Today, March 8, marks the birth anniversary of Poet Pedagogue João de Deus. São Bartolomeu de Messines has always been close to the real and dreamed greatness of the great Algarvian vate, author of the Maternal Booklet.
From the small village in the municipality of Silves, he left in his teens for the Major Seminary of Coimbra, where he prepared for a long and troubled Law course.
The city of students left him indelible marks which he generously repaid. The old Academy of his time never forgot him and the new generations idolized him, as was seen in the apotheotic Festival of March 8, 1895, in Lisbon.
Other Portuguese cities have known its literary and human grandeur, but today we want to recall here how it was marked by the quiet life of Vila Nova de Portimão, engrossed in its thoughts, or in the fraternal bohemianism of a group of friends, called “Sociedade dos Delírios” .
It is for his birthday that we can today remember the stellar atmosphere of Porto's experiences with various “stray strays”, such as Bulhão Pato, Gomes Leal, Luís Mascarenhas, Domingos Vieira, Joaquim Negrão or even Garcia Blanco and Father Glória, among others. , awakened by the recent publication of the fundamental and innovative historiographic work John of God Immortal and Timeless.
The author, Maria João Raminhos Duarte, by unveiling new horizons, gave local history a new thematic nucleus, with the dismay that characterizes her fruitful and inspiring investigation of the contemporary past and always with the objective of combating the sad non-inscription to which the Portuguese seem to condemn themselves.
Indeed, we could not forget the long seasons of social gatherings, reception, literary production and journalistic activity that João de Deus, in the late 60s of the 70s of the XNUMXth century, experienced in Vila Nova de Portimão.
With this group of delusional friends, the Messinense Poet covered hills and ravines hunting or on excursions and gastronomic tours, a kind of tourist circuit in the triangle of Sagres, Monchique and Portimão, a kind of tourist circuit "Red Coast" before la lettre.
The get-togethers alternated with lively parodies at Praia da Rocha and Quinta de Mata Mouros, at Garcia Blanco's house, in Silves, or Leonardo Vieira's, in Portimão.
Writing and drawing on the old oak table or playing the guitar, we'll find João de Deus dazzled or meditative, nostalgic for the Mondego or Penedo da Saudade, but always observant, enlightened and inspiring and revered by those around him.
Vila Nova was politically dominated by the Regenerator Party and owes its development in that period of accelerated growth to the influential Bivar family and other political elements with weight in the region, as evidenced by the construction of the quay wall, the dam regulating the salt marshes, the bridge over the Boina river the continuity of the road along the Algarve coast and the opening of the road to Monchique, or the telegraph line Faro-Sagres. In short, Barlavento, from an economic point of view, was developing with never before seen eyes.
It is, however, in the vicissitudes of the construction of the road bridge over the Arade, one of the most emblematic and desired works for the region, that we would like to focus, since the successive delays in its start-up were due to budgeting issues and financial incapacity of the potential contractors, insofar as the State's investment was less than 40% of the total value of the work, budgeted at 200.000 reis, and the compensation for the builder based on the passage tax, against the interest on the loan, was frankly ruinous.
The local press, full of vitality, is still in its infancy (The Municipality and the Midday Post), echoed the rejections of the urgent claims and denounced the bastard treatment to which the Algarve was habitually condemned by all governments. The works will have started with small dredging without continuity and with no hope of seeing the Arade banks connected.
Now, this atmosphere of tension between the prosperous village and the distant ministries, and of an impasse in the progress of the undertaking, were the object of satire by the pen of João de Deus, in the 21 quintillas of the poem entitled “Catures”.
Two friends, resistant to progress, next to the pier, where the passing boat had a mooring, observe a dredger parked on the morraçao, rotting. As amusing "old men from Restelo", they disdain the usefulness of the great work and criticize the public that was spent to no avail:
Ah! compadre, we run away,
It crashes with heat;
Here it's fresh in the loge,
That's where it's best;
But how hot it was today!
—Well, look, so I gave myself
Winter when it's cold,
Like now that it warms up.
Take two baths in the river,
Soon you see how it cools down.
—Compadre, never bring me
These things are in order;
Reminds me of the damn dredge,
Compadre of the heart!
Don't hurt me in this plague!
—I have the same friendship with you.
That my friend has you,
sometimes it makes me want
Even to swallow it too...
I tell you this truthfully.
—It will come to points
Whoever lives will see!
It's been seventy contos already,
And the rotting dredge,
And no prompt works.
"Seventy, says the friend?"
They give you that varnish…
There like your godmother...
But here's what she says
It's like what the priest says...
"Is it still going on?"
—I don't know, compadre, I know!
Now he sings, now he pouts…
I already remembered
To put her out for a day!
—Compadre, have your mind,
This is not done like that;
I don't think I'm a fool,
And put your eyes on me...
Serve him that as a consolation.
—Well, I know it's trifle,
But what does your friend want?
I love my Maria,
And this man to woman…
But let's go to the cold cow:
With which the dredger…—It is employed,
Something you've never seen,
Being a lit piece,
Taking mud out of the river!
Sounds like this kidding…
—And indecent teasing
Because something else is not.
more economically
When the tide went out
It really took us.
—And then that's sludge
That it could never do.
See land the whole dogs
When it won't matter…
It's spending money hand over fist.
—There are tenths and pours;
Because of what? of the dogs,
From the dredger or as it's called,
And other things that you are
That everything in the end is mud.
Because everything is done well
Like the old one, go there!
But look, dogs have no way;
From everything there,
To my liking, the parapet.
“Yes sir, safe work,
Work as it should be;
Ugly and strong; is what lasts:
that's always what i heard
Who is in the grave...
—But it was all needless;
N'esta, compadre, that's where I am;
And this gives me some care,
That what my father left me
It wasn't bad won.
—Well, if you want me to tell you,
Have you ever spoken there again
In ordering the bridge to be built:
Take care of these people maybe
That we have some source…
—And if there is then a boat…
Like Noah's Ark!
Just because we get wet
And couldn't walk
When embarking and disembarking.
—From the neck
Of the sailors: then?
Here in these works I don't even step
What legs will my give;
It's like I don't do them.
-Nothing! we will go now
See both what goes on there;
That to us for now
I know you don't distract us;
But we have little delay.
—Well, let's go, compadre, let's go.
We sat on the poles,
there we even talked
Both alone in dogs,
And then we soon came back.
John of God
Author Carlos Osório is a secondary school teacher and Local History Researcher
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