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The Oxford book of Portuguese verse cover

The Oxford book of Portuguese verse

Chapter 114: MACIAS
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About This Book

This anthology gathers Portuguese verse from the twelfth through the twentieth century, presenting medieval Galician-Portuguese lyric—dance and pilgrimage songs—alongside troubadour-influenced courtly love poems, satirical pieces, and later lyric developments. An extended introduction situates the poems in early national formation, foreign contacts, and manuscript songbooks, and highlights forms such as cantigas de amigo, cantigas de amor, serranilhas, barcarolas, and other folk and court genres. Selections stress the music and dance origins of many texts and trace a continuity between popular village songs and cultivated court poetry, offering a historical and formal panorama of Portuguese poetic tradition.

MACIAS

14th c.

82. Cantiga

Provei de buscar mesura
u mesura non falece,
e por mengua de ventura
ouveron me o a sandece;
por ende direi des i
con cuidado que me crece
un trebello, e diz assi:
anda meu coraçon
mui triste e con razon.
Meus ollos tal fremosura
foron veer por que perece
meu coraçon con tristura
e amor non me guarece,
nen me pon atal consello
por que eu prenda ledece;
por en digo este trebello:
ben pode Deus fazer
tras gran pesar prazer.
Estes trebellos cantei
con coita desd’ aquel dia
que mesura demandei
e eu vi que falecia;
mesura morrei chamando
e dizendo a gran porfia,
tal trebello suspirando:
meus ollos morte son
de vos, meu coraçon.
Pois mesura non achei
u falecer non soia
mesura, o obridei
e quanto prazer avia;
con pesar que tenno migo
e tristeza todavia
aqueste trebello digo:
Bon Deus, me faz veer
por gran pesar prazer.