Cantiga de amigo

Cantiga de amigo - Cantiga d' amigo in spelling of the medieval manuscripts - literally means friends song and is a popular old - Galician - Portuguese song, a women's or girls' song. Most of the texts are written before the year 1300. They come from a time when the present-day Galicia and Portugal were politically one.

Formal elements and literary motif

Cantigas de amigo are old - Galician - Portuguese Songs woman whose continuous literary motif are the plaintive questions of a girl who longs for the beloved. The questions are addressed to the absent friend, the mother of a friend or the forces of nature (as in the example text below). The content and formal elements of this song form, repetitions and parallelisms, are of the utmost simplicity. The verses are three lines and often a verse from the other differs only in one word. The nagging question returns in the third line again as a refrain, and so enhances the expression of unfulfilled longing.

Typical of this literary genre is the strophic form of Leixa - prene:

" The Leixa - prene as a process strophic articulation is of exceptional importance in the construction of the parallelistic galaeco - Portuguese school, especially in the more popular tradition associated Cantiga de amigo. Normally, it operates on a couplet with the chorus line. The second verse repeats the text of the first, except the rhyme words, due to a change of word order or by synonymische substitution; the third verse begins with the repetition of the second verse of the first and ending with a subsequent rhyming newly created, the fourth stanza takes the same operation with the second verse of the second front, and so on, up to eight stanzas long, each stanza to the refrain opens. "

These formal poetic artifices give the linguistically simple Cantigas de amigo its strong magical- suggestive effect.

Text Example: Ondas do mar de Vigo

The Cantiga de amigo Ondas do mar de Vigo is from the Cancionero ( song collection ) of the Galician troubadours Martim Codax ( 13th century):

Ondas do mar de Vigo Ondas do mar de Vigo, Se meu amigo vistes? E ay Deus, se verra cedo? Ondas do mar levado, Se meu amado vistes? E ay Deus, se verra cedo? Se meu amigo vistes O por que eu sospiro? E ay Deus, se verra cedo? Se meu amado vistes Por que gran coydado ey? E ay Deus, se verra cedo!

Wilhelm Storck has this cantiga de amigo free retightened into German:

Vain questions In Vigo - sea Wallen her you saw the Traut journeyman? Oh God, that he would come soon! In Vigo - sea flooding her you saw the Hochgemuthen? Oh God, that he would come soon! Did you see the Traut journeyman I look for in all places Oh God, that he would come soon! Did you see the Hochgemuthen? I want your heart to bleed to death Ah, God, that he would come soon!

Relationship of the Cantigas with the old Spanish Hargas

This early form of Ibero- Roman poetry reminds motivlich to the Mozarabic Hargas (Spanish ' Jarcha ') from the Moorish al - Andalus ( 11th century ). The Hargas are also ' girl songs ' and form the highlight of the Arab and Hebrew muwaššah seal. As the Cantigas de amigo are the Jarchas sealed in the same scarcity and popular toned immediacy.

Here is an example of a Harga led from a muwassaha the Sephardic poet Judah ha -Levi, a eulogy ( panegyric ) on Abu Ibrahim ben Mahagir ( 11th century. ). It is delivered as Aljamiadotext, that is the old Spanish verses are not represented in the Latin alphabet, but in the Hebrew consonantal script.

Here first the revokalisierte transcription of the text on the edition of the Spanish Arabists and Romanists Galmés Álvaro de Fuentes:

Garre, si yes devina e devinas bi- l - haqq, garr -me: ¿ Cand me vernad mon habibi Ishaq?

Translation of old Spanish text into modern Spanish:

Di, si eres adivina y adivinas con certeza, dime: ¿ Cuando me Vendra mi amigo Ishaq?

Translation into German:

Say, if you're fortune teller and prophesy correctly, tell me: When will my friend Isaac come to me?

This motif and the linguistic and formal relationship with the Hargas the Cantigas de amigo supports the theory that the Arabic and Hebrew poet from al - Andalus were inspired to design their Hargas of pre-existing, independent Romanesque Volksliedchen.