and even as he wrote the words he was unconsciously imitating the thought of the Provençal poet Gace Brulé, who had spoken of _les faus amoureus d’esté_. The exceeding similarity of the _cantigas de amor_ did raise doubts as to the sincerity of all this dying of love (cf. C. V. 353 and C. V. 988) and as to whether a poem was a _cantar novo_ or an article at second hand (C. V. 819). Yet the poets evidently had talent and poetic feeling; indeed, their skill in versification contrasts remarkably with their entire absence of thought or individuality. They appear to revel in monotony of ideas and pride themselves on the icy smoothness of their verse. All their originality consisted in the introduction of technical devices, such as the repetition at intervals of certain words (_dobre_), or of different tenses of the same verb (_mordobre_, as C. V. 681), to carry on the poem without stop from beginning to end by means of ‘for’, ‘but’, &c., at the beginning of each verse (_cantigas de atafiinda_,[84] as C. V. 130, C. A. 205), to begin and end each verse with the same line (_canção redonda_, as C. V. 685), to repeat the last line of one verse as the first line of the next (_leixapren_), to use the same word at the end of each line (as _vi_ in C. A. 7). The poet who addressed _cantigas de amor_ to his lady also provided her with poems for her to sing, _cantigas de amigo_ in complicated form, or as the simpler _cossante_, which the _cantigas de amigo_ include. These are poems with more life and action, often in dialogue. Perhaps the _dona_ herself, wearied by the monotonous _cantigas de amor_, had pointed to the songs of the peasant women, and the form of these _cantigas de amigo_ was a compromise between the Provençal _cantiga de meestria_ and the popular _cantiga de refran_. The peasant woman composed her own songs, and the poet places his song on the lips of his love: thus we find her describing herself as beautiful, _eu velida_; _eu fremosa_; _trist’ e fremosa_; _fremosa e de mui bon prez_; _o meu bon semelhar_. Poetical shepherdesses sing these _cantigas de amigo_; the fair _dona_ sings them as she sits spinning (C. V. 321). The old _Poetica_ (II. 2-12) distinguishes between the _cantigas de amor_, in which the _amigo_ speaks first, and the _cantigas de amigo_, in which the first to speak is the _amiga_. Both were artificial forms, but the latter are clearly more popular in theme (the _amiga_ waiting and wailing for her lover), and in treatment sometimes convey a real intensity of feeling.[85] The favourite subject of the _cantiga de amigo_ is that the cruel mother prevents the lovers from meeting. The daughter is kept in the house: _a manda muito guardar_ (C. V. 535). She reproaches and entreats her mother, who answers her as choir to choir; she bewails her lot to her friends, or to her sister. She is dying of love and begs her mother to tell her lover. Her mother and lover are reconciled. Her lover is false