Martín Codax
Encyclopedia
Galician people
The Galicians are an ethnic group, a nationality whose historical homeland is Galicia in north-western Spain. Most Galicians are bilingual, speaking both their historic language, Galician, and Castilian Spanish.-Political and administrative divisions:...
medieval jogral (non-noble composer and performer -- as opposed to a trobador), possibly from Vigo
Vigo
Vigo is a city and municipality in north-west Spain, in Galicia, situated on the ria of the same name on the Atlantic Ocean.-Population:...
, Galicia in present day Spain. He may have been active during the middle of the thirteenth century, judging from scriptological analysis (Monteagudo 2008). He is one of only two out of a total of 88 authors of cantigas d'amigo who uses only the archaic strophic form aaB (a rhymed distich followed by a refrain). And he also employs an archaic rhyme-system whereby i~o / a~o are used in alternating strophes. In addition Martin Codax consistently deploys a strict parallelistic technique known as leixa-pren (see the example below; the order of the third and fourth strophes is inverted in the Pergaminho Vindel but the correct order appears in the Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional
Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional
The Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional , commonly called Colocci-Brancuti, is a compilation of Galician-Portuguese lyrics by both troubadours and jograes...
and the Cancioneiro da Vaticana
Cancioneiro da Vaticana
The Cancioneiro da Vaticana is a compilation of troubadour lyrics in Galician-Portuguese. It was discovered c. 1840 in the holdings of the Vatican Library and was first transcribed by Ernesto Monaci in 1875....
). His dates, however, remain unknown and there is no documentary biographical information concerning the poet.
The body of work attributed to him consists of seven cantigas d'amigo
Cantiga de amigo
The Cantiga de amigo or Cantiga d'amigo , literally a "song about a boyfriend", is a genre of medieval erotic lyric poetry, apparently rooted in a song tradition native to the northwest quadrant of the Iberian Peninsula. What mainly distinguishes the cantiga de amigo is its focus on a world of...
which appear in the Galician-Portuguese
Galician-Portuguese
Galician-Portuguese or Old Portuguese was a West Iberian Romance language spoken in the Middle Ages, in the northwest area of the Iberian Peninsula. It was first spoken in the area bounded in the north and west by the Atlantic Ocean and the Douro River in the south but it was later extended south...
songbooks and in the Vindel parchment. In all three manuscripts he is listed as the author of the compositions, and in all three the number and the order of the songs is the same. This provides important evidence to support the view that the order of other poets' songs in the cancioneiros (songbooks) should not automatically be dismissed as random or attributed to later compilers. Rather, the identity of the poems and their order in all witnesses supports the view that the seven songs of Codax reflect an original performance set, and that the sets of poems by some other poets might also have been organized for performance.
This parchment was discovered by chance: the antiquarian bookseller and bibliophile Pero Vindel in Madrid found it among his holdings in 1913; it had been used as the cover of a copy of Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
's De Officiis
De Officiis
De Officiis is an essay by Marcus Tullius Cicero divided into three books, in which Cicero expounds his conception of the best way to live, behave, and observe moral obligations.- Origin :...
.
Martim Codax's poems that appeared in the parchment are the following (untitled, they are listed by their first verse):
- Ondas do mar de Vigo
- Mandad'ey comigo
- Mia irmana fremosa treydes comigo
- Ay Deus, se sab'ora meu amigo
- Quantas sabedes amar amigo
- Eno sagrad' en Vigo
- Ay ondas que eu vin veer
In the Vindel parchment musical notation (although with lacunae) survives along with the texts, except for the sixth one. They are the only cantiga de amigo
Cantiga de amigo
The Cantiga de amigo or Cantiga d'amigo , literally a "song about a boyfriend", is a genre of medieval erotic lyric poetry, apparently rooted in a song tradition native to the northwest quadrant of the Iberian Peninsula. What mainly distinguishes the cantiga de amigo is its focus on a world of...
for which the music is known (and, if Codax was indeed Galician, the only medieval Galician secular songs (see Cantigas de Santa Maria
Cantigas de Santa Maria
The Cantigas de Santa Maria are 420 poems with musical notation, written in Galician-Portuguese during the reign of Alfonso X El Sabio and often attributed to him....
). The Pergaminho Sharrer
Pergaminho Sharrer
The Pergaminho Sharrer is the name given to a mediaeval parchment fragment containing seven songs by King Dinis I of Portugal, with lyrics in the Galician-Portuguese language and musical notation....
contains seven melodies for cantiga de amor of Denis of Portugal
Denis of Portugal
Dinis , called the Farmer King , was the sixth King of Portugal and the Algarve. The eldest son of Afonso III of Portugal by his second wife, Beatrice of Castile and grandson of king Alfonso X of Castile , Dinis succeeded his father in 1279.-Biography:As heir to the throne, Infante Dinis was...
, also in fragmentary form.
A cantiga of Martin Codax
- Here is the third of his songs (text from Cohen 2003, slightly modified; tr. R. Cohen)
Mia irmana fremosa, treides comigo
a la igreja de Vigo u é o mar salido
e miraremos las ondas.
Mia irmana fremosa, treides de grado
a la igreja de Vigo u é o mar levado
e miraremos las ondas.
A la igreja de Vigo u é o mar salido
e verrá i mia madre e o meu amigo
e miraremos las ondas.
A la igreja de Vigo u é o mar levado
e verrá i mia madre e o meu amado
e miraremos las ondas.
Lovely sister, come with me
To the church in Vigo where the sea is rough,
And we will gaze at the waves.
Lovely sister, come willingly
To the church in Vigo, where the sea is up,
And we will gaze at the waves.
To the church in Vigo where the sea is rough,
And my mother and my darling will come,
And we will gaze at the waves.
To the church in Vigo, where the sea is up,
And my mother and my boyfriend will come,
And we will gaze at the waves.
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Basic Bibliography
- Cohen, Rip. 2010. The Cantigas d’Amigo: An English Translation. https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/33843.
- Cohen, Rip. 2003. 500 Cantigas d’ Amigo: Edição Crítica / Critical Edition. Porto: Campo das Letras. https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/33843
- Cunha, Celso. 1999. Cancioneiros dos Trovadores do Mar, edição preparada por Elsa Gonçalves. Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional/Casa de Moeda.
- Ferreira, Manuel Pedro. 1986. O Som de Martin Codax. Sobre a dimensão musical da lírica galego-portuguesa (séculos XII-XIV). Lisbon: UNISYS/ Imprensa Nacional - Casa de Moeda.
- Ferreira, Manuel Pedro. 1998. “Codax Revisitado”, Anuario de Estudios Literarios Galegos: 157-168.
- Monteagudo, Henrique. 2008. “Ortografia alfonsí? Para a análise grafemática dos testemuños poéticos en galego da segunda metade do século XIII”, in Ferreiro, Manuel et al.. (edd.), A edición da Poesia Trobadoresca en Galiza. A Coruña: Baía Edicións. 141-160
See also
- Cantiga de amigoCantiga de amigoThe Cantiga de amigo or Cantiga d'amigo , literally a "song about a boyfriend", is a genre of medieval erotic lyric poetry, apparently rooted in a song tradition native to the northwest quadrant of the Iberian Peninsula. What mainly distinguishes the cantiga de amigo is its focus on a world of...
- Pergaminho SharrerPergaminho SharrerThe Pergaminho Sharrer is the name given to a mediaeval parchment fragment containing seven songs by King Dinis I of Portugal, with lyrics in the Galician-Portuguese language and musical notation....
- Galician-Portuguese lyricGalician-Portuguese lyricIn the Middle Ages, the Galician-Portuguese lyric, sometimes called trovadorismo in Portugal and trobadorismo in Galicia, was a lyric poetic school or movement. All told, there are around 1680 texts in the so-called "secular lyric" or lírica profana...
- Galician-PortugueseGalician-PortugueseGalician-Portuguese or Old Portuguese was a West Iberian Romance language spoken in the Middle Ages, in the northwest area of the Iberian Peninsula. It was first spoken in the area bounded in the north and west by the Atlantic Ocean and the Douro River in the south but it was later extended south...