2021.07.30.
Micaela/Martiniana
I've already told you, Quéla1 -repeatedly, that I don't have a thing2.
You want to go out on Good Shepherd Sunday3 , Quéla
but we don't even have six cents4 for bread.
St. Domingo of Chihuitán5, you who sees all,
last year's harvest did not yield.
This year we will pray for the harvest, Quéla
so we may have plenty ears of corn.
Please don't cry, have pity on me,
there isn't a single tlaco6 in the drawer.
What is it that you want me to do?
I won't pierce a thorn where there is no blood.
Girl, where I die
don't cry over my grave,
sing me a lovely song, oh darling!
sing me 'La Sandunga'.
Light of the morrning,
the greatest of all songs,
sing me 'La Martiniana', oh darling!
so it may bring joy to the hearts of all.
Don't cry for me, no, don't cry for me, no
because if you cry I will grieve,
but if you should sing for me instead
then I will live forever, I will never die.
But if you should sing for me instead
then I will live forever, I will never die.
- 1. Another form of the name 'Micaela'.
- 2. I don't have any money
- 3. The fourth Sunday of Easter is called the 'Good Shepherd Sunday' (traditionally falls on the third Sunday of Easter) the day to which many Christian denominations assigned the reading after the liturgical reforms of the 1970s.
- 4. A 'mediu' ('medio') is a Mexican real, a form of currency that was used up until the late 1800s before being replaced by today's Mexican currency - the peso.
- 5. The patron saint of Chihuitán, Oaxaca, Mexico.
- 6. Another form of currency used until the late 1800s. In the 17th century, the tlaco emerged, a term that comes from the Nahuatl word which means 'half'. The tlaco was 1/4 a real, the lowest denomination coin minted in New Spain.