All footnotes on one page

This page collects together all of my own footnotes to the cantigas—both lyrics and music—simply as a convenience to make it more easy for the reader to search for common themes.

Prologue A: Do Afonso de Castéla, de Toledo, de Leô

This first prologue lacks an epigraph, both in the main text and the manuscript index in [E]. It also lacks music, but a spoken recitation would make an excellent introduction to any performance or recording of the Cantigas de Santa Maria. Note that the first stanza here, and the last two, have a slightly different metre to the rest, with feminine rhymes and therefore an extra syllable in the first and third lines. Fortunately, that kind of systematic change is very rare amongst the vast majority of cantigas which do have music, but in which the music is only written out for the first stanza; see CSM 162 and CSM 173 for examples of the problems this can cause.

Cantiga 1: Des hoge mais quér' éu trobar

Line 1:

If you're looking at this line and thinking, what is that h doing there, please have a look at the 6th October 2019 entry on the What's new page.

Line 36:

The word reis (= "kings") has two syllables (= reis) in at least six of its 15 appearances in the Cantigas de Santa Maria (see the Concordance), and it is difficult to be sure whether these are poetic exceptions or represent the normal pronunciation of the period (cf. mod. Sp. "reyes", whereas the mod. Gal. word is "reis" with one syllable). I have assumed reis with one syllable to be the normal form, however, and write reïs when diaeresis is required. In this line, as it happens, reis falls on a two-note ligature .ra, and therefore comes out naturally as two syllables when sung, so there is nothing to be gained from (for example) compressing aos by synaeresis and expanding reis even further by diaeresis.

Line 59:

Mett. juygar; [To] julgar; [E] juygar; [T] juigar (corrected from julgar).

Line 65:

Mettmann has por el esforçada in this line, but the sense requires ela referring to the Virgin. Both [JMMS] and the draft PDF version at the Oxford CSM database (as of June 2013) therefore transcribe el' with elision, and [JFV] clearly assumes this reading in his translation.

 ——
E1:

Although [E] only has the flat on the fourth stave of this cantiga (... Déus quis carne fillar bẽeita...), and [To] has no flats at all, [T] has the flat on every stave and it seems to be required melodically. The editions of Anglés and Cunningham each have a B flat key signature, and Elmes observes that most Bs are between As anyway, where medieval performance practice would typically flatten them. I have therefore added flats here on every stave where they have an effect, but the performer is, of course, free to disregard them.

E2:

The stem on this note is very faint, but it seems justified, rhythmically.

Cantiga 2: Muito devemos, varões, loar a Santa María

Line 14:

Although this is the very first cantiga with a refrain, it is quite exceptional in that the reprises of the refrain are worded slightly differently in the first line: the initial Muito is replaced by Porê. See also CSM 290 which has a pair of alternating reprises.

Cantiga 3: Mais nos faz Santa María a séu Fio perdõar

E1:

The word nos is repeated on this stave in the manuscript, but is not assigned another note or ligature.

E2:

See E4.

E3:

This is a custos indicating the pitch of the note after the page break: these are commonplace in [To] but as far as I am aware this is the only one in [E]. By the way, all the custodes (pl.) in [To] have their stems down, so that's how they are rendered here, even though this one has its stem up in [E].

E4:

Compare this odd-looking ligature (for one syllable) with the pair of separate notes at E2 in the refrain.

E5:

This line appears very faint in the manuscript facsimile.

E6:

The word a is repeated at the start of this stave, but is not assigned a note or ligature.

Cantiga 4: A Madre do que livrou dos leões Danïél

Line 33:

Synaeresis, which is common in forms of the verb veer (= "to see"), is required here to reduce viía to two metrical syllables (contrast line 24 where it has its natural three). The compressed syllable vii- benefits from a long note .on in the music, however.

Cantiga 5: Quenas coitas deste mundo be quisér sofrer

Line 93:

Synalepha in poi-la ena here would leave the combined metrical syllable -la e- on a single long note .on, which may be a bit awkward, especially given the generally tricky rhythm of the music. Instead, I suggest the simpler solution of replacing ena with its much more common short form na. Note that this line does not survive in [To], as three folios are missing, starting from (my) line 12.

Cantiga 6: A que do bo rei Daví de séu liage decende

Line 19:

Gaude requires three syllables here, but two in line 55. Mettmann (I and II) omits the hemistich bar in this line, which might have been prompted by the odd stress required on que. However, he also omits the bars in lines 20, 32 and 36, which cannot be explained on the basis of stress.

Line 39:

There are perhaps three potential sites for diaeresis in this line: déü, muï or noïte, but only in mui does diaeresis occur elsewhere. (It's very common in preterite verb forms ending in -eu pronounced with close e [eu̯] but apparently never necessary in déu which has open e [dɛu̯]). And although diaeresis in noite has by far the best musical result, with a very pleasing pattern of falling notes on the word (at E1 in the music), it's metrically rather suspect (since the artificial syllable i would have to be stressed) and so I have stuck with mui as the site for the fix here.

Line 42:

Synaeresis is commonly found in forms of the verb veer, including viía, and in this line works much better musically than synalepha in e a.

Line 55:

Compare Gaude here with line 19.

 ——
E1:

See the note to line 39 in the lyrics.

Cantiga 7: Santa María amar devemos

Line 9:

Mettmann's transcription hũa badessa in this line is exceptional and seems to be an editorial mistake. Elsewhere he consistently elides the indefinite article rather than the following noun beginning in a- (see ũ' in the Concordance), so I have done the same here.

Cantiga 8: A Virge Santa María todos a loar devemos

E1:

The flat is missing from this stave [E] but it is present in [To].

Cantiga 9: Por que nós hajamos sempre, noit' e día, dela renembrança

Line 40:

The combined metrical syllable -o a from vẽo a with synalepha falls on a single long note .on, which is musically tolerable though not ideal. Elision is not an attractive alternative however, as vẽ' is not found elsewhere.

Cantiga 10: Rósa das rósas e Fror das frores

Line 2:

I don't make a habit of commenting on translations of the Cantigas, but in this case I feel the urge to make an exception. I have encountered more than one English version that translates Seor das seores, quite preposterously, as "Lord of lords". One of these appears in the book "The Spanish Song Companion" by Jacqueline Cockburn and Richard Stokes (1992), who make several other blunders both in translation and in reproduction of the source text that only serve to highlight their incompetence with medieval Galician-Portuguese. Another comes from "Lyrics of the Middle Ages", ed. James J. Wilhelm (1990), and was translated by the editor himself. One can only assume that these translators were influenced by the fact that the words "senhor" and "señor" in modern Portuguese and Galician are masculine nouns which refer only to men, whilst the female equivalent is "senhora" / "señora". Whilst that is true now, however, it was not so in the medieval language: seor has its origins in a comparative adjective (= "older" or "senior" in English), and had no separate feminine form in the early medieval period—something which is still the case for the modern Portuguese and Galician words "melhor" / "mellor", "pior" / "peor", "maior" and "menor" and their Castilian counterparts "mejor", "peor" etc. In any case, the connecting word das (< de as = "of the") is quite plainly feminine here, so the meaning has to be "Lady of ladies"; "Lord of lords" would be Seor dos seores.

Cantiga 11: Macar hóme per folía agia caer pód' e pecado

Line 47:

Mettmann quando; [To] quand; [T] quand; [E] quando.

Cantiga 12: O que a Santa María mais despraz

Line 7:

Mettmann Arcebispo; [To] arçebisp; [T] arcebispo with partial erasure of o; [E] arcebispo.

Line 23:

Mettmann has his hemistich bar between judéus and fezéra, and doesn't comment on the metrical irregularity. I've moved it here to give the singer a clear reminder to tack the fe- of fezéra onto the end of the first musical phrase in the stanza.

Cantiga 15: Todo-los Santos que so no Céo

Line 44:

The word Pérssïa naturally has three syllables with antepenultimate stress—compare CSM 265:23 and CSM 265:51 and also perssïãos in line 20. Here synaeresis is required to compress the two final unstressed syllables into one.

Line 54:

In this line and the next, the synalepha should not be thought of as exceptional: it is in fact obligatory, in that the unstressed clitic personal pronouns mi and ti always form a diphthong with a following a or o. (This is not the case, however, for the stressed variants of mi and ti that follow prepositions.)

Line 55:

See line 54.

 ——
E1:

The words e todos appear in [E] between de todos and e lum' but are not allocated any musical notes.

Cantiga 16: Que dona fremosa e bõa quisér amar

Line 22:

Synaeresis in cobiiçar works well with the music here, with -bii- falling on a three-note ligature .roya. The same contraction is often found in other forms of this verb too, e.g. CSM 67:11, CSM 157:8.

Line 23:

The compressed metrical syllable tii- resulting from synaeresis here falls on a two-note ligature .ra in the music, so the natural syllables are preserved in singing.

Cantiga 17: Sempre seja bẽeita e loada Santa María

E1:

This inserted note is missing from [E], obviously by mistake.

Cantiga 18: Por nos de dulta tirar

Line 8:

This is the first of a small number of awkward cantigas where the first stanza is metrically irregular relative to all later stanzas. In this case, the line E Estremadura has six natural syllables rather than the five required. Unfortunately, as often happens, the music appears to have been set down with only this first stanza in mind: in all three manuscripts, it includes the irregularity, providing a separate note or ligature for all six syllables (see E2 in the music, and click 'Expand edits' if necessary). However, comparing the musical phrasing for lines 5 and 6 with that of lines 7 and 8, it quickly becomes apparent that the two separate puncta .o .o given to -trema- (Elmes: D and C in the fifth bar of line 4) are in effect a broken .oyo ligature that must be joined up again in order to fit all subsequent stanzas. The most appropriate musical resolution for this hypermetric line is therefore to conflate the natural syllables tre and ma as indicated, although of course the pronunciation is unaffected. By the way, this is a very good example where ignoring the music would lead almost inevitably to the wrong conclusion: from a purely metrical point of view, the elision 'n Estremadura or En 'Stremadura would most likely be proposed, and that'd be the end of it.

Line 9:

Possibly due to the underlaid text being very compressed in [E], Elmes has made an error in syllabation in this line, and the next, in his edition: he has Segóvia with four syllables instead of the correct three, and all following words are out of step with the music by one syllable until we reach soya (= soía), which Elmes divides into just two syllables instead of the correct three.

Line 10:

See line 9.

Line 55:

Synaeresis in aa works fine musically, the compressed syllable falling on the four-pitch ligature .bohod. In [To], the first a of aa appears to have been erased, although it is still just visible.

 ——
E1:

This line is very close to the preceding ligature in Anglés' facsimile and could almost be a plica stem (giving .onwaad), but comparing it with E3 in the vuelta, where there is neither stem nor line, I've decided to keep it separate.

E2:

See note in main text.

E3:

See E1 above.

Cantiga 20: Virga de Jésse, que te soubésse loar

Line 44:

The surplus syllable, which features in all three manuscripts, has no easy resolution here. [E] has pore macomendo—not porẽ as would be expected—but this is just scribal error and offers no clues. It is clear though that, despite the presence of the long plica .oron at the end of the musical phrase, we should not break it to fit -mendo, as this would be completely at odds with the rhyme and rhythm. The only reasonable option seems to be to squeeze the whole word porê onto the first note .on of the phrase of music, as indicated here. Fortunately, pr is a common syllable onset in other words, so the result sounds quite natural.

Cantiga 21: Santa María pód' enfermos guarir

In this Cantiga, the odd-numbered stanzas have masculine rhymes (i.e. final stress) in their first three lines, and the even-numbered stanzas have feminine rhymes (i.e. penultimate stress). Mettmann appears to overlook this fact, and tacitly assigns the cantiga to his metrical category number VI, which implies masculine rhymes throughout.

Line 44:

Mettmann has tornou-sse-l' en sabor following [E], but the l' en (le en) is a Castilianism not found in [To] or [T] (see [SP1987]).

Cantiga 22: Mui gra poder há a Madre de Déus

E1:

The flat on this stave in [E] is placed too late, so I have moved it to the start. Note that [To] has this cantiga written in C which would imply the flat throughout the melody when transposed to F as in [E].

E2:

The note here on the word e is repeated at the same pitch either side of the page break.

E3:

In the facsimile of [E] this ligature has a very short downward stem on the right (as in .onyeyewon but shorter), but since the stem is explicitly crossed out at the corresponding place in the vuelta (at E4) I have omitted it here, on the assumption that it represents a mistake either by the original music scribe or by Anglés' assistant when retouching.

E4:

See E3.

Cantiga 23: Como Déus fez vio d' agua ant' Arquetecrio

Line 14:

Mettmann pouco; [To] pouc with erased o; [T] pouco; [E] pouco. Although [To] has obviously been modified in its own way to correct the syllable count, the result is completely awful from a music point of view, so I've chosen to mark synaeresis here instead.

Cantiga 25: Pagar be pód' o que dever

Line 45:

Mettmann omagẽes; [To] omagẽes; [T] omages; [E] omagẽes.

Line 63:

Synalepha after unstressed mi is obligatory (see CSM 15:54).

Cantiga 26: No é gra cousa se sabe bo joízo dar

Line 24:

Mettmann se le foi following [E]; [To] and [T] have se lle foi without the scribal Castilianism (see [SP1987]).

Line 79:

Synalepha in onde a works well, with the combined metrical syllable -de a falling on a long plica .oron in the music.

Cantiga 27: No devemos por maravia tẽer

Line 19:

Mettmann omees; [To] omees; [T] omes; [E] omees.

Cantiga 28: Todo logar mui be póde seer defendudo

Line 9:

Mettmann poboo; [To] poblo; [T] poboo; [E] poboo. Compare lines 24 and 41 where the three-syllable form poboo is necessary.

Line 26:

Synaeresis in tiía is common, and is the only sensible resolution for the extra syllable here.

Line 33:

All three manuscripts have poblo here; see the note to line 9 above.

Cantiga 29: Nas mentes sempre tẽer devemo-las sas feituras

Line 6:

As Mettmann notes, [E] begins this line with a omẽes, [T] has a muitos written over an erasure, and [To] has a omes in the main text with a muitos in the margin. Elmes has "a omé-es" (his first volume has acute accents in place of tildes), which is just a misreading of [E] a omẽes due to the words and musical notes in the manuscript being rather bunched up. I've chosen to stick with Mettmann's choice of muitos, but the [To] form ómes, which also scans correctly, would be quite acceptable too.

 ——
E1:

See the note to line 6 in the lyrics; [E] has a omẽes here in the first stanza. Mettmann's a muitos comes from [T].

Cantiga 30: Muito valvéra mais, se Déus m' ampar

E1:

See E2 below.

E2:

At this point in [E] the lyric scribe has omitted the word amor at the page break and the music scribe seems not to have noticed. I've therefore copied these two inserted notes from the corresponding place E1 in the refrain.

Cantiga 31: Tanto, se Déus me perdô, so da Virge cooçudas

Line 8:

Elmes has a duas leguas in his edition, following [E]. Mettmann's é duas leguas comes from [T] and [To].

Cantiga 32: Que loar podía, com' ela querría

Line 8:

Elmes has "du-un" at the start of this line, which is his own solution to the missing syllable in dun in [E]. Mettmann's more standard form dũu is found in [T] and [To].

Cantiga 33: Gra poder há de mandar o mar e todo-los ventos

Line 26:

Mettmann ũu; [To] ũu; [T] ũu; [E] un. Given Mettmann's general preference for [E], it is very odd that in this case he discards the form un, which scans correctly, in favour of ũu from [To] and [T], which does not.

Cantiga 34: Gra dereit' é que fi' o démo por escarmento

Line 2:

According to Mettmann's metrical summary, the two lines of this refrain should be the same length. Certainly, from a purely metrical point of view, this would keep every line of the Cantiga uniform, and a fix could easily be applied using synalepha or elision to compress the repeated a in fia atrevemento. Looking at the music, however, this ideal doesn't really stand up to scrutiny. In all three manuscripts, separate notes or ligatures are written for all fifteen syllables (14 + 1 unstressed); and, more importantly, comparison of the refrain and the vuelta, both metrically and musically, suggests that the extra syllable in the refrain should really be identified as the unstressed final -a of María. (Specifically, two separate notes .on .o for -ria in the refrain music match up with a single ligature .oyyo in the vuelta that generally carries a stressed final syllable.)

Line 6:

Elmes has transcribed a single .oyyo ligature here as two separate puncta, and incorrectly split the word vai (or "vay") into two syllables to match. This may be a result of comparison with the extra note (and syllable) in the second line of the refrain (see note to line 2), although his interpretation of the meaningless dot above the letter y in [E] as an acute accent may also have contributed to the mistake.

Cantiga 35: O que a Santa María dér algo ou prometer

Line 9:

The word reliquias has a rather odd-looking case of diaeresis here, but there is no other way to resolve the missing syllable. As it happens, the musical result is not too bad in a cantiga already full of long ligatures and stretched-out syllables, and the artificial syllable -qui- does at least fall on a single punctum .o. Contrast CSM 362 where reliquias occurs four times, always with the expected 3 syllables.

Line 39:

Mettmann cossarios; [To] cossarios; [T] cossairos; [E] cossarios. Given the scarcity of Mettmann's form cossarios (CSM 379:17 has the only other in-verse example) it is difficult to know whether to read it as having three natural syllables (cossarios), in which case it would be unproblematic in this position, or four with antepenultimate stress (cossários, paralleling words like hóstïa, espécïas and empérïo). However, since [T] has the unambiguous three-syllable form cossairos I have chosen to use it here (cf. cossairo in CSM 236:8, also with three syllables).

Line 56:

Mettmann has e o que tĩia a arca here, which seems to require synaeresis or synalepha, but this phrase is identical in [E] with the first hemistich of line 53 above, and therefore it is more appropriate to apply the same resolution—i.e. elision—to the extra syllable.

Cantiga 38: Pois que Déus quis da Virge fio seer

Line 52:

Synaeresis in tiía works very well against the music here, as the compressed metrical syllable gets a long three-note ligature .bowowo, and the natural syllables are therefore preserved in singing.

Line 56:

Synaeresis in tiía is again the best option here too, rhythmically and musically, with the compressed syllable falling on a long plica .oron.

Cantiga 39: Tórto sería grand' e desmesura

Line 4:

Elmes has un mõesteiro... which is the [E] version of the line found in Mettmann I; Mettmann II's corrected no mõesteiro comes from [T] and [To].

Line 17:

[JMMS] interprets ebreo in the manuscripts as ebre' o, i.e. ebreu o, in which the o can only be read as a reduplicated object reinforcing o ebreu (the subject of the sentence being a Reỹa do Céo).

 ——
E1:

This division line is right up against the preceding ligature in Anglés facsimile of [E] and might be read as a stem. However, it is very short, and possibly crossed out (although the facsimile does not show this clearly), so I have assumed the positioning to be the result of scribal error or bodged retouching . Both Anglés and Elmes follow this same reading in their transcriptions.

Cantiga 40: Déus te salve, grorïosa Reía María

E1:

The manuscript stave ends in the middle of the word groriosa.

Cantiga 41: A Virge, Madre de Nóstro Seor

This is the first of five cantigas that use the rondeau form, in which the first line of the refrain is repeated after the first two lines of each stanza, with the whole refrain at the end as usual. The other rondeaux are CSM 120, CSM 143, CSM 279 and CSM 308.

Line 19:

Synaeresis is common in the word mercee, and is confirmed in this case by [T] which has the music written out for all stanzas, and assigns a single plica .oron to the compressed syllable -cee. In [E] the corresponding ligature (in the first stanza) has the unique shape .orod, which looks like a possible scribal error.

 ——
E1:

At this point in the manuscript the music scribe appears to have drawn round an itinerant caterpillar.

E2:

The strange .orod ligature shape that is clearly visible here in Anglés' facsimile of [E] is unique in that manuscript, and I have assumed it to be the result of either medieval scribal error or careless modern retouching. My replacement shape .oron, an ordinary long plica, is the form found in [T]. Elmes has .onod, attaching the lower stem to the first note, and transcribes it accordingly as an augmented long ascending plica. Anglés, in his own transcription, reproduces the shape from his facsimile exactly and tags it "(sic)", but transcribes it descending as if it were .oron or the .royo found in [To].

Cantiga 45: A Virge Santa María tant' é de gra pïedade

Line 6:

In place of sabed' Elmes has saber, which is the form found in [E] and [T]. The form sabed', which makes much more sense in the context and is used by Mettmann, comes from [To].

Line 48:

This is another case of obligatory synalepha after the unstressed pronoun mi; compare CSM 15:54, CSM 15:55, CSM 25:63 and many other examples in the Concordance.

Cantiga 46: Porque haja de seer séus miragres mais sabudos

Line 4:

Mettmann omees; [To] omes; [T] omees .o + .ron; [E] omees .o + .oron. Beware that Elmes has made a mistake in transcribing this line as vai ant' *omees *descreudos, where the last two starred words are each divided wrongly, and the rhyme with sabudos is broken.

Cantiga 47: Virge Santa María, guarda-nos, se te praz

Line 14:

Synaeresis in tiía is very common, and is confirmed here by [T] where the music for this stanza is written out, and this word (spelled tĩja) gets just one note and one ligature, .o + .ra.

 ——
E1:

See E2.

E2:

The final stem of the original long plica at this position is definitely crossed out in the manuscript facsimile, and it seems likely that the scribe's intention was to strike both stems of the second component note, turning it into the equivalent of the corresponding augmented notes at E1, E3 and following lines. (In general, .ono and .one are used with the same metrical value anyway.)

E3:

See E2.

E4:

The virga .on at this position in the manuscript has no underlaid text and appears to be a scribal error.

Cantiga 49: Be com' aos que va per mar a estrela guía

Line 51:

Note here the form tia (synonymous with tiía), with just two natural syllables. This is found in [E] and [To] (spelled tĩa) and reproduced by Mettmann, and it provides good solid support for the use of synaeresis in tiía elsewhere.

 ——
E1:

Comparing this phrase with the second line of the refrain, and the vuelta, it appears that the [E] scribe lost track of the non-standard clef position and wrote these four notes and ligatures a line too low on the stave. Elmes notes this, and observes that [To] is correct.

Cantiga 50: No deve nu' hóme desto per re dultar

Line 11:

Mettmann mẽesmo; [To] meesmo; [T] meesmo (direct underlay to one ligature + one note); [E] mẽesmo. The form found in [To] and [T] is more amenable to the synaeresis required here. Note that mesmo doesn't occur in that exact form in the cantigas, although the feminine mesma crops up in CSM 194:15 and 360:9.

 ——
E1:

The stem on this .eyeyed ligature is almost vertical in the manuscript, but I've interpreted it as shown so as to match its counterpart in the vuelta at E2, where the stem is more diagonal.

E2:

See E1.

Cantiga 51: A Madre de Déus devemos tẽer mui cara

E1:

Compare this regular long .on plus short division line with the augmented .ono note at E2 in the vuelta.

E2:

See E1

Cantiga 52: Mui gra dereit' é d' as bestias obedecer

Line 6:

As noted by Mettmann and Elmes, [E] has this line as oyde-mio, se Deus vos amostre prazer, but these words are laid under only enough notes to fit se ouçades prazer. The latter is the form of words found in both [To] and [T], although in both cases as a correction written over an erasure. Elmes' main score therefore has the [E] music with the [To] words—which is good, and exactly what we want. However, Elmes also provides a suggestion for making the [E] words fit the music: simply use the second line of music from the refrain instead, as would happen in regular virelai form. Unfortunately, this would conflict with every other stanza, all of which are metrically fine and have the ten syllables needed to fit the music, so we can safely ignore this solution. As it happens, Mettmann notes that [E] itself has se ouçades written in between the lines by a later hand, which pretty much wraps up the issue. Just one final point: Elmes' syllabation of oide-mio (or "oyde-mio") isn't right: he has given both words two syllables, whereas the first should have three, and the second just one.

 ——
E1:

See the note to line 6 on the Lyrics tab for more on the textual underlay to this stave in the manuscript.

Cantiga 53: Como pód' a Grorïosa mui be enfermos sãar

Line 5:

Elmes has underlaid the lyrics incorrectly in this line, giving just two syllables to menio (written menỹo in [E]) and five to pegureiro.

Line 52:

This is another case of obligatory synalepha after the unstressed pronoun mi; see Concordance for more.

 ——
E1:

There is a blank 5-line stave at the end of this score in the manuscript.

Cantiga 54: Toda saúde da Santa Reía ve

Line 52:

We have already encountered several examples of obligatory synalepha after the unstressed personal pronoun mi (e.g. in the previous cantiga, at CSM 53:52). The same principle applies to ti, and this is the first of many examples; see the Concordance for more.

Cantiga 55: Atant' é Santa María de toda bondade bõa

Line 5:

Elmes, reading from [E], misinterprets the i in "monia" as a vowel, and consequently makes a mistake in his textual underlay for this line, assigning a single syllable to "hũa" and three to "monia". The correct fit is: ũ- .owo (GA ligature) -a .on (C) mon- .o (D) -ja .ron (CB ligature) as shown on the Music tab.

Cantiga 57: Mui grandes noit' e día devemos dar porende

Line 12:

Elmes has Sancta from [E]; Mettmann's santa is found in [To].

Line 16:

Mettmann I and II dá-les; [E] and [To] dales; [T] dalles. Mettmann's selection of the scribal Castilianism over the correct form in [T] is indefensible, so I have categorized the change here as a correction.

Line 16:

Elmes has sisso from [E] (and Mettmann I); Mettmann II's corrected form siso is found in [To].

Line 21:

Obligatory synalepha after mi. See the Concordance for more examples.

Cantiga 58: De muitas guisas nos guarda de mal Santa María

Line 39:

All three manuscripts have this line as shown here. Esto dito at the start in Mettmann II is an error not present in Mettmann I, but the form diaboo is faithful, and requires synaeresis to fit the metre. The shorter form dïabo is much more common in the CSM, and in fact the four-syllable variant dïáboo only occurs once in the singular (here) and six times in the plural dïáboos, with five of the latter being in the non-metrical epigraphs.

Cantiga 59: Quena Virge be servir nunca poderá falir

Line 77:

In the CSM there are no less than 30 instances of line or hemistich divisions before the adverbial suffix -mente. This was originally a separate word anyway, and it maintains its own stress accent even in the modern languages. It also continues to betray its independent nature in expressions like "cómoda e facilmente", where "-mente" turns both adjectives into adverbs.

Cantiga 62: Santa María sempr' os séus ajuda

Cantigas 1 to 61 have their share of metrical quirks and oddities, but this one is the first to present a real puzzle. All starts well, but line 16 has an extra syllable (not unusual in isolation), and then the last two stanzas turn up with five lines out of eight also being too long. All three manuscripts have exactly the same problems.

The key to solving the puzzle is the observation that five of the six cases (including line 16, but not line 38) can be fixed musically by breaking identical-sounding ligatures .ohod or .onwo into two separate notes .on + .o. (In Elmes' edition, these are the F minim + G crotchet ligatures in lines 5, 7 and 9). In each case, this matches the previous two notes in the manuscript, also .on + .o (Elmes' C minim + D crotchet, unligated) so, musically, the result is pleasantly satisfying. Note that in lines 16 and 40 this ligature breaking has the same musical outcome as ordinary synalepha between vowels in the appropriate words: a usura in line 16, que o in line 40. However, I have chosen here to mark the ligature breaking consistently throughout, since in the other three cases (acá meu, non dissero, fez a) there are consonants in the way, and synalepha is not an option.

Line 4:

Elmes points out that in [E] the last word coitada has "four notes/ligatures against a word of three syllables", and elects to ignore one of the notes solely on the basis of correspondence with other lines. To my eye, however, the extra note is clearly crossed out in the manuscript (as shown in my transcription on the Music tab) so there really is no problem. [To] and [T] have the right number of notes for the same words, in any case.

Line 6:

Elmes' additional comment concerning the surplus syllable in erdade in [E] (and Mettmann I) can be safely ignored. Mettmann II's elision to erdad', which matches [To] and [T], is a completely satisfactory resolution.

Line 16:

See main note to this cantiga.

Line 36:

See main note to this cantiga.

Line 38:

For this line, the music is different from the other lines with metrical problems. The suggested synalepha works well though, with the combined metrical syllable -ia a falling on a very comfortable five-pitch plicated ligature .eyeyehod.

Line 39:

See main note to this cantiga.

Line 40:

See main note to this cantiga.

Line 41:

See main note to this cantiga.

 ——
E1:

See E2.

E2:

See the main note to the Lyrics for discussion of the ligature breaking here and at E1 and E5 in stanzas IV, IX and X.

E3:

See the note to line 4 of the lyrics.

E4:

This division was left in the wrong place by the preceding scribal correction, so I have moved it to where it belongs.

E5:

See E2

E6:

These last three notes and ligatures have no underlaid lyrics in the manuscript.

Cantiga 63: Que be sérv' a Madre do que quis morrer

Line 11:

Mettmann E de; [To] De; [T] De; [E] E de. The extra word E is in keeping with the usual narrative style of the CSM, but is quite unnecessary to the sense, and it may well be the result of confusion: the [E] lyric scribe perhaps wrote de when he should have left the D for the illuminator, and then the illuminator assumed that another E was needed.

Line 16:

Synaeresis in tiía is very common, and although the compressed syllable falls on a single short note .o here, the musical result is certainly superior to the alternative of synalepha with the following word o.

Cantiga 64: Que mui be quisér o que ama guardar

Line 64:

Mettmann pee; [To] pe; [T] pee; [E] pee.

 ——
E1:

There are two clefs at the beginning of this Cantiga in the manuscript, but their positions are consistent, and the scribe presumably saw no need to erase one of them.

Cantiga 65: A creer devemos que todo pecado

Line 9:

Mettmann sobervi' e; [To] soberve; [T] soberv e; [E] sobervio &. Although Mettmann's sobervi' e can be read as having the right number of syllables, I think the [To] and [T] form is clearer, and it matches CSM 152:5 and 369:13.

Line 32:

Mettmann has mal le disso following [E]; the le is either a Castilianism or just a simple visual error, since malle is unspaced. I've used mal lle disse from [To] which avoids both the error and the jarring switch between variants disso and disse in adjacent lines. Compare CSM 279:3.

Line 132:

Mettmann perigoosa; [To] perigoosa; [T] perigoosa; [E] perigosa.

Line 202:

All three manuscripts have the word Amê tacked on the end of the last line, but it cannot be metrically a part of it. Curiously, [To] and [T] even follow this with the refrain A creer devemos..., so how the Amen is supposed to fit in is anybody's guess.

Cantiga 66: Quantos e Santa María esperança ha

Line 10:

Elmes has mui instead of viu here, and this does indeed appear to be the form found in [E]—there are clearly six vertical strokes. However, viu makes more sense and is the word found in [To] and [T], so mui is most likely a copying error somewhere along the chain leading to [E].

Line 33:

This curious division of sant', the elided form of santo, is (rather surprisingly) not just Mettmann's own editorial indication of the rhyme: it is actually written this way across two lines in all three manuscripts.

Line 57:

Obligatory synalepha after unstressed ti; see the Concordance for more examples. In fact, as Mettmann notes, the word ti is missing altogether from [E]. Note also that to dei in the last line of this stanza is an even more compressed form of ti o dei, and [T] and [To] actually have tio dey here.

Line 59:

See note to line 57.

Cantiga 67: A Reía grorïosa tant' é de gra santidade

Line 11:

The compressed metrical syllable -bii- resulting from synaeresis here falls on a two-note .royo ligature in the music, so the natural length is preserved in singing.

Line 62:

Synaeresis is common in forms of the verb veer. Note that soïdade has four natural syllables and they should be maintained here.

Cantiga 69: Santa María os enfermos sãa

Line 50:

Mettmann galo; [To] gal; [T] gal; [E] galo.

Line 58:

Mettmann çizillãa; [To] ciziliãa; [T] cezilãa; [E] çizillãa.

Line 74:

This is possibly the most spectacularly gratuitous rhyme in the whole of the Cantigas de Santa Maria—either that, or the rhyming scheme was set up just for this pay-off. Either way it's funny, clever, devoid of all modern political correctness, and crying out for a good comic performance.

Cantiga 70: Eno nome de María cinque letras, no-mais, i há

Line 3:

Mettmann just has M and R, as in [E]. The names of the letters are eme and erre, and they must be pronounced as such to fit the metre.

Line 11:

See note to line 3.

Line 19:

This line rather throws a spanner in the works for the marking of etymological h on the word haveremos, so I have left it off just this once.

 ——
E1:

As Elmes points out, this note is a G in [E] but an A in the other manuscripts. I have therefore changed it to match the refrain and mudanza.

Cantiga 72: Que diz mal da Reía Espirital

Like CSM 62, this cantiga presents a bit of a puzzle. It seems quite likely that an earlier version had just seven metrical syllables in the first line of each stanza, and that an imperfect attempt was later made to expand these to eight syllables—imperfect because, in all three manuscripts, four of the lines were left one syllable short (those in stanzas 5, 6, 9 and 10).

Happily, like CSM 62, examination of the music leads us to a satisfactory solution. This time, the clue is to be found in the fact that the music for the first two lines of each stanza consists of a pair of phrases which are almost identical, except that the first phrase has two separate puncta .o + .o where the second has a single ascending plica .bod (better read as long .ohod). (In Elmes, these are the F-G crotchet pairs in the first bars of lines 3 and 4.) The solution, then, is to treat the first pair of puncta as a ligature for the lines that are metrically short, thereby making the words fit and the two musical phrases truly identical. Or to put it another way, the first vowels of u, padre, dou and tésta each have a small melisma, i.e. they are drawn out in singing to cover two separate notes.

Line 21:

See main note to this cantiga. Note that in a different context, the resolution for this line would probably be something a little more normal, such as replacing quis with its full form quiso.

Line 25:

See main note to this cantiga. Once again, in the absence of other problems, I'd be far more inclined to fix this line by expanding quand' to quando or est' to esto.

Line 26:

Mettmann casa; [To] cas; [T] cas; [E] cassa (sic).

Line 37:

See main note to this cantiga.

Line 41:

See main note to this cantiga. [T] actually has E a testa here, rather than Da testa, which on the face of it would appear to scan properly. Given the evidence of the other two manuscripts, however, it seems likely that this is just the result of the illuminator adding the wrong decorated capital (a common mistake) after the scribe had written -a testa.

 ——
E1:

See the main note on the Lyrics tab of this Cantiga for discussion of the melismata on this note in stanzas V, VI, IX and X.

E2:

This stave and the previous one in the manuscript have both C- and F-clefs, but their relative positioning is consistent.

A more radical solution might have been to reconstruct a version with seven metrical syllables in the first line of every stanza, and treat the pair of notes identified above as a ligature throughout. In fact, it is not difficult to find suitable alternative wordings that barely affect the meaning; one possible version has the modified first lines as follows: 5. Ca no pod' dela dizer 9. E desto quero contar 13. Que na taverna beveu 17. Mente; c' a Deus dẽostou 29. Que e diss' atal razo 33. No que de Nostro Seor 45. O padre foi log' ali.

Cantiga 73: Be pód' as cousas feas fremosas tornar

Line 34:

Obligatory synalepha after unstressed mi; see the Concordance for more examples.

 ——
E1:

The three notes and ligatures that I have deleted here are repeated either side of the page break in the manuscript.

Cantiga 74: Que Santa María quisér defender

E1:

From Anglés' facsimile it is difficult to know whether this flat is actually present in [E]—it looks like no more than a fat-bottomed C-clef. However, the melody clearly requires the flat, and it is present both in the vuelta in [E] and at this position in [To].

Cantiga 75: Homildade co pobreza quér a Virge corõada

Line 1:

Elmes has pobreça which comes from [E]. Mettmann uses pobreza from [To] and [T], which is the normal spelling elsewhere, and which rhymes properly with requeza in line 3.

Line 5:

The stress in the first hemistich here is a little odd, as direi needs to be accented on the first syllable in order to fit the metrical scheme of the rest of the lines. See also CSM 125:5 where the same thing happens. A very good alternative solution would be to swap the words around, giving direi-vos, which has the correct natural stress pattern and is amply attested elsewhere (CSM 5:108, 241:6, 299:10, 411:12).

Line 10:

Mettmann orgullos' e | sobervi' e; [To] orgulloso e sobervie; [T] orgulloso e soberve; [E] orgullose sobervie. This is a rather clear case where Mettmann's overriding preference for [E] gets him into a complete mess.

Line 109:

Synaeresis in aa is common, and in this instance the compressed syllable falls on a two-note ligature .ra in the music, so the natural length is preserved in singing.

 ——
E1:

This mark looks like a simple short division in the manuscript facsimile, i.e. like the stem of a flat without the body. However, (a) this would be an odd position for a division; (b) it's the correct position for a flat; and (c) a flat would appear to be necessary here for the following B (in the next .royo ligature), so all in all the flat would seem to be the best interpretation.

Cantiga 76: Quenas sas figuras da Virge partir quér

Line 5:

The word se is in Mettmann, but absent from [E] and [T], and consequently the music is one note/ligature short for the remaining stanzas. In order to fit all stanzas correctly, the obvious solution is to restore se and split the three-note .eyeye ligature on the -ller of moller into .ra + .o, thereby making the vuelta match the refrain as it normally would. Applying this to Elmes' edition, we just need to split the three-note CBA ligature in bar 4 of the fifth line, giving a two-note ligature on CB and a single note on A, without changing the note values; his underlaid words que muito then need shifting one note/ligature to the left, leaving the D crotchet available for se.

Line 6:

This line does have the desired number of notes and ligatures in the music to fit Mettmann's words for all stanzas, but due to the rather strange textual underlay in [E], Elmes has the words out of alignment. The singer should replace his "sem-pre␣en-ela" with "sem-pre'n␣e-la" in the first three bars, and "se-gundo" with "se-gun", and all will be well.

Line 23:

Mettmann são e; [T] sane; [E] são e. Here I have used the elision from [T] but regularized the spelling.

Line 31:

This is the first of no less than 11 cases of diaeresis in the word viu that are required in the Cantigas.

 ——
E1:

It's rare for the clef to change mid-stave, but here is one example.

E2:

See the note to line 5 of the lyrics.

Cantiga 77: Da que Déus mamou o leite do séu peito

Line 1:

Mettmann's o is not in [E] or [T], and he does not comment on the insertion. However, it is obviously desirable for regularizing the metre. To fit it to the [E] music, we just need to split the .oyyjo ligature into two virgae .on + .on, thereby making the refrain match the vuelta exactly, as you can see on the Music tab. To apply the fix to Elmes' edition, which also leaves out o, just break the AD ligature given to the -mou of mamou, and sing the extra word o on the D.

 ——
E1:

See the note to line 1 of the lyrics.

Cantiga 78: No póde prender nunca mórte vergoosa

Line 63:

Mettmann aquel; [To] aquele; [T] aquele; [E] aquel.

Cantiga 79: Ai, Santa María, que se per vós guía

Line 7:

This line is slightly problematic, because all 13 natural syllables get a separate note or ligature in the music, in all three manuscripts. However, from the musical structure, it is obvious that seer should occupy the slot that becomes one syllable in subsequent stanzas, and since the contraction of seer through synaeresis happens many times elsewhere (see the Concordance), this is the suggested resolution here. From the point of view of the music itself, this means joining the two separate puncta given to seer into a single .oyo ligature (AG in bar 2 of the fifth line of music in Elmes).

Line 8:

Obligatory synalepha after unstressed mi; see the Concordance for more examples.

 ——
E1:

See the note to line 7 of the lyrics.

Cantiga 81: Par Déus, tal seor muito val

In this Cantiga every stanza but the last ends in the middle of a sentence. If you wish to sing more refrains than just the first and last without disturbing the sense too badly, I would suggest the break between stanzas II and III as the only decent candidate.

E1:

[E] has no flat on this stave, but the melody would seem to require it, and the omission is understandable given that the only affected note is the plica tone on the .ood. The version in [To] does not have the plica, just a plain long note, but in any case that version is written in A, which implies the flat throughout when the tune is transposed to D in [E].

Cantiga 82: A Santa María mui bo servir faz

E1:

There is just a hint of flat on this stave in Anglés' facsimile of [E], but it is strangely formed, being no more than a dot (albeit at the correct vertical position) just after the long plica .oron to which it would apply. However, the melody clearly needs the flat, and it is indeed present in [T], so I have added one here in the normal place.

E2:

The small size, unusual vertical position and mid-stave introduction of this clef all seem to indicate that it's basically a correction, due to the scribe having written the remaining notes on the stave at the wrong pitch.

Cantiga 84: O que e Santa María crevér be de coraçô

Line 27:

Synaeresis in siía works very well musically, as the compressed metrical syllable sii- falls on a four-note .bowowa ligature, so the natural length (siia) is easily preserved in singing.

Cantiga 85: Pera toer gra perfía be dos corações

E1:

This flat is missing from [E] but necessary for the vuelta to match the refrain.

Cantiga 87: Muito pua d' os séus honrrar

In this cantiga I depart from Mettmann and follow the structure with variant refrains argued for by Stephen Parkinson [SP1987], which gives by far the best results for performance, avoiding a lot of rather dull musical repetition. It's clear from the manuscripts that none of the scribes understood this structure. The [E] scribe—copied by Mettmann—mistook the variant refrains for two-line stanzas, deciding to add extra repeats of the initial refrain around these; but the consequent alternation between long and short stanzas then left no obvious means of abbreviating the structure of the music, and the whole cantiga ended up being laboriously written out with all of the stanzas overlaid. The [To] and [T] scribes, on the other hand, took the variant refrains to be extensions of the preceding stanza, only repeating the initial refrain after them, not before—but nowhere assigning them any music. Note, by the way, that the refrains do not all share a single identical rhyming scheme as usual, but instead each have one line that rhymes with the associated stanza. I have numbered the rhyming groups specially to highlight this unique feature.

E1:

See the main note to the lyrics for more on the deletion of the 'false refrains' in this cantiga.

E2:

After this point in [E], .rawon changes to .rawo in all similar phrases.

E3:

Many of the final .on notes of the refrain or vuelta are difficult to read in the [E] manuscript facsimile in Anglés, being apparently written on top of the following decorated capital, due to the lyric scribe not leaving enough space on the stave. I have assumed they're there in every case, and transcribed them accordingly.

Cantiga 88: Que servir a Madre do gra Rei, be sei

Line 4:

It's very unusual to have this kind of formulaic phrase (= "as I shall now tell you") in the refrain—you would normally expect it at the end of the first stanza—and it clearly makes no sense to repeat this phrase in the concluding reprise of the refrain after the final stanza. However, all three manuscripts [E], [T] and [To] have the opening line Quen servir a Madre [do gran Rei] written out after the final stanza. I have therefore assumed that, on the last time around, this phrase of the refrain should be replaced by the last line of the last stanza, Aquí vo-lo acabei (= "Here I [have] finished it [for you]" or "That's all, folks!"), and I've included this modified version at the bottom of the text, as you can see.

Line 52:

Here aa with synaeresis falls on a long ascending plica .ood in the music, so the natural length is preserved in singing.

Line 92:

See the note to line 4 above.

Cantiga 89: A Madre de Déus honrrada chega se tardada

Line 43:

Obligatory synalepha after unstressed mi; see the Concordance for more examples.

 ——
E1:

In [E] the flat is missing at this position and at E2, but both are clearly necessary to the melody, and the vuelta has one in the corresponding position. Also, [To] has this cantiga written in C which implies a flat throughout the piece when transcribed to F in [E].

E2:

See E1.

Cantiga 92: Santa María poder há de dar lum' a queno no há

Line 10:

The compressed syllable vii- from synaeresis here falls on a descending plica .ron in the music, so the natural syllables come out in singing.

 ——
E1:

This ligature was written at the wrong pitch by the scribe, and struck out.

Cantiga 93: Nua enfermidade no é de sãar grave

Line 14:

The word gafee does not occur elsewhere, but it can be assumed from the spelling that it would have three natural syllables (at least some of the time). Here, and in line 31, gafee must have just two syllables however, so I mark synaeresis as usual.

Line 31:

See note to line 14.

Cantiga 95: Que aos sérvos da Virge de mal se trabaa

Line 24:

The compressed syllable resulting from synaeresis in viía falls on just a single short note .o in the music, but synaeresis does occur several times elsewhere in this word or closely-related forms (as well as tiía etc.) so it seems likely to be intended here. The possible alternative of synalepha in pera as at the start of the line isn't too terrible, but it does leave viía feeling rather overstretched instead of compressed.

Line 37:

Rhymes between homophones are very rare in the Cantigas, but here is an example where sérra "closes" rhymes with sérra "mountains".

 ——
E1:

This vertical line, like the one at E2 appears just to function as a separator, as the notes either side in the manuscript are very close.

E2:

See E1.

Cantiga 96: Atal Seor é bõa que faz salvá-lo pecador

Line 38:

Mettmann ũu; [T] un; [E] ũu.

Line 40:

Mettmann alma; [T] a alma; [E] alma (possibly with a small a inserted later into the preceding space, though this is unclear from Anglés' facsimile). In effect, [E] has the definite article a elided out of existence, as indeed Mettmann observes in a footnote. But [T] keeps it, and it is syntactically necessary, so I have used this form and marked the required synalepha.

Line 41:

Mettmann notes that [E] has lacharan here, and [T] llacharã. Presumably he intended to replace these with lle acharan to fix the metre—but in the end accidently omitted the lle.

Line 54:

Mettmann is true to [E] and [T] in this line, but it has a missing syllable and no scope for diaeresis to create one. In the absence of any other hints I suggest replacing óra (= "now") with its longer synonym agora to make up the shortfall.

Cantiga 97: A Virge sempr' acorrer, acorrer vai o coitado

Line 30:

Mettmann omẽes; [To] omees; [T] omẽes; [E] omẽes. Here I have used the form omees from [To] in order to be able to mark synaeresis to fix the metre.

Cantiga 98: No dev' a Santa María mercee pedir

E1:

This phrase is notated a third (one stave line) too low in [E].

E2:

Unusually, there is a whole blank 5-line stave in the manuscript before this full reprise of the refrain.

Cantiga 100: Santa María, Strela do día

Mettmann does not split the longer lines in this cantiga into hemistichs, but given that there are very clear internal rhymes throughout, this seems rather at odds with his usual policy. I've added them here as I think they're very useful to the performer.

Line 21:

For the avoidance of doubt (since this Cantiga is so popular): the trema on the i in guïar here follows my standard spelling rules, and indicates only that gui- and -ar are separate syllables, i.e. that the word is [gi.ar] not [gi̯ar]. It does not mean that the u is a semi-vowel (giving incorrect [gu̯i.ar] "gwee-ar").

Cantiga 101: Be pód' a Seor se par fazer oír e falar

E1:

This .eyeyed ligature seems to correspond to the .eyeyewo shape elsewhere, but replaces the final punctum with a plica stem.

Cantiga 103: Quena Virge be servirá a Paraíso irá

E1:

There is an extra 5-line stave at the end of this score in the manuscript, with underlaid text but no musical notation.

Cantiga 105: Gra pïadad' e mercee e nobreza

Line 1:

Mettmann has piadad' in the first line and piedad' in all of the reprises, following [E].

Line 1:

Here mercee must have just two metrical syllables, but the music provides a three-note ligature .brawo for -cee, so the compression of synaeresis is not apparent in singing. Note that Elmes has "merce" in his edition, having missed out an e.

Line 65:

The combined syllable -la ar- resulting from synalepha here falls on a three-note ligature .onyeye in the music, so the natural length is preserved.

 ——
E1:

[E] does not have this flat, but it is necessary for consistency with the previous phrase.

E2:

There are two further blank 5-line staves after this point in the manuscript, with text up to Virgen assaz in the refrain, but no musical notation overlaid.

Cantiga 106: Prijô fórte ne dultosa no pód' os presos tẽer

E1:

A final 5-line stave follows here in the manuscript, with text including a decorated capital P, but no musical notation.

Cantiga 108: Dereit' é de s' end' achar mal que fiar perfía

E1:

Two further 5-line staves follow here in the manuscript, with a marked space for a decorated capital and the text of the whole refrain, but there is no musical notation.

Cantiga 109: Razô ha os dïabos de fogir

This Cantiga is quite unique in that the [E] and [T] versions have distinct metrical structures, both equally good. The version here is from [E] (and fits the music in Elmes' edition). In [T], by contrast, all of the nine-syllable lines here have ten syllables instead, with consistently modified wording. For example, the first stanza begins Gran dereito fazen de ss' ir perder // ant' aquela de que Deus quis nacer; the second begins Dest' un miragre vos quero contar // que fez a Virgen que non ouve par; and so on. Unfortunately, however, the music in [T] is exactly the same as the music in [E], and therefore it doesn't actually fit the extra syllables (see the facsimile link on the Resources tab).

E1:

For the reprise of the refrain, the [E] scribe started writing out the stanza melody instead of the refrain melody. This is obviously an error, since (a) it has no precedent and (b) the refrain is two syllables longer than would fit that part of the melody anyway; hence my correction here.

Cantiga 110: Tant' é Santa María de be mui comprida

E1:

The long-short pattern of this note and the next contradicts not only every other phrase of the music, including the vuelta, but also the reprise of the refrain at the end (E2). So it's probably a scribal error, and .on + .o should be replaced by .o + .on as elsewhere.

E2:

See E1.

Cantiga 111: E todo tempo faz be

E1:

There's a blank space mid-stave for the decorated capital E here, which was never filled in.

Cantiga 113: Por razô teo d' obedecer

From reading Mettmann's notes, and examining the facsimiles, it's clear that this cantiga was subjected to more than its fair share of revisions, and yet descrepancies remain which create difficulties with fitting all the words to the music. It seems that this isn't just a problem for us modern interpreters either, as this cantiga is unique in being the only one in [T] that has no music (see the facsimile link on the Resources tab), which suggests that the musical copyists of that manuscript realised the problem too but never got around to sorting it out. Stephen Parkinson reconstructs a highly detailed, occasionally speculative but largely convincing account of the cantiga's evolution in [SP2007], and I recommend reading this if you have access. My own solutions, in which I try to diverge as little as possible from the surviving manuscripts, are given in the individual footnotes below.

Line 3:

Mettmann suggests that the "primitive" metrical schema for the refrain may have been 9-9-9-9, but his own version comes out as 9-8-8-9. Given the words and music as they appear in [E], however, I have chosen to diverge at this point and go for a 9-8-9-8 refrain, and have thus restored the word be from [E] in this line, and reduced Mettmann's porende to porê (= [E] porend, [T] por en) in the next.

Line 4:

See note to line 3.

Line 6:

The [E] manuscript, and Elmes' edition, have one syllable and one note too many for the first hemistich of this line, meaning that the music does not fit the remaining stanzas. Looking at [E] though it is quite clear that the line originally said que en Monssaz fez a Virgen which, though wrong, scans correctly. Then the missing syllable in Monssarraz was noticed, written above the word, and an extra note was squeezed in for it. Mettmann's solution of eliding que en to qu' en (as in [T]) is good, and I follow it here. Musically, we just have to remove the punctum .o that was added to [E] as an afterthought, as indicated by the deletion at E1 on the Music tab. In Elmes' edition, this means replacing the two F crotchets in the second bar of line 7 with one F minim (thereby rectifying the obvious mismatch with lines 2, 4–6, 8 and 10), and adjusting the underlaid text accordingly.

Line 7:

This line is also too long in [E], where the text is dũa pena que se foi mover (followed by mui grand' e leixou-se caer in the final line), and the extra word foi gets its own plica .ron. In order to fit all stanzas, I suggest using the wording shown here (from [T]), and correcting the music as shown at E2 on the Music tab, joining .ron (over foi) and .oron (over mo-) into a single .eyeyeye ligature over mo-, but keeping the same pitches and rhythm. To fix Elmes' edition, this just means converting the fourth bar of line 9 into a single long ligature (AGFE).

Line 21:

This whole stanza is a bit of a metrical disaster in Mettmann's text. For this line, I'd previously suggested synaeresis in saíron to fix the metrical surplus, but on further consideration this seems awkward and implausible with the vowels a and stressed í. Instead, I now prefer just to replace the original first word Dizend' (saying) with the past participle Dit' (= dito said). This barely affects the meaning, especially given that the phrase is rather formulaic anyway, and the result is just a variation on Esto dito and Esto dit' which are found elsewhere.

Line 22:

To fix the metrical shortfall in the second hemistich of this line, I had previously marked diaeresis in Deus to give it two syllables. However, whilst the close diphthong [eu̯] is frequently subject to diaeresis elsewhere (most often in preterite verb forms) this is never the case for the open diphthong [ɛu̯] which occurs in Déus, and I now believe that diaeresis is best avoided. Instead, I have taken a suggestion from the footnotes to the draft version of this cantiga in the Oxford CSM Database (as of mid-October 2012) and replaced the preterite fezo with the pluperfect fezéra, something that the original poets appear to have done quite readily when an extra syllable was required, regardless of the (minor) effect on meaning.

Line 23:

[E] has & começaron Deus a bẽeizer, and [T] has & começar Deus a bẽizer. Mettmann has just começaron Deus a bẽizer, apparently deleting the conjunction to mitigate the metrical surplus, even though it looks stylistically necessary. The following word começar in [T] is very strange and must be a scribal error: neither infinitive nor future subjunctive make any grammatical sense in this position. The [T] form bẽizer (or beĩzer, with the tilde floating between e and i in typical manuscript fashion) is also odd. My assumption is that it is intended as a two-syllable word, pronounced [bei̯nʣeɾ] with the same stressed sound as treinta, and functionally equivalent to synaeresis in the normal three-syllable bẽeizer. All in all, it's a tricky line to sort out. However, Stephen Parkinson notes in [SP2007] that the preposition a is not essential between the verb começar and its complement, citing CSM 84:53 Enton [...] começaron bẽeizer // a Virgen Santa Maria as evidence. I have therefore decided to reject Mettmann's deletion of E on stylistic grounds, and to sacrifice the a instead. This, in combination with the two-syllable bẽizer, which I have respelled beinzer to clarify the pronunciation, gives the desired syllable count, and rhymes, and makes sense.

Line 26:

In the absence of any attractive options for fashioning an extra syllable from the existing words in Mettmann's version of this line, I have added the word que after quantos on the model of CSM 165:23 (ta mercee no fal // a quantos que a demanda) and CSM 386:30 (e dest' acordados // foro quantos que i era des Tui ata Ocaa).

 ——
E1:

See the note to line 6 of the lyrics for explanation of this deletion.

E2:

See the note to lyric line 7.

Cantiga 115: Co séu be sempre ve

This cantiga has a minor metrical irregularity: in the first two stanzas, lines 1, 3 and 5 have a feminine rhyme, ending in an unstressed syllable (vẽe/tẽe/bẽe and d' ante/talante/andante), whereas in all subsequent stanzas, the corresponding lines have a masculine rhyme, ending in a stressed syllable (houv' i/aprendi/oi, moer/volonter/mester etc.) Mettmann appears to overlook this, and his metrical summary incorrectly implies that the feminine rhymes are preserved throughout.

Line 6:

All three manuscripts, and Mettmann, have vene in this line, tene in line 8 and bene in line 10, with the letter n in each case, not the tilde. The usual forms of these words are, of course, ven [βeŋ], ten [teŋ] and ben [beŋ], and the extra ('paragogic') syllables are pure metrical padding, even if they might be excused as archaisms (cf. Castilian viene, tiene) supported by analogy to the 2sg and 3pl verb forms vẽes, tẽen and the plural noun bẽes. Whatever the derivation, and despite the unexpected spelling, correct pronunciation clearly requires the velar nasal, i.e. [βeŋe], [teŋe], [beŋe], and not [βene] etc. I have modified the spelling accordingly. See [JMMS2002] p. 136, footnote 22, for further discussion of this unusual case.

Line 26:

The synalepha here works well musically, as the combined metrical syllable -ma ou- sits on a long plica .ood.

Line 53:

Mettmann ũu; [To] un; [T] ũu; [E] ũu.

Line 77:

Diaeresis: Pascoa requires three metrical syllables here, but only two in line 256 and generally elsewhere (also spelled Pasqua or Pascua). The only other case of diaeresis is in CSM 333:39 (Ca des Pasa i jouve).

Line 256:

Pascoa has just two metrical syllables here; contrast line 77.

 ——
E1:

The first four words of the refrain Con seu ben senpre are written out here in the manuscript, including the decorated capital C, but with no musical notation.

Cantiga 116: Dereit' é de lume dar

Line 21:

Diaeresis of muito to three metrical syllables is required here to fill out the line, and fits the music very well: mu- and -i- fall on short puncta .o + .o (the first two crotchets of line 5 line Elmes' edition).

Cantiga 117: Toda cousa que aa Virge seja prometuda

Line 1:

[E] has a a laid quite clearly under a single long virga .on in the music, so synaeresis of Mettmann's aa is called for here.

Cantiga 118: Fazer póde d' outri vivê-los séus fios

E1:

This natural sign appears to have been written carelessly too high on the stave in [E], but it can only apply at the pitch shown here.

E2:

This flat is missing from [E] but is necessary for the vuelta to match the refrain.

Cantiga 119: Como somos per consseo do démo perdudos

Line 22:

Mettmann (I, II) omẽes; [E] omees; [T] omees. Although forms of this word with the tilde do, of course, occur in the manuscripts, Mettmann does not normally add it, and to do so in this case seems particularly odd when the word must clearly be compressed to just two metrical syllables, in order to maintain the consistent 8 + 6 rhythm of the lines without a break in the middle of the word.

Line 25:

Mettmann diaboos; [T] diabos; [E] diaboos. Compare line 5, where diabos is found in [E], and occupies the same metrical position in the line as here.

Cantiga 120: Quantos me crevére loará

This is another cantiga in rondeau form. Compare CSM 41, CSM 143, CSM 279 and CSM 308.

E1:

In the manuscript, part of the refrain is written out again here, as usual. Unusually, the second stanza is then also written out, though omitting the two extra refrain lines required by the rondeau form. I have therefore supplied the missing bits here, for clarity, and to keep the lyric underlay straight.

Cantiga 121: De muitas maneiras busca a Virge esperital

Line 32:

Mettmann (I and II) has the hemistich bar between ca and x' este here, which doesn't match the line break in [E] or [T], or the scansion, or the sense.

Cantiga 122: Miragres muitos pelos reis faz Santa María

Line 1:

Diaeresis: reis requires two metrical syllables here, which is very clear from the text laid under the music in [E] and [T]. See also the note to CSM 1:36 for more on this word.

Cantiga 123: De Santa María sinal qual xe quér

Line 3:

Elmes line begins Da que quer..., where Da comes from [E]. Mettmann's Ca is from [T].

Line 23:

In this line I've substituted finar in place of Mettmann's fĩar, which is written that way in both manuscripts, but does not seem to indicate the likely pronunciation. The only other forms of the verb found in Mettmann are finada and finou, and [DDGM] does not list any other forms with clear [ŋ] (or even [ɲ]). Note also that the modern Galician and Portuguese word is "finar".

Cantiga 124: O que pola Virge leixa

Another cantiga in which every stanza ends in the middle of a sentence. There's really no scope for repeating the refrain between them without seriously disturbing the flow of the story.

Line 3:

This is a splendid example of just how much formulaic waffle can be packed into a single stanza of the cantigas. One can almost hear the original audience in Alfonso's court shouting "Get on with it!" in true Monty Python style.

Line 5:

Elmes begins this line with como vos eu quero contar, which is the wording found in [E]. [T] has como vos eu contar quero, which is superior metrically, as it preserves the final unstressed syllable found in the first hemistich of every other line of this cantiga. Mettmann also has contar quero, but his additional reversal of vos eu to eu vos is quite unjustified.

Cantiga 125: Muit' é maior o be-fazer da Virge Santa María

Line 5:

Mettmann observes in a footnote that direi at the end of the first hemistich here would normally be stressed on the final diphthong -ei, but in this case the stress must be on di- to preserve the final unstressed syllable found in all other lines. See also CSM 75:5 which has exactly the same issue.

Line 60:

Mettmann gaanney; [To] gãei; [T] gaãnei; [E] gaãney.

Line 84:

Mettmann te escaecemos; [To] te scaecemos; [T] te escaecemos; [E] te escaecemos.

Line 93:

Mettmann disso-ll'o; [To] disse-lle o; [T] dissoll o; [E] dissoll o.

Cantiga 126: De toda chaga be póde guarir

Line 2:

Curiously, the first repeat of this refrain in [E] ends with the word mentir rather than falir, but all subsequent repeats have falir again. Since there is no obvious reason for this single deviation—nothing in the first stanza would seem to justify it—I have not gone for the full treatment as a variant refrain along the lines of CSM 2 or 290.

 ——
E1:

The manuscript has another two staves at this point, with a decorated capital D and the text of the whole refrain (with the word mentir replacing falir at the end—see the note to lyric line 2) but without musical notation.

Cantiga 127: No pód' hóme pela Virge tanta coita endurar

Line 4:

Mettmann has Poe here, following [E] and [T]. I have substituted the form Poi which is found elsewhere (e.g. CSM 172:22, CSM 262:5), since oe does not normally represent a diphthong, and yet marking synaeresis would clearly be inappropriate in what is basically a foreign name (the town Puy-en-Velay in France, where the lentils come from). Beware though that Elmes has divided the syllables incorrectly in his underlaid text, conflating na ei- as if by synalepha into a single syllable at the start of line 8 of the music, and giving two syllables to Poe (split lentils?) The singer will therefore need to realign the words and notes so that eigreja starts on the second note of the line (E), do is on the first note of the third bar (C) and Poe (= Poi) follows on the long falling ligature.

Line 40:

Mettmann pee; [T] pe; [E] pee.

Cantiga 129: De todo mal e de toda ferida

Line 9:

The word até is almost always followed by eno/ena/enas so I have kept eno here and marked synalepha, rather than shortening it to no. However, CSM 33:32 has be ate nos fondamentos, so be ate no toutiço would be acceptable here too. Note also that [T], which has the music written out for the second stanza here, has atẽeno laid under three notes/ligatures .on + .oyo + .o, confirming that this is the right place in the line for the metrical fix.

Cantiga 130: Que entender quisér, entendedor seja

E1:

The score in [E] ends with a blank 5-line stave at the top of the second column, with text but no music.

Cantiga 131: E tamaa coita no póde seer hóme

Line 7:

It is hard to be certain whether the x in Aleixí should be given a native Galician-Portuguese pronunciation as /ʃ/ (= "sh" in English), or should keep the Latin pronunciation /ks/ from "Alexius". However, I would be inclined to the former for two reasons: firstly, the word already has a nativized diphthong -ei- before the x; and secondly, the "x" in similar classical names such as "Alexandre" and "Alexandría" is pronounced /ʃ/ in modern Portuguese and Galician.

Line 71:

Synalepha seems to be the only option for shortening this line, even though the combined metrical syllable falls on a single short note in the music, effectively squeezing the first word E out of existence.

Cantiga 132: Que leixar Santa María por outra, fará folía

Line 61:

Mettmann seer; [To] ser; [T] seer; [E] seer.

Line 93:

Synalepha is obligatory with the unstressed personal pronoun ti; see the note to CSM 15:54.

 ——
E1:

Very unusually, the first few notes of the stanza music are written out again here in the manuscript, although there is no underlaid text.

Cantiga 133: Resurgir póde e fazê-los séus vivê-la Virge

Line 18:

Mettmann II has a el changiu here, a most curious insertion given that the word el is absent from Mettmann I and both manuscripts, does not fit the metre, and is unnecessary (though not contrary) to the sense (outra vez a changiu = "once again he lamented her", i.e. the father lamented the daughter).

Cantiga 135: Aquel podedes jurar que é be de mal guardado

Line 64:

seer is reduced by synaeresis to one metrical syllable here, but the word gets a comfortable three-note plicated ligature .rowon in the music.

Line 136:

Synalepha in novio a fits the musical phrasing much better than synalepha in novia e, and the combined metrical syllable -vio a falls conveniently on a two-note .oso ligature, so the natural syllables are preserved in singing.

Cantiga 136: Poi-las figuras faze dos santos renembrança

E1:

This flat appears as no more than a tiny dot in Anglés' facsimile of [E], but it is at the correct vertical position, and comparison with the vuelta and the restated refrain at the end confirms that it is required.

Cantiga 137: Sempr' acha Santa María razô verdadeira

Line 4:

See the note to line 35.

Line 35:

In this line I've taken the rather unusual step of restoring an elided vowel in one place and then marking synaeresis in another. The reason is that in almost every other line of this cantiga there are rhythmic units of 8 and 6 syllables, corresponding closely to the musical phrasing, with no words split across units. In this line, however, oos spans the unit boundary if perdesse is elided. It is better, therefore, to use the full form of this word, and compensate with synaeresis in pées, which is easily justifiable since it occurs elsewhere (e.g. CSM 213:66) and the shorter form pés is quite common. (When I say "almost every other line", this unfortunately excludes line 4, which is a bit of a fly in the ointment: the rhythmic boundary there is in the middle of the word éra and cannot be fixed so easily. See also the note to line 38.)

Line 38:

Synaeresis in seer would be the "obvious" resolution to the extra metrical syllable in this line, but elision of podésse is actually better in this case since, as discussed in the note to line 35, it avoids having a word that spans the boundary between rhythmic sub-units. By the way, if you are doubtful as to whether podéss' seer is actually pronounceable, observe that line 25 above has perdess' sa alma, which is found in that exact form in both Mettmann and [E].

Cantiga 138: Que a Santa María de coraçô rogar

Line 55:

Expanding tod' to its full form todo to make up for the missing metrical syllable in this line is not a particularly satisfying resolution, since the phrase phrase todo aquesto does not appear anywhere else: it is invariably tod' aquesto. However, it is perhaps the least of several evils. Firstly, although diaeresis in viu occurs many times elsewhere, it is of no use here, as it would break the rhyme and scansion: an unstressed final [u] in viü cannot rhyme with the stressed final [iu̯] in faliu and saiu. Diaeresis in pois, on the other hand, is not found elsewhere, and doesn't work well musically in this case. Finally, expanding Sa to Santo might just about be acceptable, except that the latter form, when it serves as a title, is generally reserved for Santo Tomas (since "San Tomas" might be heard as "santo mas").

Line 58:

Again, various resolutions suggested themselves for the missing metrical syllable in this line. Apart from possible diaeresis of foi to two syllables, alternatives include adding the definite article a at the start of the line, giving a sa alma foi, or expanding Sa to Santo. The resolution I've chosen though is to add the word i after foi, on the model of CSM 259:17 e foro i u es ela mandou, since the accidental scribal omission of i after the same letter in foi is quite plausible.

Cantiga 139: Maraviosos e pïadosos e mui fremosos miragres faz

Line 23:

Diaeresis in mui resolves the missing metrical syllable here.

Line 48:

The verb seerás is compressed by synaeresis to two metrical syllables here (as the infinitive seer commonly is elsewhere).

Cantiga 140: A Santa María dadas seja loores honrradas

Line 9:

[T] has the music for the second stanza written out, and the word mercee is clearly laid under just two notes .o + .on, confirming the synaeresis that I have marked here.

Cantiga 141: Que muit' honrrar o nome da Seor comprida

Line 2:

Elmes has outra instead of outro here, a simple typo (no outro agrees with mundo, not vida).

Line 42:

Synaeresis in ángeos (normally with three natural syllables) is required to fit the metre, but works fine musically as -geos falls on a three-note ligature .eyeye.

Cantiga 143: Que algũa cousa quisér pedir

Another rondeau. Compare CSM 41, CSM 120, CSM 279 and CSM 308.

E1:

As in Cantiga 120 I have filled in the missing bits of the rondeau refrain here in order to keep the lyric underlay straight.

Cantiga 145: O que pola Virge de grado séus dões dér

E1:

A final empty stave follows in the manuscript with text up to seus dões but no musical notation.

Cantiga 146: Que comendar de coraçô a Santa María o séu

Line 41:

Both manuscripts have the plural sandeus here, and Mettmann reproduces it, obviously taking it as an attributive adjective modifying ẽemigos (he writes de teus ẽemigos sandeus with no comma). José Filgueira Valverde's translation into Spanish is also based on the same interpretation, as he writes "de tus sandios enemigos". However, the resulting non-rhyme defendeu / contendeu / sandeus would be quite unique in the Cantigas de Santa Maria, which is sufficient in itself to rule out this reading. Instead, I think the originally intended word must have been the singular noun sandeu used as a vocative by the desperate mother to her son, i.e. "There are bad people there, (of) your enemies, you fool, and I know well that nothing will save you from death." This must then have been misinterpreted a dozy scribe somewhere along the copying chain, who wrongly "corrected" it to the form that has survived.

Cantiga 147: A Madre do que a bestia de Balaam falar fez

Concerning the refrain of this cantiga, it would be entirely inappropriate for me to draw attention to the possibility of the performer making terrible jokes involving talking sheep and "baa lambs". So I won't.

Line 1:

The music in [E] has just a single ligature .onwad for the -laam of Balaam, which seems to be a simple mistake on the part of the musical scribe, since this hemistich should clearly have seven syllables to match the rest of the cantiga. See the Music tab for the suggested solution.

 ——
E1:

The music is short of a syllable here: Balaam needs its three natural syllables for the metre, but only gets two separate ligatures. This substitution fixes the problem, matching not only the vuelta at E2 and E3, and the reprise of the refrain at E4, but also the version in the [T] manuscript.

Cantiga 149: Fól é a desmesura que dulta

E1:

The stem on this flat appears to merge into the preceding division in Anglés' facsimile, giving one long line.

E2:

A final blank stave follows with text up to tornada but no music.

Cantiga 151: Sempr' a Virge, de Déus Madre, busca vías

E1:

[E] has a G on the stave here, but this doesn't match the refrain or make a lot of musical sense. Looking at Anglés' facsimile of [E] it is just about possible to make out what looks like a correction in the left margin, so I have made the corresponding change here.

Cantiga 153: Que quér que te e desdê a Santa María

Line 44:

Somebody involved in the preparation of the text of Mettmann II seems to have got a bit muddled at this point about what was supposed to rhyme with what, though the mistake is so daft that it seems rather doubtful that it was Mettmann himself. As his summary of the metrical and rhyming scheme correctly indicates, this line is in fact meant to rhyme with the penultimate line of every other stanza, the rhyme being [i.a] (romaría, perfía etc.) The text in [E] and [T], which is correct in Mettmann I and which I have restored here, does exactly that. In Mettmann II, however, the words have been juggled incorrectly such that the line reads e ya por veela (where ya = ía), presumably intending that this should rhyme with séla and donzéla in this same stanza, but unfortunately overlooking the non-rhyme between open [ɛ] in the latter words and close [e] in veê-la.

Line 44:

Whatever the word order, synaeresis is required here in veê-la, but this is unremarkable as it occurs rather often in forms of the verb veer.

Cantiga 155: Alí u a pẽedença do pecador vai minguar

Line 3:

Synaeresis is very clearly required in seer here, as the whole word is laid under a single .oso ligature in the music in [E] and [T]. However, the two notes of the ligature allow the word to keep its two natural syllables when sung.

Line 6:

Elmes misses the final r in enderençar.

Line 45:

The word ao is compressed by synaeresis to one metrical syllable here, but it falls on a two-note ligature .oso in the music.

Cantiga 157: Déus por sa Madre castiga

Line 25:

Diaeresis in muito is really the only available resolution for the metrical shortfall in the first hemistich here, but it is at least found in the same word in CSM 116:21. The musical result in this case is acceptable, if not exactly scintillating.

Cantiga 158: De muitas guisas los presos sólta a mui grorïosa

Line 6:

The intended synaeresis in cobiiçosa here is quite clear from the text laid under the music in [E], where the compressed metrical syllable -bii- gets just a single long note .on.

Cantiga 159: No sofre Santa María de seere perdidosos

Line 9:

Synaeresis in aa is required to fit the metre here, and is quite common elsewhere.

Line 14:

Diaeresis in séu might in theory be used to resolve the missing metrical syllable here, but it is not found elsewhere in this word (nor in related words like méu and téu), and is musically a bit clunky here. Instead, I suggest the insertion of the definite article o which is optional before the possessive, and could quite plausibly have been left out accidentally by the scribe.

Cantiga 160: Que bõa dona querrá loar

Line 8:

The music for the entire cantiga is written out in full in [E], and Elmes (following this manuscript) has seerá in this line. However see- is laid under a single ligature .ra, implying a case of synaeresis that is equivalent to the shorter form será found in [T].

 ——
E1:

This long ligature and all similar ones have a small vertical bar in the middle after .oodraa which Neumat cannot currently represent.

E2:

In [E] all reprises of the refrain are written as Quen bõa dona instead of Santa María.

E3:

Note the lack of the double line augmentation after this note, in contrast to the other stanzas. It is presumably a scribal error.

E4:

The [E] lyric scribe repeats querrá by mistake at the beginning of this stave, but the music scribe ignores it.

E5:

The score ends before the last refrain. It looks very much as though the [E] lyric scribe really didn't quite understand what he was copying. I have added it here for completeness.

Cantiga 161: Poder há Santa María, a Seor de pïadade

Line 5:

[E] appears to have seẽr or sẽer in the first hemistich here, which is a rather unusual form, although the second e has mark below which may be intended to indicate a deletion. Elmes has "seér", since his first volume uses "é" as a substitute for "ẽ" in all cases. However, Mettmann's interpretation as ser (= seer with synaeresis) is clearly correct, and I have kept it here.

Line 6:

Elmes has "be" in place of [E] ben, a simple typo.

Cantiga 162: A sas figuras muit' honrrar devemos

This Cantiga is exceptional in that the metre appears to change deliberately partway through. In all three manuscripts, the first two stanzas are 8-10-8-10-8-8 and the remaining ones are 8-10-8-10-8-10. However the music, as usual, is only written out for the first stanza. Fortunately, a solution for fitting the extended stanzas to the music is rather obvious. The last line of music has a descending scale of four notes for two syllables, which are written as .oyo + .oron over -ger mal in the first stanza, but which can very comfortably be broken into four separate puncta (.o + .o + .o + .o) keeping the same pitches, thereby accommodating two more syllables at the points indicated by the double underline in my text. To apply this to Elmes' edition, just remove the A-G and F-E slurs in his penultimate bar and fit four syllables to the four crotchets.

E1:

See the main note on the Lyrics tab for an explanation of the metrical breaking on this ligature and the following plica from stanzas III to the end.

Cantiga 165: Nïú poder deste mundo de gente nada no val

E1:

This transcription is based solely on Cantiga 165 in [E], and does not incorporate any differences in CSM 395.

Cantiga 169: A que por nos salvar fezo Déus Madr' e Fia

Line 8:

The word tiía must keep its three natural syllables in order for the first hemistich of this line to match the other stanzas. However, in the music in both [E] and [T], the whole word is laid under just two notes/ligatures .e + .ra, as if tii- were compressed by synaeresis. In order to fit all stanzas to the music, though, I think it is better rhythmically to leave these notes alone, and instead break the clivis .royo at the end of the phrase into virga .on + punctum .o (as shown at E3 on the music tab) thereby matching the structure of the preceding three stanza lines. With reference to Elmes' edition, this means replacing the DC slur in the fourth bar of line 6 with separate D (minim) + C (crotchet) notes, and then expanding "ti-ian" to "ti-i-an" to fill out the underlay.

Line 26:

The first hemistich here is short of a syllable in the original, and given that it also has final stress (in Aragón) which is at odds with the metrical scheme, it would appear that the syllable is missing from the end, technically speaking. The use of melisma here therefore seems likely to have been the intention, i.e. drawing out -gón over the two notes .on + .o, paralleling the syllable -rrar of honrrar on the two-note clivis .royo in the refrain. (This is in effect the opposite of the fix for line 8.)

 ——
E1:

This flat symbol has a very unusual form for the [E] manuscript, being much more like the more familiar b shape. This suggests that it may have been written in as a later correction, since the flat at E3 has the regular form.

E2:

See the note to lyric line 26 for an explanation of the melisma on this note in stanza VI.

E3:

See E1.

E4:

See the note to lyric line 8 for discussion of the substitution I've made here in order to fit all stanzas to the music.

Cantiga 170: Loar devemos a que sempre faz be

Line 15:

Here seer is reduced to a single metrical syllable by synaeresis, as it commonly is elsewhere. [T], which has the music written out for all stanzas, confirms this by assigning the word just a single ligature .oyo. [E] has the musically equivalent .oron at the same position in the melody.

Cantiga 171: Santa María grandes faz miragres e saborosos

In both [E] and [T], this cantiga has a total of five lines which are missing a metrical syllable, but the usual fixes of employing diaeresis or substituting a longer synonym only work in two cases. For the others, to avoid the absolute last resort of drawn out short vowels, I have taken the liberty of adding common filler words—i (adv.), o (pron.) and óra (adv.)—as these do not significantly alter the meaning, and could plausibly have been omitted by scribal accident. See the individual footnotes below for details.

Line 25:

Here I have added the word i (= "there") which seems to be the least intrusive word that could fill the metrical gap. I have placed it at the beginning of the line for two reasons. First, it seems the best fit for the natural spoken rhythm of the words. Second, the fact that it then follows an identical but stressed vowel in assí makes it perhaps more plausible that the scribe could have overlooked it.

Line 32:

In this line I have inserted the word o on the model of CSM 124:4 e o contaro a mi, CSM 183:25 que o contaro a mi, and similar formulaic expressions. Accidental scribal omission of this o after the same vowel in como seems quite likely.

Line 43:

óra seems to be the most neutral filler word here, and although adding two new syllables requires synaeresis in seer to compensate, the latter is very common and the result feels quite natural.

Line 45:

Here it is possible to resolve the missing metrical syllable by expanding no to eno, on the model of CSM 138:20 fórono meter // eno camio que devia tẽer.

Line 47:

This is a very unusual case where the unstressed clitic mi does not combine with the following vowel (via synalepha) to form a diphthong.

Line 51:

Diaeresis occurs in viu more often than in any other word, and is therefore a good resolution for this line's metrical shortfall.

 ——
E1:

This clef and note are inexplicably missing from the manuscript. I have positioned both to match the following clef on the same stave after the decorated capital.

Cantiga 173: Tantas e Santa María so mercees e bondades

Mettmann observes that at least one stanza appears to have gone missing from this cantiga (between the third and fourth stanzas that remain) even though there are no gaps in the manuscripts. What Mettmann fails to mention, however, is the fact that in both [E] and [T] the metre changes after this omission, with all masculine rhymes (final stress) gaining a syllable and becoming feminine (penultimate stress). Indeed, his usual footnote summarising the metre is conspicuous in its absence, indicating perhaps that he saw the problem but could not decide what to do about it. Stephen Parkinson [SP2012] likens the cantiga to the welding together of the halves of two stolen cars, and presents a convincing case for the text being the result of the accidental conflation of sections from two independently composed cantigas on the same miracle story.

Performance-wise, given the gap and the change in metre, this cantiga might reasonably be reserved for a purely instrumental interpretation. However, for the sake of completeness, I suggest the following solution for singers: where there is a single perfected virga .on at the end of the musical phrase, carrying the final stressed syllable of dizer, creer, acorrer, mal, mortal etc., this can be split into a .o + .on pair with the same duration, thereby matching the rhythm of the refrain. (Referring to Elmes' edition, the dotted minim should be divided into crotchet + minim.) These two notes can then take the final two syllables of carreira, enteira, and so on, at the points indicated by double underlining in my text.

Line 14:

The missing stanza(s) would follow from this point; see main footnote to this cantiga.

 ——
E1:

See the main note to the lyrics for discussion of the breaking of the single virga .on into a punctum .o + virga .on pair here and at E2 and E3 in stanzas IV and V.

Cantiga 174: Como aa Virge pesa de que érra a cïente

E1:

The first stem on the preceding plica looks to be crossed out in the manuscript facsimile, but there's no obvious reason why. It may be the result of scribal error or bad retouching.

Cantiga 175: Por dereito te a Virge, a Seor de lealdade

E1:

It appears that the scribe lost track of the clef change at this point, and wrote the remainder of the stave a third too low.

Cantiga 176: Soltar póde muit' agia os presos e os lïados

Line 5:

Mettmann tĩian; [T] tĩan; [E] tĩjan. Synaeresis is clearly intended in [E], which has tĩjan laid under just two notes/ligatures .on + .bowowa, implying two syllables.

Line 5:

This line is a fine example of the music scribes, both in [E] and [T], blithely copying the refrain music as the vuelta even though the metrics are different and the words don't fit. Specifically, the music for the second hemistich has eight individual notes/ligatures, which fit the 7' metre of the refrain with its feminine rhyme, but not the plain 7 with masculine rhyme in the stanza. The fact that the lyrics were amended by a later hand to que foi ben ontr' eles caer is of no use to us whatsoever: this painfully naïve "correction" might allow us to sing the first stanza to the music, but it messes up the poetic metre and does nothing to fix the following stanzas—we can't insert ben in all of them! So, to make all stanza lyrics work with the minimum of rhythmic disruption, it seems that the only defensible option is to join up .ood and .on at the end of this line into one ligature, such that the final word stress falls at the same musical point. This is what I've done at E1 in the music transcription. The resulting shape .ohodwwwon is not one that I've seen elsewhere, but the intention is of course that it should sound exactly like the .ood + .on combination that it replaces, only with a single syllable sung to it.

 ——
E1:

This flat is missing in [E], but comparison with the previous phrase confirms that it should be there.

E2:

See the footnotes to line 5 of the lyrics for an explanation of the change I have made here.

Cantiga 177: No vos é gra maravia de lum' ao cégo dar

Line 21:

Synaeresis is very common in forms of the verb veer.

Cantiga 180: Véa e Minia, Madr' e Donzéla

Line 50:

Synaeresis is very common in the word mercee. In this particular case the compressed metrical syllable -cee falls on a two-note ligature .oyo in the music, so the natural length is preserved in singing.

Line 59:

The syllable count and the rhyme in these two extra lines indicate that they should be sung to the music for the last two lines of a normal stanza, not the first two. Compare CSM 337 which also has a short final stanza.

 ——
E1:

The refrain words Vella e are repeated at the end of the score in [E] but no notes are written above them.

Cantiga 181: Pero que seja a gente d' outra lei e descreúda

Line 1:

Mettmann inserts the word e in the second hemistich here to fix both the metre and the sense (the adjective descreúda modifies gente, not lei) although the word is in neither [E] nor [T]. However, this means that the refrain music in [E] is one note/ligature short. The same problem arises in the vuelta, where in both manuscripts just four notes/ligatures are written over what should be the word perigoosa, with the five syllables required by the metre—though in fact [T] has perigosa and [E] the aberrant form periigosa. In order to fit all stanzas to the music, I have therefore chosen to split the .raron ligatures at E1 and E2 into .ra + .ron (see the Music tab) which gives the best rhythmic result, in my opinion. (Elmes' solution is to split the preceding .owo ligatures, but to my ear that leads to rather awkward, rushed syllable sequences in most stanzas. Note also that although Elmes does split the .owo ligature above lei in the refrain, he doesn't actually insert the word e but instead wrongly divides lei as "le-i".)

Line 5:

See note to line 1.

 ——
E1:

See the main note to the lyrics for an explanation of the changes here and at E2.

Cantiga 184: A Madre de Déus tant' há e si gra vertude

Line 10:

Mettmann I and II les; [E] les; [T] lles. Mettmann should have chosen the correct form from [T] here, not the Castilianism in [E]. Compare CSM 57:16 which has the same problem.

Cantiga 185: Poder há Santa María grande d' os séus acorrer

Line 37:

Mettmann (I and II) edits the end of this line as nos queremos tornar-nos, with a hyphen, presumably interpreting the first nos as subject (= nós) and the second as a reflexive pronoun. However, the rhyme requires that the final word be nós with the open vowel [ɔ], so it seems that this must be the subject word (as a sort of emphatic afterthought) and the first nos the reflexive. Grammatically weird, perhaps, but then grammatical weirdness for the sake of a rhyme is more the rule than the exception in the CSM.

Line 38:

Synalepha here works well with the music, as the combined metrical syllable se en falls on a comfortable three-note ligature .eyeye.

Cantiga 186: Que na Virge santa muito fïará

Line 6:

Both [E] and [T] have valesse la here, but this seems to be a Castilian influenced scribal copying error.

 ——
E1:

The manuscript has an abbreviated reprise of the refrain here followed by the first part of the music for the second stanza. I have hidden the latter in order to keep the lyric underlay straight. (Cantiga 188 has the same unusual feature.)

Cantiga 187: Gra fé devía hóm' haver e Santa María

E1:

This transcription is based solely on Cantiga 187 in [E], and does not incorporate any differences in CSM 394.

E2:

All the notes in this reprise of the refrain were written a third too low in the manuscript. I've taken the easy option here and corrected the clef position rather than all the notes.

Cantiga 188: Coraçô d' hóm' ou de moér que a Virge muit' amar

Line 1:

The accent has to be on the first syllable of moér in this line (in contrast to the normal pronunciation of the word), in order for the first hemistich to end in an unstressed syllable like all others in this Cantiga.

 ——
E1:

As in cantiga 186, the manuscript has an abbreviated reprise of the refrain followed by the start of the music for the second stanza, so I have likewise hidden the latter so as to keep the lyric underlay in order.

Cantiga 189: Be póde Santa María guarir de toda poçô

E1:

This is one of the rare cases of an explicit E-flat in the Cantigas de Santa Maria. There is another at E2.

Cantiga 190: Pouco devemos preçar o démo

Scholarly opinion seems to be divided over what should be the correct structure for this Cantiga de Loor, so I present it here in its most basic form and outline a couple of options for performing it.

The first option is to treat the first stanza Pouco devemos preçar... as a regular refrain. This was the approach taken by Mettmann in his first edition (1959), and the manuscript version in [E] can certainly be interpreted that way, albeit with a couple of oddities. First, if Pouco devemos preçar... is a refrain, then there is no separate music written out for the stanzas, and so it has to be assumed that the refrain and stanzas have the same music—no great problem, though perhaps a bit dull. Second, in the [E] text, the reprise line Pouco devemos preçar is written again immediately before the first stanza and not after it, although the reprise does appear in normal fashion at the end of all subsequent stanzas. That much could easily be attributed to a bad day in the scriptorium.

Option two—which I think is perhaps better for singing—takes Pouco devemos preçar... as just a stanza like the rest, but then repeats the last two lines of each stanza as a kind of variable refrain. This structure seems to be intended in [T], since at the end of each stanza in that manuscript the third line is restated in red with a decorated capital, in the manner of a regular reprise (see the facsimile link on the Resources tab). That being so, it is plainly essential that the fourth line que nos caudela also be repeated, since otherwise the melody is left hanging and unresolved, rather than ending on the expected final note for the mode. Note that Mettmann's 1988 text, which only restates the third line, is quite clearly flawed from a musical standpoint.

Whichever option is chosen, there should be no problem using Elmes' edition of the music; just repeat lines in the pattern (1234|1234|...) or (1234|34|1234|34|...) as necessary.

E1:

See the main note to the lyrics.

Cantiga 191: O que de Santa María sa mercee be gaaa

Line 2:

Elmes' "astranna" at the end of this line is a simple typographical error.

 ——
E1:

This note is smudged in the manuscript, but a virga .on at this position matches the first refrain.

Cantiga 192: Muitas vegadas o dém' enganados te os hómes

Line 37:

Diaeresis in mais here works satisfactorily with the musical structure. See also line 69, where it occurs again, with mais in the same position in an identical phrase of music.

Line 69:

See note to line 37.

Line 119:

Mettmann lee; T lee; E 192 lee; E 397 ley.

 ——
E1:

This transcription is based on Cantiga 192 in [E], and does not incorporate any differences in Cantiga 397 other than the one at E2.

E2:

The second note of this ligature appears to be crossed out in Cantiga 192, which matches the simple .on at this position in Cantiga 397.

Cantiga 193: Sôbelos fondos do mar e nas alturas da térra

Mettmann assigns this cantiga to his metrical class XIII, which is not quite right: it implies eight syllables with an unstressed final for every hemistich, including the refrain. In fact, the very first hemistich obviously has just seven syllables and final stress.

Line 49:

Diaeresis is fairly common in 3rd person single preterite verb forms, such as serviu here. In this example, the musical result is quite pleasant, with each of the three syllables falling on a single long note. Interestingly, [T] has the noun serviço in place of serviu, which does scan correctly, but makes no sense in isolation given that the rest of the stanza is identical with [E]. This suggests that another verb may have been lost at some point along the copying chain: for example, the text might originally have said: e fez dali adeante | sempre serviço de grado (or e_el fez... with synalepha) or perhaps e el dali adeante | sempre serviço de grado // fezo a Santa Maria | ....

 ——
E1:

There's just the tiniest hint of a flat symbol here in the manuscript facsimile, but it is clearly necessary by comparison with other phrases.

Cantiga 194: Como o nome da Virge é aos bõos fremoso

Line 9:

[T] has the music written out for this stanza, and cobiiça is laid under just three notes .on + .o + .o, indicating that synaeresis is necessary.

Line 32:

Mettmann ũu; [T] un; [E] ũu. In Mettmann's version of this line, the first hemistich has one syllable too many, whilst the second is missing one. Keeping ũu from [E] and carrying the syllable -tro of outro over into the second hemistich might work in theory (compare CSM 12:23 fe- zera and CSM 419:78 Jo- safas), but rhythmically and musically it sounds dreadful. I have therefore used the [T] form in the first hemistich and, in the absence of any scope for diaeresis in the second, inserted the filler word ja, which doesn't greatly affect the meaning.

Line 41:

Synalepha here works well musically: the combined metrical syllable -to o- falls on a two-note .ra ligature, so the natural hiatus is preserved in singing.

 ——
E1:

From comparison with other music phrases, this single .owo ligature looks like a scribal error, so I have replaced it with the pair of puncta .o + .o found elsewhere.

Cantiga 195: Quena fésta e o día da mui Grorïosa quisér guardar

Line 4:

The word seer is laid under a single short punctum .o in the music in [E], so the synaeresis is clearly intended.

Line 26:

The compressed metrical syllable -bii- resulting from synaeresis in cobiiçasse also falls on a short punctum in the music. However, synaeresis is required elsewhere in half-a-dozen other words with the stem cobiiç-, so it's obviously intended here.

Cantiga 196: Sempre puou muit' a Virge

Line 6:

The word éra is neatly laid under a single virga .on in the music in [E], and another single note follows, so I have chosen elision over synalepha here. Elmes also has ér' in his edition.

Cantiga 197: Como quér que gra poder há o dém' e fazer mal

Line 14:

Mettmann has fillase here, whereas [E] has fillasse; this error is not counted on the Corrections page since I cannot currently mark one of my own edits as being both a correction and a scansion fix (i.e. elision).

 ——
E1:

This note is missing from [E], most likely as a result of scribal confusion due to the caesura in this line being after poder á, whereas it is between the same two words in the refrain. I've restored it here by analogy with fazen in the next line.

Cantiga 198: Muitas vezes vólv' o démo as gentes

Line 6:

Synaeresis in seer is clearly indicated in [E], where the whole word is laid under a single long plica .oron in the music, and therefore has just one metrical syllable.

Cantiga 200: Santa María loei e loo e loarei

Line 34:

This is another example of obligatory synalepha after the unstressed personal pronoun mi, which (almost) always forms a diphthong with a following vowel.

 ——
E1:

The original single .oyyjon ligature seems to have been written here with synaeresis in omees in mind (the shorter form omes being very common). However, this doesn't match the metre of the remaining stanzas, so the word needs to keep its three natural syllables, and hence two virgae .on + .on are required here, matching the first phrase of the stanza music. Elmes' edition takes the same approach, without comment.

Cantiga 201: Muit' é mais a pïadade de Santa María

The stanzas of this cantiga are divided into hemistichs in Mettmann's second edition, but not in his first.

E1:

The music for this line is the same as the first line of the refrain, as would commonly be expected in the vuelta, but the metrics are different and this caesura line is in the wrong place. The same is true for the last line, though there the music scribe has put the line in the right place but then got more confused and left out the next note.

E2:

See E1.

Cantiga 202: Muito há Santa María, Madre de Déus, gra sabor

Line 21:

My spelling system in this edition preserves final -m in Latin words, but the rhyme in this stanza does suggest—very plausibly—that final nasal consonants were not distinguished even when Latin words were involved (although whether the vowels o and u rhyme as well is another question). On the other hand, since this entire cantiga is about the search for a rhyme to which Nobile Triclinium is the eventual solution, it is perhaps wise to exercise caution in drawing any conclusions from this stanza.

Cantiga 204: Aquel que a Virge Santa María quisér servir

Line 32:

The original word vírgẽes in the first hemistich here is naturally stressed on the first syllable, but a word with antepenultimate stress is clearly not permissible metrically. Rather than require the stress to move unnaturally to the second syllable, therefore, I have substituted virgens [βiɾʤeŋs] (functionally equivalent to synaeresis) and inserted the definite article as before the possessive to compensate.

Cantiga 205: Oraçô co pïadade oe a Virge de grado

E1:

The flat is missing from this stave in [E], but it is clearly required so as to keep the two repeated phrases of the mudanza consistent.

Cantiga 208: Aquele que ena Virge carne por seer veúdo fiou

Line 6:

Mettmann (I and II) has the word ca at the beginning of this line, matching [E], but notes (in II) that "the sentence is incomplete". However, the word is conspicuously lacking a note in the music in [E], and without it the sentence is indeed grammatically complete (the final clause no longer being subordinate), and has the correct number of syllables. I have therefore chosen to delete it. Note that Elmes keeps ca and elides seja o to sej' o instead, so the singer will need to realign the words slightly to make my version fit. Finally, note that in [F] this line is missing, as the surviving text starts at the last line of the third stanza, so this manuscript cannot lend any support Mettmann's inclusion of the word ca.

 ——
E1:

The manuscript has an extra word ca here but it has no music and appears redundant. See also my notes on the text.

Cantiga 210: Muito foi nóss' amigo Gabrïél

Line 3:

Elmes has "tido" in place of tigo, a simple typographical error.

Line 5:

Elmes has "prederia" in place of prendería, another typo.

 ——
E1:

This transcription is based solely on Cantiga 210 in [E], and does not incorporate any differences in CSM 416 (FSM 6).

Cantiga 211: Apóstos miragres faz todavía

Line 6:

The intended synaeresis in cobiiçar is clear from the musical underlay, where the word is assigned just three notes implying three syllables: .o + .ron + .o in [E] and .o + .o + .o in [To].

 ——
E1:

The flats are missing from [E] here and at E3, but both are obviously necessary from comparison of repeated phrases and for overall consistency.

E2:

This stave has two clefs; fortunately, their positioning is consistent.

E3:

See E1.

Cantiga 213: Que sérve Santa María, a Seor mui verdadeira

Elision of pera to per' immediately before the definite article is rare, the only other example in Mettmann being CSM 18:17 per' a omage onrrar. I have chosen it here over synalepha, however, since a combined metrical syllable -rao would fall on a single short note, and be somewhat awkward to pronounce.

Line 53:

Mettmann comigo; [F] migo; [E] comigo.

Line 66:

Synaeresis in pées also works well against the music, as the word benefits from a long plica .ood. The short form pés is quite common elsewhere.

Line 81:

Mettmann pera o ceo; [F] pera ceo; [E] pera o ceo. The [F] reading without the definite article is supported by CSM 313:51 os ollos a ceo alçou in [E], though in fact there the roles are reversed and [F] has a o ceo.

 ——
E1:

There are too many notes and ligatures in this line, and this one isn't there in the refrain, so it would seem to be an error.

Cantiga 214: Como a demais da gente quér gãar per falssidade

Only the first three stanzas of this cantiga survive in [F].

Line 3:

Elmes has goyos at the beginning of the second hemistich, which is the form found in [E]. Mettmann's jogos comes from [F] and makes rather more sense in the context of the story.

Line 4:

Elmes' averan at the start of this line appears to be a simple typo.

Line 33:

Compare CSM 122:1, which also requires diaeresis in reis.

 ——
E1:

See E2.

E2:

This ligature is a complete mess in [E], and seems to have been confused with the previous one. However, it appears that the bits that aren't crossed out are more or less equivalent to the corresponding long plica at E1 in the refrain (albeit raised one position on the stave), so I've replaced it accordingly.

Cantiga 215: Co gra razô é que seja de Jeso-Crist' amparada

Just as in the preceding CSM 214, only the first three stanzas of this cantiga survive in [F] (although in [F] these two cantigas are not adjacent).

Line 39:

An alternative resolution for the extra syllable in the second hemistich of this line might be to keep the original ũu and employ synaeresis in péego. However, contraction of ũu is very common, whereas this is the only occurrence of péego in all of the Cantigas, so I think it is better to let the latter word keep its three natural syllables.

Cantiga 216: O que e Santa María de coraçô confïar

E1:

The word Maria is missing from the manuscript here, but fortunately the music scribe wrote in the notes.

Cantiga 217: No dev' a entrar nu' hóme na eigreja da Seor

E1:

There aren't many natural signs in the [E] manuscript, but here is one example, and there are others in CSM 118, 341, 359, 371 and 376. Note, by the way, that this natural immediately overrides the flat before the previous long .on on A, making that accidental completely redundant.

Cantiga 218: Razô ha de seere séus miragres contados

Line 19:

Synaeresis is very common in forms of the verb veer, and works well musically in the form viía here, as the compressed metrical syllable vii- falls on a three-note ligature .onyeye.

Line 49:

Mettmann (I and II) has offrecções with a spurious c, whilst [E] has offereções with a surplus e. This form corresponds to offreções in [F], with my normal spelling changes applied (ff → f). Compare CSM 145:46 and CSM 85:60.

Cantiga 219: No convê aa omage da Madre do grorïoso Rei

E1:

It's very hard to see this clef in the manuscript, but it's there, written over the bottom flourish on the decorated capital.

Cantiga 220: E quena no loará a que todo mal tóe

This cantiga looks a bit difficult to sort out at first, as there are three surplus metrical syllables in the first stanza, and yet the music in [E] has a separate note for each one. However, if we compare the musical phrases of the refrain with those of the stanza, a resolution is readily apparent. Specifically, the refrain music for a que todo mal toe e todo is exactly the same as the stanza music for Ca muito é gra dereito que d' angeos, except that the plica .ohod and ligature .owo have each been broken into separate puncta .o + .o. (In Elmes' edition, these are the notes F-G on -to é in the second bar of line 4, and C-D on ge-os in the second bar of line 5). Likewise, the music for e nos todo mal toe no mundo e in the second line of the stanza is the same again, but with just the .owo from the refrain broken into two puncta (Elmes C-D on -do e). The resolution, therefore, is to join these puncta back together as the corresponding ligated forms; this makes the second and third stanzas completely normal, and just requires us to view the first stanza as having two cases of synalepha and one of synaeresis.

Line 2:

Mettmann splits this line into two, between mal and tóe, but then claims in his metrical summary that these two lines have six and seven syllables respectively, which is clearly not the case—it would be five and eight. (The elision tóll' e would make it five and seven, but that wouldn't fit the music as written.) In any case, tóe seems to me to sit better before the caesura, for the sense, the metre and the music, and having all on one line matches the stanza structure better, and avoids exposing a non-rhyming word.

Line 4:

See main note to this cantiga.

Line 5:

See main note to this cantiga.

 ——
E1:

See the lyric notes for a full account of the replacements here and at E2 and E3.

E4:

The decorated capital E appears to have been erased at this point. No doubt the illuminator drew the wrong letter, which happens rather frequently elsewhere.

Cantiga 221: Be per está aos reis d' amare Santa María

Line 1:

This is a case where it is clear from the text laid under the music in [E] that reis has two syllables. See the note to CSM 1:36 for more on this word.

Cantiga 222: Que houvér na Grorïosa fïança co fé comprida

Line 1:

Mettmann has conplida in the first refrain, following [E], and comprida in all reprises, following [F]. I have chosen to use the form comprida throughout, since it is by far the most common form of the word, and conplida (= complida) does not appear elsewhere.

Line 4:

Elmes has errados son following [E] directly, in place of Mettmann's editorial fix son errados. The latter fits the metre much better as well as restoring a more natural word order.

Line 13:

Though I don't make a habit of philological observations, it's interesting to note that há i at the start of this line—which clearly has to be pronounced with synalepha as a single syllable—is a nice clear example of the origins of modern Galician "hai" and Castilian (Spanish) "hay" in the combination of verb and adverb.

Line 21:

Mettmann, following both [E] and [F], has caeo at the start of this line, and in this case the variant spelling may well represent an attempt by the scribe to indicate the necessary diaeresis. I have normalized the spelling and marked the diaeresis with a trema as usual.

Line 33:

Compare line 21 above, and also CSM 171:51, 193:49 etc. This is another case where the preterite verb form requires diaeresis, turning the final diphthong into two syllables and thereby shifting the stress away from the end.

Cantiga 224: A Reía e que é comprida toda mesura

This cantiga is metrically wayward, in having a total of eight lines where the first hemistich has an exceptional feminine rhyme, and hence an extra syllable. As a result, the six stanzas with 'regular' metre do not fit the music as written in [E], and indeed only three stanzas (I, IV and XI) out of a total of twelve actually do fit. In [F], there appear to have been some sporadic and clumsy attempts to fix the problem, with lines 12, 18, 34 and 49 having one syllable fewer in the first hemistich (see footnotes for details), but in each case the final syllable is still left unstressed, giving 6' rather than the desired 7.

In addition, there are clear rhythmic problems in the original [E] music, in the refrain and in the first line of the vuelta. The latter is the more obvious case, since here creença rhymes with femença and nacença, but whereas the latter two words each fall on .o + .on + .on (short–long–long), matching the natural stress nicely, the word creença falls on .on + .o + .on (long–short–long), which is very unnatural and clearly out of kilter with the other two. In the refrain the rhymes are different, and both words mesura and natura have .on + .o + .on; obviously there can be no internal metrical mismatch here, but the rhythm still goes against the natural stress.

To be fair, having musical rhythm clash with natural word stress in the Cantigas isn't exactly uncommon—away from the ends of the rhyming lines or hemistichs it doesn't seem to be important at all. Also, as I've said in the notes on Using the musical transcriptions, mensural problems are not my main concern at this stage of my work on the music. However, in this case I believe that the two distinct problems outlined above—hypermetricity and rhythmic mismatch—are related, and actually best fixed all at once. Producing a musically pleasing result for the refrain and every stanza has been a bit of a challenge, and you can see from the number of red notes on the Music tab that I've had to take more liberties than I usually do. However, I stand firmly by the resulting interpretation, and believe that it may well correspond to the original composer's intent, before the music scribe mangled it.

As you can see, my basic approach has been to restore the .o + .on + .on (short–long–long) cadence throughout the score, by adding the final virga .on where it is lacking. I then compensate for this earlier in each line by collapsing two notes .on + .o into one ligature .oyo where metrically necessary. The latter ligature fits the six regular stanzas in all positions but can easily be separated back out into individual notes to accommodate the hypermetric lines, as indicated in my text by the double underlining. Note that in the first two lines of the stanza music, I have merely replaced a single virga .on with .oyo. In the case of the second line, this is to make fitting the word Aguadïana easier in stanza III; in the first, merely so that every line matches neatly, although there is no metrical justification.

I'll leave it as an exercise for the performer to work out how to apply all of these changes to Elmes' edition, but hopefully the inherent regularity will make it all the more easy to do so.

Line 6:

In this line we could assume ordinary synaeresis on cree with the same musical outcome. I have chosen to mark the ligature breaking, however, for consistency with the other hypermetric lines where synaeresis is not an option due to intervening consonants.

Line 12:

[F] en is missing at the start of this line, which makes no sense at all.

Line 18:

[F] muit' en Santa Maria.

Line 26:

Note that the first hemistich here does not have a feminine rhyme: assí is stressed as always on the final syllable. A more normal resolution is therefore appropriate for the surplus syllable, and synalepha in sũu assi fits the bill, with the combined metrical syllable -u a- falling on a descending plica .ron.

Line 34:

Mettmann I and II de levar la menynna. Given that the first hemistich of this line ends with an unstressed syllable in both manuscripts, it still needs another syllable to fix the metre. I have inserted the word i on the model of CSM 176:26 e levou i a omagen, and changed la to a accordingly. The original word la appears in both manuscripts but wouldn't normally be expected in this position (levar a or levá-la would be more regular), so it could be a Castilian-influenced copying error for i a or ia anyway.

Line 34:

Mettmann I fizeron; Mettmann II e fizeron; [F] fezeron; [E] fizeron. The e inserted by Mettmann in his second edition makes some sense, stylistically, but I don't believe it to be essential. If you prefer to keep it, then reading the second hemistich here as e fizeron tal postura would be an acceptable compromise.

Line 38:

The word sa in the first hemistich wouldn't naturally be stressed, but here the 7 metre seems to require it. In this case there's no point restoring the unelided form Terena, because that would then just require unnatural stress on the final syllable of acharon instead in order to give 7' rather than 6''.

Line 39:

Mettmann seer; [F] ser; [E] seer.

Line 49:

[F] en Bej' e nos logares.

 ——
E1:

See the main footnote on the Lyrics tab for a full account of the changes I have made to the music here.

E2:

This musical shape is a bit of a mess in the manuscript, but it appears that the lower body and the stem are both crossed out, leaving just a punctum on F, which matches the vuelta.

Cantiga 225: Muito bo miragr' a Virge faz estrao e fremoso

Line 22:

[E] does not have the definite article a in the first hemistich of this line, and therefore there is no metrical surplus. The a comes from [F], and although it appears to be necessary for correct grammar, its inclusion does result in an awkward case of synalepha on a single short note.

Cantiga 226: Assí pód' a Virge so térra guardar o séu

Line 5:

This is a very definite case of synaeresis, as creed' is clearly laid under a single virga .on in [E].

Line 26:

Synalepha works satisfactorily in this line, with the combined metrical syllable -a u falling on a short plica .bod. Note that the (necessary) word u is missing from [E] but present in [F].

Cantiga 228: Tant' é grand' a sa mercee da Virge e sa bondade

Line 22:

The second hemistich in Mettmann's version of this line (which matches both [F] and [E]) is short of a syllable, and there are no less than three possible resolutions, all involving the removal of contractions, i.e. diss' → disse, à → aa or gent' → gente. I have chosen the second of these, not just because it seems to fit the rhythm of the words, but also because the reality of the contraction of aa (or a a) to a single syllable à in the natural speech of the time (as opposed to a metrical artefact) is the subject of some debate (Stephen Parkinson calls it "highly unlikely" in [SP2006]).

Line 34:

Mettmann como entrou; [F] com ẽtrou; [E] como ẽtrou.

 ——
E1:

There are two F-clefs on this stave, one in the normal position on the middle line, and this lower one. The latter must be correct, assuming that the melody of the vuelta is the same as the refrain, as usual.

E2:

This stave has both clefs, but with consistent positioning.

Cantiga 229: Razô é grand' e dereito que defenda be a si

E1:

The original rising long plica .ood at this position in [E] looks like a scribal error, as it makes no sense musically and does not match the repeated phrase in the second line of the mudanza. Elmes changes it to .oron without comment, and Anglés has the original ascending .ood in his overlay but transcribes it as if it were the descending .oron, i.e. as A-G, again without comment.

Cantiga 232: E toda-las grandes coitas há força grand' e poder

Line 16:

The compressed metrical syllable -mees from synaeresis in hómees falls on a single short note in the music, but the result is entirely natural since the shorter form hómes is very common elsewhere.

Cantiga 233: Os que bõa mórte mórre

Line 15:

Mettmann I Omees; Mettmann II Omeẽs; [E] omees; [F] omẽes. The form in Mettmann II seems to be a bodged attempt to give preference to [F], presumably to emphasize the three syllables (where omees might invite synaeresis).

 ——
E1:

Curiously, all staves from this point to the end of the score in [E] have just four lines. Four and six-line staves are found often enough in other cantigas, of course, though they're almost always at the start of the score or at the top of a page. A long run of four-line staves in this position is very unusual, however.

E2:

This mid-stave clef change appears to have been forced by the availability of just four lines (see E1 above).

Cantiga 235: Como gradecer be-feito é cousa que muito val

Line 4:

[E] has the avẽo a laid clearly under three individual notes/ligatures .ra + .on + .o so this synalepha seems to be required. Elision to avẽ' is best avoided as it sounds unnatural and does not occur elsewhere (neither is the base word vẽo ever elided to vẽ').

Cantiga 236: A Santa Madre daquele que a pé sôbelo mar andou

E1:

The lower of the two vertically stacked notes at this position in the manuscript is not crossed out, but I agree with Elmes that comparison with other musical phrases makes it unlikely that a .oswo ligature was intended here; hence my correction.

Cantiga 237: Se be ena Virge fïar o pecador sabudo

Line 15:

See note to line 99.

Line 24:

In this line and in line 95 we have another pair of examples of the fairly common use of diaeresis in the preterite verb form. Both cases here come from the verb saír.

Line 95:

See note to line 24.

Line 99:

Note that madre in this line and pero in line 15 do not fit the metrical scheme of final stress in the first hemistich, but I have not thought it worth representing these very minor exceptions in the metrical summary.

 ——
E1:

The flat on this stave is missing from [E], but comparison with the corresponding phrase in the vuelta (from E2 onwards) indicates that it should be present.

E2:

See E1.

Cantiga 238: O que viltar quér a Virge de que Déus carne fiou

Line 8:

Mettmann Christo en; [F] crist en; [E] christo en (using the common Greek-based abbreviation xp̃o).

Line 16:

There are four lines in this cantiga where a preterite verb form undergoes diaeresis in order for the first hemistich to end in an unstressed syllable; apart from prendeu here, the other cases are in lines 27 (oiu), 41 (oiu) and 54 (serviu). In this line [F] actually has prendeo, where the non-standard -o may be intended to indicate a separate syllable, although this is not done consistently.

Line 27:

See note to line 16. Here [F] has quando oyu, which has the right number of syllables, but still with the wrong stress.

Line 32:

Mettmann eno; [F] no; [E] eno.

Line 41:

See note to line 16, and compare line 27. Here both manuscripts have Quand' est' o crerigo oyu, again with the right number of syllables but the wrong stress, so oiu must be expanded to three syllables by diaeresis with crérigo elided to compensate. (I have chosen elision over synalepha since the compressed syllable falls on a single note, and elision of this word is quite common elsewhere.)

Line 54:

See note to line 16.

Cantiga 240: Os pecadores todos loará Santa María

Line 2:

This Cantiga has an unusual syntactic structure in which the refrain forms a single sentence with each following stanza. So if you're going to include instrumental interludes in a performance or recording, make sure these fall before a refrain, not after one.

Line 6:

Elmes has don bon talan copying the scribal error in [E]. [F] has do bon talan.

 ——
E1:

I have inserted the missing flat on this stave in order to keep the two repeated phrases of the mudanza identical.

E2:

The upper stem on this ligature is clearly present in Anglés' retouched facsimile, although it is (a) very short, and (b) of no likely musical consequence.

Cantiga 241: Parade mentes óra

Line 27:

Mettmann menĩo un; [F] menỹn un; [E] menĩo un.

Line 66:

Synaeresis in manteer works well with the music, as -teer falls on a two-note ligature .royo. Note that both [F] and [E] actually have the more regular form mantẽer, and although this doesn't technically allow synaeresis without losing the nasal anyway, there's no particular reason not to sing the word that way when the music accommodates the syllables quite adequately.

Cantiga 242: O que no coraçô d' hóme é mui crúu de creer

Line 11:

Mettmann Este; [F] est; [E] este.

 ——
E1:

See E2.

E2:

[E] has no flat here, but it is present in the refrain at E1 so I have added it at the corresponding place here in the vuelta.

Cantiga 243: Carreiras e semedeiros busca a Virge María

Line 18:

It's hard to choose between elision of ũu to u, and synaeresis in viía, as the better resolution for the surplus metrical syllable in this line. Both are common elsewhere. I have plumped for the latter though, as it feels slightly better rhythmically, and gives the compressed syllable vii- an ascending plica .bod, which brings out the natural syllables anyway.

 ——
E1:

Elmes has transcribed this ligature and the next up one note, both here and in the vuelta at E2.

E2:

See E1.

Cantiga 245: O que e coita de mórte mui grand' ou e prijô for

Line 5:

The intended synaeresis in ángeos is clear in [E], with -geos sitting neatly below a single virga .on. It also occurs several times in the same word elsewhere. Note, however, that Elmes has mistakenly assumed synaeresis in reía instead, though this is not found anywhere else.

Line 10:

The second hemistich of this line is missing from both [E] and [F], though curiously a line-sized space has been left in each. Mettmann suggests na Madre do Salvador in a footnote, copying line 18.

Line 51:

Synalepha here works well musically, with a long ligature .raron for the combined metrical syllable -na en-.

 ——
E1:

The word meus was missed out by the lyric scribe in [E] but was squeezed in later in tiny letters below the stave. The music scribe got it right, fortunately.

Cantiga 246: A que as pórtas do céo abriu pera nos salvar

Line 8:

Synalepha in sua e works fine with the music, with the combined metrical syllable sitting on a long plica .oron.

Cantiga 248: Se muito be que nos faze a Seor esperital

Line 8:

Mettmann I romeria; Mettmann II romeira; [E] romeiria; [F] romaria. The spelling in Mett. II is obviously a mistake, but it is impossible to know whether it represents a simple transposition of two letters or a bodged attempt to insert the extra letter i found in [E]. The form romeiria is very unnatural, however, and not found elsewhere, and in fact the first i has a dot above it in the manuscript (too short for a tilde, too thick for a plica) which might have been intended to mark it for correction. The form romeria itself only occurs once elsewhere in Mettmann's edition (my line 213:28); the common spelling is romaria, with fifty occurrences.

Cantiga 249: Aquel que de voontade Santa María servir

Line 28:

Mettmann que aos seus; [F] que os seus; [E] que a os seus.

Line 30:

Synaeresis in forms of the verb gaaar occurs a few times elsewhere, as do shorter forms from the infinitives gaar and gãar.

Cantiga 250: Por nós, Virge Madre, róga Déus, téu Padre

This Cantiga has an unusual structure, although it presents no particular difficulties for the performer. The text here is the same as Mettmann's, and corresponds to the version in [F]. [E]—which is the only source of music, since [F] has none—includes neither the repeated lines 5, 10 and 15, nor the three-line stanza at the end. The commentary in [CLXG] presents a lengthy discussion on what the correct structure should actually be: not only which lines belong here at all, but also which ought to be considered "parallel" statements and which others constitute the refrain. It concludes by keeping lines 5, 10 and 15 but rejecting the final short stanza on the grounds that it is thematically unlike any other finda found in the Cantigas. The author of that work suggests instead that it is most likely the result of the scribe either being confused about the structure, or deliberately filling up space on the folio purely to maintain the visual aesthetic. As you can see on the Music tab, I have repeated the music from the start of the cantiga to accommodate the short stanza anyway, so as to keep the performer's options open. Elmes has taken the same approach in his edition.

E1:

In [E] this cantiga has all stanzas that are included (the final short one is not) underlaid to music. However, the repeated parts are abbreviated, so I have expanded them all here, for clarity, and added the short stanza at the end, repeating the music from the start. Note that the presence or absence of decorated capitals is also a bit haphazard, even though space was allocated in all cases.

Cantiga 251: Mui gra dereito faz d' o mund' avorrecer

Line 76:

The word hóstïa and its plural hóstïas appear a total of 18 times in the Cantigas, and in 17 cases it clearly has three syllables. However, the modern words in Galician ("hostia") and Portuguese ("hóstia") have just two syllables. This, along with the fact that the word never participates in a rhyme in the Cantigas, and that this line is the only one where it appears at the end of a non-rhyming hemistich, is pretty conclusive evidence that the word has antepenultimate stress, on the first syllable, os-. In order to maintain the metrical scheme of this Cantiga, therefore, I have combined diaeresis in viu (which is very common elsewhere) with synaeresis in hóstïa, so that the natural stress falls in the right place.

Cantiga 252: Ta gra poder a sa Madre déu eno fondo da térra Déus

Line 3:

The word pequenn' in this line is an original Castilianism from the manuscripts; the correct Galician-Portuguese form would be pequen' as in CSM 77:18.

Cantiga 253: De grad' há Santa María mercee e pïadade

Line 15:

The first hemistich of this line must end on an unstressed syllable, so I have marked diaeresis on entendeu. However, this means that a syllable has to be lost earlier in Mettmann's line (O ome bõo entendeu), and the usual options are of little use: synalepha at the start in O ome is horribly clumsy, synaeresis in bõo is technically blocked by the nasal [ŋ], and elision to bõ' before entendeu has no precedent. (The only occurrences of bõ' are where the feminine form bõa is reduced before a word beginning with a-, which is much more natural.) Since home bon is not an option either as bon must precede the noun, I have taken the liberty of swapping the words around. Fortunately, bon home is a common phrase elsewhere, occurring around a dozen times.

Line 28:

Diaeresis in the ending of a preterite verb form is required here and in line 39 to fill out the metre.

Line 44:

As in line 15, I have fixed the first hemistich to ensure that it ends on an unstressed syllable. In this case, elision of que at the start is required to compensate for the diaeresis in caeu.

Cantiga 254: O nome da Virge santa atá muit' é temoroso

E1:

In this line and the next there is one individual note or ligature too many for the syllable count. However, from comparison with the following phrase in each case, this is obviously the right place for the correction, as is E3 in the next line. Either .oso (as on provado) or .owo (on bon grado) would do fine as replacement shapes, but I've picked the former in each case.

E2:

The start of this stave is a complete mess in the manuscript. What appears to have happened is that the music scribe accidentally skipped the second line of the stanza and started writing the music for the vuelta at this point, which accounts for the C-clef on the second stave line and the four lower-pitched elements .o + .o + .on + .owo. Having realized the mistake, the scribe then made a bodged attempt to correct it, trying to reuse the .on and .owo by crossing out the stem on the former and the first note of the latter, adding a clef lower down and writing in another virga .on after the first one, though it should have been a punctum .o, and then failing to add a virga stem to the remainder of the .owo. Why the unwanted bits were then just left there for posterity rather than scraped away cleanly is anybody's guess.

E3:

See E1.

Cantiga 255: Na malandança nóss' amparança

Line 42:

[T] has mort o marid' e escoorido (all on one line), which elides away the rhyme on marido. I prefer synaeresis in escoorido to fix the metre, taking advantage of the ascending plica .bod onto which the compressed syllable falls. Note that the root coor (= 'colour') becomes monosyllabic cor in modern Portuguese and Galician.

Line 67:

Both [To] and [E] have mas ao fog' a levou que ardia here, masking the rhyme on fogo entirely. In order to restore it, I have moved the object pronoun a from the next line, and marked synaeresis here to compensate. The phrase mas a a o fogo levou que ardia (= 'but [he] took her to the burning fire') is, I think, a good candidate for being the text as originally intended, with the first a (= 'her') then having to drop out to fit the metre, by means of conflation with the following a (= 'to'). At some later point in the copying chain this was then 'corrected', restoring the first a but in a different place, which made the grammar more explicit but played havoc with the metre. By the way, I have marked synaeresis in ao rather than synalepha between the two a's, simply because assigning ao the long plica .oron is better musically.

Line 74:

In line 73 [E] keeps the full word piadade, but [To] once again elides away the rhyme with por piedad' ant' a Magestade. Unfortunately, neither the latter, nor piadade 'nt' with double elision, nor even piadade_ant' with synalepha, has any musical merit—the caesura between piadade and ant' is marked in the musical notation by a division which seems entirely justified rhythmically, and Anglés and Elmes both observe it. Since there is no obvious way to compress line 74 in isolation to 4' syllables, I think this is a rare case that justifies accepting the line as hypermetric, and applying a purely musical solution: namely, breaking the plica .bod to accommodate the two syllables Mages-. As it happens, this is the same musical shape which carries the synaeresis in escoorido in line 42, so a certain symmetry is at least maintained.

Line 83:

[To] and [E] both have acorr' a mesquinna que en ti fia (or variant spellings thereof) with the extra vowel at the start and without the word se, which is Mettmann's addition. But this is no good metrically (or musically) as it displaces the rhyming word mesquinna. Instead I've marked elision, indicating that the final -a of Reínna absorbs the initial vowel of acorr', and accepted Mettmann's insertion of se (fiar-se en ... and fiar en ... mean the same, though the latter is more common.)

Cantiga 256: Que na Virge grorïosa esperança mui grand' há

Line 17:

Synaeresis in forms of the verb veer is common.

Line 28:

Synalepha in guariu a here is awkward, with the combined metrical syllable falling on just a single long note in the music. However, although synaeresis in Reía might at first sight look like a possible alternative, this in fact never occurs elsewhere despite the high frequency of the word (125 occurrences); it always keeps its three natural syllables.

Cantiga 257: Be guarda Santa María pola sa vertude sas relicas

Line 13:

In this line and line 16, synaeresis is required in the same word, siía. Here the compressed metrical syllable falls on just a single short note, but the musical result is quite acceptable. See also CSM 84:27 which has synaeresis in the same word.

Line 16:

See the note to line 13. In this case the compressed metrical syllable happens to fall on a descending plica .ron so the three natural syllables come out in the singing.

 ——
E1:

The stave break here in the manuscript is after this plica, but before the final syllable of Afonsso that belongs with it. It all works out by the end of the line though.

Cantiga 260: Dized', ai trobadores

E1:

Three of the reprises of the refrain are abbreviated to just Por qué in the manuscript but I've expanded them here for the sake of clarity.

E2:

In the manuscript facsimile there seems to be a short top-left stem on this punctum, but it is very likely a mistake (either by the original scribe or by Anglés' bumbling assistant), and of no significance.

E3:

The final refrain is not written out at all in the manuscript, but as for the abbreviated ones I've included it here for clarity.

Cantiga 261: Que Jesú-Crist' e sa Madre veer quisér

Line 48:

Synalepha in loando a works well with the music, as the combined metrical syllable -do a falls on a long plica .oron.

Cantiga 262: Se no loássemos por al a Seor mui verdadeira

Line 1:

As Mettmann points out in his footnotes, it is necessary to accentuate pór al here in order for the first hemistich to end in the required unstressed metrical syllable.

Line 4:

Elmes "fezer" here is a simple typographical error.

Line 41:

Synalepha in porque a is awkward musically, as the combined metrical syllable falls on a single short note. Elision to porqu' a is best avoided though, since the elision of que to qu' is very rare in general despite the extremely high frequency of the word, and it seems never to occur before the vowel a. See also CSM 312:45.

Cantiga 263: Muit' é be-aventurado e e bo ponto naceu

Line 5:

The text for the first hemistich of this line, as written by the lyric scribes in both [F] and [E], and copied by Mettmann, is Ca ela sempre a nos dá. This has the correct number of syllables, and Mettmann lets it pass without comment. Things are not quite so simple for those of us who care about the music, unfortunately: the hemistich is supposed to end with an unstressed syllable, to match every other line, but the verb here naturally attracts the stress. The music scribe in [E] obviously latched onto this, and wrote just a single note for -pre a, in order to force synalepha (or elision) and thereby bring forward in the melody to a point where the rhythm matches the stress, leaving it with a long note at the end of the phrase. Of course, the seven notes/ligatures that remain then completely fail to fit the other stanzas. To fix this, I have just added an extra punctum at the end of the phrase for the unstressed syllable, at E2 on the Music tab, matching the music for d' erro in the next line; and for the first stanza I have kept the desired elision to sempr' a and drawn out at the end with a small melisma, so as to keep the stress and rhythm in agreement. With reference to Elmes' edition, this means that the fourth bar of line 5, which contains just a dotted minim on D, should be changed to match the fourth bar of line 7, which has D minim + D crotchet.

 ——
E1:

The expected decorated capital 'C' is missing from the stave at this point. A space was obviously left—the clef is indented, and no 'C' is written on 'Ca' in the underlaid text—but then the stave lines were inked in over the space.

E2:

See the note to line 5 of the lyrics for an explanation of my insertion here.

Cantiga 264: Pois aos séus que ama defende todavía

Line 21:

Mettmann actually points out the diaeresis in the word faiçõada here, in an act of generosity to the potential performer that is without precedent in his first two volumes.

 ——
E1:

The punctum here and the following division look like a double-stemmed note .ond in the retouched manuscript facsimile, but this interpretation matches the first stanza line and is much more plausible.

E2:

The music scribe appears to have got the clef placement confused and wrote these five notes a third (one stave line) too high.

Cantiga 267: A de que Déus pres carn' e foi dela nado

Line 2:

Mettmann perigoado; [F] periguado; [E] perigoado. The spelling periguado in [F], whilst not the most common form, clearly indicates that just four syllables are required, and is backed up by the appearance of periguada in CSM 313:15 in both [F] and [E]. In [E] the synaeresis in perigoado is also clearly intended from the underlay to the music, with the metrical syllable -goa- given a single ligature .oweyeye.

Line 53:

This is another example of obligatory synalepha after unstressed mi. Note that [F] has se m'ora here, but I've chosen to keep mi with synalepha as it is so common.

Line 68:

Compare e.g. CSM 238 and 253, each of which has several cases of diaeresis in the preterite verb form.

 ——
E1:

This transcription is based solely on Cantiga 267 in [E] and disregards the minor differences in the alternative version at number 373.

Cantiga 270: Todos co alegría cantand' e e bo so

Line 19:

Mettmann mercee; [F] merce; [E] mercee.

Cantiga 273: A Madre de Déus que éste do mundo lum' e espeo

Line 16:

The words desaposto in this line and dẽosto in the next would be expected, etymologically, to have the open stressed vowel [ɔ], and that is indeed how I have generally treated these words, as well as all forms of posto and aposto. However, agosto, from Latin AUGŬSTUS, should have close [o], so for the rhyme to work in this stanza it is necessary to assume that the process of metaphony, which later closed many cases of stressed [ɔ] to [o] under the influence of [o] in the following syllable, was already having an effect in the language of the CSM. Compare stanza XV of CSM 411 in which dẽosto and posto must also rhyme with agosto, and contrast stanza III of CSM 59 in which dẽosto and aposto rhyme naturally without the need to assume metaphony.

Line 30:

Mettmann ũu; [F] un; [E] ũu.

Line 40:

[F] has coseo here, which might be intended to indicate the necessary diaeresis. However, in the next line [F] has the regular ending in encobriu, so we cannot draw any firm conclusions. Besides, consistency wouldn't be any fun, would it?

Line 41:

See line 40.

Cantiga 274: Poi-lo pecador puar e servir Santa María

Line 39:

Mettmann xe-ll' espedyu; [F] xell el espediu; [E] xell espedyu.

Cantiga 275: A que nos guarda do gra fógu' infernal

E1:

[E] has no flat on this stave or the next (at E2), but since both phrases of the mudanza are just repeats of the second line of the refrain, I have added the flats to match.

Cantiga 276: Quena Virge por seor tevér

Only four stanzas of this cantiga (5, 6, 9 and 10) properly fit the music as written. The others, including the first, have one syllable too many in the last two lines for the number of notes and ligatures provided, with the same text in both [E] and [F] (the latter with no musical notation, of course). It appears from [E] that the music scribe was once again determined to make the vuelta match the refrain exactly, despite the fact that the last two lines of the first stanza comprise nine natural syllables, and the last line of the refrain has only eight. The scribe therefore wrote a single plica .oron above the -çoso of viçoso (see E1 on the Music tab), presumably with the conscious intention that the ligature be broken into separate notes to accommodate this word, as well as similarly placed words in seven other stanzas (caudéla, deanteiro, esse and so on).

Note that I'm diverging from Elmes here, who transcribes the music as if the ligature .ra written over the vi- of viçoso were broken instead; but given his rhythmic interpretation, this puts unnatural stress on the final syllable of viçoso, rather than the penultimate as would be expected. Also, Elmes' comment that the lyrics for all twelve stanzas "have three syllable words in the same position" is not correct; it is true of seven stanzas at most.

Line 61:

This line has two extra natural syllables, and therefore requires synalepha in loada e on top of the ligature breaking found in other stanzas.

 ——
E1:

See the main note on the Lyrics tab for an explanation of the ligature breaking at this point in several of the stanzas.

Cantiga 277: Maravio-m' éu com' ousa a Virge rogar per re

Line 2:

Mettmann, following [E], has non guarda e en pouco ten in the second hemistich here. Elmes deals with the surplus syllable (which does not have an extra note in the music) by eliding guarda, giving non guard' e en pouco ten, but I would suggest elision of e as a more natural-sounding resolution that better preserves the important content words (since guard' e sounds too much like the subjunctive guarde).

 ——
E1:

In the [E] manuscript the lyric scribe elides Algarve u to Algarv' u in this line, which appears to allow the refrain music to fit the vuelta unchanged. Unfortunately, the elision is a mistake, and the refrain music cannot fit, as every other stanza has eight syllables (7') in the corresponding hemistich. To fix the error, I have just split the last ligature on the line into its component notes, leaving the stressed syllable at the same point in the melody as in the refrain.

Cantiga 279: Santa María, valed', ai Seor

This is another rondeau. Compare CSM 41, CSM 120, CSM 143 and CSM 308.

Line 3:

Mettmann's mal le matches malle, written that way without a space, in both [E] and [To]. As in CSM 65:32, this could be a Castilianism or a simple visual mistake; either way, mal lle is more correct.

Line 10:

Although synaeresis in forms of the verb seer is quite common, and might be expected here, it is in fact trumped by the more-or-less obligatory synalepha after the unstressed personal pronoun mi.

Line 14:

Mettmann fez; [To] fezo; [E] fez.

Cantiga 281: U alguê a Jesú Cristo por séus pecados negar

Line 12:

As an alternative to the elision of agora here, it would also be perfectly acceptable to substitute the synonymous short form óra.

Cantiga 282: Par Déus, muit' há gra vertude na paravla comũal

Line 3:

Synaeresis at the end of this line, and the next two, is required in order to correct the syllable count and give the hemistich final stress, thereby matching the masculine rhyme in all other stanzas. Unfortunately, the music scribe in [E] was rather inconsistent here, writing an extra note for the final -e of mercee and cree, but not vee. The fix, from the point of view of the manuscript, is simply to delete the extra notes, as I have done at E2 and E3 on the Music tab, so that all stanzas then fit once the synaeresis is applied in the first one. From the point of view of Elmes' transcription, it is necessary to replace the two crotchets on A at the ends of lines 3 and 4 of the music with a single minim (as is found at the ends of the other four lines).

 ——
E1:

At this point in the manuscript the incorrect punctum .o appears to have been crossed out, but the the expected rhomboid .e was not written in its place.

E2:

See the note to line 3 of the lyrics for an explanation of the deletion here and at E3.

Cantiga 284: Que be fïar na Virge de todo coraçô

Line 9:

Synaeresis in the word reía does not occur elsewhere, despite the high frequency of the word, and doesn't fit well with the music, so I don't recommend it as a resolution to the extra metrical syllable in the original Reía esperital here. However, the phrase Reía sperital occurs in CSM 124:17 and 287:29, and therefore elision seems to be a good choice.

Cantiga 285: Do dém' a perfía nona tó' outra cousa

E1:

See E4 below.

E2:

There appears to be an erased flat symbol above this clef in the manuscript, which suggests that the B-flat should not be used throughout this cantiga, even though one appears at E3 below.

E3:

See E2.

E4:

In the online scans of the manuscript, and indeed in the original printed facsimiles in Anglés' edition if you don't look too closely, this virga looks just like a .onwo ligature. However, the apparent extra punctum is in fact show-through from the other side of the folio, and by pure coincidence, it comes from the virga at E1 above which is at exactly this same melodic point in the refrain as this one is in the vuelta.

Cantiga 287: O que e Santa María todo séu coraçô te

E1:

The flat is missing from this stave in [E], but is clearly required here to match the refrain, and for overall melodic consistency.

Cantiga 288: A Madre de Jesú-Cristo, vedes a que aparece

E1:

This stave has both clefs, but with consistent placement.

Cantiga 289: Pero que os outros santos a vezes prende vingança

Line 6:

Mettmann gaanne; [E] 289 gaanne; [E] 396 gãe. I have used the form from [E] 396, but synaeresis in gaanne is clearly indicated in [E] 289, with a single ligature .ra written above the compressed metrical syllable gaa-.

 ——
E1:

This transcription is based on Cantiga 289 in [E], but with flats added at E2, E3 and E4 in order to match the duplicate at Cantiga 396, which has them throughout.

E5:

This division line may be intended simply to indicate that the notes either side are separate, as they are very close together in the manuscript.

Cantiga 290: Maldito seja que no loará

Line 11:

In this cantiga, the first line of the refrain alternates between the rather negative original Maldito seja que no loará and the more positive-sounding Bẽeito seja o que loará. The second line of the refrain is always the same.

Cantiga 291: Cantand' e e muitas guisas dev' hóm' a Virge loar

Line 29:

[F] has tu m'acorras here, but as in CSM 267:53 I've chosen to keep the [E] form mi and mark synalepha, since it is such a common case.

Line 36:

This is another preterite verb form with diaeresis; see the Modifications for metrical regularity page for a complete list.

Cantiga 292: Muito demóstra a Virge, a Seor esperital, sa lealdade

Line 62:

Synaeresis is very common in the infinitive seer and other forms of the same verb.

Line 63:

Synalepha would normally be expected after the unstressed pronoun mi in the first hemistich here, joining mi e into a single syllable. However, in this case it would leave the line with too few syllables.

Cantiga 293: Par Déus, muit' é gra dereito de prender grand' ocajô

The lyrics for the refrain and first stanza of this cantiga were originally written in [E] pretty much as they appear in Mettmann's edition, notwithstanding a simple scribal error where mais ca si was written mais mais, but corrected later. Unfortunately, it seems that when the music scribe came to add the notation, the melody that had been composed did not fit, having apparently been written for lines with a 7' | 8 metre rather than 7' | 7. But instead of altering the music, the text of the refrain and first stanza were padded out, adding an eighth syllable in the second hemistich of each line. (You can see these changes if you look closely at the manuscripts, although the online scans of Anglés' facsimiles aren't really up to it.) Of course, this ill-thought-out solution completely destroyed the fit of the other eight stanzas to the music.

There is, however, a fairly simple way to clean up the mess which, I believe, gives a good musical result: the first note .o of all of the extended hemistichs should be removed, and the words realigned to fit, as you can see on my Music tab. In fact I have replaced each surplus note with a medium-height division line to indicate a rest. Elmes, for his part, has faithfully transcribed the music as written in [E], with the extra syllables, but it is a simple enough job to modify his version: just replace the D crotchets on the upbeat at the start of every even-numbered line with a rest of the same duration. The end result maintains Elmes' interpretation of the rhythm, and to my mind is still far superior to what Anglés constructed.

Line 24:

The word pées with synaeresis just gets a single long note in the music, but given that the shorter form pés occurs elsewhere (CSM 134:36), the result is entirely satisfactory.

Line 32:

Synaeresis in mercee is very common elsewhere.

 ——
E1:

See the main note on the Lyrics tab for an explanation of the six identical cases in this cantiga where I have replaced a punctum .o with a division indicating a rest.

Cantiga 294: No é mui gra maravia seere obedïentes os ángeos

Line 12:

[F] creceo. This is another of many cases of diaeresis in a preterite verb form. The only unusual thing about it is that Mettmann actually comments on the pronunciation in his footnotes, observing that the word creceu must have three syllables.

Cantiga 295: Que por al no devess' hóm' a Santa María servir

Line 5:

Elmes' per un Rei at the start of this line is the form of words found under CSM 295 in [E]. Mettmann's a un Rei comes from the copy which appears at CSM 388 in [E].

 ——
E1:

This transcription is based solely on Cantiga 295 in [E] and disregards the minor differences in the alternative version at Cantiga 388.

Cantiga 297: Com' é mui bõ' a creença do que no vee hóm' e cree

Line 1:

The synaeresis in vee is clearly indicated in [E], where a single plica .ron is written above the word.

Cantiga 298: Graça e vertude mui grand' e amor

This cantiga is the first one that has no music in the manuscripts. The staves are all set up in [E] with underlaid text, but they are devoid of musical notes. One for spoken recitations, then, or you could perhaps use the music from another cantiga with the same 11 11 / 11 11 11 11 metre, of which there are quite a few.

Cantiga 299: De muitas maneiras Santa María mercees faz

E1:

Elmes refers to the manuscript being "damaged" at this point, but the blemish is merely show-through from the decorated capital 'G' on the other side of the folio. This note and the following plica are still visible, however.

E2:

Both the words Santa Maria and their music were omitted by accident at the manuscript page break, although just the words were later added in tiny letters before the break. I have restored the music here by copying from the vuelta at E3.

E3:

See E2.

Cantiga 300: Muito devería hóme sempr' a loar

Line 8:

The synalepha in this line is clear from the music in [E], where the combined metrical syllable -a e is laid under a single ligature .eyeye.

Cantiga 301: Macar faz Santa María miragres dũa natura

Line 20:

In this line both ángeos and tiía are obvious candidates for synaeresis, each word commonly being compressed elsewhere, but I have chosen the latter as it fits the rhythm of the music in [E] much more convincingly.

Cantiga 302: A Madre de Jesú-Cristo, que é Seor de nobrezas

E1:

The word façan is repeated accidentally after the folio break.

E2:

The A here projects up onto the stave, but doesn't quite count as a decorated capital.

Cantiga 303: Por fól teo que na Virge no há mui grand' asperança

E1:

On first glance at the manuscript, the stem on this virga looks as though it is struck out, but in fact the line is just the tilde over the word mõesteiro. A similar thing happens at E2 below, where the virga stem crosses a mark over the word e (similar in appearance to an acute accent) which distinguishes it as a separate word from med'. Note that I say the virga crosses the mark, not the other way around, as the musical notation was always written after the text.

E2:

See E1.

Cantiga 304: Aquela e que Déus carne prendeu

Line 7:

As an adjective, bẽeito normally has just three syllables, but Bẽeito here is a proper noun—the Latin name "Benedict(us)"—and a more conservative pronunciation is therefore quite natural. Note that the diaeresis which separates the e from the i corresponds to the position of the lost -d-.

Cantiga 305: Sempre devemos na Virge a tẽer os corações

Line 6:

[E] has perçamos in place of Mettmann's perçades, which comes from [F].

Line 24:

Here and in line 51 we have another couple of examples of the frequent diaeresis in 3rd person singular preterite verb forms.

Line 51:

See note to line 24.

 ——
E1:

The initial syllable per- of perdões was originally missed out by the lyric scribe, but it was added in as a later correction, and the music scribe penned the right number of notes and ligatures.

E2:

This flat is missing from [E], but is clearly required for the vuelta to match the refrain.

Cantiga 306: Por gra maravia teo de nu' hóme s' atrever

Line 8:

Mettmann ũu; [F] un; [E] ũu.

Line 17:

Synaeresis in ángeo is well attested elsewhere.

Line 18:

Mettmann neũu; [F] neun; [E] neũu.

Line 26:

Synaeresis in forms of the verb veer is also very well attested in other cantigas.

Cantiga 307: Toer pód' a Madre de Nóstro Seor toda tempestade

E1:

The division lines in this cantiga are unusually faint in Anglés' facsimile. Please take my approximations here with an extra large pinch of salt.

E2:

See E3.

E3:

This note is missing from the manuscript, but I've restored it by copying from the corresponding place in the refrain at E2.

Cantiga 308: De todo mal pód' a Virge a quena ama sãar

Another rondeau. Compare CSM 41, CSM 120, CSM 143 and CSM 279.

Cantiga 309: No deve por maravia tẽer

Line 8:

[F] has the wonderful 'scribo' emperadõo in this line, obviously anticipating the following word.

 ——
E1:

The word foi here was missed out by the lyric scribe, and added only as a later correction. The number of notes and ligatures is correct though.

Cantiga 311: O que diz que servir hóme aa Virge re no é

E1:

In the first stanza in [E] the word ca was repeated accidentally by the lyric scribe before and after the stave break, but the music scribe correctly provided just the one note.

Cantiga 312: No convê que seja feita niũa desapostura

Line 45:

Synalepha in que a is a bit awkward, as the combined syllable falls on a single punctum .o. Note though that elision of que to qu' is rare (around 0.15% of all occurrences of the word) and only happens before the vowels "e" and "i", so it is not an attractive option here.

Line 50:

Synalepha in ende a works well musically, with -de a getting a descending plica .ron.

Cantiga 313: Alí u todo-los santos no ha poder de põer conseo

Line 27:

The compressed metrical syllable -goo in perígoo falls on just a single virga .on, but the synaeresis can easily be justified easily from the proparoxytone (antepenultimate) stress, and the appearance of the synonymous three-syllable form perigo in CSM 36:11 and CSM 235:82.

Line 51:

Synalepha in ceo al works well musically, the combined syllable -o al sitting on a two-note ligature .royo.

 ——
E1:

I have raised the pitch of these notes to match the corresponding ones in both the vuelta at E2 and the reprise of the refrain at E3.

E2:

See E1.

E3:

See E1.

Cantiga 314: Que soubér Santa María loar, será de bo se

Only the first four stanzas of this cantiga survive in [F].

Line 52:

Synaeresis in guaaa works well musically, as guaa- falls on a two-note ligature .bowo. Note that the verbs guaaar, gaaar (forms of which exhibit synaeresis in CSM 125:60, 249:30 and 289:6) and the two-syllable gaar (e.g. CSM 234:5) are all variants of the same word.

 ——
E1:

It seems likely that the F-clef on this stave, unusually positioned on the fourth line, was a mistake, but the music scribe decided to continue anyway and added the C-clef to back it up (a sort of musical sic if you like).

E2:

After the muddle on the previous stave, these two clefs seem to be intended to sound the "All clear".

Cantiga 315: Tant' aos pecadores a Virge val de grado

This cantiga has a little bit of everything in terms of metrical fixes: synaeresis, elision, deletion, synalepha and diaeresis. See the specific line notes below.

Line 2:

From the single overlaid punctum .o in [E], synaeresis in seer is very clearly intended.

Line 7:

Elision of ũa before a- is fairly common—e.g. ũ' aldea in CSM 215:16 and 351:5, ũ' arca in CSM 148:7 and 362:10, and elsewhere—so I have used it here in preference to marking synalepha on a single punctum.

Line 15:

Synalepha in the original u as here would be awkward, leaving the compressed syllable on just a single semibreve .e. Instead I have opted to drop the unnecessary word as, following [JMMS]. A plausible alternative would be to drop the initial vowel of espigavan and pronounce the two s's as one: u as outras'spigavan.

Line 21:

Synaeresis in triígo works well musically, as trii- gets a descending plica .ron. Note also that the shorter variant trigo appears in CSM 112:9.

Line 37:

Synalepha in e entendo also comes out well, with the combined metrical syllable e en- also falling on a plica .ron.

Line 44:

Diaeresis in mais also occurs in CSM 192:37 and 192:69.

Cantiga 316: Par Déus, no é mui se guisa de s' ende mui mal achar

Line 38:

The first hemistich of this line could also, in theory, be fixed by restoring the unelided form lógo, but since diaeresis in viu and other 3sg preterite verb forms is so common, it is almost certainly intended here.

Line 44:

Obligatory synalepha after the unstressed personal pronoun mi.

 ——
E1:

The manuscript has a decorated capital E here which should have been D for Desto.

Cantiga 317: Mal s' há end' achar que quisér desonrrar Santa María

E1:

There is no clear reason why two stanzas of this cantiga are written out with music. The reprise of the refrain at E2 is abbreviated, but this makes no sense musically, and in any case the full refrain is written out after all remaining stanzas. I have therefore expanded it here, for clarity.

E2:

See E1.

E3:

[E] does not have this natural sign, but I have added it to ensure consistency with all other statements of the same phrase in the refrains and vueltas. Elmes says that it would be "feasible to keep the B flat throughout", and Anglés does exactly that, but to my own ear, keeping the naturals is preferable.

Cantiga 319: Que quér mui be pód' a Virge grorïosa de door guarir

Line 48:

This is a clear-cut case of diaeresis being required in the word viu; there is no other simple resolution for the metrical shortfall.

 ——
E1:

This word pod' is repeated after the stave break, but the music scribe correctly ignores it.

Cantiga 320: Santa María léva o be que perdeu Éva

Line 26:

Synalepha: the combined metrical syllable -o en- here sits comfortably on a two-note ligature .royo, preserving the natural syllables in singing.

 ——
E1:

It's a little difficult to work out what the 'real' structure of this ligature is. In Anglés' retouched [E] facsimile, the stems merge into one vertical line, and protrude above and below the note bodies, appearing as .odyyjrowo (although the internal line segment that joins the first two notes is rather shorter than displayed here by the Neumat renderer). In Anglés' overlay to his transcription, the shape appears as .odyjrowo still with one continuous line, but ignoring the actual intervals in accordance with his usual practice. His actual mensural reading, however, is as .on + .bowo and he describes this form in his introductory material on p. 76 as a "figure typical of mensural notation that appears very little in Alfonsine notation", giving CSM 320 as the only example. Both Elmes and Cunningham [MGC] present the form as .odyrowo in their overlay, likewise disregarding the intervals, with the first two notes touching only at the corners; and although the fact that the stems are not fully aligned may be attributed to the limitations of their typographic technology, the lengths and positions of the stems clearly suggest the construction .od + .rowo. However, Elmes' mensural reading is exactly the same as that of Anglés, whilst Cunningham's has the same melodic shape although a different rhythm, so it appears that neither of the latter two authors has actually read the .od component as the plica it would represent in another context. Taking all of this into consideration, and given that an ascending plica would make little musical sense anyway, with the step up followed by a jump down of a fourth to the lowest note of the ligature, I have decided to go along with Anglés' interpretation in my transcription. By the way, Anglés also says, in a footnote to his transcription, that in this ligature "the 'cum opposita proprietate' stem was added". Here he can only be referring to the rising stem on the implied .bowo component, but his infuriatingly vague statement doesn't say at what stage this modification was supposedly made, nor even whether the c.o.p. stem was added to the manuscript itself, by his assistant in the retouching process, or just by himself in the process of interpretation.

E2:

This is another example of the very rare E-flat. It is the only one actually written in this Cantiga in [E], but for melodic consistency it obviously makes sense to use it in the corresponding places in the preceding two instances of the same phrase. See also Cantiga 189 which has two E-flats.

Cantiga 321: O que mui tarde ou nunca se póde por meezia sãar

Line 24:

Diaeresis occurs several times elsewhere in reis; see the note to CSM 1:36 for more on this word.

Line 40:

Mettmann tod' o corp' e a cara; [F] tod o corpo & a cara; [E] todo o corpea cara. Mettmann's version of this hemistich elides too many syllables, whereas both manuscripts are metrically correct, but in different ways. I have chosen the [F] version as it's easier to pronounce and fits the rhythm of the music better, and because corpo is a more important content word than todo.

 ——
E1:

[E] has enfermo en here in the first stanza, but the -o appears to be marked for deletion, and just this single punctum is written above -mo en.

Cantiga 322: A Virge, que de Déus Madre éste, Fia e crïada

E1:

This flat is missing from [E], but it is present at the corresponding place in the vuelta below.

Cantiga 325: Co dereit' a Virge santa há nome Strela do Día

Line 26:

Synalepha between the two identical vowels in a am- is quite natural and obviously intended here, even though the combined metrical syllable falls on just a single punctum .o in the music.

Cantiga 326: A Santa María muito ' é gréu

Line 1:

In [E] this cantiga has a splendid decorated capital S at the beginning. Unfortunately, it should have been an A. Another bad day in the scriptorium for the illuminator.

Line 21:

Synalepha in eigreja e works well musically, as the combined metrical syllable -ja e falls on a three-note ligature .eyeye.

 ——
E1:

In the manuscript the word Maria is missing from this stave, but its musical notation is present. Conversely, the word muito is present but its music is missing. I have just copied these from the initial refrain.

Cantiga 327: Porque be Santa María sabe os séus dões dar

Line 16:

It is entirely possible that the syllabation in the first hemistich of this line was actually intended to be creceü-' en tal cobiiça) with both diaeresis in creceu (cf. 294:12) and synaeresis in cobiíça (cf. 157:8 and 194:9). However, the "default" syllabation certainly cannot be called wrong with any certainty, so I have stuck with it here. (The music, which has a simple, monotonous rhythm in the first half of the stanza, doesn't really give any clues either way.)

Cantiga 329: Muito per é gra dereito de castigado seer

Line 21:

The word anjos here is Mettmann's respelling of angos in [E], which is clearly intended to be a two-syllable variant of the normal form ángeos (= "angels"). This provides good support for the common occurrence of synaeresis in the latter word elsewhere, e.g. CSM 141:42, 306:17, as does the fact that the modern Portuguese and Galician words are "anjo(s)" and "anxo(s)".

Line 45:

Synalepha in the first hemistich is the only option here, and although the combined metrical syllable -guea- falls on a single long virga .on, the result sounds natural enough.

Cantiga 331: Ena que Déus pos vertude grand' e sempr' e ela crece

Epigraph:

As Mettmann points out in his footnotes, this epigraph appears to be wrong: the boy in the story is not brought back from the dead; it is only his mother whose sanity is restored. It would therefore be better for it to read Como Santa Maria de Rocamador sãou ũa moer sandia, as Mettmann suggests.

Line 18:

Obligatory synalepha after the unstressed personal pronoun mi.

Line 33:

Here [E] has what Mettmann describes as a "laguna por rasura", i.e. a gap where the text has been scraped away. No other manuscript includes this cantiga, so the gap cannot be filled without inventing new words. Neither can the stanza simply be left out, since the content is vital to the story, and in any case the following stanza starts in the middle of a sentence. In the absence of any other accounts of this miracle—Mettmann cites none—one can only speculate as to what it was that the mother in the story found on revisiting her son's grave, and whether the erasure in [E] was an act of censorship. (Perhaps the grave was empty, but this was too close to the story of the Resurrection for comfort, and deemed sacrilegious. It might mean that the strange epigraph is correct after all though.) All in all, it is perhaps best to leave this cantiga for a purely instrumental performance.

 ——
E1:

The manuscript has the word sempr' here, presumably due to confusion with grand' e sempr' en in the refrain. However, daquesta is written above it as a correction.

E2:

See the note to line 33 of the lyrics for more on the textual gap at this point in stanza VIII.

Cantiga 333: Coosçudamente móstra miragres Santa María

Line 39:

Compare CSM 115:77 where the same word, with the alternative spelling Pascoa, also undergoes diaeresis.

Cantiga 334: De resorgir hóme mórto déu Nóstro Seor poder a sa Madre

Line 27:

See e.g. CSM 228:13 and 228:19 for examples of elision of the word mancebo in the manuscripts. As usual, I have chosen elision over marking synalepha here as the vowels are identical and the compressed metrical syllable falls on a single short note in the music.

Line 38:

Yet another example of diaeresis in a 3rd person singular preterite verb.

Cantiga 335: Com' e si naturalmente a Virge há pïadade

Line 13:

Mettmann ũu; [F] un; [E] ũu.

Line 20:

Mettmann ũu; [F] un; [E] ũu.

Cantiga 337: Ta gra poder há a Virge aos da térra guardar de mal

Line 4:

Mettmann ũu; [F] un; [E] ũu.

Line 35:

These two remaining lines of text should be sung to the final two lines of the stanza music. Compare CSM 180 which also has a short final stanza.

 ——
E1:

This note and the next are one step lower in the scale than the melodically corresponding notes in the vuelta at E2 and the reprise of the refrain at E3. Either variation could be correct, but probably not both, so take your pick.

Cantiga 339: E quantas guisas os séus acorrer sab' a Virge

Line 45:

Here agu' is the elided form of agua, so make sure to pronounce agu' e as [agu̯e].

Cantiga 340: Virge Madre grorïosa

For this cantiga, I have chosen to depart from Mettmann's reading of the first five lines as a refrain, as is suggested (more or less) by the version numbered as CSM 340 in [E]. Instead, I have followed the interpretations of [SP1987], [CLXG], [JMMS] and Elmes, which take the alternative version found under Festas de Santa Maria in the same manuscript (= CSM 412 in Mettmann's own numbering scheme) as having the correct, through-composed structure, with no refrain. I have also moved the stanza beginning Tu es alva per que visto from fifth to second place, in order to match CSM 412, but otherwise, the text is unchanged from Mettmann's 1989 volume except for line 48 (see below).

Line 48:

In this line Mettmann has tẽe from [E] 340. I prefer to use the form tee from the Festas version (see the main note above) in order to preserve the rhyme with cree and vee.

 ——
E1:

This transcription is based solely on the version at FSM 2 in [E], which Mettmann numbers 412. See the main footnote on the Lyrics tab for more details. Note that, apart from the lack of a refrain here, the differences between this version and 340 itself are minor, and quite unimportant in a Cantiga that clearly invites a rhythmically free interpretation.

Cantiga 341: Com' há gra pesar a Virge dos que gra pecado faze

Line 41:

There is a gap in [E] here the size of two lines (four hemistichs), and unfortunately this cantiga does not appear in any other manuscript. However, in contrast to the rather ruinous gap in CSM 331, the story here seems to hold up reasonably well without the missing part. An instrumental interlude could therefore fill the rest of the stanza, perhaps, or alternatively, these two lines could be run into the next two, making an extended stanza before the refrain. Creative performers will have yet more ideas, no doubt.

 ——
E1:

Due to a poor choice of clef position at the start of this stave, the music scribe was forced to place this .owo ligature on top of the de- of desfazen, but then wrote the de back in, in small letters underneath and to the left.

Cantiga 342: Co razô nas creaturas figura póde mostrar Déus

Line 18:

Like the previous CSM 341, this cantiga also has a gap in [E], and is not included in any other manuscript. The gap here is the size of one stanza, and it appears from the stanzas that precede and follow it that all of the missing text must be taken up with a description of the image of the Virgin found in the marble. I will therefore throw all caution to the wind on this occasion and suggest the following patch: remove the immediately preceding hemistich, i.e. be qual xa quis Deus pintar, and replace it with the text a Virge que no á par, which scans and rhymes correctly, is a very common formula in other cantigas, and joins nicely onto the trailing sentence fragment Tẽendo seu Fi' e braço. It's obviously a much shorter description than was originally intended, but it does the job.

 ——
E1:

The word Deus here was originally missed out from the manuscript, but it was added as a later correction, and the number of notes and ligatures is right.

Cantiga 343: A Madre do que o démo fez no mudo que falasse

Line 20:

Synalepha here works well musically, the metrical syllable -go es- falling on a long plica .oron.

Cantiga 345: Sempr' a Virge grorïosa faz aos séus entender

Line 14:

The combined metrical syllable a hou- resulting from synalepha in a houvera falls here on single punctum .o in the music, but elision is obviously not an option.

Line 26:

Mettmann, unusually, points out the hiatus in Guadeíra in his footnotes.

Line 58:

Synaeresis is required in viía here, and is common elsewhere in forms of the verb veer.

 ——
E1:

Once again, the [E] music scribe just copied the refrain melody for the vuelta, but this leaves the line one note/ligature short, since quando foi o apelido here in the first stanza has eight syllables, whereas faz aos seus entender in the refrain has just seven. Since the refrain line has final stress (i.e. a masculine rhyme) and the stanza line has an extra unstressed syllable (i.e. a feminine rhyme), the best musical solution is obviously just to add an extra punctum at this point, at same pitch as the preceding virga. The latter then needs to remain 'unperfected' (with two beats, not three) in order to keep the rhythm straight.

Cantiga 346: Com' a grand' enfermidade e sãar muito demóra

Line 21:

The word guariu shows another example of the common diaeresis in 3sg preterite verb forms. In this case the musical result is very good, as the extra syllable falls on a single punctum.

Line 22:

Diaeresis in mui is a possible solution here (cf. CSM 139:23), but it isn't as convincing musically as the case in the previous line. Instead I have substituted the longer form muito, as suggested by both [JMMS] and the draft version (as of 5th November 2012) at the Oxford CSM Database; the latter suggests that mui toste is a 'reduction' of muito toste, presumably meaning an accidental omission of the repeated syllable to.

Cantiga 347: A Madre de Jesú-Cristo, o verdadeiro Messías

E1:

In the manuscript the a- of amostra in the first stanza was added as a later amendment, but the musical notation is correct.

Cantiga 349: Muito praz aa Virge santa que Déus fiou por parenta

Line 1:

The desired synaeresis in aa is clearly indicated by the music in both copies of this cantiga in [E], i.e. CSM 349 and CSM 387.

Line 6:

The word spírito in this hemistich, and in the very similar phrase que do Sant' Espírito in CSM 411:6, seem to be the only clear-cut, intentional cases of a naturally proparoxytone word (one with antepenultimate stress) appearing before a caesura in the Cantigas de Santa Maria. In contrast to CSM 204:32 and 251:76, we cannot fix the metre here by creating a syllable earlier in the phrase and compensating with synaeresis, since *spirto is not permissible, so the metrical stress just has to move to the penultimate syllable instead. (Note that the version at CSM 387 has the Latin form Spiritus instead, but that shouldn't have penultimate stress either.)

Line 16:

Mettmann omees; [E] 349 omees; [E] 387 omes.

Line 22:

Synaeresis in ángeo is rather common, a clear example being CSM 245:5. A two-syllable plural form written anjos is also found in CSM 329:21.

Line 27:

Mettmann omees; [E] 349 omees; [E] 387 omes.

 ——
E1:

This transcription is based solely on Cantiga 349 in [E], but the differences from the alternative version numbered 387 are of no musical significance: the four long plicas .oron that appear here in the refrain and the vuelta become ligatures .oyo, but the reading is (or can be) the same.

Cantiga 350: Santa María, Seor, val-nos u nos mestér for

Line 38:

In this line it is very hard to choose between Madr' e nossa avogada and Madre e noss' avogada as the better resolution for the surplus metrical syllable. Each works well with the music, and both elisions are well attested elsewhere.

Cantiga 351: A que Déus avondou tanto que quiso dela nacer

Line 19:

Synaeresis in tiía works well with the music, as the compressed metrical syllable falls on a two-note ligature .oso, preserving the natural hiatus in singing.

 ——
E1:

The word mui here in the first stanza was added to [E] as a later amendment, but the number of notes/ligatures is correct.

Cantiga 352: Fremosos miragres móstra a Madre da fremosura

Line 22:

The word cavaleiro is commonly elided elsewhere, e.g. CSM 16:19, CSM 59:15; see the Concordance for more.

 ——
E1:

This clef appears to be a correction in the manuscript: the remaining notes on the stave (one of which is surplus to requirements anyway) were written at the wrong pitch for the existing clef, so this one had to be inserted. However, there was no space after the decorated capital so it was squeezed in just before.

E2:

[E] has an extra word E here, with a virga .on written above it. It's quite clear though from the metrical and musical structure that both are surplus to requirements, so I've dropped them.

Cantiga 354: Eno pouco e no muito, e todo es faz mercee

Line 4:

In this line, the compressed syllable tii- of tiía sits below a convenient long plica .ood, so the natural syllables are preserved in singing.

 ——
E1:

This punctum is obviously missing from the manuscript. I've restored it by reference to the vuelta at E2 and the reprise of the refrain at E3.

E2:

See E1.

E3:

See E1.

Cantiga 355: O que a Santa María serviço fezér de grado

Line 41:

It is possible that the original spelling dormio in the first hemistich here was the scribe's attempt to indicate the necessary diaeresis. (On the other hand, pediu in the next line was originally spelled pedio, and no diaeresis is required there.)

Line 41:

In the second hemistich, aa with synaeresis falls on a two-note ligature .owo in the music, thus preserving the natural syllables in singing.

Line 42:

Synaeresis in mercee is common elsewhere, e.g. CSM 105:1, CSM 180:50.

Line 51:

Synalepha is more or less obligatory after the unstressed personal pronoun mi.

Line 97:

The combined metrical syllable -pre a- falls nicely on a two-note ligature .owo.

 ——
E1:

There's a decorated capital 'O' and a blank 6-line stave with que a Santa Maria underlaid here, but no more music is notated.

Cantiga 356: No é mui gra maravia se sabe fazer lavor

Line 28:

Mettmann (I and II) has forõ-na here, which is true to [E], but at odds with his usual editorial practice of only keeping tildes before another vowel, so I have categorised the change here as a correction. See also CSM 361:30 (fezerõ-na), which I have fixed in the same way.

 ——
E1:

I have assumed that the pair of adjacent short plicas (.ron) at the same pitch in the manuscript is a mistake, since (a) such a sequence never occurs elsewhere; (b) the rhythm is wrong: one of the pair should be a long; and (c) it doesn't match the following line at E2.

E2:

See E1.

Cantiga 357: Como tórç' o dém' os nembros do hóme per séus pecados

E1:

This stave appears to have a C-clef on each of the top two lines. From the placement of the notes on the stave, however, the upper stave must be the correct one, in order to match the melody of every other line of the music.

Cantiga 358: A que às cousas coitadas d' ajudar muit' é tẽuda

Line 10:

Synaeresis is very common in seer, and in this case the word keeps its two natural syllables when sung, as it falls on a long ascending plica .ood.

Cantiga 359: As mãos da Santa Virge que tangero acarô Jesú-Cristo

Line 33:

The combined syllable resulting from synalepha here falls on a descending plica .ron in the music, so the vowels can keep their separate identity when sung.

Line 34:

Synaeresis is found quite commonly in forms of the verb veer.

 ——
E1:

This flat is missing from the manuscript, but is required for the vuelta to match the refrain in the first line of music.

Cantiga 361: Nu' hóme per re no deve a dultar

Line 19:

The synalepha here works fine musically, with the combined syllable -a es- falling on an ascending plica .bod. Note that synaeresis in Reía (giving reia) is not an alternative as it never occurs elsewhere; the word invariably keeps its three natural syllables. See also CSM 284:9.

Line 30:

For fezero-na (Mettmann: fezerõ-na) see CSM 356:28.

Cantiga 362: Be póde Santa María séu lum' ao cégo dar

E1:

I have moved this clearly misplaced division from after the word que in the first stanza to before it.

Cantiga 363: E bo ponto vimos esta Seor que loamos

Line 7:

The combined metrical syllable -co e here falls on a two-note ligature .oso in the music, so I have preferred this synalepha over the elision of rico, even though the latter is well attested elsewhere.

Line 8:

In this case, the very common elision of the word disse is musically more elegant than synalepha, as the elided syllable falls on a single punctum .o.

Line 19:

For this line [E] has El se vio nas prijoes // cuidou que morresse, where the form vio might have been intended to suggest diaeresis, although scribal practice is far from consistent in this regard. If this were the case, then Mettmann's inserted e (absent from both [E] and [F]) would not be needed for the metre, and the overall rhythm of the line might even feel more natural. However, although the e isn't strictly essential to the sense either, it is more in keeping with the usual style of the cantigas, so ultimately I've thought it better to stick with Mettmann's version.

Cantiga 364: Que por serviço da Virge mete séu córp' e ventura

Line 15:

The compressed syllable of the word triinta with synaeresis falls on an ascending plica .bod, preserving the natural hiatus. Modern Portuguese and Galician have trinta with two syllables.

Line 19:

See CSM 271:39, CSM 305:13 and CSM 308:37 for attested cases of elision in the word serviço.

Line 23:

After this line there is a gap in [E] corresponding in size to the rest of this single stanza, and since none of the other manuscripts has this cantiga, it is not possible to know what the text might have been. Fortunately, however, the gap seems to be after the narrative climax, and the stanzas immediately before and after this one are not left with incomplete sentences, so it would seem to be an entirely reasonable performance choice here to just omit the incomplete stanza altogether. The final stanza is quite sufficient in itself to wrap up the tale.

Cantiga 365: Be tira Santa María pela sa gra pïedade

Like CSM 298, this cantiga has no music in the manuscripts.

Line 26:

Compare CSM 45:34 and CSM 175:22, both with the exclamation “Estad' estade!”.

Line 32:

Synaeresis in ao appears to be the only resolution here; cases are rare in this word, considering its frequency, but there are other examples in CSM 64:64 and 155:45.

Cantiga 366: A que e nóssos cantares nós chamamos Fror das frores

Epigraph:

Mettmann's roman numeral LXV here is an editorial error; it should be LXVI.

Line 1:

Mettmann, following [E], has Fror das flores in the first line of the refrain. However, reprises of this line in the manuscript vacillate freely between flor(es) and fror(es) so I suggest sticking with the more common forms with r throughout.

Line 28:

Synaeresis is common in forms of the verb seer.

Line 50:

The combined metrical syllable -ge e resulting from synalepha here falls on a long plica .ood, so the natural syllables are preserved when sung.

Line 54:

The word campo is not common in the Cantigas: there is only one other instance, in CSM 309:48. Elision seems nonetheless to be the best resolution for the metrical surplus here as the elided syllable falls on a single punctum .o, and the word is still easily identifiable without its final vowel.

 ——
E1:

In a strange continuation of the missing music for CSM 365, this cantiga lacks music in the manuscript just for the first four words A que en nossos which appear right at the bottom of the page. (It seems that the folio must have been mislaid at some point and only recovered when the music scribe had moved on.) Anyway, I have assumed that the refrain is the same as the vuelta at E2, following the usual structure, and copied the missing music from there.

E2:

See E1.

Cantiga 367: Grandes miragres faz Santa María e fremosos

E1:

There is evidently some confusion in the musical notation of this cantiga between .on .e .e and .on .o .o and .o .e .e at the start of each phrase. For a simple and consistent ternary rhythm, however, the first of these three sequences seems to be required in all cases, so I would suggest replacing the others wherever they occur. Anglés makes essentially the same observation in a footnote to his original 1943 transcription, but in neither that transcription itself nor in the alternative one that he provided in the 1958 studies (volume III-2) does he follow what seems, to me, to be his own good advice.

E2:

This flat is missing from the refrain in [E] but is present in the vuelta below.

E3:

This final note is missing from the manuscript, so I have copied the one from the end of the refrain, which can just about be seen in the manuscript crashing into the decorated capital C at the start of the first stanza. (Perhaps the music scribe was copying what he'd written earlier and didn't spot it.)

Cantiga 369: Como Jesú-Cristo fezo a Sa Pedro que pescasse

Line 2:

The word pexe gets a single ligature .owo in the music in [E], implying a single syllable, so elision (or synalepha) is assumed to be intended.

Line 14:

The metrical syllable jui- from juïgado with synaeresis falls on a four-note ligature .bowowa, so the natural syllables are easily preserved. Note also that the variant form julgado of the same word has just three syllables (see CSM 301:11).

Line 77:

In the second hemistich here, elision of aquele fits the natural rhythm of the words much better than elision of pexe.

Line 83:

The combined metrical syllable -mo a- falls on a two-note ligature .owo.

 ——
E1:

The manuscript has tal razon maneira here, which is clearly a mistake. Fortunately, the music scribe was concentrating, and no notes are written above the extra word.

Cantiga 371: Tantos vai Santa María eno séu Pórto fazer de miragres

Line 35:

The combined metrical syllable in fosse u with synalepha falls here on a descending plica .ron in the music, so the natural syllables are preserved.

Line 42:

Following [E], Mettmann has offereçer here, which has four natural syllables. However, the syncopated form ofrecer occurs in several other cantigas, so I have substituted it in this line as a more natural-sounding alternative to synaeresis in aa.

Cantiga 372: Muit' éste maior cousa e querer-se mostrar

E1:

These three notes are written a third (one stave line) too high in the manuscript.

E2:

This whole stave is written a third too high in the manuscript. I've taken the easy option of moving the clef rather than all the notes.

Cantiga 375: E todo nos faz mercee a Seor que todo vee

Line 27:

The combined syllable -te es- resulting from synalepha here falls on a two-note ligature .owo, preserving the hiatus.

Cantiga 376: A Virge, cuja mercee é pelo mundo sabuda

Line 39:

The combined metrical syllable -e a- resulting from synalepha here falls on a comfortable three-note ligature .eyeye in the music, so the natural syllables are preserved when sung.

 ——
E1:

This flat was obviously written by mistake, as it is cancelled by a natural before affecting any notes.

Cantiga 377: Sempr' a Virge grorïosa ao que s' e ela fía

Line 4:

The word tiía requires synaeresis here to fit the metre. Confusingly, though, the music in [E] clearly supplies nine separate notes and ligatures for the hemistich, and three of them are written above this word. On closer inspection, however, it must be the earlier punctum .o written above hóme that is the impostor, as it has no counterpart in the otherwise rhythmically identical phrase for fez u miragr' a Reía in the previous line. I recommend therefore that this note be struck out as shown on the Music tab, such that this line fits with the indicated synaeresis, and the corresponding lines in the remaining stanzas all fit as written.

Line 17:

Both tiía and seelos (seelo = 'seal' < Lat. sigillum) require synaeresis in this line.

 ——
E1:

See E3.

E2:

See the note to lyric line 4 for an explanation of this deletion.

E3:

This virga is missing from the manuscript; I have restored it by reference to the refrain at E1.

Cantiga 378: Muito nos faz gra mercee Déus Padre, Nóstro Seor

Line 6:

The word seer gets just a single punctum .o in the [E] music, so this synaeresis is clearly intended.

Cantiga 379: A que defende do démo as almas dos pecadores

Line 17:

Compare CSM 35:39.

Cantiga 381: Com' a vóz de Jesú-Cristo faz aos mórtos viver

Line 1:

The music in [E] provides just a single long note for the first word Como, hence the elision here.

Line 17:

Compare CSM 197:4 and CSM 284:9.

 ——
E1:

The manuscript has the unelided word Como at the start of this cantiga, and a separate punctum .o was originally written above the second syllable, but later erased.

Cantiga 382: Verdad' éste a parávoa que disse Rei Salamô

Line 1:

The music in [E] gives the -voa of parávoa a single short note, and synaeresis is therefore clearly intended. Contrast CSM 69:78 and CSM 65:135 where parávoa and parávoas have four metrical syllables. Note though that the more common form of the word (meaning "word") is paravla with just three syllables, and palavra also occurs.

Line 5:

[E] has e Rey por seu tan gran poder for the second hemistich of this line, but the music scribe skips the word tan without assigning it a note. Mettmann omits tan altogether, without comment.

Line 9:

The combined metrical syllable -de ũ- resulting from synalepha here falls on a four-note ligature .boyoron in the music, so the natural syllables can be preserved in singing.

Cantiga 383: O fondo do mar ta chão faz come a térra dura

Line 5:

The word tiía gets just two notes .on + .o in the music in [E], so the synaeresis here is clearly intended.

Line 31:

The combined metrical syllable -a es- from the synalepha here falls on a two-note ligature .ra, so the natural syllables are preserved when sung.

Cantiga 384: A que por mui gra fremosura éste chamada Fror das frores

Mettmann assigns this cantiga to his metrical category XIII in which every hemistich of both the refrain and the stanzas has 7' syllables (i.e. eight syllables with the final one unstressed). This clearly comes from a desire to match the refrain to the stanzas, since the latter essentially have 7' syllable hemistichs throughout, notwithstanding certain irregularities in the first stanza, which unfortunately are supported by the musical notation (more on this below).

The refrain as written in [E], however, clearly has hemistichs of 8' syllables (i.e. nine with the final one unstressed). In order to force it into the 7' model, Mettmann had to drop the word mui from the first hemistich, write é in the second even though this is corrected to éste in the manuscript, drop the second lle in the third, and finally assume synaeresis to compress loores to two syllables in the fourth (apparently, although he made no comment on this last point). Previously on this website—though admittedly after a lot of toing and froing—I accepted these changes, preferring above all to keep the musical structure of the refrain and the stanza exactly the same. However, that decision was based on not being aware of the é → éste correction, and also accepting perhaps too readily the synaeresis in loores, something José-Martinho Montero Santalha describes in A estrutura métrica de algumas das Cantigas de Santa Maria as 'a form so exceptional [as to be] inadmissible'. (Note that modern Portuguese has louvores which strengthens the original hiatus with a consonant.) Whilst it might be possible to work around this by dropping the d' of d' outras and marking synalepha (giving seu nome que_outras loores), I have, for now at least, decided that the safest option is to reinstate the manuscript version of the refrain lyrics, and to transcribe its music without modification.

The stanzas, however, still need a bit of work. Unfortunately, in the first stanza as it appears in the manuscript, the first hemistich of line 5 and both hemistichs of line 6 have 8' syllables, and the music is written to accommodate this. In order to fit the other twelve stanzas I have therefore accepted Mettmann's edition of line 6, which drops the word end' and changes daquesto to desto, and I have also removed the superfluous conjunction e from the start of line 5. See the Music tab for details of my corresponding minor modifications to the musical notation.

Line 5:

See the main footnote to this cantiga.

Line 7:

Compare CSM 65:7 and the many instances of the alternative form crérig' (see the Concordance).

Line 25:

It is rather hard to choose between synaeresis in viía and elision of sempre to resolve the surplus syllable here; neither would be remarkable in a different context. I've chosen the synaeresis, though, if only because the scribe could easily have written sempr if that had been intended.

 ——
E1:

The only flat written in [E] is the one at E4 after the folio break. Both Anglés and Elmes are of the opinion that it should be present throughout, however, and it is possible that the folio containing most of the staves escaped correction, accidentally. I have not added the flats to every stave (as that would not be in line with my general policy of minimal intervention to only fix unequivocal errors) but as a performer you can make your own choice.

E2:

See the main note on the Lyrics tab for the background to the changes that I have made here and at E3 and E5. In this case, and at E3, the single plica .ood is intended to keep the rhythm of the .o + .e sequence that it replaces, but (of course) to accommodate just one syllable rather than two.

E3:

See E2.

E4:

See E1.

E5:

See E2. Here I have matched the syllable count simply by copying the music for dizia in the preceding line.

Cantiga 385: De toda enfermidade maa e de gra ferida

Line 6:

[E] has seer here; Mettmann, unusually, has substituted ser to fit the metre.

Cantiga 386: A que avondou do vio aa dona de Bretaa

Line 1:

[E] has just a instead of aa in the second hemistich. The number of notes and ligatures is correct, though.

Line 5:

[E] has the spurious extra words sa filla between this line and the next, but the music scribe has marked them for deletion and not assigned any notes.

Line 26:

The metrical syllable -sa es- resulting from synalepha falls on a two-note ligature .ra in the music, so the natural syllables can be preserved when sung.

Line 45:

Mettmann II misses this line out completely, but it is present in Mettmann I.

Line 46:

This line begins que nos in Mettmann II, which would appear to be connected to the disappearance of the previous line, given that it begins with the same two words.

Cantiga 389: A que pera paraíso irmos nos móstra camios

Line 17:

Compare the variant form julgava in CSM 245:30, and the related word juïgado with synaeresis in CSM 369:14.

Line 22:

The word espécïas normally has four syllables and antepenultimate stress, but synaeresis between the final two unstressed vowels (matching the modern pronunciation) seems the most natural way to resolve the extra syllable here. Compare hóstïa in CSM 251:76.

Cantiga 391: Como pód' a Grorïosa os mórtos fazer viver

Line 8:

The semantic distinction between adeante and deante in the Cantigas is vague at best, so I have substituted the latter word here in order to fix the surplus metrical syllable. Compare CSM 108:61 Que o rostro e tornar fez Deus o deant' atras.

Cantiga 392: Macar é Santa María Seor de mui gra mesura

Line 26:

Mettmann, following [E], has the word e at the beginning of this line, but it fits neither the sense nor the metre, so I have deleted it.

Cantiga 393: Macar é door a ravia maraviosa e fórte

Line 26:

Here we have another example of the very common appearance of diaeresis in 3sg preterite verb forms. The only unusual thing about this particular case is that Mettmann actually points it out in his footnotes.

Cantiga 398: A madre do Pastor bõo que coosceu séu gãado

Epigraph:

Mettmann's footnotes to this cantiga state simply that the epigraph is missing. In fact, an epigraph is present, both in the main text and in the index, which reads: Como Santa Maria de Terena guariu un ome porcariço de demo e resuscitó-o de morte a vida. However, this would appear to have nothing whatsoever to do with the story actually related in the cantiga, so presumably Mettmann considered it to be a scribal error, and omitted it for that reason.

Line 34:

This is one of no less than 17 cases of synaeresis in the verb form tiía (or its plural tiía) that are found throughout the Cantigas.

Cantiga 399: Que usar na de Déus Madre falar e amiga

Line 5:

In the music in [E] there are just two separate notes for the word porende, so this elision (or possibly synalepha) seems to be intended.

Line 31:

Mettmann, following [E], has porende in this line. I have substituted the shorter synonymous form porê to fit the metre.

Cantiga 401: Macar poucos cantares acabei e co so

This cantiga lacks music in [E], but the music can be found in [To].

To1:

In the [To] manuscript there is a clear separation between .o and .owoyoyo. Anglés transcribes them separately too, although they share the single syllable -zon of razon. I have joined them together here for clarity. See also To3 below.

To2:

Ribera transcribes this custos as a division, despite it being next to another division higher up on the stave. Anglés, for all his criticism of the inaccuracy of Ribera's retouched 'facsimiles', makes exactly the same mistake, and even marks it '(sic.)' in his square notation overlay. To my eye, however, it is clearly just a partially erased custos, in exactly the right position for the following note on the next stave.

To3:

This is the same situation as at To1 above, and again I have joined .o and .owoyoyo for clarity. As before, Anglés keeps the original spacing, but this time he incorrectly shows .owowoyo instead of .owoyoyo in his square notation overlay.

Cantiga 402: Santa María, nembre-vos de mi

There is no epigraph for this cantiga in [E], and no index entry there from which text could be taken. Neither is there any music, and the cantiga does not appear in any other manuscript, so a simple spoken recitation is a good option for performance. Another would be to use the music from a different cantiga with the same metre, for example CSM 22, 44, 58.

Line 23:

If the music from another cantiga is used (see the main note above), then this two-line finda should be sung to the music for the refrain.

Cantiga 404: No é se guisa d' enfermos sãar

Line 57:

Here and in line 74 we have examples of the obligatory synalepha after the unstressed personal pronoun ti, which forms a diphthong with the following vowel.

Line 74:

See line 57.

 ——
To1:

Anglés transcribes this note and the one at To2 as virgae .on but marks both with an exclamation mark. To my eye, based on the 2003 facsimile edition, the presence of the stems is questionable—the first looks like a trick of the vellum texture and the second looks smudged, as though erased—so I have omitted them here. It is possible, however, that the stems are more clearly present in the original manuscript.

To2:

See To1.

Cantiga 405: De muitas guisas mostrar xe nos quér Santa María

To1:

This flat and the one at To2 are missing from the manuscript, obviously in error.

To2:

See To1.

To3:

It's not clear from the [To] facsimile whether this is actually a custos, as it is faint, appears to be mirrored with the stem on the left, and is at the wrong vertical position for the repeat of the refrain. However, I can see no other interpretation that makes any better sense, other than it being a slip of the pen that was never erased.

Cantiga 406: Be veas, Maio

Line 1:

Mettmann repeats this first line of the first stanza as the refrain, following the lyric scribe in [To]. Looking at the musical structure, however, which does not resolve to the expected final note at the end of this phrase, it seems that both made a mistake, and that the actual refrain, such as it is, is just the last line Be veas, Maio.

 ——
To1:

Anglés records this ligature incorrectly as .rowowo.

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

Line 1:

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.

Line 41:

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].

Cantiga 408: De spirital cilurgía be óbra Santa María

This cantiga appears only in [F], which does not have music.

Cantiga 409: Cantando e co dança seja por nós loada

This cantiga appears only in [F], which does not have music.

Line 1:

The lack of music is a shame, and perhaps a little ironic, given this opening line: "Singing, and with dance..."

Cantiga 411: Bẽeito foi o día e benaventurada a hóra

Line 6:

Just as in CSM 349:6, the stress in the word Espírito here must move from its natural antepenultimate position onto the penultimate syllable in order to give a regular metre.

Line 10:

Synaeresis is commonly found in the word viía. In this particular case, the compressed metrical syllable vii- falls on a long ligature .onyeyeye in the music, so the natural length is preserved in singing.

Line 26:

The name Simeô would normally be expected to have final stress, but in this case it has to fall on the syllable -me-.

Line 42:

Synaeresis in ángeo is rather common: it is also required in lines 81 and 97 here, along with several other cantigas, e.g. CSM 141:42, 306:17, 349:22. Pronunciation as anjo would be quite acceptable, especially as the plural form anjos is attested in CSM 329:21.

Line 55:

Here and in line 94 we have examples of obligatory synalepha after the unstressed personal pronoun mi, which always forms a diphthong with a following a or o.

Line 60:

See the note to CSM 273:16 for more on the metaphonic rhyme here between dẽosto, posto (normally with open [ɔ]) and agosto (with close [o]).

Line 81:

Mettmann places the hemistich bar after ángeo in his main text, as here, but points out the metrical problem in a footnote and suggests moving the final -o of ángeo to the second hemistich as a possible resolution. However, angeo with synaeresis falls in the corresponding position in lines 42 and 97, and in fact it looks as though in [To] an attempt was made to erase the e of angeo in this line (though it is still just visible). It therefore seems most elegant to use synaeresis again in this case, with diaeresis in foi to compensate (cf. CSM 414:11).

Line 97:

In this case, [To] has que o bẽeit angeo, which has the right number of syllables but doesn't fix the stress problem. I have therefore kept bẽeito from [E] and marked synaeresis in angeo as in lines 42 and 81.

 ——
E1:

This run of four staves with the F-clef on the second line of five is extremely unusual for the [E] manuscript, but it's for a very good reason: the long plicas .ood on each of these staves are at the lowest written pitch in the whole of [E], a low A which would normally be transcribed as A3, the A below middle C. No other cantiga in [E] descends to this note.

E2:

[E] does not have this flat, which I have inserted for consistency between refrain and vuelta.

Cantiga 413: Tod' aqueste mund' a loar devería

E1:

The stem here is almost invisible in Anglés' facsimile of [E], but without it the shape would be unique in the whole manuscript: the descending body .a never occurs without a stem on the left side at the start of a ligature.

Cantiga 414: Como Déus é comprida Trĩidade

Line 11:

Diaeresis in the word foi is not common—CSM 411:81 has the only other place I have marked it—but it works well enough against the music here, with the unstressed -i falling on a short plica .ron.

Cantiga 415: Ta bẽeita foi a saüdaçô

Line 1:

Mettmann, in a rare attempt to help the reader with syllabation, asserts in a footnote that bẽeita has four syllables in this line. Unfortunately, he is completely wrong: bẽeita has three syllables here, as everywhere else, and saüdaço has four syllables, as everywhere else. One can only assume Mettmann was thinking that the manuscript form saudaçon had just three syllables and was trying to compensate. Whatever the source of his mistake, though, it is crystal clear from the alignment of words and notes in the music in [E] that what I have here is correct.

 ——
E1:

Both [E] and [To] provide just a single ligature for the two syllables vẽe- of vẽemos ([To] has .rowon). However, this is clearly a mistake with no metrical justification, so I've corrected it by copying the note shapes from the melodically corresponding place in the vuelta at E2.

E2:

See E1.

Cantiga 417: Nóbre do e mui preçado foi Santa María dar a Déus

E1:

Comparing this musical phrase with the refrain, it appears that the following four notes and ligatures are written at the wrong vertical position for the preceding C-clef. I have therefore inserted this extra F-clef as a correction, matching the following one.

Cantiga 418: Os séte dões que dá Déus

This cantiga has no epigraph.

Line 34:

The words regnará here and regno in line 38 are scribal Latinisms. Pronouncing them as reinará and reino would perhaps be more natural when singing.

Line 38:

For regno see line 34.

Cantiga 419: Des quando Déus sa Madre aos céos levou

Line 51:

Mettmann a escritura; [To] a scritura; [E] a escritura.

Line 78:

Mettmann leaves out the hemistich bar in this line in both his first and second editions, presumably due to the fact that the line doesn't divide comfortably, with the caesura falling in the middle of the word Josafas and unnatural stress being required on en for regular scansion.

Cantiga 420: Bẽeita és, María

Line 5:

The words o dia are missing from this line in [E], but the number of notes and ligatures is nonetheless correct.

Line 16:

The combined metrical syllable -te o- from synalepha here falls on a four-note ligature .onyeyeye, so the natural syllables are easily preserved when sung.

Line 73:

These two extra lines should be sung to the last bit of the music, from e bẽeita a fala... in the first stanza. See the Music tab.

 ——
E1:

See E2.

E2:

I have added the flat here and at E3 since it is written explicitly in the melodically similar phrase at E1.

E3:

See E2.

Cantiga 421: Nembre-se-te, Madre de Déus, María

E1:

[E] has one note too many in this phrase of the music, so I have deleted the first one in order to match the repeat at E2.

E2:

See E1.

Cantiga 422: Madre de Déus, óra por nós téu Fi' essa hóra

Line 11:

Mettmann fugisti; [To] fogist; [E] fugisti.

Line 33:

Mettmann has u | [foi] posto here, moving u to the first hemistich and inserting the word foi, which is not in [E], but is in [To]. Whilst this undoubtedly improves the sense, it breaks the scansion, spoils the repeated rhyme -iste in the first hemistich, and ignores the recurring pattern whereby the word u begins the second hemistich.

Line 36:

The first hemistich of this line should end in an unstressed syllable to be consistent with the metre of the other stanzas, so I have marked diaeresis in reis (which is common elsewhere) and compensated with synalepha in E u at the start, which falls on a convenient two-note ligature .oswjo in the music.

Cantiga 423: Como podemos a Déus gradecer

Line 14:

Synaeresis is commonly found in the verb seer.

Line 23:

This is a perhaps a rather odd case of elision, but it is the only resolution for the extra syllable in this line that leaves the words E u... at the start intact, which I believe is important as the same formula begins all stanzas after the first two. Although the form strela normally only occurs after a vowel (see CSM 1:37, 94:113, 100:2, 325:1), the -s of as and the s- of strelas will merge quite naturally here, resulting in [as·tre·las] which can be sung quite comfortably.

Line 26:

The word reis undergoes diaeresis in several other cantigas. See the note to CSM 1:36 for more on this word.

Line 35:

Compare CSM 139:43 where escrito is elided in the manuscripts.

Cantiga 424: Pois que dos Reis Nóstro Seor quis de séu linage decer

Line 23:

Mettmann ũu; [T] un; [E] ũu. [To] has llevou at the end of this line, an obvious Castilianism.

Line 26:

See the note to CSM 129:9. [T] has antena terra dos judeus (= ante na...?) which does scan correctly, but this doesn't make as much sense as the [To] version, and may be a scribal error.

Cantiga 426: Subiu ao céo o Fio de Déus

Line 15:

Mettmann I and II ante les; [To] ãteles. There may be just the subtlest hint of a space after the first e in [To] but I do not believe this was the scribe's intent, given the Castilianism required to make any sense of it. [ToMES] nevertheless transcribes ãte les without comment, and [JMMS] fixes the Castilianism without changing the sense, writing ante lhes. To my mind, though, the presence of a parallel ant' eles just two lines up is clear evidence that this is the correct reading here too.

Line 31:

Synaeresis is commonly required in forms of the verb veer.

Cantiga 427: Todo-los bẽes que nos Déus quis fazer polo Fio séu

Line 5:

prometeu [prometeu̯] does not rhyme with séu [sɛu̯] and déu [dɛu̯] within the refrain, but it does rhyme with the final words of all stanzas.

Line 47:

The combined metrical syllable e en falls on a two-note ligature .oso in the music in [To], so the natural hiatus can be preserved in singing.