I am not an expert in Spanish but, as far as I understand, "silva" means simply "collection" (primarily of poetry, but in this case of music). It probably derives from the Latin word for "forest" (as a "collection" of trees), but I would not translate it literally. There are a number of similar titles from about the same period: "Silva de varios romances" "Silva de poesía" etc. So, I would translate the title as "A collection [of songs] of the sirens".
Dmitry -----Original Message----- From: lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu <lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu> On Behalf Of Jurgen Frenz Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2018 4:36 PM To: Lute List <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> Subject: [LUTE] Meaning of title "Silva de Sirenas" Hello there, another thread on this list motivated me to ask - the title of Valderrabano's publication "Silva de Sirenas" renders if latin was the source language "Arctic Forest" which I would find hard to believe and _nothing_ when setting Google translate to Spanish as source. artic google.png Hence my suspicion that 500 year old Spanish was using words differently. But what does the title mean in English (German/French) today? Would anybody know? Thanks for helping, best wishes Jurgen ---------------------------------- "There is a voice that doesn't use words. Listen." JalÃl ad-Dën Muhammad Rumi To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
