Los bilbilicos cantan en los arbos de la flor
Language: Ladino (Sephardic) 
Our translations:  ENG
Los bilbilicos cantan en los arbos de la flor.  
Mi neshama mi ventura estan en tu poder.
 
La rosa enflorese en el mes de mai.
Mi neshama s'escurese, firendose el lunar.
 
Mas presto ven palomba, mas presto ven con mi.
Mas presto ven querida, corre y salvame.
Mi neshama mi ventura estan en tu poder.

Note (by Laura Stanfield Prichard): After their expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula in the 1490s, the Sephardim (Jews of the Spanish and Portuguese rites) brought their culture and language around the Mediterranean, including to the Balkan areas controlled by Turkey (the Ottoman Empire showing more religious tolerance). Ladino is essentially a word-for-word translation, or calque, from Hebrew into Castillian as it was spoken in the fifteenth century on the Iberian peninsula. Traditional Ladino was written in Hebrew script. The everyday spoken and written language was known as Judezmo (influenced by Greek and Turkish), Spaniolit (in the ex-Ottoman areas), and Khaketia (in Northern Morocco).

Bilbilicos are nightingales, a typical Judeo-Spanish mixture of a host language (in this case, Bilbil) and the Spanish diminutive, -icos, yielding Bilbilicos. In medieval times, this bird symbolized the connection between love and death, and became the sound most associated with poetic yearning for love, as it often sings all night.

Text Authorship:

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

Set in a modified version by Manuel Valls i Gorina.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • ENG English (Laura Prichard) , "The nightingales sing in the flowering trees", copyright © 2013, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Researcher for this page: Laura Prichard [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2013-06-09
Line count: 7
Word count: 55