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Esteban Daza

Enfermo estaba Antioco

 

El Parnaso (1576), fol. 74v

da036

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Source title Romance. señalase el tiple con vnos puntillos.
Title in contents   Enfermo estaua Antioco, a quatro.
Text incipit Enfermo estaua Antioco


Music

Category intabulation

Genre romance

Fantasia type

Mode

Voices 4

Length (compases) 42

Vihuela

Tuning

Courses 6

Final V/2

Highest I/3

Lowest VI/0

Difficulty not specified

Tempo not specified

Song Text

Language ES

Vocal notation texted puntillos

Commentary

Romance, possibly intabulated from vocal polyphony. No attribution is given in Daza’s book, but it has been suggested (Binkley & Frenk 1995) [check] that it may have been composed by Bernal González.

TEXT
The text, as was first pointed out by Luis Zapata Miscelanea, (ed. Gayangos, p. 187) tells that it is about “Del prudente médico” and Zapata retells the story of the physician Cristrato, who diagnosed that the illness afflicting the son of king Demetrius was being brought on by the presence of the king’s wife, Estratónica.

Text and translation are from Binkley & Frenk 1995, p. 106

Literature
Song Text

Enfermo estaua Antioco, / príncipe de la Suría,
de Estratonice la reyna / ferido de amor jacía.

Muger era de su padre, / Rey Demetrio se dezía,
el rey era viejo anciano / y ella linda amarabilla.

Mal doliente está en la cama, / calla y siempre padescía
por ser como es su madrastra / sufre y la llaga encubría

Determina de morir / antes de que su mal diga,
y quanto más lo encubre /muy mayor daño le hacía.

Muchos médioos le curan / ninguno la causa atina,
vno tomándole el pulso / la Reyna que a verlo iba.

Alterase el pulso tanto / que el médico la entendía,
fuesse luego para el Rey / desta manera dezía:

Diziendo, sepa tu Altura / que Antioco moriría,
su mal no lleba remedio / pues por mi muger moria.

Yo no se la daré / aunque me cueste la vida
Mucho le regala el Rey / dale ciudades y villas.

Dixo el médico señor, / si como es la muger mía,
fuesse tuya el buen Rey, / díme si se la darías.

Sick lay Antioch / prince of Syria.
Wounded by love of / Stratonice the queen, he lay.

Wife she was to his father, / King Demetrius by name.
The King was an old, old man / and she marvellously pretty.

He is mortally sick in his bed, / silent and ever suftering.
Because she is as she is his stepmother, / he suffers and conceals his wounds.

He determines upon death / rather than confess the cause of his sickness,
and the more he conceals it, / the greater the harm he does himself.

Many doctors examine him, / None of the ascertains the cause,
While one of them takes his pulse / the queen comes to see him.

His pulse changed so much / that the doctor realised the truth.
He went straight away to the king / and spoke thus:

Saying: know Your Highness / that Antioch will die.
His ailment has no cure / since he is dying because of my wife.

And I will not give her to him / although it costs me my life.
The king lakes him many presents, / he gives him cities and towns.

Then said the doctor: My Lord, / if it were your wife
instead or mine, O Good King, / tell me if you would give her to him.

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