(fl. ca. 1250–1300)
Known as “Foxy John,” this humble jogral (i.e., JONGLEUR) was doubtlessly Portuguese, judging from his apparent familiarity with Lisbon and with the Tagus River. One of the earlier Lisbon trovadores or courtly singers, Zorro may have been active during the reign of Alfonso III (1248–79) or, more likely his son and successor King DINIS (1279–1325), a well-known patron of the arts and himself a poet.
Of Zorro’s 11 extant compositions, 10 are CANTIGAS DE AMIGO (lyrics in which a woman speaks of her lover or “friend”), all of which manifest the popular, folk origins of that genre: They tend to be simple and lyrical, utilizing a parallel structure with a refrain, and sometimes using archaic diction. Seven of these poems are marinhas, or sea-poems, set on the estuary of the Tagus known as the rio forte, where the shipyards of Lisbon are located. Typical of these poems is “Jus’ a lo mar e o rio” (Down to the sea and the river), which begins:
Down to the sea and the river
I shall go, for I am in love,
to where the king is building his ship;
my beloved, I shall go with you.
(Jensen 1992, 28.3, ll. 1–4)
The fourth line here is the refrain. In another poem, Per ribeira do rio (Along the bank of the river), the speaker sees her lover leaving and rejoices because she knows he wants to take her with him:
I saw the boat rowing
On it my beloved is leaving,
And the river-bank fills me with joy.
On it my friend is leaving,
He wants to take me with him,
And the river-bank fills me with joy.
(Jensen 1992, 28.5, ll. 10–15)
Here the parallelism is apparent as the second line of the first stanza is paralleled in the first line of the second stanza—a pattern that runs through the poem, where the third line is always the refrain. One of Zorro’s poems is a dance song, or bailada, beginning “Bailemos agora, por Deus, ai velidas” (Let us dance now, for the sake of God, oh beautiful girls) (Jensen 1992, 28.8), in which the speaker invites her friends to dance beneath the hazel trees with her. The lyric was famous enough that Airas NÚÑEZ wrote his own version, Bailemos nós ja todas tres, ai amigas (Let us dance now all three of us, oh friends) (Jensen 1992, 6.4), a poem generally conceded to be inferior to Zorro’s. The relationship of these two poems, however, suggests the respect with which Zorro was regarded by other poets.
Bibliography
■ Bell, Aubrey F.G. “The Eleven Songs of Joan Zorro,” MLR 15 (1920): 58–64.
■ Flores, Angel, ed. An Anthology of Medieval Lyrics. New York:Modern Library, 1962.
■ Jensen, Frede, ed. and trans. Medieval Galician-Portuguese Poetry: An Anthology. Garland Library of Medieval Literature, 87. New York: Garland, 1992.
Encyclopedia of medieval literature. 2013.