The Basic Characteristics of the Menippean Satire and Their Application to Vicentine Comedy
[In the following excerpt, Suárez examines the carnivalesque elements in Vicente's plays that conform to the generic characteristics of ancient Menippean comedy.]
In his study on Dostoevsky, Bakhtin lists fourteen characteristics as basic to the ancient Menippea. The purpose of this chapter is to clarify the relationship between this genre and the plays of Gil Vicente by exemplifying each characteristic as found in the Portuguese playwright's works. At times, slight alterations must be made in the definitions of certain characteristics since the Menippea, a most flexible genre, continued its evolution in its postantiquity phase and through the time of Gil Vicente (the waning of the Middle Ages).
Analysis of the Menippean genre in Vicentine comedy exposes the elements of carnivalization in many of the plays, as expected in the Menippea, a thoroughly carnivalized genre. However, carnivalization in Gil Vicente's plays cannot be attributed solely to the Menippea; it has another important direct source: the medieval carnival, a direct descendant of the ancient seasonal festivals such as the Saturnalia. In Master Gil the Menippea (carnival tradition) takes on its proper meaning, which the author combines with other artistic elements to further his aesthetic goals, which in turn vary in accordance with the occasion and its demands for the type of playlet to be composed. We shall see that in even the most serious and nonsatirical plays, Menippean characteristics are incorporated into the structure.
THE MENIPPEA DISPLAYS A VARIANCE OF THE COMIC ELEMENT.
The comic element in the Menippea oscillates between a strongly pervasive and a muted presence, which in certain cases all but disappears: in Don Quixote for example, the comical aspect is very strong in the first book comparatively and reduced in the second:
The phenomenon of reduced laughter is of considerable importance in world literature. Reduced laughter is denied direct expression, which is to say “it does not ring out,” but traces of it remain in the structure of the image or a discourse and can be detected in it. Paraphrasing Gogol, one can speak of “laughter invisible to the world.”
(Dostoevsky, 114, n. 4)
Somewhat in the manner of Cervantes, the comic aspect is evident in the farces and comedies of Gil Vicente (the nature of the pieces requires it) and is reduced to a minimum or altogether excluded in his religious and chivalric plays (in Auto da Alma, for example, laughter is nonexistent, leading Sebastião Pestana to state: “O Auto da Alma nada tem de farsa: não visa a gargalhada balofa e alvar ou até o riso escarninho e amargo”).1 There are certain plays, however, in which one finds a mixture of high and low laughter, as in Auto da Lusitânia: the comic element is strong in the first half but greatly reduced in the second.
Among the numerous dramatic and rhetorical devices employed by Master Gil to obtain the desired degrees of laughter are satire (social), parody, sexual and scatological references, puns, visual comedy, comical personal traits, comedy of plot or action, marked contrasts, linguistic peculiarities (speech patterns of certain ethnic and social groups) and clever use of language for comic effect (bathos), proverbs, enumeration of parts of a mangled body (“carnival anatomy”), simple enumeration, and repetition.
In the so-called moralities and mysteries (the religious plays), the comic aspect, when present, had to be significantly mitigated to maintain the religious, somber tone necessary to the plays' didactic aim. Yet, because Gil Vicente's roots were essentially popular, he often resorted to comical techniques in compositions of this type. According to Bakhtin, in many cases laughter continues to determine the structure of the image, but is muted to a minimum: it is as if we hear laughter's footfall but not the laughter itself.
Low-keyed laughter manifests itself in various ways in Vicente's religious plays. In Auto da História de Deus, Belial, a devil, angry and jealous because Lucifer has commissioned Satan and not him to tempt Eve and cause her and Adam's fall from grace, concludes the complaint directed at Lucifer by saying:
Se lá me mandaras, me houvera por cão,
se não os fizera per força pecar:
logo per força os fizera tragar
quantas maçãs naquela árvore estão,
sem as mastigar.
(2:176)
The mental picture of Adam and Eve being forced to swallow whole one apple after another without even chewing them, and the possible conversion of the devil into a dog if he failed in his task, must have produced a chuckle from the audience.
Toward the conclusion of the play, the three devils gather to discuss Christ's presence on earth and the action they are to take to diminish his impact:
LUC.
Digo que este homem nacido em Belém
parece perigosa cousa pera nós.
BEL.
Senhor Lúcifer, isso vede vós,
porque todo o mal é de quem o tem.
SAT.
Dá ó demo a cantiga
crede que temos com ele fadiga
que passa de santo.
(2:209-10)
The unexpected appearance of a common expression, a proverb, relaxes the seriousness of the mystery and paves the way for Satan's witty curse (“Dá ó demo a cantiga”). Coming from the mouth of a devil, it must have produced, if not loud laughter, at least some comic relief.
“Carnival anatomy,” which in the Menippea and other carnivalized genres was widely used for the purpose of discrowning (a carnival rite to which we shall later return), is adroitly parodied in this play when, after Christ has enumerated the different parts of his body that he will submit to the cruelty of his tormentors, Belial announces his sudden illness and, in popular manner, describes his afflicted bodily parts:
Senhor Lúcifer, eu ando doente,
treme-me a cara, e a barba também,
e dói-me a cabeça, que tal febre tem,
que soma sam hetigo ordenadamente,
e dóem-me as canelas:
sai-me quentura per antre as arnelas,
e segundo me acho, muito mal me sinto;
e algum gran desastre me pinta o destinto.
Até as minhas unhas estão amarelas,
que é gran labirinto.
(2:214-15)
Also reduced is the comic element found in Auto da Cananeia. As in the previous play, the slight hints of laughter are found in the devil's lines. Having been asked by Beelzebub to describe how he had been defeated in his attempt to tempt Christ, Satan responds:
Eu fiz-me pobre barbato;
mas é tão gran sabedor,
que me conheceu milhor
que eu conheço o meu çapato;
e ainda que feito pato
eu lá fora,
nem convertido em mulato,
como o rato sente o gato,
me sentira logo ess'hora.
(2:242-43)
Here, the images evoked by the distraught devil belong to the marketplace, to the town fair, to the carnival square of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Such billingsgate rescues the play from dogmatic seriousness and precludes the possibility of any one point of view becoming absolutized. The devil, though portrayed as the representative of evil, does not appear awesome or supernatural to the reader or audience, but as a scoundrel who, having failed in his objective, attempts a justification.
Further on, his designs once again in jeopardy by the interference of the Apostles, Belial reproaches them with cynical comicalness:
Oh quem vos mete, senhores,
em rogardes por ninguém?
Que, quando rogardes bem
por vós outros, pecadores,
ficareis ainda aquém.
Que vos vai ou que vos vem,
pois, dabenício,
assombrar é meu ofício
e taxados quais e quem?
(2:252-53)
This type of comical reaction vis-à-vis the serious logic of Christ and the Apostles was most common in an era when men were suspicious of seriousness and accustomed to relate sincere and free truth to laughter. Only by the nonofficial element of laughter could Gil Vicente approach the audience, both lords and commoners alike, and produce a mystery in which the human element is so prevalent. As mentioned, the Auto da Alma is generally exempt from laughter, for in this allegory the human factor is minimal. Only when the Soul, yielding to the temptation of the Devil, dresses in the manner of a hetaera, are the footprints of laughter discerned in the description.
Laughter resounds louder in Diálogo sobre a Ressureição, which contains more comical devices than most of Gil Vicente's religious plays. The initial dialogue between Rabi Levi and Rabi Samuel is laden with proverbs (carnival language) which, along with their peculiar manner of speech, creates the desired comical effect. The comicalness progressively increases by means of repetition (“ha de ser um sonho, que viu um espanto / uã adivinhação, um conto, um chanto, / uã patranha.”), satire (the Jews' preoccupation with money: “sonhou que perdia na sisa do trigo”), debasing speech (“andaste às punhadas com algúm rascão, / e quebroi-te os dentes, porque és vilão, / e cuidas que o outro é resucitado”), irony (“pois eram quarenta com armas armados / não no podiam prender oitra vez? / Que razão essa de siso de pez!”) and ludicrous genealogical enumeration:
Meu pai era dono d'ũ filha minha,
e minha mãe filha do meu dono torto
e um meu irmão, que morreu no Porto.
era mesmo tio dos filhos qu'eu tinha:
tudo assi vai.
E minha mulher, nora de meu pai;
e meu pai, marido de sua mulher;
e a sua mulher era sogra da minha.
Assi indo fomos, de linha em linha,
até que meu pai veio a morrer.
Meu pai falecido,
vai minha mãe e perdeu o marido,
e fez-se viúva, e as alcaçarias
foram do pai da mãe de Tobias,
filha de Dom Donegal dolorido,
que morreu nas Pias.
E quando se fez a tomada de Arzila,
Dona Franca Pomba casou em Buarcos
Com Bento Capaio, capador dos gatos,
que furando alporcas, morreu em Tavila.
Em aqueles dias
se fez o contrato das alcaçarias,
e David Ladainhas da manga cagada
leixou assentado, que vindo o Messias
que as alcaçarias, não tendo elas nada,
que fossem vasias.
(2:228-29)
References to the lower bodily parts—manga cagada (excrement) and capador de gatos—increase the resonance of the laughter already elicited by the farcical description of lineage. Such references have an additional structural design: to counterbalance Christ's resurrection and ascension (upward directed) by focusing the spectators' attention downward on the lower strata of the body. This is a common carnival device found in the Menippea.
Amadis de Gaula, a satirical work, parodies the epic hero of the chivalric novel from which it derives its title. As T. P. Waldron so aptly puts it:
In Amadis de Gaula the salient features are irony and burlesque, and the result is a tenuous balance between a serious plot, developed with considerable dramatic insight, and an undercurrent of raillery which at any moment is liable to destroy the pretence.2
Instead of creating a pathetic atmosphere, since the play does not deal with the trials and tribulations of a lovesick knight, Master Gil repeatedly brings about bathetic situations that maintain the plot on its semicomic course. Warned by the Messenger that seven kings with large armies are advancing to make war on his kingdom, King Lisuarte points out:
No está en la mucha gente
la victoria de razon,
sino en la devocion,
y resar continuamente,
las horas de la pasion.
To which the Messenger responds:
Señor, no os atengais á eso;
sabed que en fin de razones
para el perro que es travieso
bueno palo, valiente y grueso,
y no cureis de oraciones.
(4:13)
The marked contrast between the monarch's deeply religious, lofty thought and the messenger's earthly, wise observation demolishes any romantic overtones in the play.
Likewise, a situation of attenuated humor arises when Amadis, doing penance for his unrequited love, returns to the hermitage accompanied by the hermit with whom he has been seeking alms:
ERM.
La limosna sea cerrada,
porque hay dos mil ratones
en esta ermita cuitada.
AMA.
Yo la porné tan guardada
como guardo mis pasiones.
ERM.
Y con esta escoba, hermano,
barrereis esta posada.—
Porque alzais ansí la mano?
AMA.
Perdonad, padre ermitano,
que yo pensé que era espada.
(4:50-51)
The sharp contrasts in this dialogue—mice/passions, broom/sword—are amusing oxymoronic combinations typical of mésalliances; in this case, the mesálliance brought about by a self-willed discrowning, i.e., the surrender by Amadis of his knightly attire and donning of hermitic garb. However, as in carnival, such discrowning bears within it the seeds of coronation: Amadis, upon reading the letter sent by Oriana, decides to forgo his life of contrition and returns to his former self.
Naturally, in the farces and comedies laughter knows no restraints. This is not to imply that the sole purpose of these works was to entertain and produce humorous situations because, alongside the drollery, a constant preoccupation of Gil Vicente was the desire to deliver a moral message. The rapid deterioration of morals and ethics in the Portugal of his time appears to have affected him profoundly. As an artist, he believed strongly that risus castigat mores, a fact to which his farces and comedies bear witness.
Such a desire to alter customs by reprehending with laughter, led Gil Vicente, like Aristophanes in antiquity, to compose plays best described as a blend of the serious and the comic. Aubrey F. G. Bell corroborates this observation:
He [Gil Vicente] defied every rule of Aristotle and mingled together the grave and gay, the coarse and courtly in a way faithful to life rather than to any accepted theories of the stage.3
In Farsa de Inês Pereira, sexuality is exploited to maximum humoristic effect when Lianor Vaz, recounting her frightening encounter with a cleric, explains his designs: “Diz que havia de saber / se era eu fêmea se macho” (5:224). That the cleric used such ruse to seduce Lianor is in itself funny, but what renders the episode even more comic are the terms employed by the cleric—fêmea and macho—nouns differentiating animal genders and not homem and mulher, as would befit human beings.
Taken aback by the cleric's temerity, Lianor asks, “Jesu! homem que hás contigo?” He responds, “Irmã, eu t'assolverei co breviário de Braga” (5:224). Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcelos confesses, in respect to this breviary, that she was unable to come to any conclusion about its definite meaning.4 Mention of such a breviary in the piece appears to be a play on words with the proper noun Braga which, though a direct reference to the Portuguese city, is also a type of pants formerly worn by men.5 Since the anecdote is a narrative of attempted rape, the vestiary meaning is logical and would have certainly elicited guffaws from the audience—two other possible wordplays are: breviário (breviary) with breve (short), in reference to his reproductive organ; and braga with braguilha (fly of men's trousers). After concluding her account, Lianor is asked by Inês's mother, “Mana, conhecia-t'ele?” to which she answers, “Mas queria-me conhecer.” Once again, sexual connotation underscores the comicalness of the farce.
Scatological references are also utilized by Master Gil to enhance comicalness. In the same play, after introducing themselves, Latam and Vidal, the two Jewish matchmakers, begin to complain of how far they had to travel and the many inconveniences suffered in order to find Inês a mate. Latam swears that, “assi me fadem boas fadas / que me saltou caganeira” (5:239). Punning with lower bodily functions is another comedy-sustaining device; for instance, in Triunfo do Inverno the cabin boy does not understand an order from the pilot and gives the ensuing comical etymology of the nautical term traquete (foresail):
E quem he aqui o traquete?
O traque sei eu que he,
mas o quete não sei eu
inda agora onde elle s'he.
(4:292)
Visual or physical comicalness is frequent in the more humorous plays. In one example Pero Marques, in Farsa de Inês Pereira, sits with his back to Inês, for he had never sat on a chair and did not know how to sit properly. In Floresta de Enganos a philandering doctor, by a girl's deceit, is forced to impersonate a woman and to sift flour.
Another recourse is the depiction of comical personal traits. For instance, Pero Marques's shyness leads to his reluctance to remain in the dark alone with Inês. The different temperaments of the four brothers in Farsa do Juiz da Beira motivate many hilarious episodes: the lout, who only sleeps and snores; the dancer, who wants only to dance; the lover, who is constantly complaining about the ills of love; and the swordsman, who speaks solely of deeds of bravery though he is himself a coward. The four squabble over an ass bequeathed them by their deceased father.
Comicalness of plot or action also sustains a high degree of laughter throughout certain pieces, such as the serenading of Isabel by the squire in Quem Tem Farelos? or the imbroglio arising in Auto da Índia from the husband's absence. Among numerous examples of hilarity that permeate these two works, this excerpt from a dialogue between Ordoño and Apariço in Quem Tem Farelos? illustrates the jocose intention of the poet:
APA.
Está na pele,
que lhe fura já a ossada
não comemos quase nada
eu e o cavalo, nem ele.
E se o visses brasonar,
e fingir mais d'esforçado;
e todo o dia aturado
se lhe vai em se gabar
Estoutro dia, ali num beco,
deram-lhe tantas pancadas,
tanta, tantas, que aosadas! …
ORD.
Y con qué?
APA.
Cum arrocho seco.
ORD.
Hi hi hi hi hi hi hi.
APA.
Folguei tanto!
ORD.
Y él callar?
APA.
E ele calar e levar,
assi assi, ma ora, assi!
(5:59-60)
Sebastião Pestana, though not acquainted with Bakhtin's literary theories, was well aware of Master Gil's intent:
Tudo aqui se acumula para a explosão e alimento do uso sincero, espontâneo e continuado: desde a oposição, que é, no trecho, a sua parede mestra—valentia-pusilanimidade—até as circunstâncias, a que não falta sequer a de “lugar” de suma valia, a citação indefinida da pancadaria de moiro, o consolo sem par que a interjeição traduz, e nisso vai de mãos dadas com ela o corte cerce do fio do pensamento, que, de consecutivo, inicialmente, entra, e lá se queda, no círculo da exclamação, o instrumento do castigo e o sítio, verdadeiramente decepcionante, impeditivo duma fuga a tempo, a gargalhada do espanhol, sinceramente colaborante, a imitação expressiva das vergastadas—tudo se harmoniza para manter tensa a dupla finalidade em vista: sátira social, e de tal modo contundente, que o fidalgo, ele mesmo, sai dela desfeiteado e a sangrar, ironia mordaz, subtil e graciosa, largamente alimentadora da risada natural e escarninha.6
The oxymoronic combination bravery/pusillanimity, common to carnival, along with the inherent social satire, will be examined later in this chapter.
As previously observed, Gil Vicente relied heavily on the linguistic peculiarities of given ethnic and social groups for his humorous effect: the macaronic Latin of doctors and judges (Auto dos Físicos and Barca do Inferno); the popular speech—sayagués—of rustics (Auto Pastoril Castelhano and Auto dos Reis Magos); and the Portuguese of Negroes (Frágoa de Amor), gypsies (Farsa das Ciganas), Moors (Cortes de Júpiter), and Frenchmen and Italians (Auto da Fama).
It was mentioned earlier that Master Gil used ploys to avert pathos, which would seriously undermine his parodic designs. In Amadis de Gaula, we saw that bathos was achieved by sharp contrast in the language used by two characters. Another example of such clever use of language for comic effect is found in Comédia de Rubena: Felício, bemoaning in the mountains his misfortunes in love, is answered by the surrounding range (echo):
FEL.
Que será, o quem, ou donde,
que ande em valle tão sêco?
ECO.
Eco.
…
FEL.
Ando qual nunca foi tal
Ó voz, pois que me respondes,
e de mi assi t'escondes,
que farei a tanto mal?
ECO.
Al.
(3:73-74)
THE MENIPPEA IS TOTALLY FREE FROM HISTORICAL LIMITATIONS AND EVINCES AN EXTRAORDINARY FREEDOM OF PHILOSOPHICAL AND CREATIVE INVENTION.
The Menippea is fully liberated from the limitations of the historical forms characteristic of such carnivalized genres as the Socratic dialogue. Unrestricted by any requirement of external verisimilitude, it is characterized by an unusual degree of philosophical latitude and of creativity within the plot. Bakhtin observes that:
The fact that the leading heroes of the menippea are historical and legendary figures (Diogenes, Menippus and others) presents no obstacle. Indeed, in all of world literature we could not find a genre more free than the menippea in its invention and use of the fantastic.
(Dostoevsky, 114)
Such is the case in Auto da Lusitânia, in which Gil Vicente gives free rein to his imaginative powers and creates a fantastic nationalistic allegory not without its moments of masterful realistic depiction. After including a view of a typical day in a Jewish household, the play suddenly veers to an illusory recounting of Portugal's origins. A licentiate, appearing out of nowhere, reveals that a sibyl divulged the biographical secrets of ancient Portugal to Gil Vicente, our poet. Such an unexpected change of events creates a kind of play within a play that exemplifies the liberties taken in the composition of the piece. Later, in the same play, this fantastic depiction of national origins is followed by an even more improbable association, more lacking in verisimilitude than the allegory itself: two devils, Dinato and Berzebu, serve as chaplains to the pagan goddesses. Notice the incongruities in the dialogue between the two devils:
DIN.
No saber universal
crê que meu spirito voa.
BER.
Queres uma cousa boa?
Antes que entremos ao al
rezemos a sexta e noa,
e depois todalas horas
das negligências mundanas,
em louvor das soberanas
diesas nossas senhoras
e milagrosas Troianas.
DIN.
Ora rezemos parceiro,
e porque seja melhor,
toma, vês hi o salteiro
de Nabucodonosor,
que lhe furtou Frei Sueiro.
BER.
Quem começará primeiro?
DIN.
Tu que és amancebado,
e és padre verdadeiro,
que tens filhos ao teu lado,
e eu sam ainda solteiro.
(6:79-80)
Not only are the devils about to pray to the pagan goddesses, fanciful enough in itself, but the reference to a Psalter of Nebuchadnezzar is simply preposterous. The dialogue seems to reflect Master Gil's ambivalence toward the Renaissance modes then beginning to dictate artistic creations; while realizing that it was fashionable to incorporate mythological beings into a work, at the same time he had no wish to omit entirely the religious (biblical/Christian) elements so typical of medieval representations. His dislike for pagan deities is here manifested by the alliance of the forces of evil with such entities. He also uses the opportunity to chide clerics who ignore their vows of celibacy.
In Frágoa de Amor, a play based entirely on fantastical elements, a Negro enters the forge and exits converted into a white man, as was his desire; however, his speech remains that of a black man. Dismayed, he laments his fate; henceforth, he will please neither white nor black women, for he now belongs to neither race. This seems to mirror the author's belief that a person should be content with his or her lot in life.
After the Negro, Justice appears, in the form of a hunchbacked old woman. She desires to be rejuvenated and straightened, but the initial attempt is unsuccessful. Jupiter then remarks to Cupid:
Señor, nuestro martillar
no nos aprovecha nada,
porque la Justicia dañada,
los que mas la han de emendar
la hacen mas corcovada.
(4:118)
Such an observation is an attack on the corrupt legal system of the era. After another attempt, the forgers (the Planets) succeed in giving Justice her desired appearance. Then, a friar without any vocation appears asking to be transformed into a layman. He lists the desired traits and, as examples, names men well known to the audience. Cupid replies that he will do as the friar asks only if permission is granted by the friar's abbot. The friar then leaves to seek permission and, in the interim, two squires and a fool arrive to convey their masters' desires. These masters are, once again, real-life individuals well known to all those present at the performance. It is not made clear what changes the master of the first squire desires, but Cupid, finding him flawless, refuses to make any alterations. The friar returns after obtaining permission and asks to be transformed into a soldier. Cupid grants him his wish and the play comes to an end.
In his dialogue with the first squire, Cupid abandons chronological sequence in describing the perfection of the master:
Y pues lo hizo Anibal,
caballero tan famoso,
si yo refundir lo oso,
como se hará otro tal?
(4:123)
This freedom from historical limitations is quite common in the plays of Gil Vicente and in no way detracts from the plot; what seemingly destroys external verisimilitude adds to the fantastic dénouement by imparting an air of grandeur. A case in point is Auto da Sibila Cassandra, where prophets of the Old Testament meet with the Sibyls of ancient Greece and Rome to prophesy the birth and passion of Christ. In Triunfo do Inverno, the Sintra mountain range, personified, suggests to Spring a fine gift for the Portuguese princess Dona Isabel, on her birthday: Sintra's beautiful gardens, which:
que Salamão mandou aqui
a hum Rei de Portugal;
e tem-no seu filho ali.
(4:326)
Though the anachronism is here intentional, there are occasions on which the author's forgetfulness or carelessness seems to produce lapses of chronology as in Floresta de Enganos when the philosopher, chained by the leg to a fool, opens the play by saying:
Asegun siento mis males,
al discreto singular
gran pena le es conversar
con los necios perenales,
sin lo poder escusar.
Los muy antiguos Romanos,
comenzando á ser tiranos,
porque Roma se ofendia,
yo por mi filosofía,
les di consejos muy sanos.
(3:169)
According to Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcelos, “confundindo épocas, o poeta pensava por ventura em Séneca.”7
Also common are the unannounced lapses of time and sudden changes of setting without explanation. The departure of Constança's husband in Auto da Índia and her ensuing infidelities appear to take place from one day to the next. Finding herself alone after having sent away her Spanish suitor, Constança is approached by her maid; their exchange runs as follows:
MOç.
Ando dizendo entre mi,
que agora vai em dous anos
que eu fui lavar os panos
além do chão d'Alcami;
e logo partiu a armada
domingo de madrugada.
Não pode muito tardar
nova se há-de tornar
noss'amo pera a pousada.
AMA.
Asinha.
MOç.
Tres anos ha
que partiu Tristão da Cunha.
AMA.
Cant'eu ano e meio punha.
MOç.
Mas três e mais haverá.
(5:108)
The audience is completely taken aback by the length of time that has passed; furthermore, distinct discrepancies are evident: whereas the maid stated that the fleet departed at dawn on a Sunday two years before, now she says it was three years; finally, after her mistress mentions that the elapsed time was one and a half years, she corrects both mistress and herself, giving three and a half years as the period.
One may argue that the discrepancy is intentional and that it represents a dramatic foreshortening of a whole series of similar adventures with which the ama has amused herself during her husband's absence. This argument is not, however, convincing; it is more likely that Vicente was unaware of inconsistencies in his text, or confident that his audience would not notice them.8
Whether the playwright was aware of the existing discrepancies, as Thomas R. Hart argues above, is in itself irrelevant; the extraordinary freedom of invention afforded by the Menippea allowed him to focus his attention primarily on his twin creative concerns of entertainment and satire. Had Gil Vicente adhered to the Aristotelian dramatic unities of time, space, and action, his theatrical compositions would have been greatly restricted and in all likelihood far less interesting.
Another play with similar inconsistencies is Farsa do Velho da Horta. Here Master Gil seems oblivious to external verisimilitude, as several examples illustrate. No mention is made, for example, of how or when the Girl left the orchard after the Old Man's gallantries; if it was indeed night when the Fool entered the orchard, as his question to the Old Man suggests—“que fazeis vós cá té à noute?” (5:152)—when did the subsequent scenes take place? How did the Fool fetch the guitar requested by the Old Man and return without a noticeable interruption in the conversation of the two men? Free invention characterizes the final stages of the piece; the scenes involving the panderess, her arrest by law officers, and the arrival of the young girl (a buyer) who announces to the Old Man that his Dulcinea has just married a young man, take place with total disregard for verisimilitude. The scenes have no nexus, leaving the impression that the wedding was hurriedly held at night.
The inclusion of well-known personalities and of legendary figures in the plays was a common device used by the poet to add gravity or, more frequently, humor—as in Frágoa de Amor—and such inclusion enhanced rather than restricted creative freedom. In Farsa do Velho da Horta, the panderess's litany invokes contemporary courtiers (who have been canonized as martyrs of love) to come to the aid of the unconscious Old Man. In the words of Segismundo Spina:
A ladainha onomástica da Alcoviteira, apelando para as virtudes sortílegas daquela galeria de santos prematuros, se hoje não faria sentido na representação da farsa, devia corresponder ao momento culminante no cómico pela atualidade da cena: as figuras invocadas eram pessoas da corte e os próprios espectadores.9
Such was the freedom of invention exhibited by Gil Vicente that he did not hesitate to have his name mentioned by the characters or to even include himself in several of the plays. An example of the former is Auto dos Físicos, in which a fictitious lovesick priest is visited by four medical doctors who attempt to diagnose his illness. The physicians espouse all the medical theories then popular but fail to pinpoint the real nature of the priest's illness, i.e., a broken heart. A priest-confessor is summoned and confesses that he, too, has been love-stricken for many a year. He then absolves the patient because God has ordained that no one should be punished for being in love. The priest-confessor prepares to leave and divulges his destination and purpose:
Voyme á la huerta de amores
y traeré una ensalada
por Gil Vicente guisada,
y diz que otra de mas flores
para Pascua tien sembrada.
(6:127)
The ensalada to which he refers was a poetic medley of verses from other popular poems. By including himself indirectly in the text, Gil Vicente both propagandized himself as a poet and anticipated another medley of this sort that he hoped to introduce at Easter.
In Templo de Apolo, Master Gil appears in person at the beginning of the piece to excuse himself for what he felt was an imperfect play. He blames its inferiority on the illness he suffered during its composition and rambles on about an extravagant dream he had had while ill, to underscore his delirious state.
Though the Menippea is fully liberated from the limitations of the memoir form common to Socratic dialogue, the form is sometimes preserved externally; Master Gil's exculpation at the outset is an excellent example of the rare external use of the memoir form in a Menippea-related genre.
Gil Vicente was well aware of the complete freedom of invention that he enjoyed. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Auto da Mofina Mendes, in which a friar delivers a burlesque sermon laden with dialectical verbiage warning the audience about the play it is about to see:
He de notar,
que haveis de considerar
isto ser contemplação
fora da história geral,
mas fundada em devação.
…
Será logo o fundamento
trata da saudação.
e depos deste sermão,
hum pouco do nacimento;
tudo por nova invenção.
(1:132)
IN THE MENIPPEA, THE WILDEST FANTASTIC SITUATIONS ARE BROUGHT INTO ORGANIC AND INDISSOLUBLE ARTISTIC UNITY WITH THE PHILOSOPHICAL IDEA TO PROVOKE AND TEST THE TRUTH.
One of the most important characteristics of the Menippea is the justification and illumination of the most unrestricted fantasies and adventures by an essential ideological and philosophical purpose. The creation of unusual situations, internally induced, gives rise to and examines the philosophical idea of the truth. The fantastic, it should be emphasized, does not serve as the absolute incarnation of the truth. Rather, it searches for the truth, both provoking and testing it. Bakhtin goes on to say that:
To this end the heroes of the “Menippean satire” ascend into heaven, descend into the nether world, wander through unknown and fantastic lands, are placed in extraordinary life situations (Diogenes, for example, sells himself into slavery in the marketplace, Peregrinus triumphantly immolates himself at the Olympic Games, Lucius the Ass finds himself constantly in extraordinary situations). Very often the fantastic takes on the character of an adventure story; sometimes it assumes a symbolic or even mystical-religious character (as in Apuleius). But in all of these instances the fantastic is subordinated to the purely ideational function of provoking and testing the truth. The most unrestrained and fantastic adventures are present here in organic and indissoluble artistic unity with the philosophical idea. And it is essential to emphasize once again that the issue is precisely the testing of an idea, of a truth, and not the testing of a particular human character, whether an individual or a social type. The testing of a wise man is a test of his philosophical position in the world, not a test of any other features of his character independent of that position. In this sense one can say that the content of the menippea is the adventures of an idea or a truth in the world: either on earth, in the nether regions, or on Olympus.
(Dostoevsky, 114-15)
The purpose of medieval religious plays was to bring forth and exemplify Christian ideas or truths and, in this sense, such plays were merely a modified medieval dramatic rendition of the Menippea. However, these ideas or truths were not elevated to the level of the absolute by realistic or logical presentations. A true-to-life presentation would only have rendered the production sterile, given its inability to illustrate a concept that relied so heavily on the audience's faith and imagination. Extraordinary situations were therefore created, freed from all conditions, positions, obligations, and laws of normal life.
In Auto Pastoril Castelhano, Gil Vicente's first religious play, a mystery, the explanation of Christ's miraculous birth (held as an absolute Christian truth) falls to a shepherd, Gil Terron, whose rustic background would seem to contradict his demonstrated erudition.
As with Menippean heroes, the fact that Gil Terron is possessed by the “truth” determines his attitude toward others and creates his special kind of loneliness:
BRAS.
[a shepherd] Dí, Gil Terron, tú qué has,
que siempre andas apartado?
GIL.
… repastando mis cabritas
por estas sierras benditas:
no me acuerdo del lugar.
Cuando, cara al cielo, oteo,
y veo tan buena cosa,
no me parece hermosa
ni de asseo
zagala de cuantas veo.
Andando solo magino,
que la soldada que gano
se me pierde de la mano
soncas en qualquier camino.
Nesta soledad me enseño;
que el ganado com que ando,
no sabré como ni cuando,
segun sueño,
quizá será de otro dueño.
(1:11-12)
Unlike in most Menippeas, where persons knowing the truth are ridiculed as madmen by others, here Gil Terron is merely solicited to be more gregarious and, when he declines, his preference for solitude is respected. This conversation also prefigures the uncommon knowledge Gil Terron exhibits at the Nativity manger when quizzed by his peers.
After receiving word from an angel that Christ has been born, Gil Terron, with fellow shepherds, rushes to the site. He then explains to his fellows doctrines relating to the Virgin, whom he identifies as the wife and shepherdess mentioned by Solomon in his Song of Songs; with respect to Christ, he quotes prophecies of his birth as the Son of God. His entire narration is sprinkled with biblical and liturgical Latin phrases that astound the listening rustics all the more. The play ends with this explicative exchange:
BRA.
Gil Terron lletrudo está:
muy hondo te encaramillas!
GIL.
Dios hace estas maravillas.
BRA.
Ya lo veo, soncas ha.
Quien te viere no dirá,
que naciste en serrania.
(1:31)
This drama displays a fantastic adventure of a mystical-religious character bent on provoking and testing an undisputed truth: that the prophecies about Christ's birth and humble origins were correct. To this end the playwright ignores actual time and place: Christ is (re)born in sixteenth-century Iberia. Because the testing here is that of a Christian truth rather than that of a character's social standing, there is no objection to the presence of a learned country bumpkin; as he himself explains: “God performs these wonders.”
Noteworthy is the fact that, in the compositions of Juan del Encina and Lucas Fernández—the Spanish primitives who are said to have influenced heavily Master Gil's early pieces—the birth of the Savior consistently takes place, as it should, in Bethlehem. The Spanish shepherds must set out for this site, and never is the Nativity scene incorporated into the body of any text.
In the mystery Auto da Sibila Cassandra, one of Vicente's most unrestricted fantasies, the objective is to awaken Cassandra to the reality that she is not to be the Virgin chosen by God to bear His Son. Thomas R. Hart's 1958 rigid allegorical interpretation of the play in “Gil Vicente's Auto de la Sibila Casandra” led, either directly or indirectly, to articles by I. S. Révah, M. R. Lida de Malkiel, and Leo Spitzer dealing primarily with the possible sources of the piece as well as its artistic unity. Observations made in the three studies point to the pitfalls and, at times, contradictions inherent in Hart's approach to this play.10
At the beginning of the play she rejects the shepherd Salomão's marriage proposal on the grounds that marriage is a type of slavery and opts for spinsterhood. Salomão summons her aunts (the Sibyls): Erutea, Peresica, and Ciméria. These in turn summon the girl's uncles (the Prophets): Esaias, Moyses, and Abrahão. At this point, Cassandra reveals her premonition and her uncles chide her for her presumptuousness; along with the aunts, they cite scriptural and apocryphal prophecies to dissuade the credulous girl. Then curtains open to reveal the Nativity scene and angels singing. All praise the Virgin and Child! Cassandra, realizing her mistake, declares:
Señor, yo, de ya perdida
nesta vida,
no te oso pedir nada,
porque nunca di pasada
concertada;
ni debiera ser nacida.
Vírgen y madre de Dios,
á vos, á vos,
corona de las mugeres,
por vuestros siete placeres,
que quieras rogar por nos.
(1:79)
The idea or truth tested in this play is that presumptuousness is a human fault that runs counter to the humility demanded by Christian doctrine. The characters, therefore, are mere symbols used for the evocation and testing of the idea: Cassandra, human presumptuousness; the Virgin, humility glorified; the aunts and uncles, sibyls and prophets who foretell events well known to the audience. This disparate group of characters and the sudden unexpected appearance of the Nativity scene present an extraordinary setting geared to represent Christ's coming and his tragic fate, and to eliminate Cassandra's haughty pretensions. Her recognition and repentance of the wrong committed by her symbolize the inevitable victory of humility over presumptuousness, for the truly humbled herself by rejecting her former false notions.
Another daring and unfettered fantasy is Auto da Feira, in which our dramatist's Erasmian philosophy creates a fair where the forces of good and evil set up shop to sell their wares to whoever will buy them, the Church included. With regard to this play, António J. Saraiva and Óscar Lopes observe:
Gil Vicente participa no grande debate de idéias que agita a primeira metade do século XVI e que assume principalmente a forma de discussões teológicas. Alguns do seus autos, e especialmente o Auto da Feira, intervêm na polémica religiosa. Circumstâncias peculiares, entre as quais os litígios de D. João III com o clero nacional e com a Santa Fé, e as violentas dissenções entre o Papa e Carlos V, cunhado do rei de Portugal, que culminaram no saque e incêndio de Roma em 1527, deram-lhe oportunidade para, neste campo, ir muito mais longe do que qualquer outro autor português do século XVI.11
Mercury, after a brief introduction attacking astrologers and superstition, announces a fair and, immediately, Time enters setting up a tent with many things long forgotten by humanity: virtues, counsel, justice, truth, and peace. At his request, a seraph appears who summons the Church to attend:
Á feira, á feira, igrejas, mosteiros,
pastores das almas, Papas adormidos;
comprae aqui panos, mudae os vestidos,
buscae as çamarras dos outros primeiros
os antecessores.
(1:205)
The Devil, likewise, sets up a small tent as though he were a vendor of trinkets. His wares are deceits, ambition, wickedness, hypocrisy, and imprudence. The first customer is Rome, who enters singing and who desires to buy peace, truth, and faith. The Devil tempts her. She does not allow herself to be seduced and complains of having endured some rough times for previously having bought certain things from him, which she fails to specify. Approaching Time's tent, she asks the seraph to sell her “peace in heaven” in exchange for which she will give him jubilees.
Mercury intervenes to criticize Rome and orders Time to give him the coffer of his (Mercury's) counsels. A mirror that belonged to the Virgin is given to Rome, in which she will find the path to righteousness.
Rome departs and the second half begins. Two farmers, Amancio Vaz and Deniz Lourenço, enter. These are discontented with their wives, Branca Annes, the rough one, and Marta Dias, the gentle one. The women make their appearance criticizing their husbands and curse the hour in which they were married. Having overheard their wives' conversation, the farmers decide to leave them and turn their attention to the village girls. Both wives approach the Devil's tent first, then Time's. Instead of the clear conscience that the seraph attempts to sell them, they opt for knickknacks and luxuries.
Nine mountain girls and three youths appear with baskets on their heads. They desire nothing of what the seraph has to sell as their purpose for coming to the fair is to pay homage to the Holy Virgin. The play ends with the girls singing in two choruses a lay to the Virgin.
Many are the symbols in this parable, beginning with the marketplace itself. This marketplace is a microcosm of the world where the individual, because of materialistic inclinations, often bypasses or completely ignores spiritual values. Mercury, Time, and the seraph represent the word of God, the forces of good, while the Devil stands for ephemeral earthly delights and, consequently, all that is evil. Rome is the symbol of the Church gone astray and in need of reform. The farmers' wives, Branca and Marta, typify man's preference for transitory earthly joys over spiritual concerns. The twelve peasants who appear late in the play, though uninterested in the seraph's wares, a fact that seems to link them to all individuals who shun spirituality, have nevertheless a purpose for coming to the marketplace other than the acquisition of material things: to pay homage to the Holy Virgin.
Hence, their indifference to spiritual matters stems not from a considered preference but from sheer ignorance. This demonstrated simplicity is representative of individuals who know not what they do; for them, as for children, the kingdom of Heaven is always accessible. It should be emphasized that the mere fact that these twelve characters were peasants does not bespeak the playwright's intention to test a given social group; what is tested here is the concept that those who act not from malice, but from ignorance, should be forgiven and corrected.
As is customary in the Menippea, Vicente's plays on occasion take on the character of an adventure story through time and space. In Comédia de Rubena, a fantastic production in three acts, Rubena, an abbot's daughter, becomes pregnant by a priest. A sorceress brought by a midwife conjures up four little devils that transport Rubena through the air to a mountain where she gives birth to a daughter, Cismena. As António J. Saraiva and Óscar Lopes observe:
E na primeira cena da Comédia de Rubena, a parteira faz entrar no quarto da menina grávida e queixosa um vento poderoso que expulsa todas as pieguices para só deixar lugar à vida, que é mágica e animal, burlesca e grandiosa acima de todas as convenções humanas.12
It appears, then, that the midwife serves to introduce the dramatist's philosophical idea: life's supremacy over human conventions.
The second act shifts from Rubena's misfortunes as a lonely mountain girl to Cismena's upbringing by the sorceress. The latter summons four fairies who predict the girl's future; suddenly the scene changes, showing us a five-year-old Cismena who has become a shepherdess and is now weaving. The conversation that ensues between Cismena and three young shepherds, Joane, Pedrinho, and Afonsinho, attests to Gil Vicente's ability to reproduce the speech patterns of the various segments of Portuguese society of his day. Here, we have not only a sample of the language of rustics, but also, for the first time in Portuguese literature, the simplicity of children's speech:
PED.
Ta mãe não faz senão chamar …
E tu ris-te, Cismeninha?
CIS.
Rio-me eu da tua tinha.
PED.
Outra vez t'ha d'ella dar.
CIS.
Toma pera tua vida.
AFF.
Porque davas ontem gritos?
CIS.
Porque comeu dous cabritos
hũa raposa parida.
PED.
Eu comi papas aquesta.
AFF.
E minha mãe deu-me hum bolo.
JOA.
Qués-me tu dar delle, tolo?
CIS.
Outro levo eu ca na cesta.
PED.
Ja pario a nossa bêsta.
JOA.
E nós temos tanto mel,
que trouge a nossa Isabel!
AFF.
Mentes, Joane.
JOA.
Par esta.
(3:41-42)
The fairies, sensing the time has come for their predictions to come true, encourage Cismena to set out for Crete, where she will be adopted by a wealthy lady whose riches Cismena is to inherit at the age of fifteen.
The third act opens with the prophecy having been fulfilled and Cismena lamenting her unstable life. She is wooed by many suitors. A prince from Syria visits Crete, falls in love with her from afar and, disguised as a page, decides to serve one of her suitors, Felicio, so that he may see her up close. Spurned by Cismena, Felicio, accompanied by the prince, returns to the desert to die of a broken heart. The prince then confronts Cismena with the news and reveals his true identity. He asks for her hand in marriage; she refuses on grounds that her virtue is not for sale. The prince, however, insists and attempts to set her mind at ease:
Mas alta, dice Platon,
es la virtud que el estado;
y a esta es obligado
el mundo de darle el don,
y el cetro mas honrado.
(3:82)
Cismena, convinced that this is indeed amor verdadeiro, decides to marry the prince. A chorus of embroideresses concludes the play by exclaiming: “Senhora, não mais costura; / festejemos tal ventura, / ventura bem empregada.”
From this conclusion, there should be no doubt that Master Gil's objective was the provocation of a philosophical idea and its testing by the creation of a fantastic adventure. Cismena's illegitimate origins (the daughter and granddaughter of priests), her transportation in her mother's womb to a mountain by devils, her childhood as a shepherdess, and the journey from Spain to Crete, where she meets the Syrian prince, are all unfettered fantasies created to exemplify a philosophical position: virtue triumphs over environmental and hereditary factors and is rewarded by true love. True love in this instance also overcomes social inequality.
The perennial struggle between the forces of Good and Evil, a common medieval motif, is skillfully set in Auto da Alma for the purpose of illustrating the raison d'être of the Holy Church (the philosophical idea). On its “journey” through this life, the frivolous human soul (Alma) is constantly tempted by the Devil (Diabo) while instructed by a guardian angel (Anjo Custódio) in spiritual matters. St. Augustine affirms at the outset of the piece the need for a pousada in which all souls may find repose; such an inn is the Holy Mother Church (Santa Madre Igreja). Tired because of the Devil's temptations, the Soul resolves to seek refuge in an inn (the Church) and consequently repents having yielded to vanity, lust, and greed. After a mystical repast served by the Church Fathers (St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, and St. Thomas), the soul brings the allegory to an end by glorifying the Almighty.
It has been said that before Gil Vicente the medieval dramatic conflict of the soul's vacillation between right and wrong had never been presented within the framework of a journey.13 In this play, the “journey” concept considerably aids the dialogical syncrisis (the pro et contra concerning the religious question at hand). The abrupt change in the Soul's outlook on evil is plausible only if movement through time and space has been understood all along. But inasmuch as the primary objective seems to be the exemplification of the Church's role in Christian life, the “journey” is used symbolically to explain why the soul had wearied and had therefore decided to enter the inn for a rest.
As in the Menippea, Vicentine heroes are sometimes placed in extraordinary situations in order to test their mettle. Such is the case of Pero Marques in Farsa do Juiz da Beira, where the boor, husband to Inês Pereira, has been named district judge. Because of his rumored simple-minded, arbitrary judgments, he is asked to set up his audiência before the king himself. The common sense he demonstrates in deciding each case reminds one of Sancho Panza on the island of Barataria and may well have inspired Cervantes.
In the different cases and corresponding judgments by Pero Marques, we find the exposition of Gil Vicente's beliefs: many rapes are induced by the violated party and the fact that the panderess's daughter did not scream while being raped underscores the author's view. The panderess, whose profession is considered (by Gil Vicente) an indispensable national institution, is exempt from any wrongdoing in the defilement of the Jew's daughter. The decision in the case of the squire's servant whose boss had not paid him his due wages goes against a class that lived indolently from the profits of the peasant's toil: the squire was obliged to indemnify his servant.
Although in the Vicentine comedies the heroes do not ascend into Heaven or descend into the nether world with the frequency of their counterparts in the Menippea, there is at least one instance in which subordinate characters descend into Hell to bring renowned ancient figures back to earth. These would voice the playwright's opinions on love and the Portuguese nation. Such an instance is found in Exortação da Guerra.
The piece opens with a necromancer-priest telling the royal court of all his diabolical practices. After conjuring up two devils, Zebron and Danor, he has them fetch various figures from classical antiquity. The first is the beautiful Policena, daughter of Priam, suffering in Hell for having loved and having believed in love. She states what she deems the main qualities found in an ideal suitor: constancy, prudence, patience, and freedom. She goes on to praise warlike actions and warriors. Pentasileia, queen of the Amazons, follows and exhorts Portugal to war in verses that denote Vicente's ardent nationalism:
Ó famoso Portugal,
conhece teu bem profundo,
pois até ó pólo segundo
chega o teu poder real.
Avante, avante, Senhores,
pois com grandes favores
todo o ceo vos favorece:
ElRei de Fez esmorece,
e Marrocos dá clamores.
(4:147)
Achilles, Hannibal, Hector, and Scipio are all brought forward and enumerate the glories of Portugal, defender of the Faith. The author concludes the piece with a beautiful patriotic hymn sung by Hannibal.
THE ORGANIC COMBINATION OF PHILOSOPHICAL DIALOGUE, LOFTY SYMBOLISM, FANTASTIC ADVENTURES, AND UNDERWORLD NATURALISM ARE COMMON TO THE MENIPPEA.
Bakhtin expands on this characteristic as follows:
A very important characteristic of the menippea is the organic combination within it of the free fantastic, the symbolic, at times even a mystical-religious element with an extreme and (from our point of view) crude slum naturalism. The adventures of truth on earth take place on the high road, in brothels, in the dens of thieves, in taverns, marketplaces, prisons, in the erotic orgies of secret cults, and so forth. The idea here fears no slum, is not afraid of any of life's filth. The man of the idea—the wise man—collides with worldly evil, depravity, baseness, and vulgarity in their most extreme expression. This slum naturalism is apparently already present in the earliest menippea. Of Bion Borysthenes the ancients were already saying that he “was the first to deck out philosophy in the motley dress of a hetaera.” There is a great deal of slum naturalism in Varro and Lucian. But slum naturalism could develop to its broadest and fullest extent only in the menippea of Petronius and Apuleius.
(Dostoevsky, 115)
In Vicentine plays, the naturalism associated with the dregs of society is not present in the extreme fashion of “worldly evil and depravity” found in the ancient Menippea. The reason may be that Master Gil produced drama primarily in accordance with the taste of an aristocratic audience to whom shocking degradation within the presentation was unacceptable under any pretext. But we must not infer that a mixture of the “high with the low” was altogether absent from the plays; quite the opposite: the idea, the truth—not necessarily the man of an idea—was confronted with a certain degree of baseness and a higher degree of vulgarity.
The relaxation of moral standards by many members of sixteenth-century Portuguese society was a great source of concern for our poet. Such concern manifests itself in his drama through the frequent inclusion of respected citizens who, though they stood to lose a great deal, allowed themselves to be overcome by their baser instincts. This left them exposed to those marginal individuals who thrived on the moral weaknesses of others. In Farsa do Velho da Horta, we come across an homem honrado e muito rico, já velho who instead of remaining loyal to his wife and position, falls ridiculously in love with a young girl. Unable to seduce her, he seeks the aid of a panderess named Branca Gil who is more interested in his money than in the fulfillment of his desires. The following conversation between the Old Man and the panderess is a fine example of contact between a wealthy individual and a representative of the dregs of society:
VEL.
Venhais embora, minha amiga.
BRA.
J'ela fica de bom jeito;
mas pera isto andar direito,
é razão que vo-lo diga.
Eu já, senhor meu, não posso
vencer uma moça tal
sem gastardes bem do vosso.
VEL.
Eu lhe peitarei em grosso.
BRA.
Hi está o feito nosso,
e não em al.
Perca-se toda a fazenda
por salvardes vossa vida.
VEL.
Seja ela disso servida,
qu'escudada é mais contenda.
BRA.
Deus vos ajude
e vos dê muita saúde,
que isso haveis de fazer:
que viola nem alaúde
nem quantos amores pude
não quer ver.
Remoçou-me'ela um brial
de seda e uns toucados.
VEL.
Eis aqui trinta cruzados;
que lh'o façam mui real.
(5:169-70)
Here we grasp the precept that one must adhere to his hierarchical role in society lest, by adopting the vices of the bas-fonds, he fall prey to the amoral denizens of this environment.
Significantly, in the already-mentioned scene of the Fool coming to fetch the Old Man, the dialogue nicely illustrates the combination of lofty speech, on a tragic note, with the language of the common herd:
PAR.
Está a panela cozida,
minha dona quer jentar:
não quereis?
VEL.
Não hei-de comer, que me pês,
nem quero comer bocado.
PAR.
E se vós, dono, morreis?
Então depois não falareis,
senão finado.
Então na terra nego jazer,
então finar dono estendido.
VEL.
Ó quem não fora nacido,
ou acabasse de viver!
PAR.
Assi, pardeus.
Então tanta pulga em vós,
tanta bichoca nos olhos,
ali c'os finados sós;
e comer-vos-ão a vós
os piolhos.
Comer-vos-ão as cigarras,
e os sapos morreré, morreré.
(5:153)
This is essentially a parody of the tragic speech of the love-stricken heroes of chivalric novels along with a role reversal. By introducing a fool with little education, accustomed to physical labor and incapable of discerning the Old Man's predicament, Gil Vicente has created a parodic double, whose sole purpose is to “discrown its counterpart.” The loss of appetite and the desire to die were trademarks of a knight doing penance over his rejection by a damsel, a common device in the tradition of amour courtois. To the Fool, such depravation was inconceivable, for its result was death. The naturalistic description of what happens to a lifeless body once it is buried is meant to bring the Old Man to his senses. There is, as it were, a reversal of roles: the Fool, because of his pragmatism before the necessities of life, becomes less foolish and more judicious (crowned); the Old Man, on the other hand, by ridiculously pursuing the favors of a young girl and by behaving like a novelistic knight when rejected by the girl, takes on all the characteristics associated with fools (discrowned).
Much the same occurs in Floresta de Enganos, where a learned doctor, in spite of his age, becomes enamored of a young girl of modest means. She takes advantage of the old man's love and makes a complete fool of him. As previously mentioned, she makes him dress as a woman and sift flour, to the disbelief of an old lady who discovers him. Notice the vulgar language employed by the girl and old lady in this scene:
MOç.
Não vêdes, dona, esta perra
o negro geito que tem?
VEL.
Peneirai, má ora, bem,
que não sois nova na terra.
Hui, cadelinha,
onde jeitas a farinha?
Não queres falar, cadella?
Esta pelle de toninha
olho mao se meteo nella.
DOU.
Porque vós, mia Señora,
estar tanto destemplada?
Ya tudo estar peneirada:
que bradar comigo aora?
Que cosa estar vos hablando?
Á mi llama Caterina Furnando,
nunca a mí cadella não.
VEL.
Seu dali tómo hum tição …
e vós estais patorneando?
Olhade a mal entrouxada!
Ó almadraque bolorento!
(3:196-97)
The adventure takes place in a dingy room where the doctor—not necessarily the wise man—is confronted with the extreme expression of vulgarity. The idea enacted—or rather, converted to dialogue—is that of Gil Vicente attempting to convey the ridiculousness of the doctor's position. The predicament that the doctor has created for himself is such that, if his hope of seducing the girl is to remain alive, he must lie to the point of making a total ass of himself: “á mí llama Caterina Furnando.” Master Gil's philosophy is here decked out “in the multi-colored dress” not of the hetaera but of the doctor.
Clérigo da Beira is a piece in which free fantasy is combined with underworld naturalism to meet an objective other than truth. In it, a priest goes hunting rabbits on Christmas Eve. His son, a brat by the name of Francisco, accompanies him. At his father's request, he unwillingly returns home to fetch a ferret that had been left behind. Meanwhile, Gonçalo, a peasant's son, appears with a hare and two capons, which are stolen from him by two courtiers. The priest promises to help retrieve the stolen animals and warns Gonçalo of a Negro thief, who immediately shows up speaking broken Portuguese. He wins Gonçalo's confidence by engaging him in conversation and, while the naive youth bathes in the river, makes off with his hat, belt, and sack. An old lady appears, accompanied by a girl named Cezília, who is possessed by the spirit of one Pedreanes. Cezília reveals the identity of the courtly thieves who robbed Gonçalo. These two, having reappeared, ask her to foretell the future of the courtly members of the audience.
As deduced from this summary, the adventure, which unfolds entirely on the road, contains more than its share of naturalistic scenes. Naturalism goes so far as to pervade Pedreanes's predictions, offered through his medium Cezília, concerning Gonçalo's marital status:
Casarás polo Natal
com mulher sem tua perda;
seu corpo como cristal,
e achar-lhe-ás um sinal
no meio da coxa esquerda.
E tem na teta direita
um lũar com três cabelos;
pola cinta muito estreita,
de uma nádega contreita,
e zambra dos cotovelos.
(6:33)
It is difficult to pinpoint the precise object of this play. It appears as though Gil Vicente had a clear-cut idea of his direction when he began to elaborate the plot, but some unexpected exigency forced him to change course and conclude the piece in such a weak fashion, from a dramatic point of view. Óscar de Pratt sheds some light on this subject:
A cena final, em que a velha apresenta a demoninhada Cezília, é apenas um episódio de remate, na efabulação da peça, que visava a desmascarar os dois vaganaus. Prevê-se, porém, que quase no final da composição é que o autor teve a ideia de aproveitar o ensejo para fazer graciosas alusões a corte. Tanto à cena se afasta, finalmente, do assunto da peça que o argumento, aliás minucioso, não cita este pormenor.14
Another piece in which the religious element is mixed with crude naturalism is Auto dos Físicos, whose opening scene shows a lovesick priest ordering his servant Perico to pay a visit on Blanca Denisa. Perico is to hand her a letter containing the priest's declaration of love. Because on a previous visit she had threatened to beat the servant should he return with any messages from the priest, the following conversation ensues between servant and master:
CLé.
Não veis vos?
MOç.
Bem o vejo
que não vos quer sóis olhar.
CLé.
Caza mata el porfiar,
como dice el refran viejo.
MOç.
Diz que me há-de esbofetar.
CLé.
Aunque ella eso diga …
MOç.
Pior o há-de fazer.
Quando ela bom vos quiser,
que me pinguem na barriga.
CLé.
Vé, háceme este placer.
MOç.
Dizê vós missa primeiro.
CLé.
Cuerpo de Dios con la misa,
y con el mozo y con la prisa!
(6:98)
We have here a striking example of familiarization, naturalism (profanation and mention of bodily parts), oxymoronic combination (mésalliance), bringing-down-to-earth or debasement, and symbolism—a rather exaggerated fragment of what constitutes a thoroughly carnivalized genre. The irreverence demonstrated by the servant in his replies to the priest produces an atmosphere of familiarization; this familiarized atmosphere, in turn, is the result of the mésalliance created once the priest took on the servant as a confidant. The latter's preoccupation with corporal punishment has a debasing effect on the priest: he grows steadily more impatient with the boy's apparent lack of obedience and practically begs him to go and do as directed. At his wits' end, the priest explodes with a profane exclamation when the servant asks that he say mass before any message is delivered.
Observe the symbolic significance of the oxymoronic combination “religiosity/secularity”: the priest, having strayed from his religious path (the desire to break the vows of celibacy), has placed himself in a position where the servant must remind him of his supposed principal concern, the saying of mass. This episode symbolizes the Church, which by ignoring its original purpose, finds itself the target of the layman's (Gil Vicente's) constructive criticism. So frequently did Master Gil make the Church the object of his criticism that he has often been referred to as a proselyte of Erasmus.
The last scene of Triunfo do Inverno, a scene that could have been developed into a separate play entitled Triunfo do Verão, presents an unexpected mixture of free fantasy with the baseness and vulgarity of the lumpenproletariat.
The figure of Spring enters and reveals why it should eavesdrop on the conversation between a blacksmith and his wife, a baker:
Aquel maestro herrero
tiene la muger hornera,
y quieren (lo que Dios no quiera)
que siempre sea genero.
Tiéneme amenazado,
porque los hago sudar;
yo tengo de los escuchar,
que es casal muy concertado.
(4:318)
The blacksmith and his wife start to argue and parody the Romance de la Bela Mal Maridada.15 The couple's language is laden with profanities. For example:
FOR.
Chouricinho engargueijado,
forunço de gata prenhe,
não sei, marido coitado,
se te venda, se tempenhe.
Pois não prestas pera nada
quero-me quitar de ti;
que a bella mal empregada
se pôde dizer por mi.
(4:320)
Their argument is interrupted by the figure of the Sintra mountainrange who, appalled by a negative remark of the blacksmith against Spring, exclaims:
Hũa forneira pelada,
e hum ferreiro pelado
terem coração ousado
com lingoa escomugada
falar no Verão sagrado!
(4:321)
The blacksmith and wife enumerate why they dislike this particular season. The figure of Spring then intercedes and remarks:
Disputar no es cosa honesta
con horneras ni herreros;
porque bien caro les cuesta,
en mi tiempo, sus dineros,
trabajados por la siesta.
(4:323-24)
Unlike most medieval poems that dealt with the contrasting pleasures of Winter and Spring, the point of this play is to suggest their hardships.16 With Spring, it was difficult to find persons to whom this season was displeasing, because it is universally a time for rejoicing. However, because of the nature of the work performed, certain lowly occupations became more difficult during the warmer months. The vulgar invectives heaped on Spring by the blacksmith and his baker-wife were a direct result of their lowly professions. The naturalistic is here juxtaposed with the lofty for the purpose of testing the truism: one man's delight is another man's inconvenience.
SYNCRISIS IS WIDELY EMPLOYED IN THE MENIPPEA.
In the Menippea, the pro et contra of the ultimate questions of life, those with an ethico-practical inclination, are laid bare. As Bakhtin explains:
Boldness of invention and the fantastic element are combined in the menippea with an extraordinary philosophical universalism and a capacity to contemplate the world on the broadest possible scale. The menippea is a genre of “ultimate questions.” In it ultimate philosophical positions are put to the test. The menippea strives to provide, as it were, the ultimate and decisive words and acts of a person, each of which contains the whole man, the whole of his life in its entirety. This feature of the genre was apparently especially prominent in the early menippea (in Heraclides Ponticus, Bion, Teles, and Menippus), but it has been preserved, although sometimes in weakened form, as the characteristic feature in all varieties of the genre. Under menippean conditions the very nature and process of posing philosophical problems, as compared with the Socratic dialogue, had to change abruptly: all problems that were in the least “academic” (gnoseological and aesthetic) fell by the wayside, complex and extensive modes of argumentation also fell away, and there remained essentially only naked “ultimate questions” with an ethical and practical bias. Typical for the menippea is syncrisis (that is, juxtaposition) of precisely such stripped-down “ultimate positions in the world.”
(Dostoevsky, 115-16)
The syncritic device in the Socratic dialogue, though Bakhtin does not say so here, is a direct result of the dialogical nature of truth. In order to arrive at the truth of any given concept, all thoughts or points of view concerning that concept have to be verbalized and counterposed. Any weak or fallacious idea is thus exposed and discarded. The method used to elicit each opinion is “anacrisis,” best defined as “the provocation of the word by the word.” In the Menippea, however, such provocation was a result of the plot situation and not of the interlocutor's questioning (as in the Socratic dialogue). Whether provoked by plot or interlocutor, the truth does not originate from nor lodge in an individual's mind; it arises from the dialogical exchange of people collectively searching for the truth. It was the bringing together of people for the purpose of dialogically establishing the truth that compelled Socrates to refer to himself as a “panderer.”
As Bakhtin points out, the Menippea seeks to give rise to fundamental questions concerning the application of knowledge on a moral basis. Questions of knowledge for its own sake and of aesthetic principles are perforce excluded as outside the realm of satire. Hence, the writer of Menippea must dispense with any epistemological concerns and debate, through his heroes, the pros and cons of society's moral issues. Vicentine plot action often entails a dialogized confrontation between two or more individuals intended to alert the audience to the diverse points on a given matter. In Auto da História de Deus, boldness of invention is masterfully combined with syncretism to produce a concise summary of the Old Testament culminating in the resurrection of Christ.
The appearance of Job in Limbo leads to a fine illustration of syncrisis, as these fragments of the conversation between him and Satan demonstrate:
JOB.
Se os bens do mundo nos dá a ventura,
também em ventura está quem os tem.
O bem que é mudavel não pode ser bem,
mas mal, pois é causa de tanta tristura;
e se Deus os dá,
como eu creio mui bem que será,
e a fortuna tem tanto poder,
que os tira logo cada vez que quer,
o segredo disto, oh! quem m'o dirá,
pera o eu saber?
SAT.
Falemos um pouco, Job, a de parte
sobre esse segredo, verás que te digo.
…
Deus é aquele que trata assi;
quer-te gran mal e diz mal de ti:
não cures dele, e logo tornarás
a como te vi.
Tu dás com teus males louvores a Deus,
e ele pesa-lhe por tu noméa-lo:
renega, renega de ser seu vassalo,
e logo verás tecer outros véus.
JOB.
Se o eu leixar,
qual é o senhor que m'há d'emparar?
Qual é o Deus que me pode valer?
Nos bens desta vida não está o perder,
que assi como assi cá hão-de ficar,
pois hei-de morrer.
Eu creio, Mundo, que o meu Redentor
vive, e no dia mais derradeiro
eu o verei Redentor verdadeiro,
meu Deus, meu Senhor e meu Salvador.
Eu o verei, eu,
não outrem por mim, nem com olho seu,
mas o meu olho, assim como está;
porque minha carne se levantará,
e em carne mea verei o Deus meu,
que me salvará.
(2:190-91)
The ethico-practical question put forth here is that though human beings endure a great deal of suffering in this world, such travails are merely temporary and we must resign ourselves to them regardless of whether God is responsible. Succumbing to temptation so as to alleviate our misery only precludes salvation. We sinners will eventually come before God, must answer to him, and place in his wisdom our eternal fate.
By accepting God as an omnipotent figure and by resigning himself to his mundane tribulations, Job is able to face death with the optimism denied the atheist. Job's words, before his departure from the world of the living, embody all his previous decisive actions and express his ultimate philosophical stand (the pro), which runs counter to Satan's fallacious argument (the contra):
Oh! bento e louvado seja o meu senhor!
O que ele me mandar
a vida é sua, pode-a tirar,
a morte é nossa de juro e herdade;
e pois que ele é o juiz da verdade
faça-se logo sem mais dilatar
a sua vontade.
(2:193-94)
Further on, the question that Moses asks King David is answered by the allegorical figure of Death. The response embodies an irrefutable truth, an ultimate conclusion—man is dust and to dust he shall return:
MOI.
Senhor Rei David, não tendes na corte
cirurgiães e físicos mores,
astrólogos grandes e muito doctores,
que vos dem saúde e livrem da morte?
MOR.
Olhai, não vai nisso;
o mal que se cura não é mal de siso.
Andam deitando remendos à vida;
mas quanto ao despejo, pois não tens guarida,
lembra-te, homem, com muito aviso
que és terra podrida.
(2:199)
To the naive and somewhat arrogant belief of the character Moses, that death can be avoided by scientific expertise procured by power and wealth, the author, speaking through Death, juxtaposes the irremediable destiny of earthly beings. Be that as it may, the words are directed beyond the audience; here, as in most mystery plays, the word rings out before heaven and earth, i.e., before the entire world.
Such syncrisis of stripped-bare ultimate positions in the piece led Jack H. Parker to comment:
The audience assembled to be edified on the occasion of the play's debut surely did receive, in a manner vigorously conceived and executed, a recapitulation of theological history in capsule form and many lessons on which to ponder.17
One play in which the entire action evolves around the constant confrontation of opposing viewpoints is Auto da Sibila Cassandra, for the plot is marked by cutting dialogical syncrises: humility versus arrogance, matrimony versus spinsterhood. Cassandra's obstinacy, her absolute disdain toward marriage, arise from the “crisis vision” theme so common in carnivalized literatures. Through a dream or premonition, Cassandra sees “with her own eyes” the possibility of a radically different human existence on earth. This vision influences her reality-testing to such a degree that to her the most preposterous aspiration—to be chosen mother of Christ—seems perfectly within reason.
The belief in a sort of rebirth or renewal is already well imbedded in Cassandra's psyche at the outset of the piece. Her objection on different grounds to Solomon's marriage proposal attests to this; for though Cassandra lists the many negative characteristics of husbands she has observed, in a previous statement she makes it clear that “no quiero ser desposada / ni casada, / ni monja ni ermitaña” (1:53). From this statement one can deduce that Cassandra must be awaiting a certain extraordinary event in her life: with marriage out of the question, the only option left to a spinster was to enter a convent or become a recluse. Nevertheless, Cassandra, in making her anti-marital views known, subtly reveals that a spinster's life is not what she has in mind.
Later, when her aunts, the prophetesses Erutea, Peresica, and Cimeria, intercede on Solomon's behalf, the pros and cons of marriage continue to be tossed around, with Cassandra again twice insinuating that she is saving herself for a purpose she is hesitant to reveal. These are the two insinuations:
CIM.
Tu madre eu [sic] su testamento
(no te miento)
manda que cases, que es bueno.
CAS.
Otro casamiento ordeno
en mi seno.
…
PER.
Si tu madre eso hiciera! …
CAS.
Bien, qué fuera?
PER.
Nunca tú fueras nacida.
CAS.
Yo quiero ser escogida
en otra vida,
de mas perfeta manera.
(1:58-59)
Cassandra's uncles, the prophets Isaiah, Moses, and Abraham, then call upon her in an attempt to succeed where the aunts have failed. Cassandra, however, is inflexible in her decision to remain single.
Suddenly, after mentioning that she is aware God will be incarnate and a virgin will bear him, Cassandra shocks everyone by revealing the real reason she refuses to marry: she believes that she is to be the chosen virgin. Naturally, such revelation terminates the exposition of the pros and cons of marriage, up to that point the focus of the play. The revelation gives rise to the second syncritical exposition: arrogance versus humility.
Immediately after Cassandra's disclosure, both aunts and uncles begin to call upon scriptural and apocryphal prophecies to dissuade the foolish girl; Uncle Isaiah, one of the first to address her, introduces the second dramatical syncrisis:
Cállate loca perdida,
que desa madre escogida
otra cosa se escrevió.
Tú eres della al revés
si bien ves:
porque tú eres humosa,
soberbia y presuntuosa,
que es la cosa
que mas desviada es.
La madre de Dios sin par,
es de notar,
que humildosa ha de nacer,
y humildosa conceber,
y humildosa ha de criar.
(1:71)
From this point, the dialogue is structured to belie Cassandra's presumptuous aspiration by stressing how humble Christ's mother must be in accordance with the prophecies. Toward the play's conclusion, fantasy is used to substantiate the foretelling of Christ's birth from a humble virgin: curtains are drawn and the entire Nativity scene appears before Solomon, Cassandra, and her aunts and uncles. Cassandra, realizing her mistake, praises the true Virgin and thus comes to her senses.
Summing up, we may say that in this play, two ethico-practical questions are put to the test: marriage versus spinsterhood and humility versus arrogance. It appears that in regard to the first, Master Gil was on the side of marriage; though his character Cassandra gives good reasons why a maiden should remain so, none of these is her reason for shunning Solomon. Aspiring to bear Christ, she abstains from matrimony. It is not that Cassandra is opposed to marriage but that she feels obliged to give that impression in order to conceal her real desire: to be the Virgin. One is left with the impression that woman's maternal instinct will always seek marriage regardless of any indisposition toward the institution itself. After all, was Cassandra not choosing God as her spouse?
Once Cassandra's presumptuous ambition becomes known, marriage assumes secondary importance. Her belief that she will be chosen conflicts with prophecies that indicate that Christ's mother, whose name will be Mary, will be known for her humility, among other fine qualities. The prophecies are then recounted by the characters and with the appearance of the Nativity scene, humility (the pro of this ethical question) triumphs over arrogance (the contra). The syncrisis is inserted to convey the playwright's moral message: Christian qualities and not social status—Mary's origins are as humble as Cassandra's—are what is relevant in the kingdom of God. Anacrisis, as in the Menippea, is here plot-borne and not originated by an interlocutor or a chorus as was customary in classical drama.
Before concluding this section, we must examine what is not only a fine illustration of syncrisis, but also perhaps the most often-cited example of Vicentine social criticism. This, of course, is the scene in Auto da Lusitânia where Everyman, a symbolic figure dressed in the attire of a rich merchant, comes across Nobody, a poor soul who asks him:
NIN.
Como hás nome cavaleiro?
TOD.
Eu hei nome Todo o Mundo
e meu tempo todo inteiro
sempre é buscar dinheiro,
e sempre nisto me fundo.
(6:84)
Everyman symbolizes the sacra fames auri, the vulgar crowd with its lowly instincts that reduce life to the search for money, honors, praise, pleasures, well-being, flattery, etc.; Everyman is the greedy, selfish, ambitious man who seeks out others not for what they are, but for what they appear to be (the contra).
NIN.
Eu hei nome Ninguém
e busco a consciência.
(6:84)
Nobody is the humble, honest, and righteous man who seeks out conscience, virtue, reprehension, honesty, truth, and sincerity (the pro).
Thus, a syncritical dialogue is established between representatives of those two worlds discussed in Gil Vicente's letter to his monarch, King John III: the one of the truth, or the first world, and the other of falsehood, or the second world. Interesting observations are made by Jack E. Tomlins with respect to this duality in the letter which is, after all, the pro et contra of earthly existence:
Gil Vicente presents a two-faced mirror of man. In his letter, he primarily notes the nature of this world … a vast composition of opposites: the good and perfect and the evil and imperfect. The imperfect “is” (the imperfect nature of man after the Original Sin) always points to the perfect “ought to be” (man as he was originally after his creation by God). This is the idea of man in popular farce, man in his daily existence. While Gil Vicente, in his religious drama, succeeded in creating a sort of lesser humor from the shepherd's ignorance and simplicity before the Nativity manger, he evinced the court's revelry in his farces, where man's imperfection is always obvious vis-à-vis that nature of man as he ought to be were he perfect; this “ought to be” is never far below the surface. These recurring themes (not dramatic per se and representing the expression of the interaction of opposites in the pieces) create unity in Gil Vicente's religious and burlesque plays, and provide a fitting explanation for his drama, which, for so long, has been an enigma to scholars.18
THE MENIPPEA OFTEN RELIES ON A TRILEVEL STRUCTURE: EARTH, HEAVEN, AND HELL.
In accordance with Bakhtin, the philosophical universalism of the Menippea appears in a trilevel construction: action and dialogical syncrisis are transferred from earth to Olympus and to the nether world. The earlier mentioned Apocolocyntosis of Seneca is a work in which such transfer is made with considerable external evidence. In it, further “threshold dialogues” are delivered with considerable external clearness, at the gates of Olympus (where Claudius was denied admission), and on the threshold of the infernal regions.
The Menippea's trilevel construction exercised a decisive influence on the analogous construction of the medieval mystery play and its scenery. The “threshold dialogue” genre took hold and was widely disseminated throughout the Middle Ages in serious and comical genres alike; it enjoyed vast popularity during the Reformation, as the literature of this period indicates, in the so-called “literature of the heavenly gates.” Increasingly, the representation of the infernal regions became more important in the Menippea, begetting the special genre of the “dialogue of the dead” so common in Renaissance European literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Because Gil Vicente stood at the crossroads of two ages, the medieval and the humanistic, it is not surprising that the literary trends of both are found in his work. The Trilogia das Barcas, three plays or scenes closely resembling the trilevel construction of the ancient Menippea, has been linked, though not conclusively, to Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead by Paulo Quintela, who has completed one of the most thorough studies concerning the origins of this trilogy. He speculates:
Resta considerar—o que até hoje, que eu saiba, ainda se não fez—o caso da tradição lucianesca. Tudo o que sobre este assunto vou dizer aventuro-o como pura hipótese, pois me faltam os fundamentos da tradição medieval dos Diálogos dos Mortos. A leitura do décimo Diálogo de Luciano, Caronte, Hermes e diferentes Mortos, e sobretudo a de A chegada aos Infernos ou o Tirano, são tão impressionantes, para quem se preocupe com on nosso tema, que de facto se não pode deixar de pôr a questão da possibilidade de Gil Vicente, por qualquer via, ter chegado ao seu conhecimento.19
Indeed, in both these dialogized stories, there are striking similarities to the Trilogia das Barcas. In the second story of Lucian's account, the tyrant Megapenthes, about to embark on Charon's barge, en route to Hades, beseeches Klotho to allow him to return to the world of the living for the ensuing purposes:
Mooress! I am not asking for much time! Allow me at least this day to instruct my wife somewhat about the money and where I buried the big treasure!20
This reminds us of the tyrant nobleman's request to the devil in the Barca do Inferno:
Mas esperai vós aqui;
tornarei à outra vida
ver minha dama querida,
que se quer matar por mi.
(2:46)
As in the Barca do Inferno, there is also a cobbler who makes the journey to the beyond in the ferryboat. His presence embodies the author's conviction that social distinctions are eradicated by death (the cobbler crosses the Styx on the shoulders of the tyrant king).
Aubrey Bell shares Quintela's opinion when he observes that “there are passages in the Barcas which are not altogether unworthy of their remote ancestors—the Frogs of Aristophanes or the Dialogues of Lucian.”21 Eugenio Asensio also acknowledges Lucian's Dialogues as a likely source in the composition of the Barcas, but censures Quintela for neglecting other possible sources.22
The reader should at this point be reminded of not only the carnival traits encountered in our discussion of The Frogs, but also of Bakhtin's remark: “The fullest picture of the genre is of course provided by the Menippean satires of Lucian, which have come down to us intact (although not representing all varieties of the genre)” (Dostoevsky, 113). Certainly, the most striking tendencies of the Menippea—to satirize and moralize—are found as the main ingredients in all of Lucian's Dialogues. In this sense, it could be deduced that Lucian serves as a link between the original Menippea and the Vicentine drama, although we should not assume that the Portuguese dramatist was familiar with Lucian's work; the Menippea and all its related genres are literary manifestations of a carnival attitude that developed because of the powerful influence that Western man's seasonal festivities exerted over him. Menippus and Lucian, as well as Gil Vicente, were only a few among the many aesthetic exponents of an enduring popular view that is prevalent even in this century, e.g., in the Brazilian modernist Mário de Andrade.23
Returning to the trilevel construction in the Vicentine trilogy, we observe that the ships of Heaven and Hell, with their respective boatmen—the Devil with his assistant and the Angel—await the approaching souls. Purgatory, though one of the three plays is entitled A Barca do Purgatório, is not represented by any ship since, as it turns out, Purgatory is not a destination in the trilogy, but the point of departure itself.24
Each ship is in itself a threshold: he who climbs aboard automatically enters the region of his merited destination. The conversations between the passing souls and the boatmen are “threshold dialogues”; in them the deceased's decisive words and actions, each containing his or her entire life and morality, are laid bare. In the following fragment from the Barca do Inferno, a priest reveals to the Devil his reason for not embarking on the Hell-bound ship:
DIA.
Que é isso, Padre? que vai lá?
FRA.
Deo gratias! Sam cortezão.
DIA.
Sabeis também o tordião?
FRA.
E mal que m'esquecerá.
DIA.
Essa dama há-de entrar cá?
FRA.
Não sei onde embarcarei.
DIA.
Ela é vossa?
FRA.
Eu não sei;
por minha a trago eu cá.
DIA.
E não vos punham lá grosa,
nesse convento sagrado?
FRA.
Assi fui bem açoutado.
DIA.
Que cousa tão preciosa!
Entrai, Padre reverendo.
FRA.
Pera onde levais gente?
DIA.
Pera aquele fogo ardente,
que não temeste vivendo.
FRA.
Juro a Deus que não t'entendo:
e este hábito não me val?
DIA.
Gentil padre mundanal,
a Berzebu vos encomendo.
FRA.
Corpo de Deus consagrado!
Pola fé de Jesu Cristo,
qu'eu não posso entender isto:
eu hei de ser condenado?
Um padre tão namorado,
e tanto dado à virtude!
Assi Deus me dê saúde,
que estou maravilhado.
(2:57-59)
By bringing his mistress with him and not being at all ashamed of his dalliance, the priest reminds us of the friar in the Auto das Fadas who delivered the burlesque sermon on the Vergilian line omnia vincit amor. Like that friar, who had been condemned to Hell for weakness of the flesh, the priest here seems to be of the impression that he has committed no sin; on the contrary, to love is human and, as such, should be regarded as normal and vouchsafed the acceptance of God. Therefore, his carnal desire is justified. That he was flogged while alive for having loved seems, in his opinion, satisfactory atonement if, perchance, to love is indeed sinful.
Realizing that his amorous life has earned him eternal damnation, the priest desperately mentions his most favorable point in order to gain salvation: he is, after all, a man of the cloth. This has no effect on the Devil who entrusts him to Beelzebub. In despair and amazement, the cleric expounds a philosophical stance that reveals him entire: a lovesick priest who earnestly believes that he has been virtuous and is extremely perplexed at his damnation, because he expected salvation all along.
This is the selfsame carnival logic, so prevalent in the Menippea, of an impostor's “elevation” (the priest's pleasures and expectations while in the world of the living), his comical “discrowning” by the whole folk on the square (the Devil's ironic remarks that serve to awaken the priest to his own unpromising reality), and his “downward” fall (his eternal damnation).
Throughout this trilogy, “threshold” acquires the meaning of a pivotal “point” in which crisis, radical change, or an unexpected turn of events takes place, where decisions are made, where demarcation lines are crossed, where souls are saved or damned.
The Fool in the Barca do Inferno, having shied away from the Hell-bound ship and its pilot, approaches the Heaven-bound ship and says to the Angel:
PAR.
Ou da barca!
ANJ.
Tu que queres?
PAR.
Quereis-me passar além?
ANJ.
Quem és tu?
PAR.
Não sou ninguém.
ANJ.
Tu passarás, se quiseres.
Porque em todos teus fazeres,
per malícia não erraste;
tua simpreza t'abaste
pera gozar dos prazeres.
(2:54)
This threshold dialogue depicts not only a decision made by the Angel as to the Fool's destination, but also an unexpected turn of events: the reader or spectator would expect the Fool, given the obscene insults he has heaped on the Devil, to have no recourse but to embark on the Hell-bound ship, having been turned away by the Angel for his amorality; however, he is saved, for he acts not from malice but from poverty of spirit. Sebastião Pestana furnishes us with a most poetical interpretation of the Fool's role in the scene:
Para Gil Vicente e para o Povo, o “Parvo” é o “pobre de espírito”, aquele a quem o dulcíssimo Rabi da Galileia, no Seu extraordinário (porque é divino) “Sermão da Montanha”, não deixou de lançar um pouco de luz intensa de Seus olhos melancólicos, não negou o amparo da Sua boca suavíssima e até estreitou no Seu amplíssimo coração, numa hora de amargura, juntamente com todos os que entrariam no Reino dos Céus.25
Next appear, in order, the cobbler and priest previously mentioned, a panderess by the name of Brizida Vaz, a Jew who tries to bribe the Angel, a magistrate with some tirades in Latin, a prosecutor, and a hanged man. The beach where the ships are about to depart takes on the characteristics of the carnival square. As in this festive spot, representatives of all earthly roles come together on equal terms and enter into familiar contact; in death, all who wore crowns in life are discrowned. In the Menippean trilevel presentation or, as it were, device, the carnival logic of a topsy-turvy world was often applied. It was not at all unusual that an emperor became a slave and vice versa. As noted in the Barca do Inferno, the Fool, typifying one of society's lowest members, is saved while others from the highest echelons are condemned. There are, however, exceptions to this carnival inversion, such as the four knights of the Order of Christ who, at the conclusion of the piece, are saved for having died in holy war. Master Gil's patriotism, so significant throughout his entire corpus, would not allow him to deride or carnivalize his monarchs' policies. It may also be that his total dependency on these rulers was a limiting influence on his satirical targets. In his Introduction to the Comédia de Rubena, Giuseppe Tavani explains that:
When we speak of expressive freedom in Vicentine drama, we need to recognize, above all, its restraints. Gil Vicente is the court's leading comic poet, and, at its service, he portrays its activity: as with all courtly poets therefore, his expressive freedom is limited because of the special audience's likes and dislikes, refinement and crudeness.26
Yet in this trilogy, all in all, people from varying social ranks, gathered on the beach to have their fates determined, are made equal by death and are equal in the eyes of the boatmen. Their behavior on the beach before the boatmen corresponds to the roles they played in ordinary life, i.e., they are either haughty, picaresque, vulgar, or insolent in keeping with their earthly demeanor. Soon, though, all come to the realization that the atmosphere of death is one of sudden and unexpected changes of fate, of instantaneous rises and falls, of “crownings and discrownings.” The dead are suddenly struck by the criticalness of the situation and feel that they are on the “threshold.” The encounter with the boatmen is irrefutably a most special moment for these souls—here a matter of seconds or minutes decides either a blissful or a tortured eternity. The exposition by each soul of his or her ultimate position is an attempt to gain passage to the desired destination (Heaven). However, it is the weighing of the pro et contra of each individual position that allows the Angel to reach a fair decision with regard to each soul's terminus.
Bahktin mentions that the carnivalization of the nether world in the Menippea was most influential on the medieval tradition of a “happy hell,” the culmination of which is the works of Rabelais. The frivolous exchange of ideas in the nether world of antiquity and the Christian hell is typical of this medieval tradition; in the mystery plays of this age both hell and devil are consistently carnivalized.
Such assertions do not seem to apply to the representation of the infernal regions in Vicentine drama. The devil (hell, though often mentioned, is never directly represented) is repeatedly portrayed as a sort of harmless jester, but never are we allowed to forget that behind his comical façade lurks the torment of the regions over which he rules supreme. These lines spoken by the devil in the Barca da Glória give succinct testimony of this:
Mirad, Señor, por iten
os tengo acá en mi rol,
y habeis de pasar allen.
Veis aquellos fuegos bien?
allí se coge la frol.
Veis aquel gran fumo espeso,
que sale daquellas peñas?
Allí perdereis el vueso,
y mas, Señor, os confieso
que habeis de mensar las greñas.
(2:130)
In spite of the fact that only the Trilogia das Barcas offers a clear-cut depiction of the exemplary medieval “threshold dialogue” genre, this does not imply that it was the only Vicentine piece evincing the influence of the “dialogue of the dead,” a special genre that would reach its apogee during the Renaissance. The prologue of the Auto da Feira, delivered by Mercury, brings to mind some of the techniques of this genre. In the words of Marques Braga:
Como nos “Diálogos dos Mortos” do clássico grego Luciano e no Diálogo de Mercurio y Carón (1528) de Alfonso de Valdés também no Prólogo deste Auto [da Feira], Mercúrio, figura principal, contempla a vida e costumes dos homens e “chasqueia da astrologia” que se tornara uma superstição dos homens cultos de 1500.
(1:195)
THERE APPEARS IN THE MENIPPEA A SPECIAL TYPE OF “EXPERIMENTAL FANTASTICALITY,” TOTALLY ALIEN TO THE ANTIQUE EPOS AND TRAGEDY.
Bakhtin observes that, under the definite influence of the Menippea, this line of experimental fantasticality continued, in the centuries after Lucian and Apuleius, in Rabelais, Swift, Voltaire, and others.
The myriad of fantastic elements employed by Master Gil in the construction of his pieces is ample testimony that our poet fittingly belongs on the list. His work reflects one of the most inventive and prodigious minds of occidental dramaturgy.
Over the course of this chapter time and time again we have observed the inclusion of Christian fantasticality (devils, angels, miracles, apparitions, etc.) to achieve the desired satire and/or syncrisis. Yet we have not touched upon another realm of fantasticality frequently exploited by Gil Vicente: the traditional and popular supernatural.
With regard to this brand of experimental fantasticality, António J. Saraiva and Óscar Lopes affirm:
Movimentando uma população fantástica de mitos tradicionais ou imaginados por ele próprio, Gil Vicente cria verdadeiros poemas encenados, revelando-se um extraordinário poeta de tipo pouco freqüente na literatura portuguesa, não introvertido, à maneira de Bernardim Ribeiro, antes aberto a inesgotável e pluriforme beleza do vasto mundo, cuja expressão mais, típica se encontra nos Triunfos das estações: Auto dos Quatro Tempos e, sobretudo, Triunfo do Inverno, personificado num portentoso João da Grenha, que assume, em admirável friso de metáforas, toda a épica grandeza dos elementos em fúria. … Esta inspiração insinua-se também nos autos cavaleirescos (por. ex. D. Duardos), nas farsas (Quem Tem Farelos?) e “tragicomédias” (Comédia de Rubena, Auto da Lusitânia). Pode dizer-se que no teatro vicentino cristaliza certo foclore peninsular, enriquecido com a dupla herança da mitologia clássica, da literatura bíblica, e ainda com a contribuição dos romances de cavalaria e dos rimances castelhanos, então em voga na corte.27
In the Comédia de Rubena, a sorceress and three fairies (supernatural characters from traditional folk tales) are instrumental in the development of its fantastic plot. Prior to the composition of this comedy, however, Gil Vicente had introduced these magical characters in a farce with the appropriate title of Auto das Fadas. This farce provides a prime example of boundless fantasticality within a theatrical piece.
The Auto das Fadas derides the common belief (prevalent even among the nobility) in the supernatural power of sorcerers. Genebra Pereira, a sorceress fearing that “a prendessem por usar de seu oficio,” arrives at court. She describes her aims before the royal family: to take pity on ill-wed women, to help a disillusioned lover, to arrange marriages, etc. Then she produces a bowl and a black sack containing various ingredients. Aided by these artifacts and chanting some mumbo-jumbo, Genebra attempts to conjure the devil.
A devil does appear and the sorceress orders him to bring forth three marine fairies. The devil, who speaks in Picardese, misunderstands her and brings back two friars from Hell (fadas-frailes). After a burlesque sermon on amor omnia vincit by one of the friars, the devil returns with the requested fairies. In the traditional manner of all fairies, these read the fate of all those attending the presentation: the royal family first, then the nobility.
What was the playwright's purpose in bringing together supernatural fictional characters and actual spectators? Óscar de Pratt supplies this plausible reason:
Suponho que foi por ocasião de uma mais intensa acção repressora (contra as práticas ocultas) que Gil Vicente teria encontrado ensejo para a composição desta farsa, na qual pretende ironicamente significar ao rei, “per razões que pera isso lhe dá a feiticeira, quanto necessários são os feitiços” para conjurarem a felicidade dos próprios fidalgos da sua casa.28
While on the topic of witches, let us not forget the necromancer-priest who opened the Exortação da Guerra by conjuring up not only devils but also great figures from antiquity who praised and extolled the glory of “famoso Portugal.” It is clear that one especial intention of the play is to demonstrate that Portugal's might and valor would have roused the envy of even the superhuman heroes of antiquity; the fantastic element helps to dramatize and accentuate this intention.
Gypsies, a nomadic people known throughout Europe for their claim to foretell the future by reading one's palm, are the protagonists of the brief Farsa das Ciganas. Like the Auto das Fadas, the play portrays the interaction between court members and agents of the supernatural. Four gypsy youths desire to trade horses with the noblemen, but are dissuaded by their female companions, who in turn encourage them to sing and dance. For lucre, the gypsy girls predict the inevitable fortunes of the ladies of the court, after first awakening their curiosity by offering to teach them spells for different desired results. Here are the effects of such spells, which must have been common knowledge to the Portuguese of the epoch:
LUC.
Hechizos sabreiz para que sepaiz
Los pensamientoz de cuantos miraiz,
Que dicen, que encumbren, para vuestro avizo.
MAR.
Otro hechizo, que pozais mudar
La voluntad de hombre cualquiera,
Por firme que esté con fe verdadera,
Y vuz lo mudeiz á vuestro mandar.
GIR.
Otro hechizo os puedo yo dar
Con que pudaiz, señuraz, saber
Cual es el marido que habeiz de tener,
Y el dia y la hora que habeiz de cazar.
(5:322-23)
The fantastic element fulfilled a dual function in the piece: it offered the audience, much to its delight, a combination of drama with popular necromancy; it also enabled Gil Vicente to satirize the niggardliness of the courtiers who (at least in this instance) paid the gypsies very poorly for their predictions. Observe the satirical note on which a gypsy girl concludes the presentation: “No vi gente tan honrada / Dar tan poco galardon.”
The tragicomedy Cortes de Júpiter, composed for the departure of the princess Beatriz to marry the Duke of Savoy, is a hodgepodge of fantastical elements. God sends Providence, attired as a princess, to Jupiter with the request that he allay the elements so the planned voyage to Savoy would be favorable. Providence exits and the Four Winds enter; blowing their trumpets, they summon the Sea, the Sun, the Moon, and Venus. As if this were not fantastic enough, Thomas R. Hart professes that from this point on “the rest of the play is a sort of preview, transferred to the plane of fantasy, of the princess's sailing, which was to take place after the performance.”29
Jupiter then proposes that the entire court, all transformed into fish, accompany the fleet on the first leg of the voyage. The Winds summon the planet Mars, which arrives with its signs: Cancer, Leo, and Capricorn. Mars has the Enchanted Mooress Thais brought forth, her enchantment sundered by song. This Enchanted Mooress was directly derived from the Portuguese folk legends, according to Maria A. Zaluar Nunes:
Gil Vicente também registou a tradição ainda hoje persistente, sobretudo entre o povo do sul do país, de que ha mouras encantadas, guardadoras de tesouros inestimáveis, que esperam pela hora do desencantamento, e reservam, a quem tiver a dita de o conseguir, preciosidades de alta valia: jardins maravilhosos, ouro, pedrarias e objectos mágicos.30
Mars announces the extraordinary gifts the Mooress will give the princess to bring her good fortune:
E a Moura há de trazer
três cousas que vos disser,
pera do estreito avante.
Um anel seu encantado,
e um didal de condam,
e o precioso treçado
que foi no campo tomado
depois de morto Roldam.
(4:256)
Mars then reveals the practical purpose of these articles:
O terçado pera vencer;
o didal é tam facundo,
que tudo lhe fará trazer;
o anel pera saber
o que se faz polo mundo.
(4:256)
The members of the court conclude this fantastical piece in song.
The motive for all this magical pageantry was to pay homage to the Portuguese royal family and to exalt Portuguese accomplishments in their newly acquired territories. Also, there is an ulterior motive that is omnipresent in Vicentine drama: the satire of professions and individuals. This is the function of the fish-transformation episode. In it we find the contemptuous metamorphosis of students into frogs because of their rambunctiousness, of lawyers into sharks because of their insatiability, of the renowned Portuguese poet Garcia de Resende into a drum-fish for his portliness, and of the king's advisor Gil Vaz da Cunha into a whale for the very same reason.
Mermaids are often mentioned and figure prominently in the Triunfo do Inverno. Their appearance comes immediately after the scene of the sea storm and, in a lovely romance, they praise—as in all Vicentine courtly presentations—Portugal's past and present.
The Divisa da Cidade de Coimbra, a fantastic tale in dramatic form, provides Master Gil's own interpretations of how a princess, a lion, a serpent, and a calyx came to figure in the coat of arms of city of Coimbra. In the drama, Gil Vicente alludes to Ovid's Metamorphoses with its humorous version of the origin of Mondego as the river's name and of how the hare came about:
Monderigon morto, segundo se prova
fizeram-lhe a cova lá cima num pégo,
pollo qual se chama este rio Mondego;
e a sepultura se diz Penacova.
Fogio Liberata da furia disforme,
e indo fogindo miu fraca e miu febre,
tornou-se animal que se chama lebre,
que de Liberata tomou este nome.
(3:162)
Dragons are also mentioned; however, none ever participates in any play's action. Their role is limited to brief allusions to their wickedness, as this extract from the peasant's plaintive speech to the hermit in the Divisa da Cidade de Coimbra illustrates:
Vino Dios ya sin razon,
estando resando ella
en mi corral,
consentió que un dragon
me hiciese biudo della,
por mi mal.
(3:138)
An observation by Maria A. Zaluar Nunes regarding Gil Vicente's frequent use of the fantastic is of interest:
Também nos parece que a introdução do maravilhoso nas peças de Gil Vicente deve corresponder à necessidade duma momentânea fuga da realidade, do quadro habitual.31
This is true of all writers of Menippea; the genre's carnivalized roots demand that the protagonists venture into the realm of the supernatural. Had the Menippea eschewed the illusory, it would not have exerted such influence. Its one-sided realism, along with its mordant satire of mores and social groups, would have made of it just another exposé. It is the blend of comic satire with daring fantasies that best thematically defines the Menippea and its correlative genres. …
Notes
-
Sebastião Pestana, Estudos Gil-Vicentinos (Sá da Bandeira: Imprex, 1975), 2:99.
-
Gil Vicente, Tragicomédia de Amadis de Gaula, ed. T. P. Waldron (Manchester: The University Press, 1959), 35.
-
Aubrey F. G. Bell, Four Plays of Gil Vicente (Cambridge: University Press, 1920), xxxvi.
-
Vasconcelos, Notas, 385.
-
See Auto das Fadas, 5:187.
-
Pestana, Estudos, 1:21-22.
-
Vasconcelos, Notas, 449.
-
Thomas R. Hart, Gil Vicente, Farces and Festival Plays (Eugene: University of Oregon Press, 1972), 19.
-
Gil Vicente, O Velho da Horta; Auto da Barca do Inferno; A Farsa de Inês Pereira, ed. Segismundo Spina (Sao Paulo: Editora Brasiliense, 1965), xxxii.
-
See Bibliography for respective studies.
-
Saraiva and Lopes, História, 213.
-
Ibid., 219.
-
Suzanne Dolores Valle-Killeen, The Satyric Perspective: A Structural Analysis of Late Medieval, Early Renaissance Satyric Treatises (New York: Senda Nueva de Ediciones, 1980), 185.
-
Pratt, Gil Vicente, 247.
-
See footnote in Triunfo do Inverno, 4:318.
-
Hart, Gil Vicente, 48.
-
Parker, Gil Vicente, 68.
-
El espejo que Gil Vicente presenta del hombre tiene dos caras. El poeta, en su carta, se fija principalmente en la naturaleza de este mundo … una vasta composición de oposiciones: lo bueno y perfecto y lo malo e imperfecto. Lo imperfecto “es” (la naturaleza imperfecta del hombre después del Pecado Original) siempre señala a lo perfecto “debe ser” (el hombre como era originalmente al ser creado por Dios). Esta es la idea del hombre en la farsa popular, el hombre en su diaria existencia. Mientras que en el drama religioso Gil Vicente pudo conseguir una clase de humor menor en la ignorancia y simplicidad del pastor ante el pesebre de Belén, evocó la alegría ruidosa de los cortesanos en las farsas, donde la imperfección del hombre es siempre obvia ante la naturaleza del hombre como debiera ser si fuese perfecto, este “debiera ser” siempre a flor de piel. Es la inevitable temática, aunque no necesariamente dramática, expresión de la interacción de contrarios en estas piezas la que da unidad a los dramas religiosos y burlescos de Gil Vicente y suministra una explicación afín del resto de los dramas que por tanto tiempo han sido consternación de los eruditos.
Jack E. Tomlins, “Una nota sobre la clasificación de los dramas de Gil Vicente (conclusión),” Duquesne Hispanic Review 4 (1965): 13-14.
-
Gil Vicente, Auto de Moralidade da Embarcação do Inferno, ed. Paulo Quintela (Coimbra: Atlantida, 1946), xxxii.
-
“¡Moira! ¡no pido mucho tiempo! ¡déjame siquiera este solo día, para indicar a mi mujer alguna cosilla acerca de los dineros y en dónde dejé enterrado el gran tesoro!” Luciano de Samostata, Novelas cortas y cuentos dialogados, trans. Rafael R. Torres (Mexico City: Editorial Jus, 1966), 1:306.
-
Bell, Four Plays, 120.
-
Eugenio Asensio, “Las fuentes de las Barcas de Gil Vicente,” Estudios portugueses (Paris: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1974), 59-77.
-
See Camargo's Macunaíma: Ruptura e Tradição.
-
In connection with this seemingly lapsus calami and all the controversy surrounding the argument whether the Auto das Barcas or Trilogia das Barcas was one single play divided into three scenes or three related plays, see the Introduction to Gil Vicente, Auto da Embarcação da Glória, ed. Paulo Quintela (Coimbra: Coimbra Editora, 1941).
-
Pestana, Estudos, 2:82.
-
Quando si parla della libertà espressiva del teatro gilvicentino, occorre individuarne anzitutto i limiti. Gil Vicente è capocomico e poeta di corte, e al servizio della corte esplica la sua attività: nelle simpatie e nelle antipatie, nella raffinatezza e nella grossonalita del suo specialissimo publico egli trova dunque gli invalicabili confini a quella libertà expressiva che pertanto resta, come per tutti in poeti cortigiani, una libertà condizionata.
Gil Vicente, Comédia de Rubena, ed. Giuseppe Tavani (Rome: Endizioni dell'Ateneo, 1965), 20-21.
-
Saraiva and Lopes, História, 218.
-
Pratt, Gil Vicente, 163.
-
Hart, Gil Vicente, 44.
-
Maria Zaluar Nunes, “O maravilhoso popular em Gil Vicente” in Comemoração Vicentina, ed. University of Lisbon (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional de Lisboa, 1937), 179. Ms. Zaluar Nunes's article is indispensable for its painstaking documentation.
-
Ibid., 187.
Select Bibliography
Asensio, Eugenio. Estudios portugueses. Paris: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1974.
Bell, Aubrey F. G. Four Plays of Gil Vicente. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1920. Bergson, Henri. “Laughter.” In Comedy, edited by Wylie Sypher. New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1956.
Camargo, Suzana. Macunaíma: Ruptura e Tradição. Sao Paulo: Massa Ohno e João Farkas, 1977.
Hart, Thomas R. Gil Vicente, Farces and Festival Plays. Eugene: University of Oregon, 1972.
Michaëlis de Vasconcelos, Carolina. Dispersos Originais Portugueses. Lisbon: Edição da Revista Ocidente, 1969.
———. Notas Vicentinas. Lisbon: Edição da Revista Ocidente, 1949.
Parker, Jack H. Gil Vicente. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1967.
Pestana, Sebastião. Estudos Gil-Vicentinos. 2 vols. Sá da Bandeira: Imprex, 1975.
Pratt, Óscar de. Gil Vicente: Notas e Comentários. Lisbon: Livraria Clássica, 1970.
Saraiva, António José and Óscar Lopes. História da Literatura Portuguesa. Oporto: Porto Editora, 1976.
Tomlins, Jack E. “Una nota sobre la clasificación de los dramas de Gil Vicente.” Duquesne Hispanic Review 3 (1964): 115-31, and 4 (1965): 1-16.
Valle-Killeen, Suzanne Dolores. The Satyric Perspective: A Structural Analysis of Late Medieval, Early Renaissance Satiric Treatises. New York: Senda Nueva de Ediciones, 1980.
Vicente, Gil. Obras Completas. Edited by Marques Braga. 6 vols. Lisbon: Sá da Costa, 1976.
———. Comédia de Rubena. Edited by Giuseppe Tavani. Rome: Edizioni dell'Ateneo, 1965.
———. O Velho da Horta; Auto da Barca do Inferno; a Farsa de Inês Pereira. Edited by Segismundo Spina. Sao Paulo: Editora Brasiliense, 1965.
———. Tragicomédia de Amadis de Gaula. Edited by T. P. Waldron. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1959.
———. Auto da Embarcação do Inferno. Edited by Paulo Quintela. Coimbra: Atlântida, 1946.
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The Comédia do Viúvo
Intersecting Historical Performances: Gil Vicente's Auto da India
