Oy Comamos y Bebamos - Spanish Renaissance Song

Vocals & arrangement by Farya Faraji. This is a piece by Juan del Encina, born “de Fermoselle“, a renowned poet, playwright and musician of Jewish “converso“ ethnic background, the converso being the Jews who converted to Catholicism in Portugal and Spain during the 14th and 15th centuries, and of Leonese speaking origin. He wrote extensively in the Leonese language, as well as Castillian, like with this piece. I could not find any comprehensive resources about Spanish pronunciation of that era, so I chose to use my normal Spanish accent, which is modern European Spanish, heavily leaning towards the more Northern accents. The instrumentation features turn of the century 1400’s leading into 1500’s instruments, such as the lute, the hurdy-gurdy and the flute, as well as the tambourine percussions. The vocals could be performed with polyphony, however I decided to forego them and instead feature the counterpoint and polyphony in the instrumental only. Spanish lyrics: Oy comamos y bebamos y cantemos y holguemos, que mañana ayunaremos. Por onrra de Sant Antruejo parémonos oy bien anchos. Enbutamos estos panchos, rrecalquemos el pellejo. Que costumbres de concejo que todos oy nos hartemos, que mañana ayunaremos. Honrremos a tan buen santo porque en hambre nos acorra. Comamos a calca porra, que mañana hay gran quebranto. Comamos bebamos tanto hasta que nos rebentemos, que mañana ayunaremos. English translation: Today let us eat and drink, let us sing and rejoice, for tomorrow we will fast. In honour of the Carnival, let us thicken our waist, let us fill up these stomachs, let us stretch the skin; for it is a local custom that today we should be replete for tomorrow we will fast. Let us then honour a saint so good so that he may assuage our hunger; let us eat and gorge ourselves, for tomorrow we must exercise restraint. Let us eat and drink so much that we will burst, for tomorrow we will fast. Let us take pleasure today, for tomorrow comes death; let us drink, let us eat heartily, then let us return to our flock. We shall not lose a mouthful, for we will go off eating, and tomorrow we will fast.