CSM Cantiga 407 Lyrics: Como o démo cofonder, nos quér acorrer Santa María

Mettmann divides this refrain into three lines, rather than my four. He then appears to read the first two words Como o as Com' o so that he can label the metrical scheme as 7 11 7, and thus match the stanza structure 11 11 11 7. However, though his thought processes are transparent, I believe that he's made a mistake, which is obvious when you consider the music. First, there really are three separate notes for Como o, so the supposition of elision or synalepha is straight away cast into doubt. Far more importantly, though, the music for the refrain consists very clearly in the repetition of two identical phrases, each of 13 separate notes and ligatures. There's no way to fit a 7 11 7 scheme to this phrasing, but there is obviously a way to fit the 8 5 8 5 scheme that I have here. And, of course, this four line structure neatly brings out all of the [er] rhymes in the refrain, whereas Mettmann's division buries two of them. (Note, by the way, that quér is [kɛr] and doesn't rhyme with the other -er words.) My thanks go to Chris Elmes for suggesting this clearly superior interpretation.

Mettmann (I and II) has E crei ora at the start of this line, which is lacking a syllable. However, [To] has a prominent plica over the i to indicate that it is a separate word, so I have reproduced the form cre' i as transcribed by [JMMS].