WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
The Oxford book of Portuguese verse cover

The Oxford book of Portuguese verse

Chapter 57: PERO DE VEER
Open in WeRead

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.

PERO DE VEER

13th c.

39. Cantiga de amigo

Vejo-vos, filha, tan de coraçon
chorar tan muito que ei eu pesar,
e venho vos por esto preguntar,
que mi digades, se Deus vos perdon,
porque m’ andades tan triste chorando?
Non poss’ eu, madre, sempr’ andar cantando.
Non vos vej’ eu, filha, sempre cantar
mais chorar muit’ e con que por en
algun amigo queredes gran ben;
e venho vos por esto preguntar:
porque m’ andades tan triste chorando?
Non poss’ eu, madre, sempr’ andar cantando.