The Carmina
Cantabrigiensia or Cambridge Songs
is a collection of texts preserved in Cambridge, but probably written in Canterbury
around 1050. The content however is Southern German. For details see the link
below.
This song tells the story of a woman from Swabia, an area
in Southern Germany, who get pregnant after her husband, a merchant, went away
for a couple of years. When he returns she tells him that she got pregnant by
eating snow. A few years later the husband goes again away for trade and takes
the boy with him. He sells the boy and when he returns he tells his wife that
the child has melted away by the heat of the sun. This story must have been
popular as various versions and translations exist. It has the structure of a sequentia, a hymn sung or recited during
mass before the reading of the Gospel. This antithesis between formal structure
and comic content is quite common in mediaeval poetry. Sacrilege? No, comic
relief.
Advertite, omnes
populi (CC 14)
Text after Strecker and with normalized spelling.
Advertite, pay attention
omnes populi,
ridiculum comic story
et audite,
quomodo
Suevum mulier her
Swabian husband
et ipse illam
defraudaret. cheated
Constantiae Konstanz
(city in Swabia)
civis Suevulus
trans aequora sea
gazam portans navibus treasure
domi coniugem at
home
lascivam nimis too
playful/horny
relinquebat. left
behind
Vix remige hardly,
with oarsmen (remix singular as
collective)
triste secat mare, sails
ecce subito suddenly
orta tempestate
furit pelagus, the
sea rages
certant flamina, lightning
flashes
tolluntur fluctus, the
streams are rising high
post multaque
exulem
vagum litore
longinquo
notus
exponebat.
And after many events the South wind put him as a
wandering exile on a faraway shore.
Nec interim
domi vacat coniux; stays
alone
mimi aderant, mimusplayers
iuvenes sequuntur,
quos et immemor not
thinking of
viri exulis
excepit gaudens; subject :
the wife
atque nocte proxima
praegnans
filium
iniustum fudit delivers
iusto die. note the word
play iniustum – iusto.
Duobus
volutis annis two
years having passed by
exul dictus
revertitur.
Occurrit meets
infida coniux
secum trahens
puerulum.
Datis osculis kiss
maritus illi husband
ʺDe quoʺ,
inquit, ʺpuerum
istum habeas,
dic, aut extrema
patieris.ʺ or
you will suffer severe beatings (extrema)
At illa
maritum timens
dolos versat applies deceit
in omnia.
ʺMiʺ, tandem, finally
ʺmi coniuxʺ, inquit mi…mi, wordplay with mimi?
ʺuna vice once
upon a time
in Alpibus nive sitiens snow
(nix nivis, f.)
exstinxi sitim. In
the Alps thirsty I quenched my thirst with snow (
Inde ergo
gravida thence pregnant
istum puerum
damnoso fetu, in
a terrible labour
heu, gignebam.ʺ gave
birth
Anni post haec quinque
transierant aut plus, had
passed by
et mercator
vagus
instauravit remos; he
had renewed the oars
ratem quassam reficit, repairs
the shattered ship
vela alligat puts
sails on
et nivis natum snow
child
duxit secum.
Transfretato mari to
pass over
producebat natum offered
for sale
et pro arrabone money
mercatori tradens handing
over to (another) merchant
centum libras
accipit pound
atque vendito sold
infante dives
revertitur.
Ingressusque
domum having entered
ad uxorem ait:
ʺConsolare,
coniux, comfort (me)
consolare,
cara:
natum tuum perdidi, I
have lost
quem non ipsa
tu
me magis
quidem
dilexisti. whom you did
certainly not love more than I did
Tempestate orta
nos ventosus furor a
rage full of wind
in vadosas syrtes on
shallow sandbanks
nimis fessos egit, too
tired, drove
et nos omnes
graviter
torret sol, at
il‐ scorches
le nivis natus
liquescebat.ʺ melted away
Sic perfidam
Suevus
coniugem
deluserat, deceived
sic fraus fraudem vicerat: overcame
nam quem genuit has
brought forth
nix, recte
hunc sol
liquefecit
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