THE MERCHANT KNIGHT.
A Romance translated from the Portuguese of Gonsalo
Fernandez Trancoso. (1585).
Scarcely anything appears to be known of the life of Gonsalo Fernandez Trancoso, the author of the following story, except that he was a native of the little town in Beira from which he derived his name, that he professed mathematics, and published a small book on the ascertainment of moveable feasts, and died between 1585 and 1596. Two parts of his "Profitable Tales" were published by himself in the former year, and a third was added after his death by his son.
The collective title of Trancoso's stories shows that they were written with a moral purpose, and some are merely anecdotes. A few are of greater compass, including a version of the tale of Griselda, and the story now translated. The great superiority of this to the others renders it probable that it is founded upon, and closely follows, some old romance now lost. This may well have originated in the time of Edward the Third, when the connection between England and Portugal was especially intimate, and the English frequently came to the assistance of the Portuguese in their wars with Castile. If written after the Spanish conquest of Portugal in 1580, it may even have been intended to remind the Portuguese of this ancient alliance, and suggest that help might be had from England.
This story is not, like most of Trancoso's, spoiled by tedious moralising. It does not attempt any delineation of character or vivid individual portraiture, nor has it anything of the poetical charm of "Aucassin and Nicolette." But it is inspired by a thoroughly romantic spirit, and in its transparent simplicity of style affords a refreshing contrast to the exaggerated conceits of so much of the prose fiction of its day. It was written in the most flourishing age of Portuguese literature, and its diction is worthy of the period.
Trancoso's stories were popular in their own country in their day, but have not, so far as we are aware, been hitherto translated or noticed out of Portugal. The last edition was in 1722. All are rare: one of the two in the British Museum is not mentioned by any bibliographer.
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