Dona Maria Anna Acciaioli Tamagnini was a transplant to Macau at the beginning of the last century, accompanying her husband, Governor Artur Tamagnini de Sousa Barbosa for the first two of his three postings to the colony. Despite being a Governor’s wife, Macau counts her as one its own and she charmed all she met. She moved in the literary circles of the colony and both knew inspired by the poet Camilo Pessanha and Commander Wenceslau de Morais. She also made the acquaintance of the cultural observer, Lieutenant-Captain Jaime do Inso. Using the Orient as a reference point, she penned poems deftly weaving in social commentary that buffeted the colony during her era. Yet, hers was a difficult position: two of the social ills she spoke against were the financial bedrock of the colony – the opium trade and prostitution.
I was introduced to Maria Anna’s poems by Father Manuel Teixeira when I visited him in the mid-1990s; he suggested I read her and Adé to get to know the spirit of Portuguese Macau – a place that was quickly slipping to memory. When I first read Maria Anna, I dismissed her as an Orientalist, but I found myself looking at her again after I learned she was in Macau at the same time as Pessanha. He was an inspiration for her. During her lifetime, she penned a single volume of poems titled Lin-Tchi-Fá – Flor de Lótus: Poesias do Extremo Oriente published in 1925 and an essay in A Pátria (republished in Boletim Geral das Colónias) in 1928. In looking for other examples of her writing, I came across a poem published during her life, and a sonnet, a poem, and an essay that appeared after her death. She died in childbirth a couple of weeks before she turned thirty-three in 1933.
For additional background on Maria Anna and her world, please visit nenotavaiconta.
Poems & Translations
Primavera ❧
Folhas de Lótus ❧
Bailados ❧
O Seu Perfume
História de Ló-Fó
Resignação
«Fang-Shen»
Melancolia
Balada das Três Princesas
No Pavilhão de Música
No Pavilhão da Poesia
No Pavilhão do Chá
O Último Passeio
Niu-Lang
O Meu Barco Desliza
Alma Errante
O Bailado dos Deuses
Amor e Indiferença
Casas de Ópio
No Lago Nan-Hu
Mensagem de Amor
Entardecer
Uma Estátua
Na Fortaleza
Dia de Sol
O Despertar
Crepúsculo
Entre Amigos
Simbolismo
Ao Som do Gongo
Lin-Tchi-Fá
Santa Infância †
Ponte dos suspiros †
Notes on presentation & transcription
I have the Portuguese and my translation side-by-side; unfortunately, the poems do not always fit in their columns, so they may run to the next line. Under each poem is an image of the poem as it was originally published.
A fleuron (❧) beside an entry signifies both the Portuguese original and its English translation are present. A dagger (†) denotes poems that appeared after Maria Anna’s death.
Scholars of Portuguese poetry often comment on the mechanics of how poems are revised over time. This is understandable, a change in word or its position may vastly alter the sentiment of a poem. Lin-Tchi-Fá, is no different. There are differences between the first and second editions, the most notable being orthography, the second punctuation.
When transcribing the poems and titles, I first began with the 1925 originals, but to preserve my sanity, I have since used 1973 orthographic forms (which are derived from a 1943 accord). Maria Anna wrote Lin-Tchi-Fá, in 1911 orthography, but her writing in the 1930s match the 1943 accord. The differences between 1911 and 1973 orthography are sometimes subtle, but enough for the modern reader to pause. It is worth noting 1973 orthographic forms were in force in Portugal until 2009 until they were revised again; the second edition of Lin-Tchi-Fá follows the former.
Of particular note are the transliteration of Guangdongnese place and personal names. The Portuguese colonial administration during Maria Anna’s time, up until 1985 did not have a coherent system in place for the romanization of Chinese. Most often, the John Morrison Chalmers system which was in force in anglophone Hong Kong was used in Macau with the simple substitution of English phonemes with Portuguese ones; e.g. u for w. 1933 saw a concerted by the mid-century Macaense sinologist Luís Gonzaga Gomes for the local use of Morrison Chambers system, but the issue was dropped by the Portuguese administration of Macau. By the time of the second edition of Lin-Tchi-Fá , the Portuguese administration of Macau had unofficially adopted a Silabário Codificado de Romanização do Cantonense in 1985 for the transliteration of Guangdongnese; this system is a melange of the Hong Kong Government system with inputs from Portuguese informed by phonetic standards; it remains the de-facto standard in Macau today (“Decreto-Lei n.º 88/85/M de 11 de Outubro: Considerando a necessidade de actualizar o silabário aprovado pela Portaria n.º 1 081-A, de 30 de Março de 1933.” Boletim Oficial, N.º 40, 1985. Imprensa Oficial, Macau: p. 2779).
Although my Portuguese looks similar to the 1991 edition, my punctuation is faithful to the original. Since word-for-word translation between English and Portuguese is not always possible, some clauses are moved and additional punctuation is employed in the English translation.