Using the texts

Main text

The title of each cantiga is its ‘Incipit’, made up of the first line of text plus sufficient following words to ensure that all titles are unique. (If you know the first few words of a cantiga but not the number, then the alphabetical Index by Incipit is the place to start looking.)

Use the buttons at the top of the Lyrics tab to toggle the display of syllable marks and phonetic (IPA) transcriptions for the whole cantiga. Spelling preferences can be changed in the usual way by clicking on the ‘cog’ icon on the title bar.

Epigraph

This is original summary of the cantiga from the manuscripts, normally beginning Esta é or Como. Use the buttons provided to show or hide syllable marks and the IPA transcription.

Line

The number for each line. Note that the epigraph and any reprises of the refrain are not numbered.

Refrain and stanzas

Use the buttons provided to show or hide syllable marks and the IPA transcriptions for each individual refrain or stanza.

The texts use a variety of special mark-up as summarized below. Note that the first two types (bullets and dotted underlines) only appear when syllable marks are being shown. The rest are displayed permanently, and all represent changes that I have made relative to Mettmann's edition for metrical reasons. You can find a complete summary of all such cases on the Modifications for metrical regularity page. Actual corrections relative to Mettmann are not highlighted in the main text, but they can be viewed on the Corrections page.

ete (bullet) Syllable separator inside a word.
t' e (dotted underline) A single syllable that crosses a word boundary, due to elision.
te e (solid underline, with space) synalepha: Two syllables merge into one across a word boundary, keeping both vowels.
tee (solid underline, no space) synaeresis: Two syllables merge into one inside a word.
teü (trema on red letter) diaeresis: A diphthong divides into two syllables.
te(•e) (superscript) melisma: One syllable is sung to two neumes.
e te (double underline) breaking: Two syllables are sung to one neume.
te (red text) My own textual modifications for improved scansion.
(dagger symbol) Footnote: place the mouse over the symbol to read the footnote, or refer to the bottom of the page.

Metrics

The ‘Metrics’ column counts the syllables in each line or hemistich and shows the rhyme group. Final unstressed syllables are excluded from the counts, but tagged with the apostrophe.

Footnotes

These are my own editorial notes for each cantiga. For convenience, these are collected and reproduced as All footnotes on one page, which should make it easier to search for common themes.

Metrical summary

This section (on the ‘Resources’ tab) summarises the scansion and rhyming schemes for the entire cantiga, and provides a complete table of rhyming endings. As for the footnotes, these are also collected and reproduced as All metrical summaries on one page.