The Portuguese Blues

I knew that Henry Fielding died in Lisbon and that it was Byron's first stop on his way to the Levant, the journey he recorded in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. But I didn't go to Lisbon to chase after ghosts, literary or otherwise. My reasons for leaving Madrid, where I was living for the summer, involved a girl. Elena and I had parted ways in early June back in the states. Yet, up to the day of my departure for Spain, I had planned on her visiting me, and memories of our two years together curled around me. Parks, cafes, plazas—all evoked experiences that we could and, in my darker moods, should have shared. When I visited museums I missed her company more than I admired the paintings. At the Prado I wandered by El Grecos, Velasquezes, and Goyas, but pictured her standing beside me. She stood a certain way: with her arms folded across her chest and one leg bent so that the opposite hip splayed outward, a posture uniting stillness and energy, concentration in contrapposto. Then with a nimble pivot she would turn to the next canvas. I realized that I needed to escape Madrid with all its ghostly reminders. And so I left for Lisbon at the end of June. I would spend five days in the capital followed by three in Lagos, a beach and bar town in the Algarve.

After an overnight bus trip I arrived in Lisbon at seven in the morning. My pension was located steps from the neoclassical plaza Praça Dom Pedro iv, the city's focal point. The clerk led me through a lounge in which a man in a crumpled suit slept in a chair, a blanket draping his lower body, and down a dim corridor to my room. I ditched my belongings and left. In Praça Dom Pedro iv I huddled against a chilling wind and looked around. Lisbon's central districts form a saddle. Baixa is the seat, flanked to the west by Barrio Alto and east by Alfama. The Rio Tejo, or Tagus River, passes to the south. A grid of streets meeting at right angles, Baixa pivots around Praça Dom Pedro iv and the far larger Praça Do Comércio located along the waterfront. Barrio Alto, its narrow alleys lined by bars and restaurants, springs to life in the evening. On the other side of Baixa, Alfama, the old Moorish quarter, rises in a labyrinth of narrow streets to Castelo de São Jorge (St. George's Castle).

Leaving Praça Dom Pedro iv I climbed to Barrio Alto. In a cafe fronted by scaffolding I disregarded my guidebook's injunction and ordered an "English" breakfast—eggs, bacon, toast, and freshly squeezed orange juice. The Portuguese begin the day with a light meal—a cup of coffee and a pastry. The customers around me weren't attractive, their skin ashen and features shapeless. Overhearing Portuguese, I failed to distinguish words or even syllables. Consonants slurred together, variations of the same sh or zh sound, and the vowels were indistinct aspirations. Tired, and with Madrid—an exciting place—fresh in mind, I thought wryly of the unflattering account of Lisbon left by another traveler.

Byron landed in Lisbon in July 1809, less than twelve months after the battle of Vimeiro, in which the English had achieved their first major victory of the Peninsular War. Twenty-one years old and accompanied by a small entourage, which included his Cambridge friend John Cam Hobhouse, Byron had initially planned to sail to Gibraltar and then to Malta and Constantinople. His stay in Portugal and his overland journey through Spain (where he passed through scenes of recent fighting) represented an unintended prologue to his objective—indeed, his destiny, one is tempted to say, so essential to his character, persona, and the course of his life were his experiences in the region—the Levant (what Bryon saw of it: Albania, Greece, and Turkey). In canto 1 of Childe Harold Byron hurls abuse on the Portuguese and their capital. From the ship's deck Portugal appeared a...