Praises of our sennora

The Praises of Our Lady, by Gonzalo de Berceo, within the so-called medieval hagiographic literature, deal with the Virgin, the mass and the life of some saints, such as Santo Domingo de Silos, San Millán, San Lorenzo, Santa Oria, in addition to his famous poem by Alexander the Great, the Duel of the Virgin Mary and that of the Loores of Our Lady. Bercero had a marked influence on universal literature and is considered the father of Alexandrian verse.
According to him: «Quiero fer una prose en roman paladino / en que suele el pueblo fablar a su vecino / ca non son tan letrado por fer otro latino / bien valdra como creo un vaso de bon vino».

Praises of our sennora

1. I entrust myself to you Virgo. Mother of piedat,
Que conçebiste del Spiritu Sancto, e esto es verdat,
Pariste fijo preçioso en tu entegredat,
Serving your husband with all lealtat.

2. In your praise, sennora, I would like to understand,
Of your long skirts a tanner fimbria:
Ca non me siento digo ante ti paresçer,
Maguer la tu feduza non la puedo perder.

3. In your feduza, mother, I want to dezir of you
How the world came God for you to redeem,
You give me good to start, you give me good to complicate
That can your matter qual or how to follow.

4. When the first relatives hooked the weed,
Et brought them out of their brains with crafty sermons,
Then the false lesongeros feared of you,
But they were not of the time nin of the hour çerteros.
5. Patriarchs and prophets all of you dissented,
Ca by Spiritu Sancto tu virtut understood:
Profeçias e signos todos por ti fiçieron
That those who fell in Adam would charge for you.

6. La mata que paresçio al pastor ençendida
Et remanesçió sana commo ante tan cumplida,
To you it meant that you were not corrupted,
Nin of the firmness of your vote moved.

7. To you cataba, mother, the sign of the cane
That departed the command that was for Aaron:
Fuste sin rayz e seco adusso criazon,
Et you gave birth to Virgo without any injury.

8. In you was fulfilled, sennora, the saying of Isaya
Que de radiz de Iesse una verga saldria,
Et flor qual non fue vista dende se levantia,
Spiritu Sancto with VII gifts in the flower posaria.

9. Mother you were the dick, the fixed the flower,
That solves the dead with its soft odor,
Healthy by sight, vivid by taste,
Full of the seven gifts, only of the giver.

10. You were the cambariella that the Psalmist said,
Then the husband went out with the sick sight,
Giant of great news that fizo grant conquers,
King was et obispo et sabbidor legista.

Fragment of the work

Manuscript 93 of the Archive of the Monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos.