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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: PIG-POL |
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PINTO, FERNAO MENDES (15091583) , Portuguese adventurer, was born at Montemor-o-Velho, of poor and humble parents, and entered the service of a noble lady in Lisbon, being afterwards for two years page to the duke of Aveiro in Setubal. Desiring to try his fortune in the East, he embarked for India In 1J37 in a fleet commanded by the son of Vasco da Gama, and for twenty-one years travelled, fought and traded in China, Tartary, Pegu
doctor
ambassador ; moreover, as the friend and travel-ling companion of St Francis Xavier, he lent the apostle of the Indies the money with which to build the first Jesuit establishment
capital he had accumulated to the evangelization of Japan.The viceroy appointed him ambassador to the king of Bungo in order to give the mission an official standing
letter of the 15th of January 1583 gave him a pension for his services in the Indies. But the reward came too late
In the light of our present-day knowledge of the East, Pinto is regarded as having been on the whole a careful observer and truthful narrator, but this was not always the case. Some witty countryman of his own parodied his name into Ferndo, mentes? Minto 1 (" Ferdinand, do you lie? I do t" ) ; and the English dramatist Congreve only expressed the general opinion of the unlearned when he wrote in Love for Love " Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first magnitude." It must be remembered that Pinto wrote the Peregrination long subsequent to the events he records, and this fact and a certain fertility of imagination sufficiently account for inexactitudes. Furthermore, as the book was only published posthumously, he never had the opportunity of correcting the proofs. Some of his most marvellous stories are expressly given on the authority of writers belonging to the countries he describes; others he tells from hearsay, and Oriental informants are prone to exaggeration. But if he somewhat adorned the truth, he did not wilfully misrepresent it. The book itself gives the impression of sincerity, and the editors of the first edition bear witness to the probity, good faith and truthfulness of Mendes Pinto as a man. Herrera Maldonado prefaced his Spanish translation of the Peregrination (162o) by a lengthy and erudite apology to demonstrate its authenticity, and Castilho has reinforced his arguments by modern testimonies. In the narrative portions of his work Pinto's style is simple, clear and natural, his diction rich, particularly in sea terms, and appropriate to his varying subjects. There is an entire absence of artifice about the book, which must always rank as a classic, and it might fairly be argued that Mendes Pinto did for the prose of Portugal what Camoens did for its poetry; this is the more remarkable, because it does not appear that he ever received any education in the ordinary sense. He wrote the book for his children to learn to read by, and modestly excused its literary defects by alleging his rudeness and lack of talent. Tradition has it that the MS. was entrusted to the chronicler Francisco de Andrade for the purpose of being polished in style and made ready for press, but that all he did was to divide it into chapters.The Peregrination has gone through many editions subsequent to that of 1614, and in 1865 Castilho published excerpts in his Livraria classica portugueza with an interesting notice of Mendes Pinto's life and writings. Versions exist in German (3 editions), French (3 editions), Spanish (4 editions), and in English by Henry Cogan, London (1663, 1692 andabridged and illustrated, with introduction by Arminius Vambery1891). Cogan omits the chapters relating to Mendes Pinto's intercourse with, and the last days of, St Francis Xavier, presumably as a concession to anti-Catholic prejudice. See Christovao Ayres, Ferndo Mendes Pinto (Lisbon, 1904), Ferndo Mendes Pinto e o Japao (Lisbon, 1906); also Subsidios .. . Para a biographia de Ferndo Mendes Pinto by Jordao de Freitas (Coimbra, 1905). (E. PR.) End of Article: PINTO, FERNAO MENDES (15091583) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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