Note 43 — GOMES EANNES DE AZURARA; (continued 6)

(p. 25). Discipline ... clemency.—Azurara here imitates somewhat the formal disputations of Seneca and Cicero. We may especially compare Seneca's De Ira, De Providentia, and De Clementia ad Neronem Caesarem libri duo; also, but with rather less close a parallelism, the same writer's De Animi tranquillitate, De Constantia Sapientis. The Elder Seneca's rhetorical exercises, Controversiarum libri X, and Suasoriarum Liber, were also, as far as the form goes, models for such discussions as are here conducted. Azurara's point, of course, is that, of the two extremes, Prince Henry leaned rather to "clemency" than to "discipline;" and though he by no means neglected the latter, he was content rather to err in generosity than in severity. Precisely the opposite is the view of some modern students: e.g., Oliveira Martins, Os Filhos de D. João I, especially pp. 59-63, 210-1, 267-270, 311-346.