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The Oxford book of Portuguese verse

Chapter 85: 57. Cantiga
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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.

JOAN DE LOBEIRA

13th c.

57. Cantiga

Senhor genta,
min tormenta
voss’ amor en guisa tal
que tormenta
que eu senta
outra non m’ é ben nen mal,
mas a vossa m’ é mortal.
Leonoreta,
fin roseta,
bela sobre toda fror:
fin roseta,
non me meta
en tal coita voss’ amor!
Des que vejo
non desejo
outra senhor se vos non,
e desejo
tan sobejo
mataría un leon,
senhor do meu coraçon!
Leonoreta,
fin roseta,
bela sobre toda fror:
fin roseta,
non me meta
en tal coita voss’ amor!
Mia ventura
e loucura
me meteu de vos amar;
é loucura que me dura
que me non poss’ eu quitar;
ai fremosura sen par!
Leonoreta,
fin roseta,
bela sobre toda fror:
fin roseta,
non me meta
en tal coita voss’ amor!