Notes on the Text of Diogo do Couto’s O Soldado Prático

Despite its fame among critics and historians of Portuguese literature, the revised second version of Diogo do Couto’s O Soldado Prático has presented significant challenges to scholars seeking to establish a definitive edition of the dialogue. While the most recent edition, that of García Martín (2009), is a welcome improvement over earlier editions by Brasil (1988), Lapa (1937), and Amaral (1790), there remain a handful of passages in which the text can be further improved by a closer study of the Spanish books that Couto used as sources for the dialogue’s many classical anecdotes. This article proposes a number of corrections and emendations to García Martín’s edition by comparing the readings of the most reliable manuscript, BNP 463, with four 16th-century books that Couto consulted as sources of ancient sayings for his own dialogue.