The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa
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Charles Maurras (1868–1952) was a right-wing French writer who ardently defended classical and French culture in newspaper articles and in his books, two of which were in Pessoa’s personal library.
Pitt: William Pitt, the Elder (1708–78), was an important English political leader, but Pessoa is presumably referring to William Pitt, the Younger (1759–1806), the British prime minister who formed an international coalition to oppose Napoleon, who, however, won the Battle of Austerlitz as Pitt lay dying.
Gaius Gracchus (153–121 B.C.) was an eloquent, much respected tribune of Rome who tried without great success to implement the radical agrarian reforms promulgated by his assassinated brother, Tiberius Gracchus (163–133 B.C.).
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Émile Boutroux (1854–1921), a French philosopher whose Science et religion dans la philosophie contemporaine was in Pessoa’s library.
Rudolf Christoph Eucken (1846–1926), a German philosopher who wrote The Meaning and Value of Life.
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Henry Bernstein (1876–1953) and Henry Bataille (1872–1922) were two of the leading French dramatists of their day.
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Charles Jonnart (1857–1927), French diplomat and Allied high commissioner at Athens. He forced King Constantine I to abandon Greece in 1917.
Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934) led the German army and nation in World War I.
Joseph Jacques Césaire Joffre (1852–1931) was a French commander-in-chief during World War I.
poilus: Literally “hairy,” and used colloquially to mean French soldiers, especially in World War I.
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Sagres, a coastal town in southern Portugal, was the site of Prince Henry the Navigator’s legendary—but unproven—school of nautical science. Prince Henry did build an observatory at Sagres, and some of the voyages he sponsored set sail from its port.
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Malthusian Law: Thomas Malthus (1766–1834), an English economist, argued in his Essay on the Principle of Population (1789) that the human population increases geometrically but the food supply only arithmetically, with obviously disastrous consequences.
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What Is Metaphysics?: The passage translated here is the conclusion to Campos’s article, which was published in the second issue of Athena (Lisbon, 1924) as a retort to a piece by Pessoa that appeared in the magazine’s inaugural issue. Pessoa was one of the coeditors of Athena, in which Alberto Caeiro and Ricardo Reis were both published for the first time. The magazine’s fifth and final issue appeared in 1925.
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RIDDLE OF THE STARS: Archival reference numbers to the manuscripts cited in the introduction: “Principles of Esoteric Metaphysics,” 54A/85–87; “A Case of Mediumship,” 54A/78–82; Pessoa’s comment on astrology, 54A/7; poem signed by Wardour and Pessoa, 58/12; communication that mentions Gosse, 133I/42; “Move to Sengo’s house,” 133B/99; communications predicting business success, 133A/69 and 133D/80 (among others). The first two manuscripts were published in Lopes’s Fernando Pessoa et le drame symboliste. The draft of the letter to Sá-Carneiro was dated December 6, 1915. It was in an autobiographical sketch dated March 30, 1935, that Pessoa claimed to be initiated in the Knights Templar.
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Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), who billed himself variously as Master Therion, 666, and The Great Beast, was a talented, mischievous, much adored, and much reviled English occult master. He was initiated into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (whose most famous member was William Butler Yeats) in 1898, cofounded the Astrum Argentum, or Order of the Silver Star, in 1906, and became head of the Ordo Templi Orientis in 1921. This last group, of German origin, employed tantric sex rituals, to which Crowley added animal sacrifices and drug use. Blasted by the English press after one of his disciples died in a proto-hippie commune in the early twenties, perhaps from the ritual consumption of cat’s blood, Crowley faded from view and died in relative obscurity, but by the end of the century most of his many books (including some poetry) were back in print and various occult groups had taken up his teachings. “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” is the central tenet of his doctrines, and it was the first sentence of the first letter he sent to Pessoa, in late 1929, thanking him for having pointed out a mistake in the natal horoscope published in his autobiography. The two men corresponded and exchanged some of their writings, and in September of 1930 Crowley came to Lisbon with a girlfriend, who quarreled with him at a certain point and abruptly left Portugal. Crowley, with Pessoa’s help, committed a dramatic pseudo-suicide, writing a jilted lover’s note left at the Mouth of Hell, a cavernous rock formation on the seacoast west of Lisbon, where Crowley had ostensibly taken a flying mortal leap. He had in fact left Portugal by way of Spain, but Pessoa, who explained to the Lisbon papers the significance of the astrological signs and mystical words that graced the suicide note, also reported seeing Crowley, “or Crowley’s ghost,” the day after his disappearance. Crowley’s occult activities were always flavored with shenanigans of this sort, which has led some biographers to portray him as an unqualified charlatan, but it was probably this very playfulness that drew Pessoa to him. Here was a man who could be passionately devoted to the quest for spiritual truth and yet not take it completely seriously. Pessoa, whose skepticism prevented him from taking anything too seriously, seems to have been inspired by Crowley’s example.
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the good wishes it contains: For Pessoa’s birthday, June 13th.
Mother’s condition: Pessoa’s mother, who in 1911 moved with her second husband and their children from Durban to Pretoria, had recently suffered a stroke.
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Manuel Gualdino da Cunha: Pessoa’s great-uncle.
The communications (...) anonymous: In fact, Pessoa was already receiving communications signed by Henry More, one of which [138/55] instructed him not to divulge their contents to his Aunt Anica.
I consulted a friend: Mariano Santana, a habitué of the Café Brasileira whose name is mentioned in several automatic communications.
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Café Brasileira of Rossio: There were two Café Brasileiras—the one at Rossio, Lisbon’s busiest downtown square, and the one at nearby Chiado, the neighborhood where Pessoa was born. The latter is still in business.
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[30 Astral Communications]: Previously unpublished. The archival reference numbers are: (1) 138/37, (2) 138/36, (3) 138/49–51, (4) 133I/24, (5) 138/33, (6) 138/38, (7) 138/39, (8) 138/44, (9) 1141/64, (10) 138/42, (11) 138/54V, (12) 138/48, (13) 133I/98, (14) 133L/94, (15) 144D2112, (16) 133J/91, (17) 133I/34, (18) Sinais 5, (19) 133I/63, (20) 144Y/22, (21) 144Y/31, (22) 144Y/35, (23) 144Y/42, (24) 138/52–3, (25) 133J/3–5, (26) 133L/11, (27) 133A/38, (28) 133I/75, (29) 49A6/52, (30) 133F/86.
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Orpheu: See SENSATIONISM AND OTHER ISMS.
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The Key to the Tarot (Papus): The full book title is Absolute Key to Occult Science: The Tarot of the Bohemians, translated from the French and published in London in 1892. Papus was the pseudonym of Gerard Encausse (1865–1916), an active promoter of the occult sciences. He cofounded the Martinist Order, a para-Masonic association, in 1891.
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Mamoco e Sousa: José Ferreira Marnoco e Sousa, a Portuguese professor and scholar of law, was born in 1869 and died in March of 1916, the same month that Pessoa began to write automatically. The Pessoa archives contain an isolated bibliographical reference [48B/39] to a history of Roman law by Marnoco e Sousa.
who married many: “who married much” in the original.
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a man who made Joseph: Joseph Balsamo (the alias of Cagliostro—see the introduction to this section), who signed communication #18 and part of #19.
He is interrupting me: Interrupting his handwriting, which at this point in the manuscript becomes jagged and uncontrolled, as if produced with a struggle.
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20: Written on
or after January 13, 1917, the date of an unfinished English poem that precedes the communication.
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transversal backward line: Beneath More’s signature.
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Love gives back to each man himself: “Love gives back himself to each man” in the original.
is for a need to exist: “is to exist a need” in the original.
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your martial tendencies: Refers, perhaps, to the astrological influence of Mars.
Essay on Initiation: Pessoa left a number of typewritten pages, in English, for this projected essay that dates from the 1930s. They were first published in Fernando Pessoa e a Filosofia Hermética.
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the path taken: “the path that is taken” in the original.
Treatise on Negation: Original Portuguese published in Textos Filosóficos.
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before my family arrives: After the death of his stepfather in 1919, Pessoa’s mother, half sister, and two half brothers returned from South Africa to Lisbon. Pessoa undertook to find and lease an apartment for the family, which arrived on March 30, and he himself lived there until his death in 1935.
Osório: An office boy who delivered letters between Fernando and Ophelia.
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Rua do Arsenal: The two sometimes met in a bookstore on this street.
Mr. Crosse: As noted in the section THE MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES, Pessoa competed in newspaper games under the name of A. A. Crosse, presumably the brother of Thomas Crosse and I. I. Crosse.
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at home: The new apartment mentioned in the March 22 letter.
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Nininho: One of Ophelia’s pet names for Pessoa, probably derived from Fernan-dinho, the diminutive form of his first name. He sometimes called her Nininha.
C. D. & C: C. Dupin & Cia. was the name of the firm where Ophelia had recently begun working, having transferred there from the office where she met Pessoa.
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Rossio train station: Ophelia’s older sister, with whom she often stayed, lived opposite this station, in downtown Lisbon.
Ibis: Another pet name, used by Pessoa to refer to himself as well as to Ophelia. Ibis was also the name of a printing press that Pessoa unsuccessfully tried to set up in Lisbon, in 1907.
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May 11th decree: A government decree, issued on May 11, 1911, made it possible for mentally ill patients to commit themselves to a psychiatric hospital.
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Petition in 30 lines: From a letter written by Ophelia the same day, we can deduce that Pessoa, in a phone conversation, had asked her for a kiss, had expressed jealousy because she showered kisses on her eight- and ten-month-old nephews, and had promised he would send her this “petition in 30 lines.”
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aren’t really aunts: The two women, according to Ophelia’s letter from the day before, were her brother-in-law’s aunts.
Pombal: A small town north of Lisbon, but also the Portuguese word for dovecote. Pessoa used doves as an amorous metaphor in several letters (see the first one dated October 9, 1929) and in some verses to Ophelia, as she recalled in her next letter to Fernando.
losing weight: In a letter written the previous day, Ophelia reported having lost weight since her relationship with Pessoa had been rekindled, two weeks before. She also wrote that she had no appetite, wasn’t sleeping well, and thought incessantly of Fernando.
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Mouth of Hell: A dramatic rock formation (Boca do Inferno in Portuguese) on the coast beyond Cascais. See the note on Aleister Crowley, p. 329.
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The Return of the Gods: All the passages (of which only the first and third are actually marked Return of the Gods) were published in Vÿginas Íntimas, but my translation of the fourth passage is based on a different reading of the manuscript [21/43–4], especially toward the end. One of Pessoa’s publication plans [71A/2] confirms (as alluded to in the introductory note) that he hesitated whether to attribute this work to António Mora or to Ricardo Reis.
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Christism: Disparaging term for Christianity often used by Mora and by Ricardo Reis.
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Preface to the Complete Poems of Alberto Caeiro: The four passages were published in Páginas Íntimas, but my translation of the first one is based on a somewhat different reading of the manuscript [21/73].
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Julian was a Mithraist: Mithra was a Persian and Indian god of the sun, whose slaying of a sacred bull had created life on earth and would be the means to human redemption and immortality. Mithraism, as practiced in the Roman Empire, involved a seven-step initiation and embraced astrology.
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PORTUGAL AND THE FIFTH EMPIRE: The texts included in this section, all written in Portuguese, can be found in Sobre Portugal. The first one was written for a projected manifesto titled “Atlantism”; the second one is taken from an interview published in Revista Portuguesa, Lisbon, 13 October 1923; the third one is from Pessoa’s preface to Quinto Império (The Fifth Empire), a book of poems by Augusto Ferreira Gomes (Lisbon, 1934); the fourth one is from a series of questions and answers published in Augusto da Costa, Portugal Vasto Império, Lisbon, 1934; the fifth one is from a projected essay titled “Sebastianism”; the last three, though not labeled, were no doubt meant for essays such as “Atlantism” and “Sebastianism.”
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a long poem titled “Anteros”: In a letter to João Gaspar Simões dated November 18, 1930, Pessoa explained that his English poems “Antinöus” (1918) and “Epithalamium” (1921) corresponded to Greece and Rome in a five-poem “imperial cycle” about “the phenomenon of love in its various expressions”; the last poem in the cycle, “Anteros,” corresponded to the Fifth Empire.
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Teixeira de Pascoaes and Guerra Junqueiro: Two writers initially much admired by Pessoa, who became more critical of them as he got older. Pascoaes (1879–1952) was the leader of Portugal’s Saudosista movement, which promoted nostalgia as a literary and spiritual value. Guerra Junqueiro (1850–1923), extremely influential in his day, began as a satirical, anticlerical poet, but as time went on his verses became increasingly informed by a pantheistic mysticism.
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Book of Revelation: Chapter 6, verse 2: “And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.”
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King João IV: The first king of the Bragança dynasty, who stepped onto the throne in 1640, marking the end of sixty years of Portuguese submission to Spanish rule.
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THE ANARCHIST BANKER: It was in an undated letter sent to the editor of Contemporânea, the magazine where “The Anarchist Banker” had recently been published, that Pessoa referred to his story as a “dialectical satire.”
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PESSOA ON MILLIONAIRES: The three fragments [138/22–26, 138A/7–8, 138A/9] were previously unpublished.
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Mr. Ford (...) reincarnation: Henry Ford (1863–1947) told his interviewers that he came to believe in reincarnation when he was twenty-six years old.
would have been done in: “would have been done too” in the original. Pessoa presumably left out the “in” after “done” because of the example of Portuguese, in which feito, meaning “done,” can also mean “done in,” with no added preposition.
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a belief in reincarnation: A reference to Henry Ford. See the penultimate note.
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ENVIRONMENT: Published in 1927. The penultimate sentence, Estar é set, which is impossible to render adequately in English, affirms that what we take to be temporal, spatial being (estar) is in fact essential, true being (ser).
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[SELF-DEFINITION]: The actual heading on the manuscript is Preface (use for “Shakespeare”?).
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EROSTRATUS: The selection corresponds to Texts 2, 59, 37, 23, 33, 17, 50, 51, 63, and 54, in that order, from the complete, annotated edition of the essay published in Heróstrato e a Busca da Imortalidade. All of them were written in English.
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Woman Clothed with the Sun: “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars” (Revelation 12:1). This description became the basis for representations of the Immaculate Conception in Renaissance painting.
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properly speaking: “properly such” in the original.
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legitimate right: “correct right” in the original.
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Faguet said (...) posterity likes only concise writers: Émile Faguet (1847–1916), when commenting on George Sand’s verbosity in his book Dix-neuvième siècle: études littéraires.