Classes On Portugal / Lisang na Portugal

Lusus, engraving in an 1880's Os Lusíadas  ("The Lusiads") Portuguese national epic poem. In the previous posts I made some references to Lusitania and Lusitanians, not clearing what I was talking about (since it was unrelevant to the posts' issue and extemporaneous to it). To clear it up in this one, Lusitania was a region associated to the Lusitanian people from mostly what is now central Portugal (supposedly named after a patriarch, son to god Bacchus called Lusus or Lysias), and after Roman conquest the name of a province of Lusitania which included all Portugal south of the River Durius (Douro), the Spanish Extremadura Autonomous Community and the Province of Salamanca and the comarca of Sayago, and so in the Renaissance with the fashion of looking for ancient cultures and history for references, Lusitania became an alternate poetic name for Portugal and Lusitanian or Luso for Portuguese, etc.. This poetic synonymia only began in the 15th century and only got pop...

Atégina , Marble of the goddess' throne/altar by the artist Pedro Roque Hidalgo. Marbel Museum, Vila Vissosa (Portugal), 2008. Today, March 20, is the 1st day of Spring in Portugal and the remainder of the northern hemisphere (although Portuguese tradition often holds the 21st as a permanent date of Spring Equinox). In tribute to that, we are going to tell the story of the origin of the four Seasons of mild and cold climates. There used to be only Spring, all year long. The land was kept mild temperatured, lushious, green, with plants blossoming and being fruitful, and the animals awake and multiplying, by the doing of Ataegina, the goddess of Spring of the ancient Lusitanians, Alentejo Celtics and Celt peoples from Baetica and Gallaecia. One day, Endovelicus, the god of the underworld, saw Ataegina and went to the surface and brought her down to make her his wife. All things considered, having in mind that he was her kidnaper, Endovelicus treat her fine while she was in the underw...

In t he 15th century, frequent Italian forger Annio da Viterbo (Anio de Viterbo in Portuguese) listed Gorgoris/Gargoris and Abidis/Habidis/Habis among the legendary kings of Spain (meaning the Iberian Peninsula). In his listing, Viterbo turned into Iberian mythological kings: 1) the biblical grandson of Noah, Tubal; 2) all names of places he could attribute to a person which they would be named after, like Iberus after Iberia, Idubeda or Eubalda after the chains of mountains in Spain called Idubedan Mounts by the Romans including Moncayo, Sierra de Molina, Sierra de Cazorla and montes de Oca, Brigus after the many pre-Roman settlements with the suffix -briga in the name, Tagus like the river, Betus Turdetanus after the Baetis river and the Baetica region or Andalusia and the Turdetanian people, Hispalis after the Roman name for Seville, Hispan after Hispania, Sicorus the mythic father of Sicanus the early settler of Sicily and supposed namesake of the Sicoris as the Romans called the S...

 In 1953, poet Reinaldo Ferreira, Filho ("Son" or Junior), was hired to write lyrics with Vasco Matos Sequeira for an Artur Fonseca composition for Angolan (white passing, mixed race) singer Sara Chaves during her passage by the other Portuguese African colony of Mozambique. Ferreira, the Barcelona-born son of Reinaldo Ferreira (a reporter, writer and filmmaker who was a sort of 'Portuguese Conan Doyle', who turned an alterego of his, the " Repórter X " into the 'Portuguese Sherlock Holmes') and a presencista  ( Portuguese modernism from the Presença , "Presence", magazine ) poet with decadentist and symbolist influences, was living in the then Portuguese colony and leaned to criticism of the contemporary Portuguese dictatorship, so he wrote this song as a playful parody of nostalgic idealisation of Portugal held by Portuguese settler in the colony, and of a certain ideal of «joy in poverty» dominant in the public discourse of the Portuga...

Senão IV ciclos valem o que tu dizes, De Palmeirins, Ordem Cavalar, Abidises, E mais ainda o de romances de coisas de Espanha  dos Afonsinhos e de Portugal. [non-literal, metric scheme keeping, English translation: It are but IV cycles whose worth it suffices, Of Palmerins, Knightly Order, Abidises, And even more so of romances out of the things of the Spain that were out of the Ark and of Portugal. non-literal, metric scheme keeping, French translation: Ne sont que IV matières à nul homme atandant, De Palmerins, Ordre du Cheval, Abidises, Et plus de romans des choses de l 'Espagne où La chevalerie fleurissaitt et du Portugal. ] [Poem by the author] Starting to formulate my point after my own poem(s), if Jean Bodel stated that the courtly novels and verses from the courts influenced by France in the 12th century were of three "matters" , of France (Charlemagne and the Frankish kings immediately his predecessors and successors), of Britain (of the legendary British Kings a...