Vicente

“ The wealthy masters had the honor of holding the cords of the banner, and behind them marched the lion, the glorious lion of the guild, who was now no longer known. Nor did the lion march in careless fashion; he was dignified, as the old traditions bade him be, and as Señor Vicente had seen his father march, and as the latter had seen his grandfather; he kept time with the drums, bowing at every step, to right and to left, moving the Shrine fan-wise, like a polite and well-bred beast who knows the respect due to the public. ”

“ The sky was clear and bright, already rose-tinted with the rays of the setting sun, low in the heavens.
"You must not go yet," said Vicente. "Ground too wet, trees wet, bad for white people. You must wait."
"But I must find my father," persisted Affonzo, who, though he was a brave boy, began to be somewhat frightened. But Vicente knew the danger of the steaming forest with its snakes, mosquitoes and insects swarming after the storm. "Not safe to go now," he said, and Joachim, who was quite comfortable where he was, said, "Little master must sleep here and go home in the morning." ”

“ Valencia was preparing to celebrate the centenary of one of its famous saints, and the guild of blanquers, like the other historic guilds, wished to make its contribution to the festivities. Señor Vicente, with the prestige of his years, imposed his will upon all the masters. The blanquers should remain what they were. All the glories of the past, long sequestrated in the chapel, must figure in the procession. ”

“ The centuries had raised the level of the street, converting Señor Vicente's shop into a gloomy cave. The door through which his ancestors had entered had grown smaller and smaller from the bottom until it had become little more than a window. Five stairs connected the street with the damp floor of the tannery, and above, near a pointed arch, a relic of medieval Valencia, floated like banners the skins that had been hung up to dry, wafting about the unbearable odor of the leather. The old man by no means envied the moderns, in their luxuriously appointed business offices. ”

“ Though so large a proportion of his pieces are in Spanish, they are all eminently national in idea, texture and subject. No other Portuguese writer reflects so faithfully the language, types, customs and colour of his age as Gil Vicente, and the rudest of his dramas are full of genuine comic feeling. If they never attain to perfect art, they possess the supreme gift of life. ”

“ Vicente soon finished cooking his rubber, and put up the utensils before following Affonzo and the two men down the path to the river.
"Vicente is a good Indian, isn't he?" said Affonzo.
"One of the best I have ever known," said his father. "He has worked for us for years and has always been honest and reliable. It is strange that he should be so hospitable and [40] friendly, for his ancestors and ours were always at war. When your grandfather was a young man there was always fear of the natives, and at one time there was an Indian uprising in which many Portuguese were killed. ”

“ Padre Vicente spoke in Castilian to Tahn-té.
“Yet does my office exact absolution for you, if you but crave it with a contrite heart,” he said for the benefit of Don Ruy and Don Diego who listened. “You have worked for your devils, and they have deserted you, and stripped you of power. Acknowledge the true God and the saints will intercede for your favor.” ”

“ At the rise of the modern theatre in Spain and Portugal all dramas were denominated farces,98 and that the name has been continued to be applied to Vicente’s comedies, is an accident arising merely from the want of a better term of classification. It is in like manner the result of accident, that in France, England and Germany, the same term is still employed to distinguish precisely that species of drama to which Gil Vicente’s farces belong. ”

“ The stage of Lisbon has been occupied almost exclusively by the Italian opera and Spanish comedy. Only one poet of any name has written in the Portuguese spirit. This was Gil Vicente (1490-1556) . He resided constantly at the court, and was employed in providing occasional pieces for its civil and religious festivities. It is probable that he was an actor, and it is certain that he educated for the stage his daughter, Paula, who was equally celebrated as an actress, a poetess, and a musician. The dramas of Vicente consist of autos, comedies, tragi- comedies, and farces. ”

“ To take the power of high God for the managing of pueblo matters was not a thing to grant absolution for! And Padre Vicente, to quiet his anxiety on that score, agreed that when the pagan Cacique came for absolution, he should be reminded of his iniquity.
And while they settled this weighty matter, the young Ruler who had prophesied, moved contrary to custom, with the leaders across the high mesa, and was followed by the Castilian horsemen, in their shining coats of mail, and on a mule led by Gonzalvo rode Yahn, unafraid, and with proud looks. ”

“ He proposed to send me a nice-looking young Swiss, called Vicente, who was looking after the "capones," up to the Cerro, to take Robinson's place, and also keep an eye on the southdowns, and I could send Margarito down to La Concordia in his stead. Vicente was handy, and obliging, getting on for nineteen, nor would he at all object to doing a little cooking and housework if required. Jennings asked me to stay and have breakfast, which I did, and said he had received a letter from Don Frederico, written from Santa Lucia, saying all had gone well, and that so far they had travelled comfortably. ”

“ Gil Vicente perhaps lacks psychological depth, but he possesses a breadth of mental vision and a critical acumen unknown in any medieval dramatist. In his attitude to religion he acts as the spokesman of the better men of his age and country. A convinced but liberal-minded Catholic, he has no sympathy with attacks on the unity of the Church, but he cries out for a reform of morals, pillories the corruption and ignorance of the clergy and laity, and pens the most bitter things of the popes and their court. ”

“ In Amadís de Gaula and in Dom Duardos there is a marked advance in elaboration and finish; and in the Auto da Fé Vicente proves his independence by an ingenuity and a fancy all his own. Here he displays qualities above those of his model, and treats his subject with such brilliancy that, a century and a half later, Calderón condescended to borrow from the Portuguese the idea of his auto entitled El Lirio y la Azucena. Gil Vicente is technically a dramatist, but he is not dramatic as Torres Naharro is dramatic. ”

“ But it was surprising to see Vicente come from the cluttered, dirty Garcia rooms, almost as clean and sweet as Nico, though with nails more violently red.
The Beechams found it a problem to dress at all in their chicken-apartment. Dick tried to get ready in one room and Rose-Ellen in the other, and everything she wanted was in his room and everything he wanted in hers. ”

“ There was Don Vicente carrying the standard; Pimentel, very stuck up, with his white cravat; your uncle{301} carrying a lighted taper, with a face which looked like mortal sin; behind him all the political hangers-on, grasping tapers—they who never thought they would do such a thing! Then came the fellows with leggins, the secretaries to the Common Council, with white ruffles round their knees; all the mayors, and all the judges, and all the registrars, and all the supernumeraries. Oh, why didn’t you go to Pontevedra that day? We wont have another such in twenty years to come. ”

“ The west façade has two incomplete towers, between which is a most elaborately carved Romanesque doorway, standing in a deeply recessed arch.
AVILA. PUERTA DE SAN VICENTE
The pure Romanesque nave has both triforium and clerestory and the unusual feature of pointed vaulting. The proportions of this noble church are very fine, but the interest of the non-architectural visitor will be centred in the Tomb of San Vicente and his two sisters SS. Sabina and Cristeta. A metal work canopy resting on twisted columns surmounts the tomb which is a sarcophagus of the thirteenth century. ”

“ Various small poems in the Spanish and Portuguese languages form an appendix to the collection. These works display a true poetic spirit, which, however, accommodated itself entirely to the age of the poet, and which disdained all cultivation. The dramatic genius of Gil Vicente is equally manifest from his power of invention, and from the natural turn and facility of his imitative talent. Even the rudest of these dramas is tinged with a certain degree of poetic feeling. ”

“ These compliments were returned with rather pallid lips by Don Rafael, who however upon being recognized by Don Vicente, who advanced to embrace him with the cordiality of a friend, though with something of the condescension of a superior, regained his composure with the rapidity natural to a man who having fancied himself in some peril finds himself under the protection of a powerful and generous patron. ”

“ Joam de Barros, the historian, in his dialogue on the Portuguese Language, (Varias Obras, Lisboa, 1785, 12mo, p. 222,) praises Vicente for the purity of his thoughts and style, and contrasts him proudly with the Celestina; “a book,” he adds, “to which the Portuguese language has no parallel.”
[463] His touching verses, “Ven, muerte, tan escondida,” so often cited, and at least once in Don Quixote, (Parte II. c. 38,) are found as far back as the Cancionero of 1511 ”

“ An old man now, the extraordinary power Don Vicente wielded, and his absolute control over the province and a great part of Galicia, had made Señor Aldao comprehend that social rank, in our times, is not founded on parchments, more or less musty. “Nowadays politics absorb everything,” he used to say. “The{165} man who can give away sugar-plums with one hand, while he wields the lash with the other, is the real celebrity.” That was one reason why he had received my uncle’s matrimonial proposals with so much favor. ”

“ But this collection of songs and dialogues is as far from having any real dramatic object as are the other farces of Vicente, in which he sometimes introduces Witches,—at that period objects of particular interest with the public,—performing incantations in concert with the Devil; sometimes Frenchmen and Italians who speak a kind of broken Portuguese, perhaps often enough heard on the quays of Lisbon. In another of these lively entertaining dramas, an enamoured old man is the principal character. ”

“ Proceeding southwards a short distance, he then turned north, followed the coast to the north-west, discovered the Amazon estuary, and went at least as far as what is now Costa Rica. After touching at Haiti, and losing two of his vessels among the Bahamas, Vicente returned to Palos in the end of September 1500. ”

“ The churches of San Vicente, San Pedro, Santo Tomás and San Segundo are, in their main features, Romanesque of the 15th century, although parts of the beautiful San Vicente, and of San Pedro, may be as old as the 12th century. ”

“ The text of the dramas is printed in gothic characters, but the introduction which precedes each piece is printed in the modern roman type. In the dramas themselves the Portuguese and Spanish languages are indiscriminately employed, and though the introductions are chiefly written in Portuguese, some of them are also in Spanish. I know of no later edition of Gil Vicente’s works. Barbosa Machado mentions none of subsequent date. How can the Portuguese public so completely forget an old favourite? Only a few of Gil Vicente’s Autos were printed singly in the seventeenth century. ”

“ The invention and the execution of Gil Vicente’s Autos present an equal degree of rudeness. The least artificial are also those in which the most decided traits of national character appear. The shepherds and shepherdesses who are introduced into these Autos are Portuguese and Spanish both in their names and manners. Their simple phrases and turns of language are similar to those employed by the characters in Saa de Miranda’s eclogues, except that their discourse is more negligent and occasionally more coarse. ”

“ On one side of the town rises the green Calvary hill, on the other the bare grey Puig de Pollensa, crowned by a pilgrimage church and hospedéria; this passion for building a church on the highest and most inaccessible spot attainable is a really curious phenomenon.
“Very picturesque is the little blue bay of San Vicente, with its cliff walls and jagged peaks.”
(page 103)
“The generation now dying out is the last that will be seen in the dress worn by their forefathers for a thousand years past.” ”

“ It was accordingly suggested that he would find a fit subject in the Portuguese proverb: “I prefer an ass that carries me, to a horse that throws me.”102 For the comic representation of this proverb, Vicente chose the prettily conceived story of a young girl, who rejects the matrimonial offer of a wealthy simpleton, because she is resolved to marry none but a man of superior understanding and talents. Inez at length finds a man after her own heart. She gives him her hand, but soon grows very unhappy, because she finds that with such a husband, his will must always be her law. ”

“ Biography of a Traitor
Vicente was born in Santa Cruz, Laguna, in the year 1868. His parents were poor, so that he did not have a high education. Very little is known about his childhood. He seemed to have attended the primary school of the town, where he learned a little Spanish. He was not properly brought up by his parents. He was allowed to indulge in bad society. Being thus left alone, exposed to vice, he grew to be an unscrupulous and unruly young man. He became an orphan at the age of eighteen. ”