeiros não são tidos nũa palha_, etc.

[72] _Vejo minha morte em casa_ say the verses to the Conde de Vimioso; _La muerte puesta a mis lados_ says the _Templo de Apolo_.

[73] _Auto da Natural Invençam_ (Lisboa, 1917), pp. 64, 65, 68, 69, 70, 88, 89.

[74] _Este nome pos-lho o vulgo_ (III. 4). Cf. the title _Os Almocreves_.

[75] _Rol dos livros defesos_ (1551) ap. C. Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, _Notas Vicentinas_, I. p. 31. We might assume that the second part of _O Clerigo da Beira_ (III. 250-9) was printed separately under the title _Auto de Pedreanes_ but for the words _por causa das matinas_.

[76] _Ib._ p. 30-1.

[77] The probability is shown by the fact that the idea of their identity had occurred to me before reading the same suggestion made by Snr Braamcamp Freire in the _Revista de Historia_.

[78] See _Notas Vicentinas_, I. (1912). The _Auto da Feira_ answers in some respects to Cardinal Aleandro's description of the _Jubileu de Amores_, and Rome (the Church, not the city) might conceivably have been crowned with a Cardinal's hat, but Aleandro's letter refutes this suggestion: _uno principal che parlava ... fingeasi Vescovo_. Rome in the _Auto da Feira_ (I. 162) is a _senhora_. One can only say that the _Auto da Feira_ may perhaps have been adapted for the occasion, with an altered title, Spanish being added, to suit the foreign audience.

[79] _E como sempre isto guardasse Este mui leal autor Até que Deos enviasse O Principe nosso senhor Nam quis que outrem o gozasse_ (III. 276).

[80] The familiarity with which the Nuncio is treated would be more suitable if he was the Portuguese D. Martinho de Portugal, but then the date would have to be after 1527.

[81] Cf. II. 343: _Salga esotra ave de pena ... Son perdices_ and _Auto da Festa_, p. 101. The latter text is corrupt (_penitas_ for _peitas_, and _cousas fritas_ has ousted the required rhyme _juizes_).

[82] The line _nega se m'eu embeleco_ occurs here and in the _Serra da Estrella_ (1527). Arguments as to date from such repetitions are not entirely groundless. Cf. _com saudade suspirando_ (_Cortes de Jupiter_, 1521) and _sam suspiros de saudade_ (_Pranto de Maria Parda_, 1522); _Que dirá a vezinhança?_ III. 21 (1508-9), _A vezinhança que dirá?_ III. 34 (1509); _Ó demo que t'eu encomendo_, III. 99 (1511), _Ó diabo que t'eu encomendo_, II. 362 (1513). The _Exhortação_ (1513), which has passages similar to those in the _Farsa de Ines Pereira_ (1523) and the _Pranto de Maria Parda_ (1522), probably became a kind of national anthem and was touched up for each performance. Curiously, the mention of _a pedra d'estrema_ in the _Pranto_ and in the _Auto da Festa_ might correspond to a first (1521) and second (1525) revision of the _Exhortação_.

[83] The very success of his plays incited emulation. A play written in Latin, _Hispaniola_, was acted at the Portuguese Court before his death (Gallardo, ap. Sousa Viterbo, _A Litt. Hesp. em Portugal_ (1915), p. xxiv).

[84] See A. Braamcamp Freire in _Rev. de Hist._ vol. XXIV. p. 331.

[85] Francisco Alvarez arrived at the Court at Coimbra in the late summer of 1527 and he says: _nam se tardou muito que el Rey nosso senhor se partisse com sua corte via dalmeirim. Verdadeira Informaçam_ (1540), modern reprint, p. 191.

[86] _Rev. de Hist._ vol. XXV. p. 89.

[87] According to Snr Braamcamp Freire this play must be assigned to the months between September 1529 and February 1530.

[88] O mandei a V. A. por escrito até lhe Deos dar descanso e contentamento... pera que por minha arte lhe diga o que aqui falece (III. 388).

[89] In this letter, written in the very year of the first Bull for the introduction of the Inquisition into Portugal, Vicente uses the expression 'May I be burnt if.'

[90] The line _A quien contaré mis quejas_ (II. 147) is repeated from the _Trovas_ addressed to King João in 1527. It is taken from a poem by the Marqués de Astorga printed in the _Cancionero General_ (1511):

¿A quien contaré mis quexas
Si a ti no?

Cf. _Comedia de Rubena_ (II. 6): _¿A quien contaré mi pena?_ The comical rôle of the Justiça Maior may have been taken by Garcia de Resende, who added acting to his other accomplishments. He was 66, and he died at Evora in this year.

[91] See A. Braamcamp Freire in _Rev. de Hist._ vol. XXVI. p. 122-3.

[92] From Gil Vicente's epitaph written by himself.

[93] Garcia de Resende (1470-1536), _Miscellanea_, 1752 ed., f. 113.

[94] André de Resende, _Genethliacon Principis Lusitani_ (1532), ap. C. Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, _Notas Vicentinas_, I. (1912), p. 17.

[95] _Chronica do fel. Rey Dom Emanvel_, Pt IV. cap. 84 (1619 ed., f. 341): Trazia continuadamente na sua corte choquarreiros castelhanos, com os motes & ditos dos quaes folgaua, nam porque gostasse tanto do ̃q diziam como o fazia das dissimuladas reprehensões [_jocis perstringere mores_] ̃q com geitos e palauras trocadas dauam aos moradores de sua casa fazendolhes conhecer as manhas, viços & modos que tinhão, de que se muitos tirauam & emmendauam, tomando o ̃q estes truães diziam com graças por espelho do que aviam de fazer.

[96] _Auto da Cananea_ (1534).

[97] _Auto da Lusitania_.

[98] _Sermão_ (III. 346).

[99] _Carta_ (III. 388).

[100] _Auto da Mofina Mendes_ (I. 120, 121).

[101] _Auto da Cananea_ (I. 365).

[102] _Sumario da Historia de Deos_ (I. 338).

[103] I. 69. His own knowledge of the Bible was extensive and he often follows it closely, e.g. _Auto da Sibila Cassandra_ (I. 47, 48 = Genesis i.).

[104] III. 337, 338. His quarrel with the monks was that they did not serve the State. Cf. _Fragoa de Amor_ (II. 345); _Exhortação da Guerra_ (II. 367).

[105] Cf. the passage in the _Sumario da Historia de Deos_ in which Abraham complains that men worship stocks and stones and have no knowledge of God, _criador dos spiritos, eternal spirito_ (I. 326).

[106] III. 284. A critic upbraided Wordsworth for saying that his heart danced with the daffodils--no doubt Southey's 'my bosom bounds' was more poetical--yet Shakespeare and Vicente had used the phrase before him.

[107] _Carta_ (III. 388).

[108] _Cortes de Jupiter_ (II. 405).

[109] _Romagem de Aggravados_ (II. 507).

[110] The preparation of his plays for the press was, he says, a burden in his old age. Some of the plays had been acted in more than one year, others had been composed years before they were acted, others had been printed separately. Hence the uncertainty of some of the rubric dates.

[111] _Triunfo do Inverno_ (1529), II. 447.

[112] _Romagem de Aggravados_ (1533), II. 524-5.

[113] _Auto Pastoril Portugues_ (1523), I. 129.

[114] _Farsa dos Almocreves_ (1527), III. 219.

[115] _Triunfo do Inverno_ (1529), II. 487.

[116] _Auto da Feira_ (1528), I. 175.

[117] See the _Fragoa de Amor_ and the _Auto da Festa_.

[118] III. 289 (1532).

[119] II. 363 (as early as 1513).

[120] II. 467-75.

[121] III. 122.

[122] III. 148 (cf. I. 40, III. 41).

[123] Goes, _Chronica do fel. Rey Dom Emanvel_, Pt I. cap. 33 (1619 ed., f. 20).

[124] E.g. _Novella_ 35: sotto apparenza onesta di religione ogni vizio di gola, di lussuria e degli altri, como loro appetito desidera, sanza niuno mezzo usano; _Novella_ 36: hanno meno discrezione che gli animali irrazionali.

[125] _Auto da Festa_, ed. 1906, p. 115.

[126] Vicente, who could write such pure and idiomatic Portuguese, often used peculiar Spanish, not perhaps so much from ignorance as from a wish to make the best of both languages. Thus he uses the personal infinitive and makes words rhyme which he must have known could not possibly rhyme in Spanish, e.g. _parezca_ with _cabeza_ (Portug. _pareça_--_cabeça_). So _mucho_ rhymes with _fruto_, _demueño_ with _sueño_.

[127] The miser, _o verdadeiro avaro_ (III. 287), is barely mentioned. Perhaps Vicente felt that he would have been too much of an abstract type, not a living person.

[128] The boastful Spaniard appears (in Goethe's _Italienische Reise_) in the Rome Carnival at the end of the eighteenth century.

[129] There are abundant signs of the cosmopolitanism of Lisbon: A Basque and a Castilian tavernkeeper, a Spanish seller of vinegar and a red-faced German friar are mentioned, while Spaniards, Jews, Moors, negroes, a Frenchman, an Italian are among Vicente's _dramatis personae_.

[130] It is very curious to find echoes of Enzina in Vicente's apparently quite personal prose as well as in his poetry. _No ay cosa que no esté dicha_, says Enzina, and Vicente repeats the wise quotation and imitates the whole passage. Enzina addressing the Catholic Kings speaks of himself as _muy flaca para navegar por el gran mar de vuestras alabanzas_. Vicente similarly speaks of 'crowding more sail on his poor boat.' Enzina, in his dedication to Prince Juan, mentions, like Vicente, _maliciosos_ and _maldizientes_.

[131] In this play the French _tais-toi_ is written _tétoi_. In an age of few books such phonetic spelling must have been common. It has been suggested that the _vair_ (grey) of early French poetry was mistaken for _vert_ (green). The green eyes of the heroines in Portuguese literature from the _Cancioneiro da Vaticana_ to Almeida Garrett would thus be based not on reality but, like Cinderella's glass slippers, on a confusion of homonyms (see Alfred Jeanroy, _Origines de la poésie lyrique en France_, p. 329).

[132] See his _Arte de Poesía Castellana_, ap. Menéndez y Pelayo, _Antología_, t. 5, p. 32.

[133] _Os autos de Gil Vicente resentem-se muito dos Mysterios franceses_. This was, in 1890, the opinion of Sousa Viterbo (_A Litteratura Hespanhola em Portugal_ (1915), p. ix), but surely Menéndez y Pelayo's view is more correct.

[134] In Resende's _Miscellanea_ the line _nõ hos quer deos jũtos ver_ (1917 ed., p. 16) reads in the 1752 ed., f. 105 v. _ja hos quer_.

[135] Cf. _Tratado tercero: llevandolo a la boca començó a dar en el tan fieros bocados_ (1897 ed., p. 50) and _Quem tem farelos?: e chanta nelle bocado coma cão_ (i. 7).

[136] The _Canc. Geral_ has a _Pater noster grosado por Luys anrryquez_, vol. III. (1913), p. 87.

[137] _Antología_, t. 7, pp. clxxii, clxxiv.

[138] _Antología_, t. 2, p. 6.

[139] I. 298. _Vuelta vuelta los Franceses_ from the _romance Domingo era de Ramos, la Pasion quieren decir_.

[140] _Comedia de Rubena_, II. 40. The earliest known edition of the Spanish version of Jacopo Caviceo's _Il Pellegrino_ (1508) is dated 1527 but that mentioned in Fernando Colón's catalogue (no. 4147) was no doubt earlier. In 1521 Vicente can already bracket the Spanish translation with the popular _Carcel de Amor_ printed in 1492, and indeed it ran to many editions. Its full title was _Historia de los honestos amores de Peregrino y Ginebra_. Valdés (_Dialogo de la Lengua_) ranks _El Pelegrino_ as a translation with Boscán's version of _Il Cortegiano: estan mui bien romançados_.

[141] E.g. the _Nao de Amor_ of Juan de Dueñas.

[142] The Everyman-Noman theme in the _Auto da Lusitania_ is, like that of _Mofina Mendes_, common to many countries and old as the hills.

[143] Henry Hallam, _Introduction to the Literature of Europe_ (Paris, 1839), vol. I. p. 206.

[144] Cf. the story _del mancebo que casó con una mujer muy fuerte et muy brava_ in Don Juan Manuel's _El Conde Lucanor_ (_c._ 1535). Shakespeare's _The Taming of the Shrew_ was written exactly a century after _Ines Pereira_; the anonymous _Taming of a Shrew_ in 1594.

[145] The author of a sixteenth century Spanish play published in _Biblióf. Esp._ t. 6 (1870) declares that, in order to write it, he has 'trastornado todo _Amadis_ y la _Demanda del Sancto Grial_ de pe a pa.' The result, according to the colophon, is 'un deleitoso jardin de hermosas y olientes flores,' a description which would better suit a Vicente-play.

[146] Cf. the twelfth century _Représentation d'Adam_. The _Sumario_ has 18 figures. The _Auto da Feira_ has 22, but over half of these consist of a group of peasants from the hills.

[147] _Obras_ (1908), t. 2, p. 217-24.

[148] The anonymous _Tragicomedia Alegórica del Paraiso y del Inferno_ (Burgos, 1539) followed hard upon his death. It is not the work of Vicente, who, although in his Spanish he used _allen_, would not have translated _nas partes de alem_ into an African town: _en Allen_.

[149] _3a impr._ (Madrid, 1733), p. 35; p. 37 (the 1733 text has _Oi_ and _Ai_); p. 39.

[150] As late as 1870 Dr Theophilo Braga could say 'Nobody now studies Vicente' (_Vida de Gil Vicente_, p. 59).

COPILACAM
DE TODALAS OBRAS
DE GIL VICENTE, A QVAL SE
reparte em cinco Liuros. O Primeyro he de todas suas
cousas de deuaçam. O segundo as Comedias. O terceyro
as Tragicomedias. No quarto as Farsas.
No quinto, as obras meudas.
(;)

¶Vam emmendadas polo Sancto Officio,
como se manda no Cathalogo deste Regno.
¶

¶Foy impresso em a muy nobre & sempre leal Cidade
de Lixboa, por Andres Lobato.
Anno de M. D. Lxxxyj

¶Foy visto polos Deputados da Sancta Inquisiçam

COM PRIVILEGIO REAL.

¶E la taxado em papel a reis

TITLE-PAGE OF THE SECOND (1586) EDITION OF GIL VICENTE'S WORKS

AUTO DA ALMA

L'Angel di Dio mi prese e quel d' Inferno
Gridava: O tu dal Ciel, perchè mi privi?
DANTE, _Purg._ v.

_Auto da Alma._

Este auto presente foy feyto aa muyto deuota raynha dona Lianor & representado ao muyto poderoso & nobre Rey dom Emmanuel, seu yrmão, por seu mandado, na cidade de Lisboa nos paços da ribeyra em a noyte de endoenças. Era do Senhor de M. D. & viij[151].

Argvmento.

Assi como foy cousa muyto necessaria auer nos caminhos estalagens pera repouso & refeyçam dos cansados caminhantes, assi foy cousa conveniente que nesta caminhante vida ouuesse hũa estalajadeyra para refeição & descanso das almas que vam caminhantes pera a eterna morada[152] de Deos. Esta estalajadeyra das almas he a madre sancta ygreja, a mesa he o altar, os mãjares as insignias da payxã. E desta perfiguraçã[153] trata a obra seguinte.

¶ Está posta hũa mesa cõ hũa cadeyra: ṽe a madre sancta ygreja cõ seus quatro doctores, Sancto Thomas, Sam Hieronymo, Sancto Ambrosio, Sancto Agostinho, & diz Agostinho.

1 AGOST. Necessario foy, amigos,
que nesta triste carreyra
desta vida
pera os mui perigosos perigos
dos immigos
ouuesse algũa maneyra
de guarida.
2 Porque a humana transitoria
natureza vay cansada
em varias calmas
nesta carreyra da gloria
meritoria
foi necessario pensada
pera as almas.
¶ Pousada com mantimentos,
mesa posta em clara luz,
sempre esperando,
com dobrados mantimentos
dos tormentos
que o filho de Deos na Cruz
comprou penando.
4 Sua morte foy auença,
dando, por darnos parayso,
a sua vida
apreçada sem detença,
por sentença
julgada a paga em prouiso
& recebida.
¶ Ha sua mortal empresa
foy sancta estalajadeyra
ygreja madre
consolar aa sua despesa
nesta mesa
qualquer alma caminheyra
com ho padre
6 e o anjo custodio ayo.
Alma que lhe he encomendada
se enfraquece
& lhe vay tomando rayo
de desmayo
se chegando a esta pousada
se guarece.

¶ Ṽe o anjo custodio cõ a alma & diz.

7 ANJO. ¶ Alma humana formada
de nenhũa cousa feyta
muy preciosa,
de corrupçam separada,
& esmaltada
naquella fragoa perfeyta
gloriosa;
¶ planta neste valle posta
pera dar celestes flores
olorosas
& pera serdes tresposta
em a alta costa
onde se criam primores
mais que rosas;
9 planta soes & caminheyra,
que ainda que estais vos his
donde viestes;
vossa patria verdadeyra
he ser herdeyra
da gloria que conseguis,
anday prestes.
¶ Alma bemauenturada,
dos anjos tanto querida,
nam durmais,
hum punto nam esteis parada,
que a jornada
muyto em breue he fenecida
se atentais.

11 ALMA. Anjo que soes minha guarda
Olhay por minha fraqueza
terreal:
de toda a parte aja resguarda
que nam arda
a minha preciosa riqueza
principal.
¶ Cercayme sempre oo redor
porque vin muy temerosa
da contenda:
Oo precioso defensor,
meu favor,
vossa espada lumiosa
me defenda.
¶ Tende sempre mão em mim
porque ey medo de empeçar
& de cayr.