PINTO A PIRATE?
ABSURD!

One day not long ago, on a visit to Beijing, I taught a class on the subject of Fernão Mendes Pinto's masterpiece - Peregrinação. There, I was surprised to learn, that the Chinese authorities do not allow anything to be published about Pinto. When I asked why, I was told that it was because Pinto was a pirate. Absurd! Nothing could be further from the truth. Pinto did not like pirates any more than the Chinese do. As a matter of fact, Pinto was the first European to condemn the Portuguese action in Asia as barbaric acts of piracy. For that reason alone the Chinese should be interested in allowing Pinto to be read. What's more, he was the first European to speak on behalf of Asia as the prey of Western marauders, merchants, and intolerant priests. But I dare say that the people who criticize Pinto have never read his book, or if they have, they have failed to understand it. This article is directed to those people.

A close reading of the Peregrinação reveals that it is a work of corrosive satire, in which the author attacks all the religious, social, and political institutions of sixteenth century Portugal. More than that, it represents a sweeping condemnation of the ideology of the crusade, which was the mythic lifeline of the overseas empire of the Portuguese. This was a dangerous thing to do in an age when men's innermost thoughts and minds were the particular object of a rigorous censorship. Yet this is what makes the Peregrinação a unique document in the history of western ideas. It is a rare book indeed, in a period of religious strife, that makes a plea for religious tolerance, as a moral injunction from God. It is an early example of a book, if not the first, in a period that witnessed the beginnings of the age of European imperialism, that questions the morality of the overseas conquests of the Portuguese, which in the author's view are nothing but barbaric acts of piracy.

In the formation of his indictment, the author was forced to make use of all the stock devices of rhetoric and indirection that have been employed by the satirist since time immemorial: the mock-heroic, mock-encomium, travesty, allegory, irony and innuendo to name but a few of the vast variety of satiric devices and special effects utilized by the author in the interest of persuasion. Of importance to an understanding of the book is an awareness of the techniques of satire. Otherwise, the meaning is lost.

The literary framework adopted by Pinto for his satire is the chronicle, or pseudo-autobiography, and its permissive structure is highly congenial to the episodic form generally favored by satire. It functions as a literary disguise, and is but a generic borrowing that provided a protective shield for the author in a dangerous period of political and religious censorship. Generically, it belongs with authors like Rabelais, Cervantes, Swift, and Voltaire, whose works contain the same combination of realistic, fantastic, and utopian elements that are to be found in Pinto's travels.

In his book, The Grand Peregrination, the English writer Maurice Collins, who, like Pinto, lived in Asia for twenty years, has apprehended the criticism of the Portuguese inherent in the work. But even Collins has failed to comprehend the nature of the satire when he writes:

Its subject is the first onslaught of the West upon the East, launched with the objects both of making money and spreading Catholicism. But it does not glorify either of these objects, as do the works of the other Lusitanian historians and epic poets, but rather raises the question whether the Portuguese had not endangered the salvation of their souls by seizing what did not belong to them. They are shown suffering rather than triumphant, losing rather than gaining, as if God's face was turned away from them. Such a theme - and it seems to be the essence of Pinto's book - would have led to its suppression by ecclesiastical authority had it been directly expressed. (1)

To prove the point, let us examine those parts of the book that are most relevant to our theme. The first part, and probably the one from which the Chinese got their mistaken notions about Pinto, is the one that deals with the pirate expedition of Antonio de Faria, Let us follow (a) the course of the Portuguese pirates as they sailed from the east coast of Malaya to the Indo-Chinese peninsula; (b) the shipwreck off the coast of South China where Pinto was arrested and placed on trial for piracy; and finally (c) his capture by the Tartars who invaded Peking, and who eventually freed him.

The episode begins like this: a swift attack by the Moorish pirate Coja Acem leaves a group of Portuguese traders in Patani penniless. Rather than return to Malacca to face his creditors empty-handed, António de Faria, the leader of the soon-to-become Portuguese pirates, announces to those who would console him for his losses "that it made more sense to him to go after the ones who had stolen his money than be in default with the ones who had lent it to him" (2).

This in brief will be the modus operandi of the António de Faria pirate expedition: Posing as peaceful merchants, the Portuguese spy out the land in search of gold, among a defenseless Asian population, which only a handful of his countrymen could easily conquer, as Pinto affirms. They go on this way, achieving victory after victory. After the fourth pirate encounter, the fame of the Portuguese pirates has grown to such an extent that "the Chinese trembled whenever they heard any mention of the Portuguese." (3) The merchants of the South China seas now offer "protection money" to António de Faria, as "King of the Sea," in order to be allowed to go their way unharmed. He does a thriving business by selling safe conduct passes to those who would be assured of a safe voyage. After repeated pirate encounters, during which the Portuguese have amassed a considerable fortune, the men decide it is time to go home. They drop anchor at the aptly named "Isle of Thieves," waiting for the monsoon to take them back to India. Suddenly, a typhoon strikes and the ships and all their plunder are destroyed by the angry seas. This is viewed as punishment from God, for in Pinto's world, punishment is an instrument of the divine will, meted out as a consequence of evil, and as a warning to fools and knaves to change their ways. But António de Faria would not heed the warning. He steals a ship brought to anchor on the island by a company of unsuspecting Chinese who have stopped there for water. On board the stolen ship the Portuguese find a young Chinese boy, about thirteen years of age, who, within the fiction of the Peregrinação, functions as the mouthipece of the author. In the eyes of the child, who has just seen the Portuguese offer a prayer of thanks for the stolen food they have eaten, the Portuguese are

... acting as if you think it is enough to mumble a few words to heaven instead of paying for what you have stolen. Well you ought to know that the Almighty Lord does not command us to move our lips in prayer so much as He forbids us to take another man's property, and worst of all - to rob and kill - which are the two most dreadful sins, as you will find out after you die from the terrible punishment that His divine justice has in store for you. (4)

The words of the precocious child inspire António de Faria with a desire to convert him, and so he explains to him what it means to be a Christian. Suddenly, from out of the mouth of the innocent child comes the author's cry of despair:

Blessed art Thou O Lord for Thy patience, which suffers the presence of people on earth who speak so well of Thee and observe so little of Thy divine Law as these blind, wretched creatures who think that stealing and preaching can satisfy Thee, as they do the tyrant princes that reign on earth! (5)

This is indeed a stinging condemnation of all the Portuguese, voiced by an innocent child, in words that are too dangerous to be spoken by the author himself. Does the author sound like a pirate?

The episode continues as António de Faria sets out again, joining forces this time with an Asian corsair. They head for the Portuguese enclave of Ningpo to spend the winter there. On the way they meet and defeat Coja Acem, the Moorish pirate who had been the original pretext for António de Faria turning pirate. It appears that this Coja Acem had also victimized the Portuguese of Ningpo and as a result, António de Faria is welcomed there as a conquering hero.

When the monsoon arrives, António de Faria sets out from Ningpo for the isle of Calempluy, planning to sack the sacred tombs of the emperors of China. On the return voyage, this symbol of evil, who would not heed the warning he had received on the Isle of Thieves, is caught in a typhoon and dies at sea. With his death, the episode of the infamous Portuguese pirate, António de Faria, comes to an end. As a structural unit it stands alone and has often been published separately. Technically, it stands as the largest mock-heroic structure in the book. It functions in the following way.

Throughout the entire pirate episode, the satiric spotlight remains focused on the satanic figure of António de Faria, whose stated aspirations, which are noble indeed, are opposed mercilessly to the reality of his ugly deeds. Here, the fictitious Pinto, who claims to have joined the pirate expedition out of hunger, assumes the role of the ironic observer. He remains out of the spotlight he cleverly manipulates, carefully distancing himself from the subject matter and pretending not to see the contrast - or the reality - he so artlessly reveals. That is the technique of the mock-heroic. It never questions the ideal as ideal; it undermines the ideal by opposing a portrait of the real, and so exposes the falseness or the impossibility of the ideal in the light of human experience. Also of importance to an understanding of the satire is the concept of the persona, who is a fictitious character or identity assumed by the satiric author in order to formulate his criticism - which, in the Peregrinação, is almost always directed against the Portuguese. It should be stressed that the satiric author presents in the figure of the persona, a distorted portrait of his countrymen, by appearing to embrace the evil he wishes to condemn. Those are the basic tools of the satirist.

We come now to the utopian portion of Pinto's satire, the point of which is to criticize the social and political institutions of Portugal, and in particular, the corruption of its legal system. It is presented this way: A small group of survivors of the shipwreck that took the life of António de Faria are cast ashore on the coast of China and arrested for vagrancy. They are sentenced to the whipping post and to having their thumbs cut off. But they have appealed the latter part of their sentence and are taken to the courts of Nanking and Peking to be heard. Their wanderings become the pretext around which the author has constructed his utopia. Somehow, by satiric ambiguity, the original charge when appealed becomes enlarged, for the prosecutor recommended

... the cutting off of our thumbs which, as one could safely assume from the circumstantial evidence, had been used to commit robbery and other crimes, for which the Sovereign Judge who reigns on high would eventually punish us, with all the power of His righteous justice, on the very last day of our days... (6)

Utopian satire depends for its effects on the device of the ingenuous observer who travels the world and sees civilizations better than his own. It falls to the reader to work out an endless series of implied contrasts and comparisons between Portugal and the author's vision of a utopian China.

If one would believe Pinto, the China he claims to have seen is heaven on earth, the most perfect society ever devised by man. Its government, headed by a King both wise and God-fearing, is benevolent and highly organized. Among some of the things ordained by the King for the welfare of his people is a method of setting aside crops during years of plenty so that no man will suffer from hunger during years of scarcity. The business and labor practices are such that no man can possibly cheat another. There is a strict division of labor, with each man licensed to perform a certain task, which prevents him from competing with another in the same line of work. And everybody works, even the blind, the crippled, and otherwise disabled. Business men are forced to hire a certain number of disabled people for certain limited tasks they are capable of performing. Orphans are looked after by the state. In short, nothing is overlooked by a benevolent government concerned with the well being of its citizens. Pinto's China is a land of plenty and prosperity. Indeed, the fictitious Pinto never ceases to marvel at all that he sees around him. Has higher praise than this ever been written about any land?

... in some countries I saw enormous supplies of many different kinds of food that we do not have in Europe, but I can solemnly declare, in all truth, that not even all of them put together, let alone taken separately, can compare with what China alone has to offer of these things. And the same can be said of all the other things with which nature has endowed her, not only in the way of a pleasant and healthy climate, but also in political organization, wealth, splendor, magnificence, and grandeur in all things relating to her. And to top it all off, there is also such a strict observance of justice there, and such an excellent and even-handed government, that she is indeed to be envied by every nation in the world; for without these attributes, no matter how many other lofty and magnificent qualities a nation may have, they lose their luster and fade into obscurity. (7)

The tools employed by the satirist in this episode are satiric analogy and the irony embodied in the character of the fictitious persona. Frequently, the naive persona calls attention to manifest absurdities among the Chinese, but just as frequently, these absurdities turn out to be a distorted version of the same or similar evils existing at home. The "letters of exchange" and the "absolute jubilee" which he ridicules among the Chinese, bear a striking resemblance to the papal indulgences and Jubilee pardons of Rome.

Very often the simpleminded ingenu fails to understand the strange workings of Chinese justice, and asks - with exaggerated naiveté - why his charitable benefactors refuse to give bribes or to use their influence with the judge, in order to obtain a more rapid or more favorable disposition of the case. In Pinto's utopian China, such practices are looked upon with abhorrence and are represented as a sin against the Almighty; so that it must be carefully explained to this Portuguese barbarian - for such is the perspective of the Chinese - that the ultimate dispensation of justice has its source in heaven. Thus legal and civil punishment too is a manifestation of the Divine Will.

The exaggerated wealth of China, on which the author lavishes so many pages, forms a striking contrast with the poverty at home in Portugal, but poverty too is a divine punishment, while abundance is presented as a heavenly compensation.

The Chinese perspective on the conquests of Afonso de Albuquerque is presented when our prisoners, now on their way to Peking to have their sentence appealed, come upon a monument with a strange inscription that reads: "Here lies Tranocem Mudeliar, uncle of the King of Malacca, whom death carried off before he could avenge himself on Captain Albuquerque, king of the robbers of the sea..."(8)Thus, according to our satirist, the great name of Albuquerque is immortalized in China as king of the pirates or "robbers of the sea."

Though the prisoners have the thumb cutting portion of their sentence revoked, amends cannot be made for the whipping administered before the appeal was entered. Nor are they completely absolved of their crimes. They still must serve one year of forced labor on the Great Wall of China. The light sentence they receive is designed to highlight the objective and merciful mainsprings of a code of justice that refuses to condemn where no evidence and no witnesses have been presented, for the judge rejects the charges, in view of the fact that the prosecutor

... was unable to prove any of the charges against them; he only said that they deserved the death penalty by reason of the suspicion people had of them. But since holy justice, which is impartial and agreeable to the Lord, does not accept arguments of opposing parties without clear proof of what is said, it appeared to me that it would be unjust to accept the brief of the prosecutor on the grounds that he had not proven what he alleged in it. (9)

Maurice Collins refers to the above quoted passage as a veiled criticism of the Portuguese courts and says that

Pinto is describing his conception of an ideal form of judicial procedure and building up a picture of the just judge. That he should put the just judge in China shows that he had grasped the essentials of Confucian morality, an example of his intuition, for he certainly had no academic knowledge of Confucius and his philosophy. But though he is right in making benevolence, justice, incorruptibility and consideration for the feelings of others the cardinal principle of Chinese administration, his account of the trial is fictional and his visitors and judge are no more than ideal types. (10)

From a utopian China we are thrust into the cruel and barbarous world of the Tartars who have invaded Peking and captured the Portuguese prisoners who win the admiration of the Tartars by helping them storm a Chinese castle. The Tartars, who are described repeatedly as "cruel" and "barbarous," are delighted with the military prowess shown by the Portuguese. As a sign of appreciation, the Portuguese are presented to the Tartar King who asks them where they come from. He is amazed to hear that it would take almost three years to journey from Portugal to Peking. This elicits a devastating remark from the Tartar King who says: "The fact that these people journey so far from home to conquer territory... indicates clearly that there must be very little justice and a great deal of greed among them;" to which a courtier replies in words that would never have been written by a pirate:

... it would certainly seem so... for when men, by dint of industry and ingenuity, fly over all the waters, in order to acquire possessions that God did not give them, it means either that there is such great poverty among them that it makes them completely forget their homeland, or that the vanity and blindness engendered in them by their greed are so great as to cause them to deny God and their father. (11)

After the Tartars have freed the Portuguese, they take ship on board a junk owned by Chinese pirates. Once at sea they are struck by a typhoon and driven to the unknown island of Tanegashima in Japan. There, one of the three surviving Portuguese teaches the Japanese to use and make firearms - the first that have ever been seen in Japan: The author's description of the Japanese is analogous to that of the Tartars. Both admire the Portuguese for their military prowess while at the same time Pinto points out that the Japanese enjoy military exercise more than any other people in the world.

Once the Chinese pirate sells his cargo to the Japanese at very high prices, Pinto and his two companions return to Ningpo where they inform the Portuguese residing there of the high profits to be made in the newly discovered land of Japan. There begins a mad scramble to buy silks - even at gunpoint-to take to Japan, and the Portuguese depart, as Pinto writes, "against the wind, against the monsoon, against the tide, and against all reason."(12)As is to be expected, a typhoon strikes (divine punishment?) and the survivors are cast ashore on the island of the Grand Ryukyu. They are arrested and placed on trial. There, a question is put to the Portuguese by the prosecutor who wants to know: "Why did your people slaughter ours so mercilessly when they conquered Malacca years ago, out of greed for her wealth...? To this the Portuguese reply that "it must have been as an act of War, but certainly not one motivated by greed, for we were not in the habit of stealing from people anywhere in the world." The interrogation continues:

Then what is this they say about you?... Do you deny that he who conquers does not steal? that he who uses force does not kill? that he who seizes power does not scandalize? that he who covets does not steal? that he who oppresses does not tyrannize? Well, all these things are said about you and affirmed as holy truth, from which it would appear that if God forsook you and permitted the waves of the sea to engulf you, it was not for lack of reason but rather the effect of his righteous justice. (13)

Pinto, as persona, remains silent. And it must be remembered that Pinto, as a fictitious persona is not to be confused with Pinto as an historical personage. He has no reply to make to all these dangerous questions raised by his Asian mouthpiece.

Eventually, due to the compassion of the women of the Ryukyus, they are set free, but the King, who is described as a kind man, still refuses to see them, saying:

I deem it unnecessary, not only because of the hardship it might work on them but also because it does not behoove me in my office as King, to speak to people who, knowing much about God, show little respect for His commandments, by making a habit of stealing from others. (14)

This is the highest point of irony in the book for in the very next chapter, the malicious satirist goes on to advise his countrymen how to go about conquering the Ryukyus, or how to do exactly what they had told the King they would never do!

Years later, in 1555, Pinto returns to China, when the Portuguese have already settled in Macau, not in the role of a pirate, but this time as a highly respected missionary and ambassador. He finds that things have changed a great deal since he was last there. He describes the new settlement at Macau there the Portuguese live securely in peace and harmony, as though they were in Lisbon, but predicts that they will some day be driven out by the Chinese as they had been driven out of their former settlements of Chincheu (15) and Ningpo - because of the misconduct of an evil Portuguese.

On that same journey, before reaching China, Pinto stops to buy supplies in Patani, a small kingdom on the east coast of Malaya. There he tells the King that he is on his way to bring Christianity to Japan. The King replies indirectly, in words that make up one of the most damaging condemnations of the evangelical side of the Portuguese action in Asia: "Wouldn't it be better for these people, as long as they are exposing themselves to such great hardship, to go to China to get rich, than to foreign kingdoms to preach nonsense!" (16) This is a very modern point of view.

Of course, the King of Patani is but a mouthpiece of the author- a common literary technique, as we said before, that involves putting words into the mouth of a character which the author himself does not dare to utter. The most brazen examples in the book of this technique are to be seen in the words of the precocious Chinese child, the Tartar King, and in this instance, the friendly and practical King of Patani.

Not long after its posthumous publication in 1614, Pinto's book became a best-seller in Europe. In the seventeenth century alone it ran into nineteen editions in six languages. With the Peregrinação receiving such wide circulation, it would be safe to say that most educated people in Europe had read it before the end of the century. In 1625, the utopian portions of the book relating to China were published separately in London, in Purchas His Pilgrimes. There is no doubt that Pinto's utopian description of China made a deep impression on the Europeans. It may well have been the source or inspiration for many of the romantic notions that Europe entertained about China for many years.

To return to the question: Was Pinto a pirate? I hope I have proven that he was not. It is also to be hoped that the Chinese authorities would go back and read or re-read the Peregrinação either in the Portuguese original or the new English edition that is being published by the University of Chicago Press. There is also a Japanese translation, Toyohenrekiki, that was published in Tokyo in 1979-80. The other foreign editions published in the seventeenth century are not to be recommended. It is time there was a Chinese edition (I have heard that one is being prepared in Portugal), not only because Pinto's condemnation of piracy should be made widely known, but also because he gives China as an example of the most utopian country in the world. I should think that the Chinese would be proud to make known what Pinto has to say about Asia in general, about the Portuguese, and above all, about China herself. The Peregrinação contains many Chinese place names and phrases that are hard to identify, let alone some distorted versions of Chinese customs and practices. Only the Chinese can clear up these difficult points. It is time they contributed to an understanding and appreciation of a great work of art instead of burying their heads in the sand.

NOTES

(1) Maurice Collins, The Grand Peregrination (London, 1949), p.157.

(2) Pere., Chap. 38.

(3) Pere., Chap. 52.

(4) Pere., Chap. 55.

(5) Pere., Chap. 55.

(6) Pere., Chap. 85.

(7) Pere., Chap. 99.

(8) Pere., Chap. 90.

(9) Pere., Chap. 103.

(10) Collins, op. cit., p.137.

(11) Pere., Chap. 122.

(12) Pere., Chap. 137.

(13) Pere., Chap. 140.

(14) Pere., Chap. 142.

(15) Chincheu - Some confusion as to the application of this place name has existed for centuries. However, Boxer states that it applies to Fukien province of China, and more particularly, to the region of the Bay of Amoy where the Portuguese traders met Chinese smugglers from the cities of Chang-chou and Ch'uan-chow, both of which, as well as the entire province, were termed "Chincheu" by the Portuguese. See C. R. Boxer's article "Chincheo," in his South China in the Sixteenth Century (London, 1953), Appendix I, pp. 313-325.

(16) Pere., Chap. 220.

*BA (Brooklyn College, NY, 1941 ); MA (Univ. of California, 1965); Ph D in Hispanic Studies, specializing in Portuguese and Brasilian Literature. Doctoral thesis published in Portugal (1978) as "A Sátira Social em Fernão Mendes Pinto's Since 1968 she has been preparing a translation of the Peregrinação in English, and a collection of Fernão Mendes Pinto's letters.