Words of the sea

Abstract

Historically, the Atlantic was appropriated by a romantic nationalistic view and reduced to the means by which a supposed “golden age” of Portugal was achieved in the Early Modern Period. In this way, the ocean has been ingrained by generations of historians as a ”mere pathway” with its historical agency, as well as of the (non-human) species who populate it, being largely stripped away. This has also led to the marginalization of different links that the Portuguese have longer held towards the sea, a place of nourishment and beauty but also of fear and danger. Even if historical records have proved difficult to obtain an insight into the minds of the people, oral traditions, specifically proverbs are still an underused tool for approaching the forgotten people. The sea and its inhabitants have been a common theme in Portuguese proverbial speech, many of which have survived into current vocabulary. In many cases, we find the same proverbs in sources dating back to the 16 th and 17 th centuries. This survival is evidence of the power of the sea and its imagery in the way people perceive and understand the world, as well as its central importance in Portuguese culture.