He resumes with an account of an enterprise which narrowly escaped miscarriage owing to a quarrel with Trotaconventos, to whom he had applied an uncomplimentary epithet in jest; but, seeing his blunder, he pacified his tetchy ally, and carried out his plan. Cast down by the sudden death of his mistress, he consoled himself by writing cantares cazurros which delighted all the ladies who read them (a privilege denied to us, for these compositions are not included in the existing manuscripts of the Libro de buen amor). Having recovered from his dejection, in the month of March the Archpriest went holiday-making in the mountains, where he met with a new type of women whose coming-on dispositions and robust charms he celebrates satirically. These cantigas de serrana,—slashing parodies on the Galician cantos de ledino,—perhaps the boldest and most interesting of his metrical experiments, are followed by copies of devout verses on Santa María del Vado and on the Passion of Christ.
The next transition is equally abrupt. While dining at Burgos with Don Jueves Lardero (the last Thursday before Lent), the Archpriest receives a letter from Doña Quaresma (Lent) exhorting her officials—more especially archpriests and clerics—to arm for the combat against Don Carnal who symbolises the meat-eating tendencies prevalent during the rest of the year. Then follows an allegorical description of the encounter between Doña Quaresma and Don Carnal who, after a series of disasters, recovers his supremacy, and returns in triumph accompanied by Don Amor (Love). On Easter Sunday Don Amor’s popularity is at its height, and secular priests, laymen, monks, nuns, ladies and gentlemen, sally forth in procession to meet him:—
Dia era muy ssanto dela pascua mayor,
el sol era salydo muy claro e de noble color;
los omes e las aves e toda noble flor,
todos van rresçebir cantando al amor....
Las carreras van llenas de grandes proçesiones,
muchos omes ordenados que otorgan perdones,
los legos segrales con muchos clerisones,
enla proçesion yua el abad de borbones.