Cantigas de Santa Maria

From the English Wikipedia:

The Cantigas de Santa Maria ("Canticles of Holy Mary") are manuscripts written in Galician-Portuguese, with musical notation, during the reign of Alfonso X El Sabio (1221–1284) and are one of the largest collections of monophonic (solo) songs from the Middle Ages. All of the songs at least mention the Virgin Mary, and every 10th is a religious hymn.

What brought my attention to these Cantigas is a German band by the name of Qntal whose work consists of songs with lyrics in Latin and a few other languages, like Galego-Português. They have taken several of these Cantigas, and recorded them in the band's enigmatic musical style.

It is interesting to hear a language like this one being incorporated into modern music. For someone who already speaks Portuguese or Galician, reading through these Cantigas is akin to an English speaker reading works written in the English of the 1600's. Undoubtedly, when compared to the evolution of English, the orthographic and morphological changes seen in these Romance languages are not as radical, and one is able to read a document from the 1200's much more easily than one would read something written in English from that same time; peninsular Romance remained stable from early on in its history. Keeping in mind those time periods, there is a sense of archaic in each case — words and grammatical constructions that feel old and aren't used anymore, but we catch the meaning of what is expressed, and with a few footnotes here and there, it is understood with accuracy.

The following is Cantiga IX performed by Qntal.

Facsimile for Cantigas de Santa Maria IX — Source

Por que nos ajamos
sempre, noit' e dia,
dela remenbrança,
en Domas achamos
que Santa Maria
fez gran demostrança.

En esta cidade, | que vos ei ja dita,
ouv' y hua dona | de mui santa vida,
mui fazedor d'algu' e | de todo mal quita,
rica e mui nobre | e de ben comprida.
Mas, por que sabiámos
como non queria
do mundo gabança,
como fez digamos
h albergaria,
u fillou morança.
Por que nos ajamos...

E ali morand' e | muito ben fazendo
a toda-las gentes | que per y passavan,
vo y un monge, | segund' eu aprendo,
que pousou con ela, | com' outros pousavan.
Diss' ela: «Ouçamos
u tedes via,
se ides a França.»
Diss' el: «Mas cuidamos
dereit' a Suria
log' ir sen tardança.»
Por que nos ajamos...

Log' enton a dona, | chorando dos ollos,
muito lle rogava | que per y tornasse,
des que el ouvesse | fito-los gollos
ant' o San Sepulcro | e en el beijasse.
«E mais vos rogamos
que, sse vos prazia,
ha semellança
que dalá vejamos
da que sempre guia
os seus sen errança.»
Por que nos ajamos...

The rest of this Cantiga, not included in Qntal's recording, can be found on the Portuguese Wikisource. Qntal's pronunciation podría ser mejor, but it's acceptable.

Morphologically, we see here something that has disappeared from modern Portuguese and Galician, but that persists in French and Italian. We see que vos ei ja dita, with the past participle agreeing with the antecedent (in this case, cidade): dita instead of dito, since cidade is feminine — compare que je vous ai dejà dite in modern French. Of note is the verb (h)aver being used as an auxiliary for the past tense, instead of ter in the modern forms of Portuguese and Galician. Pronunciation-wise, we hear ortographic ç as [ts], z as [dz] (particularly on the next piece, below), g still as [dʒ], which correspond accurately to the pronunciation of the period — compare to modern Portuguese [s], [z], and [ʒ], respectively.

There is a more traditional recording on Wikipedia, performed perhaps the way it was sang originally.

Cantiga C: Strela do Dia

Santa Maria,
Strela do dia,
mostra-nos via
pera Deus e nos guia.

Ca veer faze-los errados
que perder foran per pecados
entender de que mui culpados
son; mais per ti son perdõados
da ousadia
que lles fazia
fazer folia
mais que non deveria.
Santa Maria...

(click for full text)

Coincidentally, the artigo destacado sobre Galicia for the month of November on the Galician Wikipedia is one about cantigas: