%Menota_entities;] > Between Sessa and Cintura Carvajal Transcription by Virginia Correia Translation by Virginia Correia Introduction by Albert Lloret Encoded in TEI P5 XML by Danny Smith The Global Medieval Sourcebook

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This poem is a serranilla, an evolution of the Provençal pastorela. Written in short verse (arte menor), serranillas narrate a courtly poet’s encounter with a mountain woman. This is one of six compositions in the genre by fifteenth-century author Carvajal (or Carvajales). Very little is known about Carvajal’s life. His poetry is linked to the court of Alfonso the Magnanimous in Naples (r. 1442-1458) and to that of Alfonso’s son Ferrante (r. 1459-1494). In addition to his famous serranillas, Carvajal is also known for his literary epistles and ballads.

In this poem, Carvajal subverts some of the genre’s conventions, as he does not meet a serrana but a lady of the court—the Princess of Rossano—in the context in which he would have normally run into a rustic woman. Upon encountering the lady, the poet ponders her beauty with references to biblical and mythological characters.

The poem is copied in Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, VITR/17/7, fol. 136v-137r. This manuscript is a copy of the poetry collection known as the Cancionero de Estúñiga, ca. 1465. It has been digitized: http://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000051837. It contains a compilation of mostly Castilian poems, including ballads, as well as a few Italian compositions. Their authors accompanied the King of Aragon, Alfonso the Magnanimous, in Naples in the mid-fifteenth century.

Carvajal. Poesie. Edited by Emma Scoles. Edizioni dell’Ateneo, 1967. Critical edition of Carvajal’s poetry.

Gerli, E. Michael. “Chapter 6. The Libro in the Cancioneros.” Reading, Performing, and Imagining the ‘Libro del Arcipreste’. University of North Carolina Press, 2016. esp. pp. 194-203. Reassessment of Caravajal’s serranilla in view of their intertextual relationship with the Libro de buen amor.

Marino, Nancy F. La serranilla española: notes para su historia e interpretación. Scripta Humanistica, 1987. Study of the serranilla genre, with attention to Carvajal’s poems in chapter 5.

Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, VITR/17/7, fol. 136v-137r.

Entre Sesa et Cintura Between Sessa and Cintura

"Between Sessa and Cintura" is published by The Global Medieval Sourcebook (GMS), a free, open access, and open source compendium of medieval texts in their original languages and in English translation. GMS comprises computer-readable transcriptions or editions alongside new translations of texts dating from the ninth to the sixteenth century and originating in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. The GMS platform includes critical introductions as well as sources for further reading.

Transcriptions and translations are encoded in XML conforming to TEI (P5) guidelines. The original-language text is contained within <lem> tags and translations within <rdg> tags.

Texts are translated into modern American English with maximum fidelity to the original text, except where it would impair comprehension or good style. Archaisms are preserved where they do not conflict with the aesthetic of the original text. Scribal errors and creative translation choices are marked and discussed in the critical notes.

The text has been punctuated. Word separation and capitalization follow modern usage. Elisions have been marked with an apostrophe.

<app> <lem wit="#Transcription"><!--Title as should be displayed above text. Put nothing here if the title in the text matches the title used elsewhwere--></lem> <rdg wit="#Translation"><!--Title as should be displayed above text. Put nothing here if the title in the text matches the title used elsewhwere--></rdg> </app> <app> <lem wit="#Transcription">A la princep[e]sa de Rosano</lem> <rdg wit="#Translation">To the princess of Rossano</rdg> </app> Entre Sesa et Cintura Between Sessa and Cintura caçando por la trauiesa, While hunting across the countryside, tope dama que dehesa I came upon a lady who like a goddess parescia en su fermosura. Looked; such was her beauty. Pense que fuese Diana I thought she was Diana, que caçasse las siluestras, Hunting wild beasts, o aquella que lla

The original manuscript states quella here.

mançana Or her who the apple gano a las biuas muestras.

This is a correction of nuestras (Scoles 1967: 118n8).

 Demonstrably won. “Soys humana criatura?” “Are you a human creature?” dixe, et dixo, non con priessa, I said, and she said with no hurry, “Si sennor, et principessa “Yes sir, and the Princess de Rosano por uentura”. Of Rossano by good fortune.” O, flor de toda bellesa, Oh, flower of extreme beauty, o, templo de honestidat, Oh, temple of honesty, palacio de gentilesa, Palace of courtesy, fundamiento de bondat, Foundation of goodness, mi sententia uos condena; My sentence condemns you; que si en aquel templo de Baris If you had been in that temple of Bari uos fallara l’ynfante Paris, And had met Prince Paris, non fuera robada Elena. Helen would not have been stolen away. Nin de Bersabe, Dauid Neither by Bathsheba, David non se dexara vençer, Would have been conquered, nin Usrias tornara en lid Nor Uriah would have returned to the battle por sus dias fenescer; To end his days; tanto soys de gracia llena For you are so full of grace que si iuntas uos mirara, That had [Achilles] seen the two of you next to each other, muy menos se enamorara He would have never fallen in love Archiles de Poliçena. with Polyxena.