It has been said that literature is the most suggestive way to ignore life, but it's certainly not true of these poems. The Basque poets of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries sang about the events of their lives using the forms of expression and the social and cultural viewpoints of their time. Reading these poems we discover that the desires of the people who suffered so much or who loved with so much passion in that corner of the world we call the Basque Country, are indeed universal desires. Herein lies the greatness of literature. Through it we realize that no one is alone or isolated in the human universe. Most of the events narrated by these anonymous poets six centuries ago are episodes in our current lives, lived with the same passion and emotion as always. The poems in the present book offer a mirror of the experiences and miseries of these people, a mirror reflecting a chapter in the history of humankind, a specific moment in a specific place on earth. They serve as humanity's memory. Their music will express forever what cannot be written but must not be silenced because it is in the hearts of all of us.