History of Spanish and Portuguese Literature (Vol 2 of 2)

Note 106 — CHAP. II. HISTORY OF PORTUGUESE POETRY AND ELOQUENCE FROM THE EPOCH OF THE INTRODUCTION OF THE ITALIAN STYLE, TILL TOWARDS THE END OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

Thomasina Ross translation

Ferreira in scanning, avails himself of the peculiarity of the Portuguese diphthongs, in order to omit at pleasure, as in latin verse, the m at the termination of words; for the Portuguese m in that situation is not an alphabetic character, but merely denotes the nasal sound which may also be marked by a circumflex over the diphthongs according to the fancy of the writer. Ferreira, for example, thus scans a line in his beautiful elegy on spring:—

Here the m in the word ouvem concludes a metrical syllable, which it does not in the word ficam.

Return to CHAP. II. HISTORY OF PORTUGUESE POETRY AND ELOQUENCE FROM THE EPOCH OF THE INTRODUCTION OF THE ITALIAN STYLE, TILL TOWARDS THE END OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.