"Sailors singing, flutes wailing": A perusal proposal of the Epanaphora Tragica Segunda, by D. Francisco Manuel de Melo (1660)

Abstract

This article proposes a perusal of the Epanaphora Tragica Segunda, by D. Francisco Manuel de Melo, in the light of the context of its writing and publication, from 1657 to 1660. Its central argument affirms that, under the layer of a narrative of the sinking of the Portuguese Armada in 1626-1627, Melo mobilizes the historical fact and its protagonist, D. Manoel de Meneses, to comment on the situation of Portugal in the early years of the reign of D. Afonso VI, still under the regency of D. Luísa de Gusmão. It was certainly a troubled time in the Portuguese kingdom, even threatened with the end of its independence. Dialoguing with historians such as Prestage, Oliveira, Amado, Fraga and others, the author proposes that Melo, between the lines of the Tragica, metaphorizes the episode, generalizing it to extract useful lessons from it for his time and the future.