Part 43 (1/2)
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.