%Menota_entities;] > Walking out of an olive grove Carvajal Transcription by Simón Andrés Villegas Translation by Simón Andrés Villegas 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 piece the poet clearly followed in the footsteps of the Marquis of Santillana, Íñigo López de Mendoza, who also composed serranillas. As the courtier tries to seduce a most beautiful mountain woman, his interest is met by her resistance and his own reawakened loyalty to his noble beloved back at court.

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. 130v-131r.

Saliendo de un oliuar Walking out of an olive grove

"Wandering lost, it was already night" 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.

 <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"><!--Subtitle in original language--></lem> <rdg wit="#Translation"><!--Subtitle in English--></rdg> </app> Saliendo de un oliuar, Walking out of an olive grove, mas fermosa que arreada, Much prettier than dressed up, vi serrana que tornar I saw a mountain girl who me fiso de mi iornada. Made me come back from my travel. Torneme en su compannia I went back to her company por faldas de una montanna, By the slopes of a mountain, supplicando si’l plasia And I begged if it would please her de mostrarme su cabanna. To show me her hut. Dixo: “Non podeys librar, She said, “You will not succeed, sennor, aquesta uegada, Sir, this time around, que superfluo es demandar For it is useless to demand quien non suele dar nada”. To her who never gives anything.” Si lealtad non me acordara Had loyalty not awoken me, de la mas lynda figura, With her most beautiful face del todo me enamorara I would have completely fallen in love, tanta ui su fermosura. Such was the beauty I saw in her. Dixe: “¿Que quereys mandar, I said, “What can I do for you, sennora, pues soys casada? My lady, since you are married? Que uos non quiero enoiar I do not want to bother you nin offender mi enamorada”. Nor offend my beloved”. Replico: “Yd en buen hora, She replied, “May you farewell; non cures de amar uillana Do not try to love a peasant, pues seruis a tal sennora, For you love such a lady, non troques seda por lana, You should not swap silk for wool, njn querays de mi burlar Or try to fool me, pues sabeys que so enaienada”. For you know well that I am not yours.” Vi serrana que tornar I saw a mountain girl who me fiso de mi iornada. Made me come back from my travel.