Gomes and Portuguese Poetry [pp. 655-665]

1883.] COMES AKD PORTUGUESE POETRY. 659
power of the state grew the power and beauty of the language.
It is from within, not from without, that the language of a nation
must draw sustenance; its growth, no matter what is grafted on
it, must be organic in order to flourish. The poetry of King
Diniz and of Pedro I. is in a jargon which, while smooth and
liquid, is so indeterminate as to be hardly intelligible. Half a
century afterwards the Chronicles of Fernao Lopez appeared.
This, the most ancient and venerable historian of the country,
wrote in a language so perspicuous and so different from his predecessors that one might take it for an entirely new, idiom.
Still, it was the same in root-forms, and only differed in so much
as a shaping influence was at work. The middle limit was
reached, but not till the end of Joao II.'s reign did the confused
and lawless forms give way to a regular syntax and harmony.
We now arrive at the second epoch, which may be broadly
marked as extending from the reign of Affonso V. to that of
Sebastian. In this period arose those great Portuguese writers
who are the most illustrious of their country, and who may be
regarded as the true founders of Portuguese literature.
Sa de Miranda was the first who hewed his way through the
tangled undergrowth of the idiom. Without models, save the
example of the Italians before him, he subdued the lawless form&
of the language, fixed the pronunciation, and tamed it to a combination of infinite harmonies. Many, too, were the improvements he introduced into verse. The octonary was commonly
used; he adopted the hendecasyllable and seven-syllable, which
with the former is the best lyric mixture because of the concordant pauses. The sonnet had been brought in by Dom Pedro de
Alfarroubeira, a celebrated poet, the m~st enlightened prince of
his time and the greatest man of his nation. Sa de Miranda perfected and raised it to the finished state in which it has since con
tinued. Also, the structures of the can~o, of the octave and
triad stanzas, were for the first time used by him in the Portu~
guese tongue.
One imperfection which Gomes points out in Sa de Miranda
is perhaps ~ harmony with the distinguishing excellence of his
style. The poet frequently falls into that worse than fault-the
ending of one line with an adjective and the beginning of the
next with its substantive; a poor and prosaic trick, which can be
best described by the phrase of Dogberry, "tolerable, and thcr&
fore not to be endured." The characteristic excellence of
Miranda is simplicity; his genius is governed, correct moderate
He never kindles, never dazzles, never agitates; he enlightens,