Life is a voyage. From Homer and Virgil to Dante and Cervantes, could one think of a more timeless metaphore in Western culture? Traced by joy and pain, the route from birth to death, such different places, is not without risk of transforming someone along the way. The unsafety and the uncertainty of travelling from one space to another – a movement of growth, gaining knowledge, and being saved in the end if following the correct path – are at the core of every voyage. A classic, given the verisimilitude of its representation of human life, this literary trope can be found in the opening lines of Ioannes Princeps Tragoedia (1558), by Portuguese Neo-Latin writer Diogo de Teive (c. 1514-1565):
“As the small boat, in the fury of the sea, is a toy of the cruel Notus and, because of huge waves, is unable to maintain the rhumb, a weak spirit wounded by pain is agitated in distressing worries, no rest is offered to the insecure heart, and no consolation receives the saddened soul.”
Foreshadowing the death of João Manuel, Prince of Portugal (1537-1554) – the last surviving son of King John III’s nine children, deceased at 16 years old, right before the birth of his only child, the future King Sebastian of Portugal (1554-1578) –, this comparison of the human suffering to a rudderless vessel portrays how a feeling of being adrift may have existed in the Portuguese court during the second half of the sixteenth century. There seems to be a fear that the life of the kingdom is in danger of losing its course by being engulfed in a succession crisis.
Besides the political problem, this comparison conveys something intriguing. In a time when Portuguese literature is laced with nautical rhetoric, this tragedy is not. In a neoclassical fashion, Teive uses the Greek mythical Notus – god of the Sirocco wind causing storms and sinkings in the Mediterranean Sea – to describe a maritime voyage where there are no instruments and techniques that could help the boat maintain its rhumb. The fragility of the hereditary prince’s lifeline is not only depicted by the comparison but also by the absence of science and technology in this symbolic route. Portuguese Early Modern playwriters often used the image of astrolabes and magnetic needles to portray the human ability to overcome tribulations and to accomplish a path. Unlike a planned oceanic voyage, guided by instruments and regiments that help find the vessel’s way when lost, there is no safe and successful arrival to the destination in the life of João Manuel – to be the King of Portugal. His route came to no salvation in the end. [Joana Lima]
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