3-6. La galana y el mar

These are four versions of a song performed at the ritual bath and treating the theme of the bride’s coming out of the water. Each strophe ends with the same line, “She came out of the sea.” The first version, from Thessaloniki, opens by stating that the bride will go to the bath while her groom is already waiting for her. A series of parallel strophes follows about various trees growing—an omen of fertility for the new couple: “Between the sea and the sand, a cinnamon tree has grown; between the sea and the river, a quince tree has grown.” The second version is similar to the first; it is also from Thessaloniki, where this wedding song was a very prominent one. We recorded both versions from survivors of Auschwitz. In the third version, from Rhodes, two parallel pairs of strophes use literary similes, first of clothing, then of trees: she is dressed in red or in yellow, rhyming with the name of the tree. Every strophe ends with a refrain: “Throw yourself into the sea and reach your beloved.” This last version is also sung among the Sephardim in Jerusalem, as shown in the fourth variant included here.