Sexual Misconduct in Popular Romances

Today I will tell you four portuguese stories in which the characters engage in sexual acts before marriage or, in the case of the last story, there’s a rape. These stories are xácaras (poems, written to be sung, that are mostly dialogue), which means they were created by the people, not the educated elites, and it’s interesting to see how these people felt about these controversial subjects, letting them speak for themselves instead of others speaking for them.

The four examples I bring you are similar because they are all connected to Almeida Garrett’s Rosalinda - a reconstruction written from fragments of the other three xácaras: Gerinaldo, Claralinda and Dom Claros. Later, he was able to collect the full version of these three, so I will able to tell you the entire stories.

Rosalinda

Rosalinda (tr. Beautiful Rose), the protagonist of the story, is a very beautiful princess and one day, while she was looking through the window, she saw an admiral arriving at the port. She then leaft her house and went to the port, and started a conversation with that man. She was very determined. This admiral was a very courageous man, a fearsome warrior who fought against the Moors in the Mourama (Land of the Moors):

When the admiral leaves 
his galley in the sea
Between Ceuta and Gibraltar
No Moor is safe.

After that short conversation, the two begin a relationship and eventually have intimate contact. Unfortunatelly the king’s hunter sees them and even after the admiral begs him to keep what he saw secret, he reveals it to the king. After having revealed the princess’ secret to the king, and to the entire court, the hunter is sentenced to death, because he told the news to the king in a loud voice and not whispering allowing all the present to know about the princess’ indiscretion.

Because sex before marriage was forbidden, both the admiral and the princess were condemned to death and had their throats cut. They were buried next to each other, and on Rosalinda’s grave a willow tree was born while on the admiral’s a rose bush. The rose bush branches and the willow branches grew entertwine, and even after the king ordered the plants to be cut they would grow again and again their branches would entertwine, as if the lovers were hugging each other .

Cutted out and clipped,
The branches would burst again;
And as the wind would make them touch,
They would hug each other,

And when the king heard such a news,
He could never speak again,
When the queen knew,
She almost died.

"- No longer call me queen,
queen of Portugal...
I separated two inocents
Those God wanted united!"

Gerinaldo (or Reginaldo)

Gerinaldo is the first of the three portuguese romances that served as a base for Rosalinda. It tells the story of Gerinaldo, a nobleman who was serving as page for the king. The song says that he was known as “the bold one” because he dared to fall in love with the king’s daughter, but even though his feelings were strong he never dared to approach the princess, and for that reason she believed he was a coward.

"Gerinaldo, Gerinaldo,
The beloved page of the king,
I don't know why, Gerinaldo,
They call you bold.
(...)
Were you not such a coward
And you could have already slept with me"

Gerinaldo accepted the princess offer, but in the morning he failed to wake up on time and when the king called him he didn’t answer, so the princess’ father went to look for him and found him sleeping next to her. The king was very angry and to warned them he put his dagger on top of the bed, between the princess and Gerinaldo. After waking up the page notices the king’s dagger on the bed and knowing their secret is revealed, he goes to the king and confesses his crime, is locked up in a tower and sentenced to death.

"- Gerinaldo, from where do you come?
 - Your Highness, I return from the hunt.
 - Where is the game you hunted, Gerinaldo the bold? 
 - Lord king, I come from the hunt,
but I dot bring the game 
because vassals cannot hunt the royal game.
I bring you only one head,
And it is my own: and it is to her the punishment is due.
- Your sentence is given, you shall die for your boldness.

Later, his mother pays him a visit in prison and asks him to sing for her one last time: at first he refuses, death being so near makes him depressed and unwilling to sing, but after some insistence he starts singing. At that moment, the king is at his balcony and listens to a beautiful song, so he decides to call his daughter:

"- Come here, daughter
this beautiful singing
Is from the angels in the sky,
or the sirens in the sea?
- It's not the angels in the sky,
Nor the sirens in the sea,
But the sad man with no luck
Whom your ordered to kill.
- So I immediatelly revoke suck sentence
And I immediatelly order his release;
You, princess, lock him up, now,
For with you he shall marry."

This xácara has several versions, since each region has a version of it’s own. The version I chose was the one collected by Almeida Garrett¹. If you want to know how this xácara sounds like when sung, you can watch the following video, which has a slightly different version:

Claralinda

This xácara² is quite small, so I’m able to give you a full translation.

It'a already midnight,
The roosters want to sing,
And Count Claros was in bed
He could not sleep.
He called his pages and esquires,
He wanted to get up;
He ordered them to dress him,
He ordered them to put his shoes on.
They dressed him in such a white shirt,
Not even the king had one alike;
They gave him a silk sayen,
A golden waist and strap.
They brought him golden spurs
So he could ride;
He rode on his horse,
He was on his way.

-"God bless you Claralinda, are you embroiding so early?"
- "God bless you Dom Claros, where are you going?"
-"I'm going to fight the moors, milady, great wars I' going to fight."
-"You have such a beautiful body to fight them!"
-"This body is better fitted to have fun with you..."

Words were not said
And a page was passing by:
-"The words that are said,
I'm going to tell the king."
-"The words that are said,
to the king you shall not tell:
I will give you gold and silver
as much as you can carry.
-"I do not want neither gold nor silver,
if gold and silver you wish to give me;
I want to keep my loyalty
To the one my loyalty is due:
The words that are said,
To the king I shall tell".

The good page left
And fast he went
To the king's study
Where the king was studying:
-"God bless you, lord king,
and your royal crown!
I left back there Dom Claros
having fun with the princess."
-"If you had told me that in secret,
I would have given you a pension as a reward:
But your voice was so loud
That you shall hang in a high place."

Punishing the gossipers 
is good royal justice:
But poor Count Claros will also be beheaded.
-"Come, come, Claralinda...
how are you rested!
Come to see count Claros
whom the king ordered to kill."
-"Help me, my maidens,
come with me:
Because if the king does not forgive him,
I want to die with him."
-"God bless you, lord king,
and your royal crown!
What evil Count Claros has done to you
to have him killed?"
-"Had I another child
to rule my kingdom,
and I swear to you, Claralinda, you would accompany him.
But take him as your husband,
I want him as son in law,
And may no other person in this court
be bold enough to gossip."

Dom Claros

The male protagonist of this xácara is again Dom Claros who according to Almeida Garrett “must have been the Don Juan of his time, judging by the number of adventures and romantic conquests atributed to him”³, and the heroine is named Mariana in some regions, in others Claralinda.

This xácara tells the story of Dom Claros who desguises himself as a young woman to deceive Mariana, a woman of integrity and impossible to fool, in order to win a bet. To accomplish his intent, he passes by Mariana’s window at sunset, desguised as a young lady, and Mariana fearing some evil would happen to this “woman”, she invited her to sleep in the castle. But Dom Claros, a smart and wicked man, says he doesn’t feel save sleeping alone in the castle with so many man servants around, so Mariana allows the "woman” to sleep in her bedroom. During the night, Dom Claros forces himself upon Mariana: she is helpless - if she screams and draws attention to the room everyone will think she wanted him there, and she would be punished for it. He promises to marry her and tells her he is a very noble man.

Time passes by, and Mariana is now pregnant and her father begins to suspect. He calls the tailors to confirm his suspitions and after they have done so, he decides to sentence Mariana to death. So, Mariana sends a letter to Dom Claros through one of a servants telling him she will die if he does not help her. To save her, Dom Claros disguises himself as the friar who is going to listen to Mariana’s confession before her death. When they meet he reveals himself and they run away together, saving her life and honour.

These are the four stories I brought this week, and even though they are similar, I believe each one has a beauty of its own. There are a lot of romantic stories, but these are different, because the lovers transgress and violate the moral code. What surprised me the most was that the people, maybe because it was only a story, rooted for the lovers forgetting the moral code. I hope you’ve also enjoyed these week’s stories.

1. GARRETT, Almeida, Romanceiro II, Parte Primeira, Publicações Europa-América, 1992, pág. 107

2. GARRETT, Almeida, Romanceiro II, Parte Primeira, Publicações Europa-América, 1992, pág. 145

3. GARRETT, Almeida, Romanceiro II, Parte Primeira, Publicações Europa-América, 1992, pág. 143