1 Djordjina Trubarac Matić The Institute of Ethnography, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Belgrade, Serbia MEOGO 9 VERSUS TEXTS WITH THE MOTIF OF A TRANSPARENT EXCUSE OF WATER CLOUDED BY STAGS OR HORSES: OUTLINING THE PROTO-MODEL. REVISED AND EXPANDED * Abstract: This paper compares a cantiga d’ amigo of Pero Meogo (Meogo 9) to the rest of the European texts (Breton, French, Bulgarian and Serbian) with the motif of a transparent excuse of water clouded by stags or horses. The texts are analyzed and compared on the basis of a set of common distinctive elements in order to outline the features of the proto-model(s) of this family of texts. The implications of the analysis concern questions about the origins and genesis of Meogo 9 and Meogo 5. Keywords: Meogo 9, transparent excuse, clouded water, deer, horse, Galician, Serbian, French, Breton and Bulgarian traditions. In his broad study about the motifs of lover‘s meetings and partings at dawn published in 1965 1 Arthur Thomas Hatto spotted a group of texts coming from French, Gascon, Breton, Lithuanian, Bulgarian and ex-Yugoslav traditions which share certain similarities with two cantigas d´amigo of a 13 th -century Galician-Portuguese poet, Pero Meogo (Hatto, 1965: 39–40, 73–74, 84–86). Meogo 9 clearly belonged to this group of texts, while Meogo 5 shared with them the specific motif of an animal stirring the water, which is a deer in Meogo‘s case. * This paper is a result of work within the project Interdisciplinary research of Serbian cultural and linguistic heritage. Creation of multimedia Internet portal “The Lexicon of Serbian Culture”, under the n° 47016, which is carried out by the Institute of Ethnology SASA and entirely funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia. The numbering of Pero Meogo‘s cantigas is taken from Cohen 2003. Special thanks to Rip Cohen for his corrections, comments and suggestions. 1 Eos: An Enquiry into the Theme of Lovers Meetings and Partings at Dawn in Poetry. Ed. and General Survey by Arthur T. Hatto. The Hague: Mouton, 1965.