diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 20:05:21 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 20:05:21 -0700 |
| commit | 3873cc9b29bd5d64a0c0d3f10b9838370b92adaa (patch) | |
| tree | eccdcd71e46081110ec1f500ecce0766f6a7bb99 | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36222-8.txt | 13243 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36222-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 286804 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36222-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 305703 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36222-h/36222-h.htm | 16772 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36222.txt | 13243 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36222.zip | bin | 0 -> 286254 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
9 files changed, 43274 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/36222-8.txt b/36222-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ff60e81 --- /dev/null +++ b/36222-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13243 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs (1886), by +Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs (1886) + +Author: Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco + +Release Date: May 26, 2011 [EBook #36222] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS IN THE STUDY OF *** + + + + +Produced by Lesley Halamek, Jonathan Ingram and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + Will no one tell me what she sings? + Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow + For old, unhappy, far-off things, + And battles long ago: + Or is it some more humble lay, + Familiar matter of to-day? + Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, + That has been, and may be again! + + W. WORDSWORTH. + + + + + ESSAYS IN THE + STUDY OF FOLK-SONGS. + + + BY THE + COUNTESS EVELYN MARTINENGO-CESARESCO. + + LONDON: + GEORGE REDWAY, + YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. + MDCCCLXXXVI. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + INTRODUCTION ix + + THE INSPIRATION OF DEATH IN FOLK-POETRY 1 + + NATURE IN FOLK-SONGS 30 + + ARMENIAN FOLK-SONGS 53 + + VENETIAN FOLK-SONGS 89 + + SICILIAN FOLK-SONGS 122 + + GREEK SONGS OF CALABRIA 152 + + FOLK-SONGS OF PROVENCE 177 + + THE WHITE PATERNOSTER 203 + + THE DIFFUSION OF BALLADS 214 + + SONGS FOR THE RITE OF MAY 249 + + THE IDEA OF FATE IN SOUTHERN TRADITIONS 270 + + FOLK-LULLABIES 299 + + FOLK-DIRGES 354 + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + + Wo man singt da lass dich ruhig nieder, + Böse Menschen haben keine Lieder. + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +It is on record that Wilhelm Mannhardt, the eminent writer on +mythology and folk-lore, was once taken for a gnome by a peasant he +had been questioning. His personal appearance may have helped the +illusion; he was small and irregularly made, and was then only just +emerging from a sickly childhood spent beside the Baltic in dreaming +over the creations of popular fancy. Then, too, he wore a little red +cap, which was doubtless fraught with supernatural suggestions. But +above all, the story proves that Mannhardt had solved the difficulty +of dealing with primitive folk; that instead of being looked upon as +a profane and prying layman, he was regarded as one who was more than +initiated into the mysteries--as one who was a mystery himself. And +for this reason I recall it here. It exactly indicates the way to +set about seeking after old lore. We ought to shake off as much as +possible of our conventional civilization which frightens uneducated +peasants, and makes them think, at best, that we wish to turn them +into ridicule. If we must not hope to pass for spirits of earth or +air, we can aim at inspiring such a measure of confidence as will +persuade the natural man to tell us what he still knows of those +vanishing beings, and to lend us the key to his general treasure-box +before all that is inside be reduced to dust. + +This, which applies directly to the collector at first hand, has also +its application for the student who would profit by the materials when +collected. He should approach popular songs and traditions from some +other stand-point than that of mere criticism; and divesting himself +of preconcerted ideas, he should try to live the life and think the +thoughts of people whose only literature is that which they carry +in their heads, and in whom Imagination takes the place of acquired +knowledge. + + +I. + +Research into popular traditions has now reached a stage at which +the English Folk-Lore Society have found it desirable to attempt a +classification of its different branches, and in future, students +will perhaps devote their labours to one or another of these branches +rather than to the subject as a whole. Certain of the sections thus +mapped out have plainly more special attractions for a particular +class of workers: beliefs and superstitions chiefly concern those who +study comparative mythology; customs are of peculiar importance to the +sociologist, and so on. But tales and songs, while offering points of +interest to scientific specialists, appeal also to a much wider class, +namely, to all who care at all for literature. For the Folk-tale is +the father of all fiction, and the Folk-song is the mother of all +poetry. + +Mankind may be divided into the half which listens and the half which +reads. For the first category in its former completeness, we must +go now to the East; in Europe only the poor, and of them a rapidly +decreasing proportion, have the memory to recite, the patience to +hear, the faith to receive. It was not always or primarily an +affair of classes: down even to a comparatively late day, the pure +story-teller was a popular member of society in provincial France +and Italy, and perhaps society was as well employed in listening to +wonder-tales as it is at present. But there is no going back. +The epitaph for the old order of things was written by the great +philosopher who threw the last shovel of earth on its grave: + + O l'heureux temps que celui de ces fables + Des bons démons, des esprits familiers, + Des farfadets, aux mortels secourables! + On écoutait tous ces faits admirables + Dans son château, près d'un large foyer: + Le père et l'oncle, et la mère et la fille, + Et les voisins, et toute la famille, + Ouvraient l'oreille à Monsieur l'aumônier, + Qui leur fesait des contes de sorcier. + On a banni les démons et les fées; + Sous la raison les grâces etouffées, + Livrent nous c[oe]urs à l'insipidité; + Le raisonner tristement s'accrédite; + On court, hélas! après la verité, + Ah! croyez-moi, l'erreur a son mérite.[1] + +Folk-songs differ from folk-tales by the fact of their making a more +emphatic claim to credibility. Prose is allowed to be more fanciful, +more frivolous than poetry. It deals with the brighter side; the hero +and heroine in the folk-tale marry and live happily ever after; in the +popular ballad they are but rarely united save in death. To the blithe +supernaturalism of elves and fairies, the folk-poet prefers the solemn +supernaturalism of ghost-lore. + +The folk-song probably preceded the folk-tale. If we are to judge +either by early record or by the analogy of backward peoples, it seems +proved that in infant communities anything that was thought worth +remembering was sung. It must have been soon ascertained that words +rhythmically arranged take, as a rule, firmer root than prose. "As +I do not know how to read," says a modern Greek folk-singer, "I have +made this story into a song so as not to forget it." + +Popular poetry is the reflection of moments of strong collective or +individual emotion. The springs of legend and poetry issue from the +deepest wells of national life; the very heart of a people is laid +bare in its sagas and songs. There have been times when a profound +feeling of race or patriotism has sufficed to turn a whole nation into +poets: this happened at the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, the +struggle for the Stuarts in Scotland, for independence in Greece. It +seems likely that all popular epics were born of some such concordant +thrill of emotion. The saying of "a very wise man" reported by Andrew +Fletcher of Saltoun, to the effect that if one were permitted to make +all the ballads, he need not care who made the laws, must be taken +with this reservation: the ballad-maker only wields his power for as +long as he is the true interpreter of the popular will. Laws may be +imposed on the unwilling, but not songs. + +The Brothers Grimm said that they had not found a single lie in +folk-poetry. "The special value," wrote Goethe, "of what we call +national songs and ballads, is that their inspiration comes fresh +from nature: they are never got up, they flow from a sure spring." He +added, what must continually strike anyone who is brought in contact +with a primitive peasantry, "The unsophisticated man is more the +master of direct, effective expression in few words than he who has +received a regular literary education." + +Bards chaunted the praises of head-men and heroes, and it may be +guessed that almost as soon and as universally as tribes and races +fell out, it grew to be the custom for each fighting chief to have +one or more bards in his personal service. Robert Wace describes how +William the Conqueror was followed by Taillefer, who + + Mounted on steed that was swift of foot, + Went forth before the armed train + Singing of Roland and Charlemain, + Of Olivere, and the brave vassals + Who died at the Pass of Roncesvals. + +The northern skalds accompanied the armies to the wars and were +present at all the battles. "Ye shall be here that ye may see with +your own eyes what is achieved this day," said King Olaf to his skalds +on the eve of the Battle of Stiklastad (1030), "and have no occasion, +when ye shall afterwards celebrate these actions in song, to depend on +the reports of others." In the same fight, a skald named Jhormod died +an honourable death, shot with an arrow while in the act of singing. +The early Keltic poets were forbidden to bear arms: a reminiscence of +their sacerdotal status, but they, too, looked on while others fought, +and encouraged the combatants with their songs. All these bards served +a higher purpose than the commemoration of individual leaders: they +became the historians of their epoch. The profession was one of +recognised eminence, and numbered kings among its adepts. Then it +declined with the rise of written chronicles, till the last bard +disappeared and only the ballad-singer remained. + + +II. + +This personage, though shorn of bardic dignity, yet contrived to hold +his own with considerable success. In Provence and Germany, itinerant +minstrels who sang for pay brought up the rank and file of the +troubadours and minnesingers; in England and Italy and Northern +France they formed a class apart, which, as times went, was neither +ill-esteemed nor ill-paid. When the minstrel found no better audience +he mounted a barrel in the nearest tavern, or + + At country wakes sung ballads from a cart. + +But his favourite sphere was the baronial hall; and to understand how +welcome he was there made, it is only needful to picture country life +in days when books were few and newspapers did not exist. He sang +before noble knights and gracious dames, who, to us--could we be +suddenly brought into their presence--would seem rough in their +manner, their speech, their modes of life; but who were far from being +dead or insensible to intellectual pleasure when they could get it. He +sang the choicest songs that had come down to him from an earlier age; +songs of the Round Table and of the great Charles; and then, as he +sat at meat, perhaps below the salt, but with his plate well heaped up +with the best that there was, he heard strange Eastern tales from +the newly-arrived pilgrim at his right hand, and many a wild story of +noble love or hate from the white-haired retainer at his left. + +I have always thought that the old ballad-singer's world--the world in +which he moved, and again the ideal world of his songs--is nowhere to +be so vividly realised as in the Hofkirche at Innsbruck, among that +colossal company who watch the tomb of Kaiser Max; huge men and women +in richly wrought bronze array, ugly indeed, most of them, but with +two of their number seeming to embody every beautiful quality that was +possessed or dreamt of through well nigh a millennium: the pensive, +graceful form of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, and the erect +figure whose very attitude suggests all manly worth, all gentle +valour, under which is read the quaint device, "Arthur _von England_." + +If not rewarded with sufficient promptitude and liberality, the +ballad-singer was not slow to call attention to the fact. Colin Muset, +a jongleur who practised his trade in Lorraine and Champagne in the +thirteenth century, has left a charming photograph of contemporary +manners in a song which sets forth his wants and deserts. + + Lord Count, I have the viol played[2] + Before yourself, within your hall, + And you my service never paid + Nor gave me any wage at all; + 'T was villany: + + By faith I to Saint Mary owe, + Upon such terms I serve you not, + My alms-bag sinks exceeding low, + My trunk ill-furnished is, I wot. + + Lord Count, now let me understand, + What 'tis you mean to do for me, + If with free heart and open hand + Some ample guerdon you decree + Through courtesy; + For much I wish, you need not doubt, + In my own household to return, + And if full purse I am without, + Small greeting from my wife I earn. + + "Sir Engelé," I hear her say, + "In what poor country have you been, + That through the city all the day + You nothing have contrived to glean! + See how your wallet folds and bends, + Well stuffed with wind and nought beside; + Accursed is he who e'er intends + As your companion to abide." + + When reached the house wherein I dwell, + And that my wife can clearly spy + My bag behind me bulge and swell, + And I myself clad handsomely + In a grey gown, + Know that she quickly throws away + Her distaff, nor of work doth reck, + She greets me laughing, kind and gay, + And twines both arms around my neck. + + My wife soon seizes on my bag, + And empties it without delay; + My boy begins to groom my nag, + And hastes to give him drink and hay; + My maid meanwhile runs off to kill + Two capons, dressing them with skill + In garlic sauce; + + My daughter in her hand doth bear, + Kind girl, a comb to smooth my hair. + Then in my house I am a king, + Great joyance and no sorrowing, + Happier than you can say or sing. + +Ballad-singing suffered by the invention of printing, but it was in +England that the professional minstrel met with the cruellest blow of +all--the statute passed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth which forbade +his recitations, and classed him with "rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy +beggars." + + "Beggars they are with one consent, + And rogues by Act of Parliament." + +On the other hand, it was also in England that the romantic ballad had +its revival, and was introduced to an entirely new phase of existence. +The publication of the _Percy Reliques_ (1765) started the modern +period in which popular ballads were not only to be accepted as +literature, but were to exercise the strongest influence on lettered +poets from Goethe and Scott, down to Dante Rossetti. + +Not that popular poetry had ever been without its intelligent +admirers, here and there, among men of culture: Montaigne had said +of it, "La poësie populere et purement naturelle a des naïfvetez et +graces par où elle se compare à la principale beauté de la poësie +parfaicte selon l'art: comme il se voit es villanelles de Gascouigne +et aus chançons qu'on nous raporte des nations qui n'ont conoissance +d'acune science, ny mesme d'escripture." There were even ardent +collectors, like Samuel Pepys, who is said to have acquired copies of +two thousand ballads.[3] Still, till after the appearance of Bishop +Percy's book (as his own many faults of omission and commission +attest), the literary class at large did not take folk-songs quite +seriously. The _Percy Reliques_ was followed by Herder's _Volkslieder_ +(1782), Scott's _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_ (1802), Fauriel's +_Chansons Populaires de la Grêce_ (1824), to mention only three of its +more immediate successors. The "return to Nature" in poetry became an +irresistible movement; the world, tired of the classical forms of +the eighteenth century, listened as gladly to the fresh voice of +the popular muse, as in his father's dreary palace Giacomo Leopardi +listened to the voice of the peasant girl over the way, who sang as +she plied the shuttle: + + Sonavan le quiete + Stanze, e le vie dintorno. + Al tuo perpetuo canto, + Allor che all opre femminili intenta + Sedevi, assai contenta + Di quel vago avvenir che in mente avevi. + Era il Maggio odoroso: e tu solevi + Così menare il giorno. + + * * * * * + + Lingua mortal non dice + Quel ch' io sentiva in seno. + +The hunt for ballads led the way to the search for every sort +of popular song, and with what zeal that search has since been +prosecuted, the splendid results in the hands of the public now +testify. + + +III. + +A brief glance must be taken at what may be called domestic +folk-poetry. In a remote past, rural people found delight or +consolation in singing the events of their obscure lives, or in +deputing other persons of their own station, but especially skilled +in the art, to sing them for them. Thus there were marriage-songs and +funeral-songs, labour-songs and songs for the culminating points of +the pastoral or agricultural year. It is beyond my present purpose to +speak of the vintage festivals, and of the literary consequences of +the cult of Dionysus. I will, instead, pause for a moment to consider +the ancient harvest-songs. Among the Greeks, particularly in Phrygia +and in Sicily, all harvest-songs bore the generic name of Lytierses, +and how they got it, gives an instructive instance of myth-facture. +Lytierses was the son of King Midas, and a king himself, but also a +mighty reaper, whose habit it was to indulge in trials of strength +with his companions, and with strangers who were passing by. He tied +the vanquished up in sheaves and beat them. One day he defied an +unknown stranger, who proved too strong for him, and by whom he was +slain. So died Lytierses, the reaper, and the first "Lytierses," or +harvest-song, was composed to console his father, King Midas, for his +loss. + +Now, if we regard Lytierses as the typical agriculturist, and his +antagonist as the growth or vegetation genius, the fable seems to read +thus: Between man and Nature there is a continual struggle; man is +often victorious, but, if too presumptuous, a time comes when he must +yield. In harvest customs continued to this day, a struggle with or +for the last sheaf forms a common feature. The reapers of Western +France tie the sheaf, adorned with flowers, to a post driven strongly +into the ground, then they fetch the farmer and his wife and all the +farm folk to help in dragging it loose, and when the fastenings break, +it is borne off in triumph. So popular is this _Fête de la Gerbe_, +that, during the Chouan war, the leaders had to allow their peasant +soldiers to return to their villages to attend it, or they would have +deserted in a body. It may not be irrelevant to add that in Brittany +the great wrestling matches take place at the _fête_ of the "new +threshing floor," when all the neighbours are invited to unite in +preparing it for the corn. In North Germany, where the peasants still +believe that the last sheaf contains the growth-genius, they set it in +honour on the festive board, and serve it double portions of cake +and ale.[4] Thus appeased, it becomes a friend to the cultivator. The +harvest "man" or "tree" which used to be made by English reapers +at the end of the harvest, and presented to master and mistress, +obviously belonged to the same family. + +We have one or two of the ancient Lytierses in what is most likely +very nearly their original and popular form. One, composed of +distiches telling the story of Midas' son, is preserved in a tragedy +by Sosibius, the Syracusian poet. The following, more general in +subject, I take from the tenth Idyl of Theocritus:-- + + Come now hearken awhile to the songs of the god Lytierses. + + Demeter, granter of fruits, many sheaves vouchsafe to the cornfield, + Aye to be skilfully tilled, and reaped, and the harvest abundant. + + Fasten the heaps, ye binders of sheaves, lest any one passing, + Call out, "worthless clowns, you earn no part of your wages." + + Let every sheaf that the sickle has cut be turned to the north wind + Or to the west exposed, for so will the corn grow fatter. + + Ye who of wheat are threshers, beware how ye slumber at mid-day, + Then is the chaff from the stalk of the wheat, most easily parted. + + Reapers, to labour begin, as soon as the lark upriseth, + And when he sleeps, leave off, yet rest when the sun overpowers. + + Blest, O youths, is the life of a frog, for he never is anxious + Who is to pour him his drink, for he always has plenty. + + Better at once, O miserly steward, to boil our lentils; + Mind you don't cut your fingers in trying to chop them to atoms. + + These are the songs for the toilers to sing in the heat of the harvest. + +Most modern harvest songs manage, like that of Theocritus, to convey +some hint of thirst or hunger. "Be merry, O comrades!" sing the +girl reapers of Casteignano dei Greci, a Greek settlement in Terra +d'Otranto, "Be merry, and go not on your way so downcast; I saw things +you cannot see; I saw the housewife kneading dough, or preparing +macaroni; and she does it for us to eat, so that we may work like +lions at the harvest, and rejoice the heart of the husbandman." This +may be a statement of fact or a suggestion of what ought to be a fact. +Other songs, sung exclusively at the harvest, bear no outward sign of +connection with it; and the reason of their use on that occasion is +hopelessly lost. + + +IV. + +I pass on to the old curiosity shop of popular traditions--the +nursery. Children, with their innate conservatism, have stored a +vast assemblage of odds and ends which fascinate by their very +incompleteness. Religion, mythology, history, physical science, +or what stood for it; the East, the North--those great banks of +ideas--have been impartially drawn on by the infant folk-lorists +at their nurses' knees. Children in the four quarters of the globe, +repeat the same magic formulæ; words which to every grown person seem +devoid of sense, have a universality denied to any articles of faith. +What, for example, is the meaning of the play with the snail? Why is +he so persistently asked to put his horns out? Pages might be filled +with the variants of the well-known invocation which has currency from +Rome to Pekin. + +English: + +I. + + Snail, snail, put out your horn, + Or I'll kill your father and mother the morn. + + 2. + + Snail, snail, come out of your hole, + Or else I'll beat you as black as a coal. + + 3. + + Snail, snail, put out your horn, + Tell me what's the day t'morn: + To-day's the morn to shear the corn, + Blaw bil buck thorn. + + 4. + + Snail, snail, shoot out your horn, + Father and mother are dead; + Brother and sister are in the back-yard + Begging for barley bread. + +Scotch: + + Snail, snail, shoot out your horn, + And tell us it will be a bonnie day, the morn. + +German: + + 1. + + Schneckhûs, Peckhüs, + Stäk du dîn ver Horner rût, + Süst schmût ick dî in'n Graven, + Da freten dî de Raven. + + 2. + + Tækeltuet, + Kruep uet dyn hues, + Dyn hues dat brennt, + Dyn Kinder de flennt: + Dyn Fru de ligt in Wäken: + Kann 'k dy nich mael spräken? + Tækeltuet, u. s. w. + + 3. + + Snaek, snaek, komm herduet, + Sunst tobräk ik dy dyn Hues. + + 4. + + Slingemues, + Kruep uet dyn Hues, + Stick all dyn veer Höern uet, + Wullt du 's neck uetstäken, + Wik ik dyn Hues tobräken. + Slingemues, u. s. w. + + 5. + Kuckuch, kuckuck Gerderut, + Stäk dîne vêr Horns herut. + +French: + + Colimaçon borgne! + Montre-moi tes cornes; + Je te dirai où ta mère est morte, + Elle est morte à Paris, à Rouen, + Où l'on sonne les cloches. + Bi, bim, bom, + Bi, bim, bom, + Bi, bim, bom. + +Tuscan: + + Chiocciola, chiocciola, vien da me, + Ti darò i' pan d' i' re; + E dell'ova affrittellate + Corni secchí e brucherate. + +Roumanian: + + Culbecu, culbecu, + Scóte corne boeresci + Si te du la Dunare + Si bé apa tulbure. + +Russian: + + Ulitka, ulitka, + Vypusti roga, + Ya tebé dam piroga.[5] + +Chinese: + + Snail, snail, come here to be fed, + Put out your horns and lift up your head; + Father and mother will give you to eat, + Good boiled mutton shall be your meat. + +Several lines in the second German version are evidently borrowed from +the Ladybird or Maychafer rhyme which has been pronounced a relic of +Freya worship. Here the question arises, is not the snail song also +derived from some ancient myth? Count Gubernatis, in his valuable work +on _Zoological Mythology_ (vol. ii. p. 75), dismisses the matter +with the remark that "the snail of superstition is demoniacal." This, +however, is no proof that he always bore so suspicious a character, +since all the accessories to past beliefs got into bad odour on the +establishment of Christianity, unless saved by dedication to the +Virgin or other saints. I ventured to suggest, in the _Archivio per lo +studio delle tradizioni popolari_ (the Italian Folklore Journal), +that the snail who is so constantly urged to come forth from his dark +house, might in some way prefigure the dawn. Horns have been from all +antiquity associated with rays of light. But to write of "Nature Myths +in Nursery Rhymes" is to enter on such dangerous ground that I will +pursue the argument no further. + + +V. + +Children of older years have preserved the very important class +of songs distinguished as singing-games. Everyone knows the famous +_ronde_ of the Pont d'Avignon: + + Sur le Pont d'Avignon, + Tout le monde y danse, danse, + Sur le Pont d'Avignon + Tout le monde y danse en rond. + + Les beaux messieurs font comme ça, + Sur le Pont d'Avignon, + Tout le monde y danse, danse, + Sur le Pont d'Avignon, + Tout le monde y danse en rond. + +After the "messieurs" who bow, come the "demoiselles" who curtsey; the +workwomen who sew, the carpenters who saw wood, the washerwomen +who wash linen, and a host of other folks intent on their different +callings. The song is an apt demonstration of what Paul de +Saint-Victor called "cet instinct inné de l'imitation qui fait similer +à l'enfant les actions viriles"[6]--in which instinct lies the germ of +the theatre. The origin of all spectacles was a performance +intended to amuse the performers, and it cannot be doubted that +the singing-game throws much light on the beginnings of scenic +representations. + +_Rondes_ frequently deal with love and marriage, and these, from +internal evidence, cannot have been composed by or for the young +people who now play them. There are in fact some which would be better +forgotten by everybody, but the majority are innocent little dramas, +of which it may truly be said, _Honi soit qui mal y pense_. It should +be noticed that a distinctly satirical vein runs through many of +these games, as in the "Gentleman from Spain,"--played in one form or +another all over Europe and the United States,--in which the suitor +would first give any money to get his bride, and then any money to +get rid of her. Or the Swedish _Lek_ (the name given in Sweden to +the singing-game), in which the companions of a young girl put her +sentiments to the test of telling her that father, mother, +sisters, brothers, are dead--all of which she hears with perfect +equanimity--but when they add that her betrothed is also dead, she +falls back fainting. Then all her kindred are resuscitated without the +effect of reviving her, but when she hears that her lover is alive and +well, she springs up and gives chase to her tormentors. + +To my mind there is no more remarkable specimen of the singing game +than _Jenny Jones_--through which prosaic title we can discern the +tender _Jeanne ma joie_ that formed the base of it. The Scotch still +say _Jenny Jo_, "Jo" being with them a term of endearment (_e.g._, +"John Anderson, my Jo!"). The following variant of the game I took +down from word of mouth at Bocking in Essex:-- + + We've come to see Jenny Jones, Jenny Jones, (_repeat_). + How is she now? + + Jenny is washing, washing, washing, + Jenny is washing, you can't see her now. + + We've come to see Jenny Jones. + How is she now? + + Jenny is folding, folding, folding, + You can't see her now. + + We've come to see Jenny Jones. + How is she now? + + Jenny is starching, starching, starching, + Jenny is starching, you can't see her now. + + We've come to see Jenny Jones. + How is she now? + + Jenny is ironing, ironing, ironing, + Jenny is ironing, you can't see her now. + + We've come to see Jenny Jones. + How is she now? + + Jenny is ill, ill, ill, + Jenny is ill, so you can't see her now. + + We've come to see Jenny Jones. + How is she now? + + (_Mournfully._) + Jenny is dead, dead, dead, + Jenny is dead, you can't see her now. + + May we come to the funeral? + Yes. + + May we come in red? + Red is for soldiers; you can't come in red. + + May we come in blue? + Blue is for sailors; you can't come in blue. + + May we come in white? + White is for weddings; you can't come in white. + + May we come in black? + Black is for funerals, so you can come in that. + +Jenny is then carried and buried (_i.e._, laid on the grass) by two +of the girls, while the rest follow as mourners, uttering a low, +prolonged wail. + +Perhaps the earliest acted tragedy--a tragedy acted before Æschylus +lived--was something like this. Anyhow, it may remind us of how early +a taste for the tragic is developed, if not in the life of mankind +at all events in the life of man. "What is the reason," asks St +Augustine, "that men wish to be moved by the sight of tragic and +painful things, which, nevertheless, they do not wish to undergo +themselves? For the spectators (at a play) desire to feel grieved, +and this grief is their joy: whence comes it unless from some strange +spiritual malady?"[7] + +Dr Pitrè describes this Sicilian game: A child lies down, pretending +to be dead. His companions stand round and sing a dirge in the most +dolorous tones. Now and then, one of them runs up to him and lifts +an arm or a leg, afterwards letting it fall, to make sure that he is +quite dead. Satisfied on this point, they prepare to bury him, but +before doing so, they nearly stifle him with parting kisses. Tired, at +last, of his painful position, the would-be dead boy jumps up and gets +on the back of the most aggressive of his playmates, who is bound to +carry him off the scene. + +To play at funerals was probably a very ancient amusement. No doubt +some such game as the above is alluded to in the text, "... children +sitting in the markets and calling unto their fellows and saying, We +have piped unto you and ye have not danced, we have mourned unto you +and ye have not lamented." + + +VI. + +Mysteries and Miracle Plays must not be forgotten, though in their +origin they were not a plant of strictly popular growth. Some writers +consider that they were instituted by ecclesiastics as rivals to +the lay or pagan plays which were still in great favour in the first +Christian centuries. Others think with Dr Hermann Ulrici,[8] that they +grew naturally out of the increasingly pictorial celebration of +the early Greek liturgy,--painted scenes developing into _tableaux +vivants_, and these into acted and spoken interludes. It is certain +that they were started by the clergy, who at first were the sole +actors, assuming characters of both sexes. As time wore on, something +more lively was desired, and clowns and buffoons were accordingly +introduced. They appeared in the Innsbruck Play of the fourteenth +century; and again in 1427, in the performances given at Metz, while +the serious parts were acted by ecclesiastics, the lighter, or comic +parts, were represented by laymen. These performances were held in a +theatre constructed for the purpose, but mysteries were often played +in the churches themselves, nor is the practice wholly abandoned. +A Nativity play is performed in the churches of Upper Gascony on +Christmas Eve, of which the subjoined account will, perhaps, be read +with interest:-- + + In the middle of the Midnight Mass, just when the priest has + finished reading the gospel, Joseph and Mary enter the nave, + the former clad in the garb of a village carpenter with his + tools slung across his shoulder, the latter dressed in a robe + of spotless white. The people divide so as to let them pass up + the church, and they look about for a night's lodging. In one + part of the church the stable of Bethlehem is represented + behind a framework of greenery; here they take up their + position, and presently a cradle is placed beside them which + contains the image of a babe. The voice of an angel from on + high now proclaims the birth of the Infant Saviour, and calls + on the shepherds to draw near to the sound of glad music. The + way in which this bit of theatrical "business" is managed, is + by a child in a surplice, with wings fastened to his + shoulders, being drawn up to the ceiling seated on a chair, + which is supported by ropes on a pulley. The shepherds, real + shepherds in white, homespun capes, with long crooks decked + with ribbons, are placed on a raised dais, which stands for + the mountain. They wake up when they hear the angel's song, + and one of them exclaims: + + Diou dou cèou, quino vèro vouts! + Un anjou mous parlo, pastous; + Biste quieten noste troupet! + Mes que dit l'anjou, si vous plaît? + + (Heavens! with how sweet a voice + The angel calls us to rejoice; + Quick leave your flocks: but tell me, pray, + What doth the heavenly angel say?) + + The angel replies in French: + + Rise, shepherd, nor delay, + 'Tis God who summons thee, + Hasten with zeal away + Thy Saviour's self to see. + The Lord of Hosts hath shown + That since this glorious birth, + War shall be no more known, + But peace shall reign on earth. + + The shepherds, however, are not very willing to be disturbed: + "Let me sleep! Let me sleep!" says one of them, and another + goes so far as to threaten to drive away the angel if he does + not let them alone. "Come and render homage to the new-born + babe," sings the angel, "and cease to complain of your happy + lot." They answer: + + A happy lot + We never yet possest, + A happy lot + For us poor shepherd folk existeth not; + Then wherefore utter the strange jest + That by an infant's birth we shall be blest + With happy lot? + + The shepherds begin to bestir themselves. One says that he + feels overcome with fear at the sound of so much noise and + commotion. The angel responds, "Come without fear; do not + hesitate, but redouble your speed. It is in this village, in a + poor place, near yonder wood, that you may see the Infant + Lord." Another of the shepherds, who seems to have only just + woke up, inquires: + + What do you say? + This to believe what soul is able; + What do you say? + Where do these shepherds speed away? + To see their God within a stable: + This surely seems an idle fable; + What do you say? + + "To understand how it is, go and behold with your own eyes," + replies the angel; to which the shepherd answers, "Good + morrow, angel; pardon me if I have spoken lightly; I will go + and see what is going on." Another, still not quite easy in + his mind, observes that he cannot make out what the angel + says, because he speaks in such a strange tongue. The angel + immediately replies in excellent Gascon patois: + + Come, shepherds, come + From your mountain home, + Come, see the Saviour in a stable born, + This happy morn. + Come, shepherds, come, + Let none remain behind, + Come see the wretched sinners' friend, + The Saviour of mankind. + + When they hear the good news, sung to a quaint and inspiriting + air in their own language, the shepherds hesitate no longer, + but set off for Bethlehem in a body. One of them, it is true, + expresses some doubts as to what will become of the flocks in + their absence; but a veteran shepherd strikes his crook upon + the ground and sternly reproves him for being anxious about + the sheep when a heavenly messenger has declared that "God has + made Himself the Shepherd of mankind." They leave the dais, + and march out of the church, the whole of which is now + considered as being the stable. After a while the shepherds + knock for admittance, and their voices are heard in the calm + crisp midnight air chaunting these words to sweet and solemn + strains: + + Master of this blest abode, + O guardian of the Infant God, + Open your honoured gate, that we + May at His worship bend the knee. + + Joseph fears that the strangers may perchance be enemies, but + reassured by an angel, he opens the door, only naïvely + regretting that the lowly chamber "should be so badly + lighted." They prostrate themselves before the cradle, and the + choir bursts forth with: + + Gloria Deo in excelsis, + O Domine te laudamus, + O Deus Pater rex caelestis, + In terra pax hominibus. + + The shepherdesses then render their homage, and deposit on the + altar steps a banner covered with flowers and greenery, from + which hang strings of small birds, apples, nuts, chestnuts, + and other fruits. It is their Christmas offering to the curé; + the shepherds have already placed a whole sheep before the + altar, in a like spirit. + + The next scene takes us into Herod's palace, where the magi + arrive, and are directed to proceed to Bethlehem. During their + adoration of the Infant Saviour, Mass is finished, and the + Sacrament is administered; after which the play is brought to + a close with the flight into Egypt and the massacre of the + Innocents. + +This primitive drama gives a better idea of the early mysteries than +do the performances at Ober Ammergau, which have been gradually pruned +and improved under the eye of a critical public. But it is unusually +free from the absurdities and levities which abound in most miracle +plays; such as the wrangle between Noah and his wife in the old +Chester Mysteries, in which the latter declares "by St John" that the +Flood is a false alarm, and that no power on earth shall make her go +into the Ark. Noah ends with putting her on board by main force, and +is rewarded by a box on the ear. + +The best surviving sample of a non-scriptural rustic play is probably +_Saint Guillaume of Poitou_, a Breton versified drama in seven acts. +The history of the Troubadour Count whose wicked manhood leads to a +preternaturally pious old age, corresponds to every requirement of the +peasant play-goer. Time and space are set airily at defiance; saints +and devils are not only called, but come at the shortest notice; +the plot is exciting enough to satisfy the strongest craving for +sensation, and the dialogue is vigorous, and, in parts, picturesque. +One can well believe that the fiery if narrow patriotism of a Breton +audience would be stirred by the scene where the reformed Count +William, who has withstood all other blandishments, is almost lured +out of his holy seclusion by the Evil One coming to him in the shape +of a fellow-townsman who represents his city as hard pressed by +overwhelming foes, and in its extremest need, imploring his aid; that +the religious fervour of Breton peasants would be moved by the +recital of the vision in which a very wicked man appears at the bar +of judgment: his sins out-number the hairs of his head, you would call +him an irredeemable wretch; yet it does so happen that once upon a +time he gave two pilgrims a bed of straw in a pig-stye, and now St +Francis throws this straw into the balance, and it bends down the +scale! + +So in the Song of the Sun, in Sæmund's _Edda_, a fierce freebooter, +who has despoiled mankind, and who always ate alone, opens his door +one evening to a tired wayfarer, and gives him meat and drink. The +guest meditates evil; then in his sleep he murders his host, but he is +doomed to take on him all the sins of the man he has slain, while the +one-time evil-doer's soul is borne by angels into a life of purity, +where it shall live for ever with God. This motive is repeatedly +introduced into folk-lore, and was made effective use of by Victor +Hugo in _Sultan Mourad_, the infamous tyrant who goes to Heaven on the +strength of having felt momentary compassion for a pig. + +In plays of the _Saint Guillaume_ class, the plain language in which +the vices and oppression of the nobles is denounced shows signs of +the slow surging up of the democratic spirit whose traces through the +middle ages are nowhere to be more fruitfully sought than in popular +literature--though they lie less in the rustic drama than in the great +mediæval satires, such as _Reynard the Fox_ and _Marcolfo_, the +latter of which is still known to the Italian people under the form of +_Bertoldo_, in which it was recast in the sixteenth century, by G. B. +Croce, the rhyming blacksmith of Bologna. + + +VII. + +Epopees, _chansons de geste_, romantic ballads, occasional or +ceremonial songs, nursery rhymes, singing-games, rustic dramas; to +these must be added the great order of purely personal and lyrical +songs, of which the unique and exclusive subject is love. Popular love +songs have one quality in common: a sincerity which is not perhaps +reached in the entire range of lettered amorous poetry. Love is to +these singers a thing so serious that however high they fly, they do +not outsoar what is to them the atmosphere of truth. "La passion parle +là toute pure," as Molière said of the old song: + + Si le roi m'avoit donné + Paris, sa grande ville, + Et qu'il me fallût quitter + L'amour de ma mie: + Je dirois au roi Henri + Reprenez votre Paris + J'aime mieux ma mie, oh gay! + J'aime mieux ma mie. + +An immense, almost incredible, number of popular songs have been set +down during the last twenty years by collectors who, like Tigri in +Tuscany, and Pitrè in Sicily, have done honour to their birthlands, +and an enduring service to literature. It has been seen that Italy, +Portugal, and Spain have songs which, though differing in shape, are +yet materially alike. Where was the original fount of this lyrical +river? Some would look for it in Arabia, and cite the evident poetic +fertility of those countries where Arab influence once prevailed. +Others regard the existing passion-verse as a descendant of the +mediæval poetry associated with Provence. Others, again, while +admitting that there may have been modifications of form, find it +hard to believe that there was ever a time, since the type was first +established, when the southern peasant was dumb, or when he did not +sing in substance very much as he does now. + +Whatever theory be ultimately accepted, it is certain that the popular +love-poetry of southern nations, such as it has been received direct +from peasant lips, is not the least precious gift we owe to the +untaught, uncultured poet, who after having been for long ages ignored +or despised, is now raised to his rightful place near the throne of +his illustrious brother, the perfect lettered poet. Pan sits unrebuked +by the side of Apollo. + + * * * * * + +These introductory remarks are meant to do no more than to show the +principal landmarks of folk-poetry. The subject is a wide one, as +they best know who have given it the most careful attention. In +the following essays, I have dealt with a few of its less familiar +aspects. I would, in conclusion, express my gratitude to the +indefatigable excavators of popular lore whose large labours have +made my small work possible, and to all who have helped, whether by +furnishing unedited specimens or by procuring copies of rare books. +My cordial thanks are also due to the editors and publishers of the +_Cornhill Magazine_, _Fraser's Magazine_, the _National Review_, +the _British Quarterly Review_, the _Revue Internationale_, the +_Antiquary_, and the _Record_ and _Journal_ of the Folk-lore Society, +for leave to reprint such part of this book as had appeared in those +publications. + + SALÒ, LAGO DI GARDA, + _January 15 1886_. + + + + + [Footnote 1: Voltaire.] + + [Footnote 2: + + Sire cuens, j'ai vielé + Devant vous, en vostre osté; + Si ne m'avez, riens doné, + Ne mes gages aquité + C'est vilanie; + + Foi que doi Sainte Marie! + Ainc ne vos sievrai je mie, + M'aumosniere est mal garnie + Et ma malle mal farsie. + + Sire cuens, quar comandez + De moi vostre volonté. + Sire, s'il vous vient à gré + Un beau don car me donez + Par cortoisie. + Talent ai, n'en dotez mie, + De r'aler à ma mesnie. + Quant vois borse desgarnie, + Ma feme ne me rit mie. + + Ains me dit: Sire Engelé + En quel terre avez esté, + Qui n'avez rien conquesté + Aval la ville? + Vez com vostre male plie, + Ele est bien de vent farsie. + Honi soit qui a envie + D'estre en vostre compaignie. + + Quant je vieng à mon hosté + Et ma feme a regardé + Derier moi le sac enflé, + Et ge qui sui bien paré + De robe grise, + Sachiez qu'ele a tot jus mise + La quenoille, sans faintise. + Elle me rit par franchise, + Les deux bras au col me lie. + + Ma feme va destrousser + Ma male, sanz demorer. + Mon garçon va abruver + Mon cheval et conreer. + Ma pucele va tuer + Deux chapons por deporter + A la sause aillie; + + Ma fille m'apporte un pigne. + En sa main par cortoisie + Lors sui de mon ostel sire, + A mult grant joie, sans ire, + Plus que nus ne porroit dire. + ] + + [Footnote 3: Not to speak of Charlemagne, who ordered a + collection to be made of German songs.] + + [Footnote 4: A fuller description of German harvest customs, + with remarks on their presumed meaning, will be found in the + Rev. J. Van den Gheyn's "Essais de Mythologie et de Philologie + comparée," 1885.] + + [Footnote 5: Mr W. R. S. Ralston has kindly communicated to me + this Russian version, which he translates: "Snail, snail, put + forth thy horns, I will give to thee cakes."] + + [Footnote 6: "Les deux Masques," tome i. p. 1.] + + [Footnote 7: "Confessions," book iii. chap. 11.] + + [Footnote 8: "Shakespeare's Dramatic Art," 1876.] + + + + +THE INSPIRATION OF DEATH IN FOLK-POETRY. + + +The Roumanians call death "the betrothed of the world:" that which +awaits. The Neapolitans give it the name of _la vedova_: that +which survives. It would be easy to go on multiplying the stock of +contrasting epithets. Inevitable yet a surprise, of daily incidence +yet a mystery, unvarying yet most various, a common fact yet incapable +of becoming common-place, death may be looked at from innumerable +points of view; but, look at it how we will, it moves and excites +our spiritual consciousness as nothing else can do. The first poet of +human things was perhaps one who stood in the presence of death. +In the twilight that went before civilization the loves of men were +prosaic, and intellectual unrest was remote, but there was already +Rachel weeping for her children and would not be comforted because +they are not. Death, high priest of the ideal, led man in his infancy +through a crisis of awe passing into transcendent exaltation, kindred +with the state which De Quincey describes when recalling the feelings +wrought in his childish brain by the loss of his sister. It set the +child-man asking why? first sign of a dawning intelligence; it told +him in familiar language that we lie on the borders of the unknown; it +opened before him the infinite spaces of hope and fear; it shattered +to pieces the dull round of the food-seeking present, and built up out +of the ruins the perception of a past and a future. It was the symbol +of a human oneness with the coming and going of day and night, summer +and winter, the rising and receding tide. It caused even the rudest +of men to speak lower, to tread more softly, revealing to him unawares +the angel Reverence. And above all, it wounded the heart of man. M. +Renan says with great truth, "Le grand agent de la marche du monde, +c'est la douleur." What poetry owes to the bread of sorrow has never +been better told than by the Greek folk-singer, who condenses it into +one brief sentence: "Songs are the words spoken by those who suffer." + +The influence of death on the popular imagination is shown in those +ballads of the supernatural of which folk-poetry offers so great an +abundance as to make choice difficult. One of the most powerful as +well as the most widely diffused of the people's ghost stories is that +which treats of the persecuted child whose mother comes out of her +grave to succour him. There are two or three variants of this among +the Czech songs. A child aged eighteen months loses his mother. As +soon as he is old enough to understand about such things, he asks his +father what he has done with her? "Thy mother sleeps a heavy sleep, no +one will wake her; she lies in the graveyard hard by the gate." When +the child hears that, he runs to the graveyard. He loosens the earth +with a big pin and pushes it aside with his little finger. Then he +cries mournfully, "Ah! mother, little mother, say one little word to +me!" "My child, I cannot," the mother replies, "my head is weighed +down with clay; on my heart is a stone which burns like fire; go home +little one, there you have another mother." "Ah!" rejoins he, "she is +not good like you were. When she gives me bread she turns it thrice; +when you gave it me you spread it with butter. When she combs my hair +she makes my head bleed; when you combed my hair, mother, you fondled +it. When she bathes my feet she bruises them against the side of the +basin; when you bathed them you kissed them. When she washes my shirt +she loads me with curses; you used to sing whilst you washed." The +mother answers: "Go back to the house, my child, to-morrow I will come +for you." The child goes back to the house and lies down in his bed. +"Ah! father, my little father, make ready my winding-sheet, my +soul now belongs to God, my body to the grave, to the grave near my +mother--how glad her heart will be!" One day he was ill, the second he +died, the third day they buried him. The effect is heightened by the +interval placed between the mother's death and the child's awakening +to his own forlorn condition. When the mother died he was too young to +think or to grieve. He did not know that she was gone until he missed +her. Only by degrees, after years of harsh treatment, borne with the +patience of a child or a dumb animal, he began to feel intuitively +rather than to remember that it had not been always so--that he had +once been loved. Then, going straight to the point with the terrible +accusative power that lies in children, he said to the father, "What +have you done with my mother?" He had been able to live and to suffer +until he was old enough to think; when he thought, he died. Here +we have an instance, one of the many that exist, of a motive which, +having recurred again and again in folk-poetry, gets handled at last +by a master-poet, who gives it enduring shape and immortality. Victor +Hugo may or may not have known the popular legend. It is most likely +that he did not know it. Yet, stripped of the marvellous, and modified +in certain secondary points of construction, the story is the story +of "Petit Paul," little Paul, the child of modern France, who takes +company with Dante's Anselmuccio and Shakespeare's Arthur, and who +with them will live in the pity of all time. The Ruthenes affirm +that it was Christ who bade the child seek his mother's grave. The +Provençal folk-poet begins his tale: "You shall hear the complaint of +three very little children." The mother of these children was dead, +the father had married again. The new wife brought a hard time for the +children, and the day came when they were like to starve. The littlest +begged for a bit of bread, and he got a kick which threw him to the +ground. Then the biggest of the brothers said, "Get up and let us go +to our mother in the graveyard; she will give us bread." They set out +at once; on their way they met Jesus Christ. + + Et ount anetz, mes angis, + Mes angis tant petits? + +"Where are you going, my angels, my so very small angels?" "We go to +the graveyard to find our mother." Jesus Christ tells the mother to +come forth and give her children food. "How would you have me come +forth, when there is no strength left in me?" He answers that her +strength shall come back to her for seven years. Now, as the end of +the seven years drew near, she was always sobbing and sighing, and the +children asked why it was. "I weep, my children, because I have to go +away from you." "Weep no more, mother, we will all go together; one +shall carry the hyssop, another will take the taper, the last will +hold the book. We will go home singing." The Provençal poet does not +tell us what happened when the resuscitated wife came back to her +former abode; we have to go to Scandinavia for an account of that. +Dyring the Dane went to an island and wed a fair maiden. For seven +years they dwelt together and were blessed with children; but while +the youngest born was still a helpless babe, Death stalked through the +land and carried off the young wife in his clutches. Dyring went to +another island and married a girl who was bad and spiteful. He brought +her home to his house, and when she reached the door the six little +children were there crying. She thrust them aside with her foot, she +gave them no ale and no bread; she said, "You shall suffer thirst and +hunger." She took from them their blue cushions, and said, "You shall +sleep on straw." She took from them their wax candles, and said, +"You shall stay in the dark." In the evening, very late, the children +cried, and their mother heard them under the ground. She listened as +she lay in her shroud, and thought to herself, "I must go to my little +children." She begged our Lord so hard to let her go, that her prayer +was granted. "Only you must be back when the cock crows." She lifted +her weary limbs, the grave gaped, she passed through the village, the +dogs howled as she passed, throwing up their noses in the air. When +she got to the house, she saw her eldest daughter on the threshold. +"Why are you standing there, my dear daughter? Where are your brothers +and sisters?" The daughter knew her not. She said her mother was +fair and blithe, her face was white and pink. "How can I be fair and +blithe? I am dead, my face is pale. How can I be white and pink, when +I have been all this time in my winding-sheet?" Answering thus, the +mother hastened to her little children's chamber. She found them with +tears running down their cheeks. She brushed the clothes of one, she +tidied the hair of the second, she lifted the third from the floor, +she comforted the fourth, the fifth she set on her knee as though +she were fain to suckle it. To the eldest girl she said, "Go and tell +Dyring to come here." And when he came she cried in wrath, "I left you +ale and bread, and my little ones hunger; I left you blue cushions, +and my little ones lie on straw; I left you waxen candles, and my +little ones are in the dark. Woe betide you, if there be cause +I should return again! Behold the red cock crows, the dead fly +underground. Behold the black cock crows, heaven's doors are thrown +wide. Behold the white cock crows, I must begone." So saying she went, +and was seen no more. Ever after that night each time Dyring and his +wife heard the dogs bark they gave the children ale and bread; each +time they heard the dogs bay they were seized with dread of the dead +woman; each time they heard the dogs howl they trembled lest she +should come back. Two universal beliefs are introduced into this +variant: the disappearance of the dead at cock crow, and the +connection of the howling of dogs with death or the dead. The last +is a superstition which still obtains a wide acceptance even among +educated people. I was speaking of it lately to an English officer, +who stated that he had twice heard the death howl, once while on duty +in Ireland, and once, if I remember right, in India. It was, he said, +totally unlike any other noise produced by a dog. I observed that +all noises sound singular when the nerves are strained by painful +expectancy; but he answered that in his own case his feelings were not +involved, as the death which occurred, in one instance at least, was +that of a perfect stranger. + +The interpretation of dreams as a direct intercourse with the +spiritual world is not usual in folk-lore; the people hardly see the +need of placing the veil of sleep between mortal eyes and ghostly +appearances. In a Bulgarian song, however, a sleeping girl speaks with +her dead mother. Militza goes down into the little garden where +the white and red roses are in bloom. She is weary, and she is soon +asleep. A small fine rain begins to fall, the wind rustles in the +leaves; Militza sighs, and having sighed, she awakes. Then she +upbraids the rain and the wind: "Whistle no more, O wind; thou, O +rain, descend no more; for in my dreams I found my mother. Rain, may +thy fount be dried; mayst thou be for ever silent, O wind: ye have +taken me from the counsel my mother gave me." The few lines thus +baldly summarized make up, as it seems to me, a little masterpiece of +delicate conception and light workmanship: one which would surprise us +from the lips of a letterless poet, were there not proof that no touch +is so light and so sure as that of the artificer untaught in our own +sense--the man or the woman who produces the intricate filigree, the +highly wrought silver, the wood carving, the embroidery, the lace, the +knitted wool rivalling the spider's web, the shawl with whose weft and +woof a human life is interwoven. + +I have only once come upon the case of a father who returns to take +care of his offspring. Mr Chu, a worthy Chinese gentleman, revisited +this earth as a disembodied spirit to guard and teach his little boy +Wei. When Wei reached the age of twenty-two, and took his doctor's +degree, his father, Mr Chu, finally vanished. As a general rule, the +Chinese consider the sight of his former surroundings to be the worst +penalty that can befall a soul. Mr Herbert Giles, in his fascinating +work on the Liao-Chai of P'u Sing-Ling, gives a full account of the +terrible See-one's-home terrace as represented in the fifth court of +Purgatory in the Taoist Temples. Good souls, or even those who have +done partly good and partly evil, will never stand thereon. The souls +of the wicked only see their homes as if they were near them: they see +their last wishes disregarded, everything upside down, their substance +squandered, the husband prepares to take a new wife, strangers possess +the old estate, in their misery the dead man's family curse him, his +children become corrupt, lands are gone, the house is burnt, the wife +sees her husband tortured, the husband sees his wife stricken down +with mortal disease; friends forget: "some perhaps for the sake of +bygone times may stroke the coffin and let fall a tear, departing with +a cold smile." In the West, this gloomy creed is perhaps hinted at in +the French proverb, "Les morts sont bien mort." But Western thought at +its best, at its highest, imagines differently. It imagines that the +most gracious privilege of immortal spirits is that of beholding those +beloved of them in mortal life-- + + I am still near, + Watching the smiles I prized on earth, + Your converse mild, your blameless mirth. + +Happy and serene optimism! + +The ghosts of folk-lore return not only to succour the innocent, they +come back also to convict the guilty. The avenging ghost shows himself +in all kinds of strange and uncanny ways rather than in his habit as +he lived. He comes in animal or vegetable shape; or perhaps he uses +the agency of some inanimate object. In the Faroe Isles there is a +story of a girl whose sister pushed her into the sea out of jealousy. +The blue waves cast ashore her body, which was found by two pilgrims, +who made the arms into a harp, and the flaxen locks into strings. Then +they went and played the harp at the wedding feast of the murderess +and the dead girl's betrothed. The first string said, "The bride is +my sister." The second string said, "The bride caused my death." The +third string said, "The bridegroom is my betrothed." The harp's notes +swelled louder and louder, and the guilty bride fell sick unto death; +before the pilgrims had done playing, her heart broke. This is much +the same story as the "Twa Sisters of Binnorie." A Slovack legend +describes two musicians who, as they were travelling together, noticed +a fine plane tree; and one said to the other, "Let us cut it down, +it is just the thing to make a violin of; the violin will be equally +yours and mine; we will play on it by turn." At the first blow the +tree sighed; at the second blow blood spurted out; at the third blow +the tree began to talk. It said: "Musicians, fair youths, do not cut +me down; I am not a tree, I am made of flesh and blood; I am a lovely +girl of the neighbouring town; my mother cursed me while I drew +water--while I drew water and chatted with my friend. 'Mayst thou +change into a plane tree with broad leaves,' said she. Go ye, +musicians, and play before my mother." So they betook themselves +to the mother's door and played a dirge over her child. "Play not, +musicians, fair youths," she entreated. "Rend not my heart by your +playing. I have enough of woe in having lost my daughter. Hapless the +mother who curses her children!" The well-known German tale of the +juniper tree belongs to the same class. A beautiful little boy is +killed by his step-mother, who serves him up as a dish of meat to his +father. The father eats in ignorance, and throws away the bones, which +are gathered up by the little half-sister, who puts them into her best +silk handkerchief and buries them under a juniper tree. Presently a +bird of gay plumage perches on the tree, and whistles as it flits from +branch to branch-- + + Min moder de mi slach't, + Min fader de mi att, + Min swester de Marleenken + Söcht alle mine Beeniken, + Und bindt sie in een syden Dook + Legst unner den Machandelboom; + Ky witt! ky witt! Ach watt en schön vagel bin ich! + +--a rhyme which Goethe puts into the mouth of Gretchen in prison. In +the German story the step-mother's brains are knocked out by the fall +of a mill-stone, and the bird-boy is restored to human form; but in +a Scotch variant the last event does not take place. It may have been +thrown in by some narrator who had a weakness for a plot which ends +well. All these wonder-tales had probably an original connection +with a belief in the transmigration of souls. In truth, the people's +_Märchen_ are rooted nearly always on some article of ancient faith: +that is why they have so long a life. Faith vitalizes poetry or legend +or art; and what once lived takes a great time to die. Now that the +beliefs which fostered them have gone into the lumber-room of disused +religions, the old wonder-tales still have a freshness and a horror +which cannot be found even in the best of brand-new "made-up" stories. + +Another reason why the dead come back is to fulfil a promise. The +Greek mother of the Kleft song has nine sons and one only daughter. +She bathes her in the darkness, her hair she combs in the light, she +dresses her beneath the shining of the moon. A stranger from Bagdad +has asked her in marriage, and Constantine, one of the sons, counsels +his mother to give her to the stranger. "Thou art wont to be prudent, +but in this thou art senseless," says the mother. "Who will bring her +back to me if there be joy or sorrow?" Constantine gives her God as +surety, and all the saints and martyrs, that if there be sorrow or joy +he will bring her back. In two years all the nine sons die, and when +it is Constantine's turn, the mother leans over his body and tears +her hair. Fain would she have back her daughter Arete, and behold +Constantine lies dead. At midnight Constantine gets up and goes to +where his sister dwells, and bids Arete to follow him. She asks what +has happened, but he tells her nothing. While they journey along the +birds sing: "See you that lovely girl riding with the dead?" Then +Arete asks her brother if he heard what the birds said. "They are only +birds," he answers; "never mind them." She says her brother has such +an odour of incense that it fills her with fear, "It is only," he +says, "because we passed the evening in the chapel of St John." When +they reach their home, the mother opens the portal and sees the dead +and the living come in together, and her soul leaves her body. The +motive of a ride with the dead, made familiar by the "Erl König" +and Burgher's "Lenore," can be traced through endless variations in +folk-poesy. + +In the Swedish ballad of "Little Christina," a lover rises from his +grave, not to carry off his beloved, but simply to console her. One +night Christina hears light fingers tapping at her door; she opens it, +and her dead betrothed comes in. She washes his feet with pure wine, +and for a long while they speak together. Then the cocks begin to +crow, and the dead get them underground. The young girl puts on her +shoes and follows her betrothed through the wide forest. When +they reach the graveyard, the fair hair of the young man begins to +disappear. "See, maiden," he says, "how the moon has reddened all at +once; even so, in a moment, thy beloved will vanish." She sits down on +the tomb and says: "I shall remain here till the Lord calls me." Then +she hears the voice of her betrothed saying to her: "Little Christina, +go back to thy dwelling-place. Every time a tear falls from thine eyes +my shroud is full of blood. Every time thy heart is gay, my shroud is +full of rose leaves." + +If the display of excessive grief is thus shown to be only grievous to +the dead, yet they are held to be keenly sensible of a lack of due and +decorous respect. Such respect they generally get from rough or savage +natures, unless it be denied out of intentional scorn or enmity. There +is a factory in England where common men are employed to manipulate +large importations of bones for agricultural uses. Each cargo contains +a certain quantity of bones which are very obviously human. These the +workmen sort out, and when they have got a heap they bury it, and ask +the manager to read over it some passages from the Burial Service. +They do it of their own free will and initiative; were they hindered, +they would very likely leave the works. Shall it be called foolish or +sublime? Another curious instance of respect to the dead comes to my +mind. On board ship two cannon balls are ordinarily sewed up with a +body to sink it. Once a negro died at sea, and his fellows, negroes +also, took him in a boat and rowed a long way to a place where they +were to commit him to the deep. After a while the boat returned to +the ship, still with its burden. The explanation was soon made. The +negroes discovered that they had only one cannon ball, they had rowed +back for the other. One would have been quite enough to answer all +purposes; but it seemed to them disrespectful to their comrade to +cheat him out of half his due. + +The dead particularly object to people treading carelessly on their +graves. So we learn from one of the songs of Greek outlawry. + + All Saturday we held carouse, and far through Sunday night, + And on the Monday morn we found our wine expended quite. + To seek for more without delay the captain made me go; + I ne'er had seen nor known the way, nor had a guide to show. + And so through solitary roads and secret paths I sped, + Which to a little ivied church long time deserted led. + This church was full of tombs, and all by gallant men possest; + One sepulchre stood all alone, apart from all the rest. + + I did not see it, and I trod above the dead man's bones, + And as from out the nether world came up a sound of groans. + What ails thee, sepulchre? why thus so deeply groan and sigh? + Doth the earth press, or the black stone weigh on thee heavily? + "Neither the earth doth press me down, nor black stone do me scath, + But I with bitter grief am wrung, and full of shame and wrath, + That thou dost trample on my head, and I am scorned in death. + Perhaps I was not also young, nor brave and stout in fight, + Nor wont as thou, beneath the moon, to wander through the night." + +Egil Skallagrimson, after his son was drowned, resolved to let himself +die of hunger. Thorgerd, his daughter, came to him and prayed hard of +him that he would sing. Touched by her affection, he made an effort, +gathered up his ideas, dressed them in images, expressed them in song; +and as he sang, his regrets softened, and in the end his soul became +so calm that he was satisfied to live. In this beautiful saga lies the +secret of folk-elegies. The people find comfort in singing. A Czech +maiden asks of the dark woods how they can be as green in winter as in +summer; as for her, she cannot help vexing her heart. "But who would +not weep in my place? Where is my father, my beloved father? The sandy +plain is his winding-sheet. Where is my mother, my good mother? The +grass grows over her. I have no brother and no sister, and they have +taken away my friend." Of a certainty when she had sung, her vexed +heart was lighter. "Seul a un synonym: mort." Yes, but he who sings +is scarcely alone, even though there be only the waving pine woods to +answer with a sigh. The most passionate laments of the Sclavonic race +are for father and mother. If a Little Russian loses both his parents +his despair is such that it often drives him forth a wanderer on the +face of the earth. One so bereft cries out, "Dear mother, why didst +thou suffer me to see the day? Why didst thou bring me into the world +without obtaining for me by thy prayers a portion of its blessings? +My father and my mother are dead, and with them my country. Why was I +left a wretched orphan? Oh, could I find a being miserable as myself +that we might sympathize one with the other!" The birth-ties of +kindred are reckoned the only strong ones. Some Russian lines, +translated by Mr Ralston, indicate the degrees of mourning: + + There weeps his mother--as a river runs; + There weeps his sister--as a streamlet flows; + There weeps his youthful wife--as falls the dew; + The sun will rise and gather up the dew. + +A Servian _pesma_ illustrates the same idea. Young Tövo has the +misfortune to break his arm. A doctor is fetched--no other than a Vila +of the mountain. The wily sprite demands in guerdon for the cure the +right hand of the mother, the sister's long hair, with the ribbons +that bind it, the pearl necklace of the wife. Quickly the mother +sacrifices her right hand, quickly the sister cuts off her much-prized +braid, but the wife says, "Give up my white pearls that my father gave +me? Not I!" The Vila waxes angry and poisons Tövo's blood. When he is +dead three women fall "a-kookooing"--one groans without ceasing; one +sobs at dawn and dusk; one weeps just now and then when it comes into +her head so to do. As the cuckoo is supposed to be a sister mourning +for her brother, kookooing has come to mean lamenting. The Servian +girl who has lately lost her brother cannot hear the cuckoo's note +without weeping. In popular poetry the love of sister for brother +takes precedence even of the love of mother for child. Not only does +Gudrun in the Elder Edda esteem the murder of her first lord, the +god-like Sigurd, to be of less importance than that of her brothers, +but also to avenge their deaths, she has no scruple in slaying both +her second husband and her own sons. A Bulgarian ballad shows in still +more striking light the relative value set on the lives of child +and brother. There was a certain man named Negul, whose head was in +danger. The folk-poet is careful to express no sort of censure upon +his hero, but the boasts he is made to utter are sufficient guides to +his character. Great numbers of Turks has he put to flight, and yet +more women has he killed of those who would not follow him meekly as +his wives. "And now," he adds plaintively, "a misfortune has befallen +me which I have done nothing at all to deserve." His sister Milenka +hears him bemoaning his fate, and at once she says to him, "Brother +Negul, Negul, my brother, do not disturb yourself, do not distress +yourself; I have nine sons, nine sons and one daughter; the youngest +of all is Lalo; him will I sacrifice to save you; I will sacrifice him +so that you may remain to me." This was the promise of Milenka. Then +she hastened to her own home and prepared hot meats and set flasks of +golden wine wherewith to feast her sons. "Eat and drink together," +she said, "and kiss one another's hands, for Lalo is going away to be +groomsman to his Uncle Negul. Let your mother see you all assembled, +and serve you each in turn with ruddy wine and with smoking viands." +For the others she did not wholly fill the glass, but Lalo's glass +she filled to the brim. Meanwhile Elka, Lalo's sister, made ready his +clothes for the journey; and as she busied about it, the little girl +cried because Lalo was going to be groomsman, and they had not asked +her to be bridesmaid. Lalo said to Elka, "Elka, my little only sister, +do not cry so, sister; do not be so vexed; we are nine brothers, and +one of these days you will surely act as bridesmaid." The words were +hardly spoken when the headsmen reached the door. They took Lalo, +the groomsman, and they chopped off his head in place of his Uncle +Negul's. + +A new and different world is entered when we follow the folk-poet +upon the wrestling-ground of Death and Love. If I have judged rightly, +there were songs of death before there were any other love songs than +those of the nightingale; but the folk-poet was still young when he +learnt to sing of love, and the love poet found out early that his +lyre was incomplete without the string of death. In all folk-poetry +can be plainly heard that music of love and death which may be +said almost to have been the dominant note that sounded through the +literature of the ages of romance. Sometimes the victory is given to +death, sometimes to love; in one song love, while yielding, conquers. +Folk-poetry has not anything more instinct with the quality of +intensity than is this "Last Request" of a Greek robber-lover-- + + When thou shalt hear that I am ill, + O my well-beloved! he said, + O come to me, and quickly come, + Or thou wilt find me dead. + And when that thou hast reached the house, + And the great gates passed through, + Then, O my well-beloved, the braids + Of thy bright hair undo. + And to my mother say straightway, + Tell me, where is your son? + My son is lying on his bed + In his chamber all alone. + Then mount the stairs, O my well-beloved, + And come your lover anigh, + And smooth my pillow that I may + Raise me a little high, + And hold my head up in thy hands + Till flies away my soul. + And when thou seest the priest arrive, + And dress him in his stole, + Then place, my well-beloved, a kiss + On my lips pale and cold; + And when four youths shall lift me up, + And on their shoulders hold, + Then shalt thou, O my well-beloved, + Cast at them many a stone. + And when they reach thy neighbourhood + And by thy house pass on, + Then, O my well-beloved, thy hair, + Thy golden tresses cut; + And when they reach the church's gate, + And there my coffin put, + Then as the hen her feathers plucks, + So pluck thy hair for me. + And when my dirges all are done, + And lights extinguished be, + Then shall my heart, O well-beloved, + Still be possessed of thee. + +We hardly notice the adventitious part of it--the ancient custom of +tearing off the hair, the strange stone-casting at the youths who +represent Charon; our attention is absorbed by what is the essence +of the song: passion which has burned itself into pure fire. Greek +folk-poetry shows a blending together of southern emotions with an +imaginative fervour, a prophetic power that is rather of the East than +of the South. No Tuscan ploughman, for instance, could seize the idea +of the Greek folk-poet of possessing his living love in death. If the +Tuscan thinks of a union in the grave, it can only be attained by the +one who remains joining the one who is gone-- + + O friendly soil, + Soil that doth hold my love in thine embrace, + Soon as for me shall end life's war and toil + Beneath thy sod I too would have a place; + Where my love is, there do I long to be, + Where now my heart is buried far from me-- + Yes, where my love is gone I long to go, + Robbed of my heart I bear too deep a woe. + +This stringer of pretty conceits fails to convince us that he is +very much in earnest in his wish to die. Speaking in the sincerity of +prose, the Tuscan says, "Ogni cosa è meglio che la morte." He does +not believe in the nothingness of life. In his worst troubles he still +feels that all his faculties, all his senses, are made for pleasure. +Death is to him the affair of a not cheerful religious ceremony--a +cross borne before a black draped bier, and bells tolling dolefully. + + I hear Death's step, I see him at my side, + I feel his bony fingers clasp me round; + I see the church's door is open wide, + And for the dead I hear the knell resound. + I see the cross and the black pall outspread; + Love, thou dost lead me whither lie the dead! + I see the cross, the winding-sheet I see; + Love, to the graveyard thou art leading me! + +Going further south, a stage further is reached in crude externality +of vision. People of the South are the only born realists. To them +that comes natural which in others is either affectation or the +fruits of what the French call _l'amour du laid_--a morbid love of the +hideous, such as marred the fine genius of Baudelaire. At Naples death +is a matter of corruption naked in the sunlight. When the Neapolitan +takes his mandoline amongst the tombs he unveils their sorry secrets, +not because he gloats over them, but because the habit of a reserve +of speech is entirely undeveloped in him. He dares to sing thus of his +lost love-- + + Her lattice ever lit no light displays. + My Nella! can it be that you are ill? + Her sister from the window looks and says: + "Your Nella in the grave lies cold and still. + Ofttimes she wept to waste her life unwed, + And now, poor child, she sleeps beside the dead." + Go to the church and lift the winding-sheet, + Gaze on my Nella's face--how changed, alas! + See 'twixt those lips whence issued flowers so sweet + Now loathsome worms (ah! piteous sight!) do pass. + Priest, let it be your care, and promise me, + That evermore her lamp shall lighted be. + +The song beats with the pulses of the people's life--the life of a +people swift in gesture, in action, in living, in dying: always in a +hurry, as if one must be quick for the catastrophe is coming. They are +all here: the lover waiting in the street for some sign or word; the +girl leaning out of window to tell her piece of news; the "poor +child" who had drunk of the lava stream of love; the dead lying +uncoffined in the church to be gazed upon by who will; the priest +to whom are given those final instructions: pious, and yet how +uncomforting, how unilluminated by hope or even aspiration! Here there +is no thought of reunion. A kind-hearted German woman once tried to +console a young Neapolitan whose lover was dead, by saying that they +might meet in Paradise. "In Paradise?" she answered, opening her large +black eyes; "Ah! signora, in Paradise people do not marry." + +The coming back or reappearance of a lover, in whose absence his +beloved has died, is a subject that has been made use of by the +folk-poets of every country, and nothing can be more characteristic of +the nationalities to which they belong than the divergences which +mark their treatment of it. Northern singers turn the narrative of +the event into half a fairy tale. On the banks of the Moldau we are +introduced to a joyous youth, returning with glad steps to his native +village. "My pretty girls, my doves, is my friend cutting oats with +you?" he asks of a group of girls working in the fields near his home. +"Only yesterday," they reply, "his friend was buried." He begs them +to tell him by which path they bore her away. It is a road edged with +rosemary; everybody knows it--it leads to the new cemetery. Thither +he goes, thrice he wanders round the place, the third time he hears a +voice crying, "Who is it treads on my grave and breaks the rest of +the dead?" "It is I, thy friend," he says, and he bids her rise up +and look on him. She says she cannot, she is too weak, her heart is +lifeless, her hands and feet are like stones. But the gravedigger has +left his spade hard by; with it her friend can shovel away the earth +that holds her down. He does what she tells him; when the earth is +lifted he beholds her stretched out at full length, a frozen maiden +crowned with rosemary. He asks to whom has she bequeathed his gifts. +She answers that her mother has them; he must go and beg them of her. +Then shall he throw the little scarf upon a bush, and there will be an +end to his love. And the silver ring he shall cast into the sea, and +there will be an end to his grief. On the shores of the Wener it is +Lord Malmstein who wakes before dawn from a dream that his beloved's +heart is breaking. "Up, up, my little page, saddle the grey; I must +know how it fares with my love." He mounts the horse and gallops into +the forests. Of a sudden two little maids stand in his path; one wears +a dress of blue, and hails him with the words: "God keep you, Lord +Malmstein; what bale awaits you!" The other is dight in red, and of +her Lord Malmstein asks, "Who is ill, and who is dead?" "No one is +ill, no one is dead, save only the betrothed of Malmstein." He makes +haste to reach the village; on the way he meets the bier of his +betrothed. Swiftly he leaps from the saddle; he pulls from off his +finger rings of fine gold, and throws them to the gravedigger--"Delve +a grave deep and wide, for therein we will walk together." His face +turns red and white, and he deals a mortal blow at his heart. This +Swedish Malmstein not only figures as the reappearing lover; he +is also one of that familiar pair whom death unites. In an ancient +Romansch ballad the story is simply an episode of peasant life. A +young Engadiner girl is forced by her father to marry a man of the +village of Surselva, but all the while her troth is plighted to a +youth from the village of Schams. On the road to Surselva the lover +joins the bride and bridegroom unknown to the latter. When they reach +the place the people declare that they have never seen so fair a +woman as the youthful bride. Her husband's father and mother greet +her saying, "Daughter, be thou welcome to our house!" But she answers, +"No, I have never been your daughter, nor do I hope ever to be; for +the time is near when I must die." Then her brothers and sisters greet +her saying, "O sister, be thou welcome to our house!" "No," she says, +"I have never been your sister, nor do I ever hope to be; for the time +comes when I must die. Only one kindness I ask of you, give me a room +where I may rest." They lead her to her chamber, they try to comfort +her with sweet words; but the more they would befriend her, the more +does the young bride turn her mind away from this world. Her lover is +by her side, and to him she says, "O my beloved, greet my father and +my mother; tell them that perhaps they have rejoiced their hearts, but +sure it is they have broken mine." She turns her face to the wall and +her soul returns to God. "O my beloved," cries the lover, "as thou +diest, and diest for me, for thee will I gladly die." He throws +himself upon the bed, and his soul follows hers. As the clock struck +two they carried her to the grave, as the clock struck three they came +for him; the marriage bells rang them to their rest; the chimes of +Schams answering back the chimes of Surselva. From the grave mound of +the girl grew a camomile plant, from the grave mound of the youth a +plant of musk; and for the great love they bore one another even the +flowers twined together and embraced. + + Uoi, i sül tömbel da quella bella + Craschiva sü üna flur da chiaminella; + Uoi, i sül tömbel da que bel mat + Craschiva sü üna flur nusch muschiat; + Per tant grond bain cha queus dus as leivan, + Parfin las fluors insemmel as brancleivan. + +It is a sign of a natural talent for democracy when the people like +better to tell stories about themselves than to discuss the fortunes +of prince or princess. The devoted lovers are more often to be looked +for in the immediate neighbourhood of a court. So it is in the ballad +of Count Nello of Portugal. Count Nello brings his horse to bathe; +while the horse drinks, the Count sings. It was already very dark--the +King could not recognise him. The poor Infanta knew not whether to +laugh or to cry. "Be quiet, my daughter; listen and thou wilt hear a +beautiful song. It is an angel singing, or the siren in the sea." "No, +it is no angel in heaven, nor is it the siren of the sea; it is Count +Nello, my father, he who fain would wed me." "Who speaks of Count +Nella who dare name him, the rebel vassal whom I have exiled?" "My +Lord, mine only is the fault; you should punish me alone; I cannot +live without him; it is I who have made him come." "Hold thy peace, +traitress; before day dawns thou shalt see his head cut off." "The +headsman who slays him may prepare for me too; there where you dig his +grave dig mine also." For whom are the bells tolling? Count Nello is +dead; the Infanta is like to die. The two graves are open; behold! +they lay the Count near the porch of the church and the Infanta at +the foot of the altar. On one grave grows a cypress, on the other an +orange tree; one grows, the other grows; their branches join and kiss. +The king, when he hears of it, orders them both to be cut down. From +the cypress flows noble blood, from the orange tree blood royal; from +one flies forth a dove, from the other a wood-pigeon. When the +king sits at table the birds perch before him. "Ill luck upon their +fondness," he cries, "ill luck upon their love! Neither in life nor in +death have I been able to divide them." The musk and the camomile +of Switzerland, the cypress and the orange tree of Portugal, are the +cypress and the reed of the Greek folk-song, the thorn and olive of +the Norman _chanson_, the rose and the briar of the English ballad, +the vine and the rose of the Tristram and Iseult story. Through the +world they tell their tale-- + + Amor condusse noi ad una morte. + +The death of heroes has provided an inexhaustible theme for +folk-poets. The chief or partisan leader had his complement in the +skald or bard or roving ballad-singer; if the one acted, turned tribes +into nations, cut out history, the other sang, published his +fame, gave his exploits to the future, preserved to his people the +remembrance of his dying words. The poetry of hero-worship, beginning +on Homeric heights, descends to the "lytell gestes" of all sorts +and conditions of more or less respectable and patriotic outlaws and +_condottieri_, whose "passing" is often the most honourable point +in their career. On the principle which has been followed--that of +letting the folk-poet speak for himself, and show what are his ideas +and his impressions after his own manner and in his own language--I +will take three death scenes from amongst the less known of those +recorded in popular verse. The first is Scandinavian. What ails +Hjalmar the Icelander? Why is his face so pale? The Norse Warrior +answers: "Sixteen wounds have I, and my armour is shattered. All +things grow black in my sight; I reel in walking; the bloody sword of +Agantyr has pierced my heart. Had I five houses in the fields I could +not dwell in one of them; I must abide at Samsa, hopeless and mortally +wounded. At Upsal, in the halls of Josur, many Jarls quaff joyously +the foaming ale, many Jarls exchange hot words; but as for me, I am +here in this island, struck down by the point of the sword. The white +daughter of Hilmer accompanied my steps to Aganfik beyond the reefs; +her words are come true, for she said I should return no more. Draw +off my finger the ring of ruddy gold, bear it to my youthful Ingebrog, +it will remind her that she will see me never more. In the east +upsoars the raven; after him the mightier eagle wings his way. I will +be meat for the eagle and my heart's blood his drink." One backward +look to all that was the joy of his life--the feast, the fight, the +woman he loved--and then a calm facing of the end. This is how the +Norseman died. The Greek hero, who dies peaceably in the ripeness of +old age, meets his doom with even less trouble of spirit-- + + The sun sank down behind the hill, + And Dimos faintly said, + 'Go, children, fetch your evening meal-- + The water and the bread. + Thou, Lamprakis, my brother's son, + Come hither, by me stand, + And arm me with my weapons, + And be captain of the band. + And, children, take my dear old sword + That I no more shall sway, + And cut the green boughs from the trees + And there my body lay; + And hither bring a priestly man + To whom I may confess, + That I may tell him all my sins, + And he forgive and bless. + For thirty years a soldier, + Twenty years a kleft was I; + Now death o'ertakes and seizes me, + 'Tis finished, I must die. + And be ye sure ye make my grave + Of ample height and large, + That in it I may stand upright, + Or lie my gun to charge. + And to the right a lattice make, + A passage for the day, + Where the swallow, bringing springtide, + May dart about and play, + And the nightingale, sweet singer, + Tell the happy month of May. + +The slight natural touches--the eagle soaring against the sunrise, the +nightingale singing through the May nights--suggest an intuition of +the will-of-the-wisp affinity between nature and human chances which +seems for ever on the point of being seized, but which for ever eludes +the mental grasp. We think of the "brown bird" in the noble "Funeral +Song" of one who would have been a magnificent folk-poet, had he not +learnt to write and read--Walt Whitman. + +My third specimen is a Piedmontese ballad composed probably about +a hundred and fifty years ago, and still very popular. Count Nigra +ascertained the existence of eight or more variants. A German soldier, +known in Italy as the Baron Lodrone, took arms under the house of +Savoy, in whose service he presently died. "In Turin," begins the +ballad, "counts and barons and noble dames mourn for the death of the +Baron Lodrone." The king went to Cuneo to visit his dying soldier; +drums and cannons greeted his approach. He spoke kind words to the +sick man: "Courage, thou wilt not die, and I will give thee the +supreme command." "There is no commander who can stand against death," +answered the baron. Now Lodrone was a Protestant, and when the king +was convinced that he must die, he exhorted him to conversion, saying +that he himself would stand his sponsor. Lodrone replied that that +could not be. The king did not insist; he only asked him where he +would be buried, and promised him a sepulchre of gold. He answered-- + + Mi lasserü për testament + Ch 'a mi sotero an val d' Lüserna, + An val d' Lüserna a m sotraran + Dova l me cör s'arposa tan! + +He does not care for a golden sepulchre, but he "leaves for testament" +that his body may lie in Val Luserna, "where my heart rests so well!" +The valley of Luserna was the seat of the Vaudois faith in the "alpine +mountains cold," watered with martyr blood only a little while before +Lodrone lived. To read these four simple lines after the fantasia of +wild or whimsical guesses, passionate longing, unresisted despair, +insatiable curiosity, that death has been seen to create or inspire, +is like going out of a public place with its multiform and voluble +presentment of men and things into the aisles of a small church which +would lie silent but that unseen hands pass over the organ keys. + + + + +NATURE IN FOLK-SONGS. + + +Nature, like music, does not initially make us think, it makes us +feel. A midnight scene in the Alps, a sunrise on the Mediterranean, +suspends at the moment of contemplating it all thought in pure +emotion. Afterwards, however, thought comes back and asks for a reason +for the emotion that has been felt. Man at an early age began to try +and explain, or give a tangible shape, to the feelings wrought in him +by Nature. In the first place he called the things that he saw gods, +"because the things are beautiful that are seen." Later on, seers and +myth-makers resigned their birthright into the hands of poets, who +became henceforth the interpreters between nature and man. A small +piece of this succession fell away from the great masters of the +world's song, and was picked up almost unconsciously by the obscure +and nameless folk-singer. Comparative folk-lore has shown that men +have everywhere the same customs, the same superstitions, the same +games. The study of folk-songs will go far to show that if they have +not likewise a complete community of taste and sentiment, yet even in +these, the finer fibres of their being, there is less of difference +and more of analogy than has been hitherto supposed. Folk-songs +prove, for instance, that the modern unschooled man is not so utterly +ignorant of natural beauty as many of us have imagined him to be. Only +we must not go from the extreme of expecting nothing to the extreme of +expecting too much; it has to be borne in mind that at best folk-poesy +is rather the stammering speech of children than a mature eloquence. + +It is a common idea that, until the other day, mountains were looked +upon with positive aversion. Still we know that there were always men +who felt the power of the hills: the men who lived in the hills. +When they were kept too long in the plain without hope of return they +sickened and died; when a vivid picture of their mountains was of a +sudden brought up before them, they lost control over their actions. +By force of association the sound of the _Kuhreihen_ could doubtless +give the Switzer a vision of the white peak, the milky torrent, the +chalet with slanting roof, the cows tripping down the green Alp to +their night quarters. It is disappointing to find that the words +accompanying the famous cow-call are as a rule mere nonsense. The +first observation which the genuine folk-poet makes about mountains +is the sufficiently self-evident one, that they form a wall between +himself and the people on the further side. The old Pyrenean balladist +seized the political significance of this: "When God created those +mountains," he said, "He did not mean that men should cross them." +Very often the mountain wall is spoken of as a barrier which separates +lovers. The Gascon peasants have an adaptation of Gaston Phoebus' +romance:-- + + Aqueros mountines + Qui ta haoutes soun, + M'empechen de bede + Mas arnous oun soun. + +In Bohemia the simple countryman poetises after much the same fashion +as the Gascon cavalier: "Mountain, mountain, thou art very high! My +friend, thou art far off, far beyond the mountains. Our love will fade +yet more and yet more; there is nothing left for me; in this world +no pleasantness remains." Another Czech singer laments that he is +not where his thought is; if only the mountains did not stand between +them, he would see his beloved walking in the garden and plucking blue +flowers. He tries what a prayer will do: "Mountains, black mountains, +step aside, so I may get my good friend for wife." In similar terms +the native of Friuli begs the dividing range to stoop so he may look +upon his love. Among Italian folk-poets the Friulian is foremost as +a lover of the greater heights; he turns to them habitually in his +moments of poetic inspiration, and, as he says, their echoes repeat +his sighs. It must be admitted that the Tuscan, on the contrary, feels +small sympathy with high mountains; if he speaks of one he is careful +to call it _aspra_, or rough and bitter. But he yields to no man +in his delight in the lesser hills, the _be' poggioli_ of his fair +birthland. Even if an intervening hillock divides him from his beloved +he speaks of the barrier tenderly rather than sadly: "O sun, thou that +goest over the hill-top, do me a kindness if thou canst--greet my +love whom I have not seen to-day. O sun, thou that goest over the +pear-trees, greet those black eyes. O sun, thou that goest over +the small ash-trees, greet those beautiful eyes!" A maiden sings +to herself, "I see what I see and I see not what I would; I see the +leaves flying in the air and I do not see my love turn back from the +hill-top. I do not see him turn back.... that beautiful face has gone +over the hill." A youth tells all his story in these few words: "As I +passed over the mountain-crest thy beautiful name came into my mind; I +fell upon my knees and I joined my hands, and to have left thee seemed +a sin. I fell upon my knees on the hard stones; may our love come back +as of yore!" These are pure love-songs; not by any means descriptions +of scenery, and yet how much of the Tuscan landscape lives in them! + +Almost the only folk-song which is avowedly descriptive of a mountain, +comes from South Greenland:-- + + The great Koonak Mount yonder south I do behold it. The great + Koonak Mount yonder south I regard it. The shining brightness + yonder south I contemplate. Outside of Koonak it is expanding; + the same that Koonak towards the sea-side doth encompass. + Behold how yonder south they tend to beautify each other; + while from the sea-side it is enveloped in sheets still + changing; from the sea-side it is enveloped to mutual + embellishment. + +At the first reading all this may seem incoherent; at the second or +third we begin to see the scene gradually rising before us; the masses +of sea-born cloud sweeping on and up at dawn or sunset, till, finding +their passage barred, they enwrap the obstacle in folds of golden +vapour. It is singular that the Eskimo is incessantly gazing +southwards; can it be that he, too, is dimly sensible of what a great +writer has called "_la fatigue du Nord_"? + +Incidental mention of the varying aspects of peak and upland is common +enough in popular songs. The Bavarian peasant notices the clearness of +the heights while mist hangs over the valley:-- + + Im Thal ist der Nebel + Auf der Alm is schon klar ... + +The Basque observes the "misty summits;" the Greek sees the cloud +hurrying to the heights "like winged messengers." There is the closest +intimacy between the Greek and his mountains. When he has won a +victory for freedom, they cry aloud, "God is great!" When he is in +sorrow he pines for them as for the society of friends: "Why am I not +near the hills? Why have I not the mountains to keep me company?" A +sick Kleft cries to the birds, "Birds, shall I ever be cured? Birds, +shall I recover my strength?" To which the birds reply just as might +a fashionable physician who recommends his patient to try Pontresina: +"If thou wouldst be cured, if thou wouldst have thy wounds close up, +go thou to the heights of Olympus, to the beautiful uplands where the +strong man never suffers, where the suffering regain their strength." +This fine figure of speech also occurs in a Kleft song: "The plains +thirst for water, the mountains thirst for snow." + +The effect of light on his native ice-fields has not escaped the +Switzer: "The sun shines on the glacier, and in the heavens shine the +stars; O thou, my chiefest joy, how I love thee!" A Czech balladist +describes two chieftains travelling towards the sunrise, with +mountains to the right and to the left, on whose summit stands the +dawn. Again, he represents a band of warriors halting on the spurs of +the forest, while before them lies Prague, silent and asleep, with +the Veltava shrouded in morning mist; beyond, the mountains turn blue; +beyond the mountains the east is illuminated. In Bohemia mountains are +spoken of as blue or grey or shadowy; in Servia they are invariably +called green. Servians and Bulgarians cannot conceive a mountain that +is not a wood or a wood that is not a mountain; with them the two +words mean one and the same thing. The charm and beauty of the +combination of hill and forest are often dwelt upon in the Balkan +brigand songs; outlaws and their poets have been among the keenest +appreciators of nature. Who thinks of Robin Hood apart from the +greenwood tree? Who but has smelt the very fragrance of the woods as +he said over the lines?-- + + "In somer when the shawes be sheyn + And leves be large and long, + Hit is full merry in feyre foreste + To here the foulys song." + +The Sclav or semi-Sclav bandit has not got the high moral qualities of +our "most gentle theefe," but, like him, he has suffered the heat, the +cold, the hunger, the fatigue of a life in the good greenwood, +and, like him, he has tasted its joys. Take the ballad called the +"Wintering of the Heidukes." Three friends sit drinking together in +the mountains under the trees; they sip the ruddy wine, and discuss +what they shall do in the coming winter, when the leaves have fallen +and only the naked forest is left. Each decides where he will go, +and the last one says: "So soon as the sad winter is passed, when the +forest is clad again in leaves and the earth in grass and flowers, +when the birds sing in the bushes on the banks of the Save and the +wolves are heard in the hills--then shall we meet as to-day." Spring +returns, the forest is decked again with leaves, the black earth with +flowers and grass, the bird sings in the bush, the wolves howl on +the rocky heights; two of the friends meet at the trysting place--the +third comes not; he has been slain. This is only one _Pesma_ out of +a hundred in which the mountain background is faithfully sketched. +Sometimes the forest figures as a personage. The Balkan mountaineer +more than half believes that as he loves it, so does it love him. The +instinct which insists that "love exempteth nothing loved from love" +has been a great myth-germinator, and when myths die out, it still +finds some niche in the mind of man wherein to abide. It may seem +foolish when applied to inanimate objects; it must seem false in its +human application: but reasoning will not kill it. Is there some truth +unperceived behind the apparent fallacy? The Balkan brigand cares +little for such speculations; all that he tells us is that when he +speaks to the greenwood, it most surely answers him in a soft low +voice. The Bulgarian "Farewell of Liben the brave" is a good specimen +of the dialogues between the forest and its wild denizens. Standing +on the top of the Hodja Balkan, Liben cries aloud, "Forest, O green +forest, and ye cool waters! dost thou remember, O forest, how often +I have roamed about thee with my following of young comrades bearing +aloft my red banner?" Many are the mothers, the wives, and the little +orphans whom Liben has made desolate so that they curse him. Now must +he bid farewell to the mountain, for he is going home to his mother +who will affiance him to the daughter of the Pope Nicholas. "The +forest speaks to no one, yet to Liben she replies." Enough has he +roamed with his braves; enough has he borne his red banner along the +summit of the old mountain, and under fresh and tufted shade, and +over moist green moss. Many are the mothers, the wives, and the little +orphans, who curse the forest for his sake. Till now he has had the +old mountain for mother; for love, the greenwood clothed in tufted +foliage and freshened by the cool breeze. The grass was his bed, the +leaves of the trees his coverlet; his drink came from the pure brook, +for him the wood-birds sang. "Rejoice," sang the wood-birds, "for thee +the wood is gay; the mountain and the cool brook!" But now Liben bids +farewell to the forest; he is going home that his mother may affiance +and wed him to the daughter of the Pope Nicholas. + +Sea-views of the sea, rare in poetry of any sort, can scarcely be said +to exist in folk-poesy. Sailors' songs have generally not much to do +with the wonders of the deep; the larger part of them are known to be +picked up on land, and the few exceptions to the rule are mostly kept +from the ken of the outer and profane public. The Basque sailors have +certain songs of their own, but only a solitary fragment of one of +them has ever been set on record. Once when a Basque was asked to +repeat a song he had been heard singing, he quietly said that he only +taught it to those who sailed with him. The fragment just mentioned +speaks of the silver trumpet (the master's whistle?) sounding over +the waters at break of day, while the coast of Holland trembles in the +distance. The first glimpse of a level reach of land in the morning +haze could hardly be better described. + +The sea impresses the dwellers on its shores chiefly by its depth and +vastness. In folk-songs there is a frequent recurrence of phrases such +as "the waters of the sea are vast, you cannot discern the bottom" +(Basque); "High is the starry sky, profound the abyss of ocean" +(Russian). The Greek calls the sea wicked, and watches the whitening +waves which roll over drowned sailors. For the Southern Sclav it is +simply a grey expanse. The Norseman calls it old, and blue--nature +having for him one sole chord of colour--blue sea, white sands and +snows, green pines. With Italian folk-singers it is a pretty point of +dispute whether the blue sea-and-sky colour is to be preferred to the +colour of the leaves and the grass. "Can you wear a lovelier hue than +azure?" asks one; "the waves of the sea are clothed therein and the +heavens when they are clear." The answer is that if the sky is clad in +a blue garment, green is the vesture of the earth, "E foro del verde +nasse ogni bel frutto." The arguments of the rival partisans remind +one of an amusing scene in a play of Calderon's; one character is made +to say, "Green is the earth's primal hue, the many-coloured flowers +are born out of a green cradle." "In short," says another, "it is a +mere earth-tint, while heaven is dressed in blue." "As to that," comes +the retort, "it is all an azure fiction; far to be preferred is the +veracious verdancy of the earth." + +The Italian folk-poets' "castle in the air" is a castle in the sea. +From Alp to Ætna the love-sick rhymers are fain to go and dwell with +their heart's adoration "in mezzo al mar." But though agreed on +the locality where they intend setting up in life, they differ +considerably as to the manner of "castle" to be inhabited. The +Sicilian, who makes a point of wishing for something worth having +while he is about it, will only be satisfied with a palace built of +peacock's plumes, a stair of gold, and a balcony inlaid with gems. A +more modest minstrel, from the hither side of the straits of Messina, +gives no thought at all to housekeeping; a little wave-lapped garden, +full of pretty flowers, is all his desire. The Italian folk-poet sets +afloat an astonishing number of things for no particular reason; one +has planted a pear-tree, a second has heard a little wood-lark, a +third has seen a green laurel, a fourth has found a small altar "in +the sea-midst," a fifth discovers his own name "scritto all 'onne de +lu mar." + +The Greek lover has no wish to leave the mainland, but he is fond of +picturing his beloved wandering by the shore at dawn to breathe the +morning air, or reclining on a little stone bench at the foot of a +hill, in the silence of solitude and the calm of the sea. For the +rest, he knows too well "the wicked sea" for it to suggest to him none +but pleasant images. If he is in despair, he likens himself to the +waves, which follow one another to their inevitable grave. If he grows +weary of waiting, he exclaims: "The sea darkens, the waves beat back +on the beach; ah! how long have I loved thee!" One or two specimens +have been already given of this particular kind of song; the +recollection of a passing moment in nature is placed text-wise to a +cry of human pain or love. A happy lover remembers in his transport +the glacier glistening in the sunshine; he who languishes from the +sickness of hope deferred, sees an affinity to his own mood in the +lowering storm. + +In the South, light is loved for its own sake. "Il lume è mezza +compagnia," runs a Tuscan proverb: "Light is half company." In a +memorable passage, St Augustine unfolds and elaborates the same idea +of the companionship of light. A Tuscan countryman vows that if his +love to fly from him becomes the light, he, to be near her, will +become a butterfly. Perhaps so radiant an hyperbole would only have +occurred to one who had grown up in the air of the Tuscan hills; the +air to whose purity Michael Angelo ascribed all that his mind was +worth. Anyway, a keen poetic sensibility is argued by the mere fact of +thus joining, in a symbol of the indivisible, the least earth-clogged +of sentient things with the most impersonal of natural phenomena. It +is the more remarkable because, generally speaking, butterflies do +not attract the notice of the unlettered people, even as they did not +attract the notice of the objective and practical Greeks. It may be +that were spirits to be seen flitting noiselessly about the haunts +of men, they would, in time, be equally disregarded. To so few has it +happened to know a butterfly, to watch closely its living beauty, +to feel day by day the light feet or fluttering wings upon the hands +which minister to its unsubstantial wants. Butterflies, to most of us, +are but ethereal strangers; so by the masses they are not valued--at +least, not in Europe. A tribe of West African negroes have this +beautiful saying: "The Butterfly praises God within and without." + +The folk-poet lives out of doors; he is acquainted with the home life +of the sun and stars, and day-break is his daily luxury. The Eskimo +tell a story of a stay-at-home man who dwelt in an island near the +coast of East Greenland. It was his chief joy to see the sun rising +in the morning, out of the sea, and with that he was content. But when +his son had come to years of discretion, he persuaded his father to +set out in a boat, so that he might see a little of the world. The +man started from the island; no sooner, however, had he passed Cape +Farewell than he saw the sun beginning to rise behind the land. It +was more than he could bear; and he set off at once for his home. Next +morning very early he went out of his tent; he did not come back. When +he was sought after, he was found quite dead. The joy of seeing the +sun rising again out of the sea had killed him. Most likely the story +is based on a real incident. The Aztec goes out upon his roof to see +the sunrise; it is his one religious observance. But of the cult of +the sun I must not begin to speak. It belongs to an immense subject +that cannot be touched here: the wide range of the unconscious +appreciation of nature which was worship. + +There is nothing more graceful in all folk-poesy than a little Czech +star-poem:-- + + Star, pale star, + Didst thou know love, + Hadst thou a heart, my golden star, + Thou wouldst weep sparks. + +Further north men do not willingly stay out abroad at night, but those +whose calling obliges them to do so are looked upon as wise in strange +lore. The first tidings of war coming reached the Esthonian shepherd +boy, the keeper of the lambs, "who knew the sun, and knew the moon, +and knew the stars in the sky." In Neo-Sanskrit speaking Lithuania +there abound star-legends which differ from the southern tales of the +same order, by reason of the pagan good faith that clings to them, +The Italian is aware that he is romancing when he speaks of the moon +travelling through the night to meet the morning star, or when he +describes her anger at the loss of one of her stars; the Lithuanian +has a suspicion that there may be a good deal of truth in his poets' +account of the sun's domestic arrangements--how the morning star +lights the fire for him to get up by, and the evening star makes his +bed. He will tell you that once there was a time when sun and moon +journeyed together, but the moon fell in love with the morning star, +which brought about sad mischief. "The moon went with the sun in the +early spring; the sun got up early; the moon went away from him. The +moon walked alone, fell in love with the morning star. Perkun, greatly +angered, stabbed her with a sword. 'Why wentest thou away from the +sun? Why walk alone in the night? Why fall in love with the morning +star? Your heart is full of sorrow.'" The Lithuanians have not wholly +left that stage in man's development when what is imagined seems +_primâ facie_ quite as likely to be real as what is seen. The +supernatural does not strike them as either mysterious or terrifying. +It is otherwise with the Teuton. His night phantasms treat of what is, +to man, of all things the most genuinely alarming--his own shadow. +Ghosts, wild huntsmen, erl-kings take the place of an innocuous +un-mortal race. No starry radiance can rob the night of its terrors. +"The stars shine in the sky, bright shine the rays of the moon, fast +ride the dead." Such is the wailing burden to the ballad which Burgher +imitated in his _Lenore_. There is a wide gulf between this and the +tender star-idylls of Lithuania, and a gulf still wider divides it +from the neighbourly familiarity with which the southerner addresses +the heavenly bodies. We go from one world to another when we turn back +to Italy and hear the country lads singing, "La buona sera, O stella +mattutina!" "Good evening to you, O matutinal star." + +The West African negroes call the sky the king of sheds, and the sun +the king of torches; the twinkling stars are the little chickens, and +the meteor is the thief-star. "When day dawns, you rejoice," say +the Yorubas; "do you not know that the day of death is so much the +nearer?" The same tribe give this vivid description of a day-break +scene: "The trader betakes himself to his trade, the spinner takes his +distaff, the warrior takes his shield, the weaver bends over his sley, +the farmer awakes, he and his hoe-handle, the hunter awakes, with his +quiver and bow." Thoughtless of toil, the Tuscan joyfully cries, "Dawn +is about to appear, bells chime, windows open, heaven and earth sing." +The Greek holds that he who has not journeyed with the moon by night, +or at dawn with the dew, has not tasted the world. Folk-poets have +widely recognised the mysterious confusion between summer nights and +days. The dispute at Juliet's window is recalled by the Venetian's +chiding of the "Rondinella Traditora;" by the Berry peasants' vexation +at the "vilaine alouette;" by the reproach of the Navarrese lover, +"You say it is day, it is not yet midnight;" and most of all by the +Servian dialogue: "Dawn whitens, the cock crows: It is not the dawn, +but the moon. The cows low round the house: It is not the cows, it is +the call to prayer. The Turks call to the mosque: It is not the Turks, +it is the wolves." The observation of the swallow's morning song is +another point at which the master poet and the obscure folk-singer +meet. This time both are natives of sunny lands; there is a clear +reason why it should be so--in the north the swallow passes almost +for a dumb bird. Very rarely in England do we hear her notes, soft yet +penetrating, like the high-pitched whisper of the Æolian harp. Some +of us may, indeed, have first got acquainted with them in Dante's +beautiful lines:-- + + Nell' ora che comincia i tristi lai + La Rondinella presso alia mattina ... + +Little suspecting that he is committing the sin of plagiarism, +the Greek begins one of his songs, "In the hour when the swallows, +twittering, awake the dawn." + +The ancient swallow myth does not seem to have anywhere crept into +folk-lore; nor is there much trace of the old Scandinavian delusion +that swallows spent the winter under the ice on lakes, or hanging up +in caves like bunches of grapes. The swallow is taken simply as +the typical bird of passage, the spring-bringer, the messenger, +the traveller _outre mer_. She is the picked bird of countries, the +African explorer, the Indian pioneer. A Servian story reports of +her in the latter capacity. The small-leafed Sweet Basil complains, +"Silent dew, why fallest thou not on me?" "For two mornings," answers +the dew, "I fell on thee; this morning I amused myself by watching a +great marvel. A vila (a mountain spirit) quarrelled with an eagle over +yonder mountain. Said the vila, 'The mountain is mine.' 'No,' said the +eagle, 'it is mine.' The vila broke the eagle's wing, and the young +eaglets moaned bitterly, for great was their peril. Then a swallow +comforted them: 'Make no moan, young eaglets, I will carry you to the +land of Ind, where the amaranth grows up to the horses' knees, where +the clover reaches their shoulders, where the sun never sets.'" How, +it may be asked, did the poet come by that notion of an Asiatic Eden? +The folk-singer seldom paints foreign scenery in these glowing tints. +There may be something of a south-ward longing in the boast-- + + I'll show ye how the lilies grow + On the banks o' Italie. + +But this is cold and colourless beside the empire of the unsetting +sun. + +Next to the swallow, the grey gull has the reputation of being the +greatest traveller. Till lately the women of Croisic met on Assumption +Day and sang a song to the gulls, imploring them to bring back their +husbands and their lovers who were out at sea. Larks are often chosen +as letter-carriers for short distances. The Greek knows that it is +spring when pair by pair the turtle-doves swoop down to the brooks. He +is an accurate observer; in April or May any retired English pool will +be found flecked over with the down of the wood-pigeons that come +to drink and bathe in it. The cooing of doves is by general consent +associated with constancy and requited love. It is not always, +however, that nations are agreed as to the sense of a bird's song. The +"merrie cuckoo" is supposed by the Sclavs to be rehearsing an endless +dirge for a murdered brother. A Czech poet lays down yet another cause +for its conjectured melancholy: "Perched upon an oak tree, a cuckoo +weeps because it is not always spring. How could the rye ripen in the +fields if it were always spring? How could the apples ripen in the +orchard if it were always summer? How could the corn harden in the +rick if it were always autumn?" In spite of the sagacious content +shown by these inquiries, it is probable that the sadness which the +Sclav attributes to the cuckoo-cry is but an echo of the sadness, deep +and wide, of his own race. + +Of the nightingale the Tuscan sings, in the spirit of one greater than +he,-- + + Vedete là quel rusignol che canta + Col suo bel canto lamentar si vuole,-- + +which is not, by the by, his only Miltonic inspiration; there is a +rustling of Vallombrosian leaves through the couplet, composed perhaps +in Vallombrosia: + + E quante primavera foglie adorna + Che sì vaga e gentile a noi ritorna. + +The Bulgarian sees a mountain _trembling_ to the song of three +nightingales. Like his Servian neighbours, he must always have a +story, and here is his nightingale story. Marika went into the garden; +she passed the pomegranate-tree and the apple-tree, and sat her down +under the red rose-tree to embroider a white handkerchief. In the +rose-tree was a nightingale, and the nightingale said: "Let us sing, +Marika; if you sing better than I, you shall cut off my wings at the +shoulders and my feet at the knee; if I sing better than you, I will +cut off your hair at the roots." They sang for two days, for three +days; Marika sang the best. Then the nightingale pleaded, "Marika, +fair young girl, do not cut off my feet, let me keep my wings, for I +have three little nightingales to rear, and of one of them I will make +you a gift." "Nightingale, sweet singer," said Marika, "I will give +thee grace of thy wings, and even of thy feet; go, tend thy little +ones, make me a gift of one to lull me to sleep, and of one to awake +me." + +We may take leave of bird-lays with the pretty old Bourbonnaise +_chanson_:-- + + Derrier' chez nous, il y a-t-un vert bocage, + Le rossignol y chant' tous les jours; + Là il y dit en son charmant langage: + Les amoreux sont malheureux toujours! + +Flowers, the green leaves and the grass, are suggestive of two kinds +of pathos. The individual flower, the grass or leaf of any one day +or spring-tide, becomes the type of the transitoriness of beauty and +youth and life. "Sing whilst ye are young and fair, soon you will be +slighted, as are sere lilies," is the song even of happy Tuscany. To +the Sclav it seems a question whether it be worth while that there +should be any flowers or morning gladness, since they must be gone +so soon. "O my garden," sings the Ruthenian, "O my little garden, my +garden and my green vine, why bloomest thou in the morning? Hardly +bloomed, thou art withered, and the earth is strewn with thy leaves." +The other kind of pathos springs from a deeper well. Man passes by, +each one hurries to his tragedy; Nature smiles tranquilly on. This +moving force of contrast was known to Lywarch Hen, and to those Keltic +bards who dived so deep into Nature's secrets that scarcely a +greater depth has been fathomed by any after-comers. It was perceived +involuntarily by the English ballad-singers, who strung a burden of +"Fine flowers" upon a tale of infanticide, and bade blackbird and +mavis sing their sweetest between a murder and an execution. And it is +this that gives its key-note to an Armenian popular song of singular +power. A bishop tells how he has made himself a vineyard; he has +brought stones from the valleys and raised a wall around it; he has +planted young vines and plentifully has he watered their roots. Every +morning the nightingale sings sweetly to the rose. Every morning +Gabriel says to his soul: "Rise and come forth from this vineyard, +from this newly-built vineyard." He has not eaten the fruit of the +vine; he has built a wine-vat, but the wine he has not tasted; he has +brought cool streams from the hills, but he has not drunk the water +thereof; he has planted red and white roses, but he has not smelt +their fragrance. The turtle-dove sings to the birds, and the spring is +come. Gabriel calls to his soul, the light of his eyes grows dim; "It +is time I leave my vineyard, my beautiful vineyard." There is hardly +another poem treating of death which is so un-illuminated by one ray +from a future dawn. + +In the great mass of folk-songs flowers are dealt with simply as the +accessories to all beautiful things. The folk-poet learns from them +his alphabet of beauty. Go into any English cornfield after harvest; +whilst the elder children glean wheat ears, the children of two +and three years glean small yellow hearts-eases, vervaine, and blue +scabious. They are as surely learning to distinguish the Beautiful +as the student in the courts of the Vatican. Through life, when these +children think of a beautiful thing, the thought of a flower will not +be far off. Religion and love, after all the two chief embellishments +of the life of the poor, have been hung about with flowers from the +past of Persephone and Freya till to-day. Even in England the common +people are glad if they can find a lily of the valley to carry to +church at Whitsuntide, and the first sign that a country girl has +got a sweetheart is often to be read in the transformation of the +garden-plot before her door. In Italy you will not walk far among the +vineyards and maize-fields without coming upon a shrine which bears +traces of floral decoration. Some Italian villages and country towns +have their special flower festival, or _Infiorata_; Genzano, for +instance, where, on the eighth day after Corpus Domini, innumerable +flowers are stripped of their petals, which are sorted out according +to colour and then arranged in patterns on the way to the church, +the magnificence of the effect going far to make one condone the +heartlessness of immolating so many victims to achieve an hour's +triumph. A charge of stupid indifference to beauty has been brought +against the Italian peasant--it would seem partly on the score that he +has been known to root up his anemones in order to put a stop to the +inroads of foreign marauders. There are certain persons, law-abiding +in the land which gave them birth, who when abroad, adopt the ethics +of our tribal ancestors. A piece of ground, a tree, or a plant not +enclosed by a wall, is turned by this strange public to its own uses. +A walnut tree by the wayside has a stick thrown among its branches +to fetch down the walnuts. The peasant does what he can to protect +himself. He observes that flowers attract trespassers, and so he roots +up the flowers. There are Italian folk-songs which show a delight in +flowers not to be surpassed anywhere. Flower-loving beyond all the +rest are the Tuscan poets, whose love-lyrics have been truly described +as "tutti seminati di fiori"--all sown with lilies, clove pinks, and +jessamine. The fact fits in pleasantly with the legend of the first +Florentines, who are said to have called their city after "the great +basket of flowers" in which it was built. It fits in, too, with the +sentiment attached even now to the very name of Florence. The old +_Floraja_ in the overgrown straw hat at the railway station can +reckon on something more abiding than her long-lost charms to find her +patrons; and it is curious to note how few of the passengers reject +the proffered emblems of the flower town, or fail to earn the parting +wish "Felice ritorno!" + +One point may be granted; in Italy and elsewhere the common people do +not highly or permanently value scentless flowers. A flower without +fragrance is to them almost a dead flower. I put the question to a +troop of English children coming from a wood laden with spoils, "What +makes you like primroses?" "The scent of them," was the answer. A +little further along the lane came another troop, and the question was +repeated. This time the answer was, "Because they smell so nice." +No flower has been more widely reverenced than the unassuming sweet +basil, the _Basilica odorato_ of Sicilian songs, the Tulasi plant of +India, where it is well-nigh worshipped in the house of every pious +Hindu. The scale is graduated thus: the flower which has no smell is +plucked in play, but left remorselessly to wither as children leave +their daisy chains; the flower which has a purely sweet and fresh +perfume is arranged in nosegays, set in water, praised and enjoyed +for the day; the flower which has a scent of spice and incense and +aromatic gums bears off honours scarcely less than divine. + +The folk-poet sings because heaven has given him a sweet voice and a +fair mistress; because the earth brings forth her increase and the sun +shines, and the spring comes back, and rest at noontide and at evening +is lovely, and work in the oil-mill and in the vineyard is lovely too: +he sings to embellish his labour and to enhance his repose. He lives +on the shield of Achilles, singing, accompanied by a viol, to the +grape-pickers; he is crowned with flowers in the golden age of +Lucretius as he raises his sweet song at the _festa_. We have seen a +little of what he says about Nature, but, in truth, he is still +her interpreter when he says nothing. All folk-poesy is sung and +folk-songs are as much one of Nature's voices as the song of the +birds, the song of the brooks, the song of the wind in the pine-tops. +So it is likewise with the rude musical instruments which the +exigencies of his life have taught the peasant how to make; they utter +tones more closely in harmony with nature than those of the finest +Stradivarius. The Greeks were right when they made Pan with his +reed-pipe rather than Apollo with his lyre the typical Nature-god. +Anyone to whom it has chanced to hear a folk-song sung in its own home +will understand what is meant. You may travel a good deal and not have +that chance. The songs, the customs, the traditions of the people form +an arcanum of which they are not always ready to lift the veil. To +those, of course, whose lives are cast among a people that still +sings, the opportunity comes oftener. But if the song be sung +consciously for your pleasure its soul will hardly remain in it. I +shall always vividly remember two occasions of hearing a folk-song +sung. Once, long ago, on the Bidassoa. The day was closing in; the +bell was tolling in the little chapel on the heathery mountain-side, +where mass is said for the peace of the brave men who fell there. +Fontarabia stood bathed in orange light. It was low water, and the +boat got almost stranded; then the boatmen, an older and a younger +man, both built like athletes, began to sing in low, wild snatches +for the tide. Once, not very long since, at the marble quarry of Sant' +Ambrogio. Here also it was towards evening and in the autumn. The +vintage was half over; all day the sweet "Prenda! Prenda!" of the +grape-gatherers had invited the stranger to share in its purple +magnificence. The blue of the more distant Veronese hills deepened +against a coralline sky; not a dark thing was in sight except here or +there the silhouette of a cypress. Only a few workmen were employed in +the quarry; one, a tall, slight lad, sang in the intervals from labour +an air full of passion and tenderness. The marble amphitheatre +gave sonority to his high voice. Each time Nature would have seemed +incomplete had it lacked the human song. + + + + +ARMENIAN FOLK-SONGS. + + +Obscure in their origin, and for the most part having at first had no +such auxiliary as written record to aid their preservation, the single +fact of the existence of folk-songs may in general suffice to proclaim +them the true articulate voice of some sentiment or feeling, common to +the large bulk of the people whence they emanate. It is plain that the +fittest only can survive--only such as are truly germane to those who +say or sing them. A herdsman or tiller of the soil strings together +a few verses embodying some simple thought which came into his head +whilst he looked at the green fields or the blue skies, or it may +be as he acted in a humble way as village poet-laureate. One or two +friends get them by heart, and possibly sing them at the fair in +the next hamlet: if they hit, others catch them up, and so the song +travels for miles and miles, and may live out generations. If not, the +effusion of our poetical cowherd dies away quite silently--not much to +his distress, for had its fate been more propitious its author would +probably have been very little the wiser. One celebrated poet, and I +think but one, has in our own times begun his career in like manner +with the unknown folk-singer. The songs of Sandor Petöfi were popular +over the breadth of the Hungarian Puszta before ever they appeared in +print; and those who know him, know how faithfully he breathes forth +the soul of the Magyar race. In a certain sense it is true that every +real poet is the spokesman of his people. No two works, for instance, +are so characteristic of their respective countries as the _Divina +Commedia_ and _Faust_. Still, the hands of genius idealise what they +touch; the great poet personifies rather than reflects his people, +and if he serves them as representative, it is in an august, imperial +fashion within the Senate House of Fame, outside whose doors the +multitude hustles and seethes. When we want to see this multitude as +in a mirror, to judge its common instincts and impulses that go very +far to cast the nation in the type which makes it what it is, it is a +safer and surer plan to search out its own spontaneous and untutored +songs than to consult the master work attached to immortal names. + +How far the individuality of a race is decided or modified by +the natural phenomena in which it is placed is a nice point for +discussion, and one not to be disposed of by off-hand generalities. +In what consists the sympathetic link, sometimes weak and scarcely +perceptible, at others visibly strong, between man and nature? +Why does the emigrated mountaineer, settled in comfort, ease, +and prosperity in some great metropolis, wake up one day with the +knowledge that he must begone to the wooden chalet with the threat of +the avalanche above and the menace of the flood below--or he must die? +Is it force of early association, habit, or fancy? Why is the wearied +town-tied brain-worker sensible of a nostalgia hardly less poignant +when he calls to mind how the fires of day kindled across some scene +of snow or sea with which his eyes were once familiar? Is it nothing +more than the return of a long ago experienced admiration? I think +that neither physicist nor psychologist--and both have a right to be +heard in the matter--would answer that the cause of these sensations +was to be thus shortly defined. Again ask the artist what the Athenian +owed to the purity and proportion of the lines of Grecian landscape, +what the Italian stole from the glow and glory of meridional light +and colour--what the Teuton learnt from the ascending spires of Alpine +ice? Was it that they saw and copied? Or rather, that Nature's spirit, +vibrating through the pulses of their being, moulded into form the +half-divine visions of master-sculptor, painter, architect? + +It does not, however, require to go deeper than the surface of +things in order to understand that a peoples' songs must be largely +influenced by the accidents of natural phenomena, and especially where +climate and physical conformation are such as must perforce stir and +stimulate the imaginative faculties of the masses. We have an instance +to the point in the ballads of the "mountainous island" bounded by +seas and plains, which the natives call Hayasdan and we Armenia. The +wondering emotion aroused by a first descent from the Alps into Italy +is well known; to not a few of the mightiest of northern poets this +journey has acted like a charm, a revelation, an awakening to +fuller consciousness. In Armenia, the incantation of a like natural +antithesis is worked by the advent of its every returning spring: a +sluggard of a season that sleeps on soundly till near midsummer, but +comes forth at last fully clothed in the gorgeous raiment of a king. +In days gone by the Armenian spring was dedicated to the goddess +Anahid, and as it broke over the land the whole people joined in +joyful celebration of the feast of Varthavar or "Rose-blossoms," +which since Christian times has been transformed into the three days' +festival of the Transfiguration. Beautiful is the face of the country +when the tardy sun begins to make up for lost time, as though his very +life depended on it; shooting down his beams with fiery force through +the rarefied ether, melting away the snows, and ripening all at once +the grain and grapes, the wild fig, apricot and olive, mulberry and +pomegranate. What wonder that the Armenian loves the revivifying lamp +of day, that he turns the dying man towards it, and will not willingly +commit his dead to the earth if some bright rays do not fall into the +open grave! At the sun's reveille there is a general resurrection of +all the buried winter population--women and children, cows and sheep, +pink-eyed lemmings, black-eyed caraguz, and little kangaroo-shaped +jerboas. Out, too, from their winter lairs come wolf and bear, hyena +and tiger, leopard and wild boar. The stork returns to his nest on the +broad chimney-pot, and this is what the peasant tells him of all that +has happened in his absence: + + Welcome, Stork! + Thou Stork, welcome; + Thou hast brought us the sign of spring, + Thou hast made our heart gay. + Descend, O Stork! + Descend, O Stork, upon our roof, + Make thy nest upon our ash-tree. + I will tell thee my thousand sorrows, + The sorrows of my heart, the thousand sorrows, + Stork, when thou didst go away, + When thou didst go away from our tree, + Withering winds did blow, + They dried up our smiling flowers. + The brilliant sky was obscured, + That brilliant sky was cloudy: + From above they were breaking the snow in pieces: + Winter approached, the destroyer of flowers. + Beginning from the rock of Varac, + Beginning from that rock of Varac, + The snow descended and covered all; + In our green meadow it was cold. + Stork, our little garden, + Our little garden was surrounded with snow; + Our green rose trees + Withered with the snow and the cold. + +But now the rose trees in the garden are green again, and out abroad +wild flowers enamel the earth. Down pour the torrents of melted snow +off Mount Ararat, down crash the avalanches of ice and stones +let loose by the sun's might; wherever an inch of soil or rock is +uncovered it becomes a carpet of blossom. High up, even to 13,000 feet +above the sea-level, the deep violet aster, the saxifrage, and crocus, +and ranunculus, and all our old Alpine acquaintances, form a dainty +morsel for the teeth, or a carpet for the foot, of swift capricorn +or not less agile wild sheep. A little lower, amidst patches of yet +frozen snow, hyacinths scent the air, yellow squills and blue anemones +peep out, clumps of golden iris cluster between the rocks. There, too, +is the "Fountain's Blood," or "Blood of the Seven Brothers," as the +Turk would say, with its crimson, leafless stalk and lily-like bloom, +the reddest of all red flowers. Upon the trees comes the sweet white +_kasbé_, a kind of manna much relished by the inhabitants. Amongst the +grass grow the Stars of Bethlehem, to remind us, as tradition has it, +that hard by on Ararat--beyond question the great centre of Chaldean +Star-worship--the wise men were appointed to watch for the appearance +of a sign in the heavens, and that thence they started in quest of +the place "where the young child lay." Tulips also abound; if we +may credit the legend, they had their origin in the Armenian town +of Erzeroom, springing from the life-blood of Ferdad when he threw +himself from the rocks in despair at a false alarm of the death of his +beloved Shireen. + +Erzeroom is by common consent in these parts the very site of the +Garden of Eden. For many centuries, affirms the Moslem, the flowers +of Paradise might yet be seen blossoming round the source of the +Euphrates not far from the town. But, alas! when the great Persian +King Khosref Purveez, the rival of the above-mentioned Ferdad, was +encamped in that neighbourhood, he was rash enough to spurn a message +from the young Prophet Mohammed, offering him protection if he +would embrace the faith of Islâm. What booted the protection of an +insignificant sectary to him? thought the Shah-in-Shah, and tossed the +letter into the Euphrates. But Nature, horrified at the sacrilegious +deed, dried up her flowers and fruits, and even parched the sources +of the river itself; the last relic of Eden became a waste. There is a +plaintive Armenian elegy composed in the person of Adam sitting at +the gate of Paradise, and beholding Cherubim and Seraphim entering the +Garden of which he once was king, "yea, like unto a powerful king!" +The poet puts into Adam's mouth a new line of defence; he did not eat +of the fruit, he says, until after he had witnessed its fatal effects +upon Eve, when, seeing her despoiled of all her glory, he was touched +with pity, and tasted the immortal fruit in the hope that the Creator +contemplating them both in the same wretched plight might with +paternal love take compassion on both. But vain was the hope; "the +Lord cursed the serpent and Eve, and I was enslaved between them." "O +Seraphim!" cries the exiled father of mankind: + + When ye enter Eden, shut not the gate of Paradise; place me + standing at the gate; I will look in a moment, and then bring + me back. + + Ah! I remember ye, O flowers and sweet-swelling fountains. Ah! + I remember ye O birds, sweet-singing--and ye, O beasts: + + Ye who enjoy Paradise, come and weep over your king; ye who + are in Paradise planted by God, elected from the earth of + every kind and sort. + +High above the hardiest saxifrage tower the three thousand feet of +everlasting snows that crown Mount Ararat. The Armenians call it +Massis or "Mother of the World," and old geographers held that it was +the centre of the earth, an hypothesis supported by various ingenious +calculations. The Persians have their own set of legends about it; +they say that Ararat was the cradle of the human race, and that at one +time it afforded pasture up to the apex of its dome; but upon man's +expulsion from Eden, Ahriman the serpent doomed the whole country to +a ten months' winter. As to the semi-scriptural traditions gathered +round the mountain, there is no end to them. "And the ark rested +in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the +mountains of Ararat," so says the Bible, and it is an article of faith +with the Armenian peasant that it is still somewhere up at the top, +only not visible. He is extremely loth to believe that anybody has +actually attained the summit. Parrot's famous ascent was long regarded +as the merest fable. At the foot of Ararat was a village named +Argoory, or "he planted the vine," where Noah's vineyard is pointed +out to this day, though the village itself was destroyed in 1840, when +the mountain woke up from its long slumbers and rolled down its side a +stream of boiling lava; but we are told that, owing to the sins of the +world, the vines no longer bear fruit. Close at hand is Manard, "the +mother lies here," alluding to the burial-place of Noah's wife, and +yonder is Eravan or "Visible," the first dry land which Noah perceived +as the waters receded. Armenian choniclers relate that when after +leaving the ark the descendants of Noah dispersed to different +quarters, one amongst them, by name Haig, the great-grandson of +Japhet, settled with his family in Mesopotamia, where he probably took +part in the building of the Tower of Babel. Later, however, upon Belus +acquiring dominion over the land, Haig found his rule so irksome to +himself and his clan that they migrated back in a body of 300 persons +to Armenia, much to the displeasure of Belus, who summoned them to +return, and when they refused, despatched a large army to coerce them +into obedience. Haig collected his men on the shores of Van, and thus +sagaciously addressed them: + + When we meet with the army of Belus, let us attempt to draw + near where he lies surrounded by his warriors; either we shall + be killed, and our camp equipments and baggage will fall into + his hands, or, making a show of the strength of our arm, we + shall defeat his army, and victory will be ours. + +These tactics proved completely successful, and Belus fell mortally +wounded by an arrow from Haig's bow. Having in this way disposed of +his enemies, the patriarch was able before he died to consolidate +Hayasdan into a goodly kingdom, which he left to the authority of his +son Armenag. + +After the reign of Haig the thread of Armenian annals continues +without break or hitch; it must be admitted that no people, not even +the Jews, boast a history which "begins with the beginning" in a more +thorough way, nor does the work of any chronicler proceed in a more +methodical and circumstantial manner than that of Moses of Khoren, the +Herodotus of Armenia. As is well known, Moses, writing in the fifth +century, founded his chronicle upon a work undertaken about five +hundred years before by one Marabas Cattina, a Syrian, at the request +of the great Armenian monarch Vagshaishag. Marabas stated that his +record was based upon a manuscript he had discovered in the archives +of Nineveh which bore the indorsement, "This book, containing the +annals of ancient history, was translated from the Chaldean into +Greek, by order of Alexander the Great." Whatever may be the precise +amount of credence to which the Chronicle of Moses is entitled, +all will agree that it narrates the story of a high-spirited and +intelligent people whom the alternating domination of Greek and +Persian could not cower into relinquishing the substance of their +liberties, and whose efforts, in the main successful, on behalf of +their cherished independence, were never more vigorous than at times +when their triumph seemed farthest off. For nearly a thousand years +after the date of Moses of Khoren, his people maintained their +autonomy, and whether we look before or after the flight of the last +Armenian king before the soldiers of the Crescent, we must acknowledge +that few nations have fought more valiantly for their political +rights, whilst yet fewer have suffered more severely for their +fidelity to their faith. It is the pride of the Armenians that theirs +was the first country which adopted the Christian religion; it may +well be their pride also, that they kept their Christianity in +the teeth of persecutions which can only find a parallel in those +undergone by the Hebrew race. + +Armenia is naturally rich in early Christian legends, of which the +most curious is perhaps that of the correspondence alleged to have +occurred between Our Lord and Abgar, king of Hayasdan. The latter, +it is said, having sent messengers to transact some business with the +Roman generals quartered in Palestine, received on their return such +accounts of the miracles performed by Jesus of Nazareth as convinced +him either that Christ was God come down upon the earth, or that +he was the son of God. Suffering from a grave malady, and hearing, +moreover, that the Jews had set their hearts on doing despite to the +Prophet who had risen in their midst, Abgar wrote a letter beseeching +Christ to come to his capital and cure him of his sickness. "My city +is indeed small," this letter naïvely concludes, "but it is sufficient +to contain us both." The king also sent a painter to Jerusalem, so +that if Our Lord could not come to Edessa he might at least possess +his portrait. The painter was one day endeavouring to fulfil his +mission when he was observed by Christ, who passing a handkerchief +over his face, gave it to the Armenian impressed with the likeness of +his features. The response to Abgar's letter was written by St Thomas, +who said, on behalf of his Divine Master, that his work lay elsewhere +than in Armenia, but that after his Ascension he would send an Apostle +to enlighten the people of that country. This correspondence, though +now not accepted as authentic out of Armenia, was mentioned by some +of the earliest Church historians, and it is asserted that one of the +letters has been found written on papyrus in an Egyptian tomb. + +Christianity seems to have made some way in Armenia in the second +century, but to what extent is unknown. What is certain is, that +in the third century, St Gregory the Illuminator, after having been +tortured in twelve different ways by King Tiridates for refusing +to worship the goddess Anahid, and kept at the bottom of a well for +fourteen years, was taken out of it in consequence of a vision of the +king's sister, and converted that monarch and all his subjects along +with him. St Gregory is held in boundless reverence by the Armenians; +he is almost looked upon as a divine viceroy, as will be seen from the +following canzonette which Armenian children are taught to sing: + + The light appears, the light appears! + The light is good: + The sparrow is on the tree, + The hen is on the perch, + The sleep of lazy men is a year, + Workman, rise and begin thy work! + The gates of heaven are opened, + The throne of gold is erected, + Christ is sitting on it; + The Illuminator is standing, + He has taken the golden pen, + He has written great and small. + Sinners are weeping, + The just are rejoicing. + +The poet of the people nowhere occupies himself with casting about for +a fine subject; he writes of what he feels and of what he sees. +The Armenian peasant sees the snow in winter; in summer he sees +the flowers and the birds--only birds and flowers are to him the +pleasanter sight, so he sings more about them. He rarely composes +any verse without a flower or a bird being mentioned in it; all his +similes are ornithological or botanical, and by them he expresses +the tenderest emotions of his heart. There is a pathos, a simplicity +really exquisite in the conception of some of these little +bird-and-flower pieces, as, for example, in the subjoined "Lament of a +Mother" over her dead babe: + + I gaze and weep, mother of my boy, + I say alas and woe is me wretched! + What will become of wretched me, + I have seen my golden son dead! + They seized that fragrant rose + Of my breast, and my soul fainted away; + They let my beautiful golden dove + Fly away, and my heart was wounded. + That falcon Death seized + My dear and sweet-voiced turtle dove and wounded me. + They took my sweet-toned little lark + And flew away through the skies! + Before my eyes they sent the hail + On my flowering green pomegranate, + My rosy apple on the tree, + Which gave fragrance among the leaves. + They shook my flourishing beautiful almond tree, + And left me without fruit; + Beating it they threw it on the ground + And trod it under foot into the earth of the grave. + What will become of wretched me! + Many sorrows surrounded me. + O, my God, receive the soul of my little one + And place him at rest in the bright heaven! + +The birds of Armenia are countless in their number and variety, from +vulture to wren; there are so many of them that a man (it is said +poetically) may ride for miles and miles and never see the ground, +which they entirely cover, except over the small space from which +they fly up with a deafening whizz to make a passage for his horse. At +times the plains have the appearance of being dyed rose-colour through +the swarms of the gorgeous red goose which congregate upon them, +whilst here and there a whitish spot is formed by a troop of his +grey-coated relatives. It seems that the Armenian has found out why +it was the wild goose and the tame one separated from each other. Once +upon a time, when all were wild and free, one goose said to another on +the eve of a journey, "Mind you are ready, my friend, for, Inshallah +(please God), I set out to-morrow morning." "And so will I," he +profanely replied, "whether it pleases God or not." Sure enough next +morning both geese were up betimes, and the religious one spread out +his wings and sailed off lightly towards the distant land. But, lo! +when the impious goose tried to do likewise, he flapped and flapped +and could not stir from the ground. So a countryman caught him, and he +and his children for ever fell into slavery. + +The partridge is a great favourite of the Armenian, who does not tire +of inventing lyrics in its honour. Here is a specimen: + + The sun beats from the mountain's top, + Pretty, pretty: + The partridge comes from her nest; + She was saluted by the flowers, + She flew and came from the mountain's top. + Ah! pretty, pretty, + Ah! dear little partridge! + + When I hear the voice of the partridge + I break my fast on the house-top: + The partridge comes chirping + And swinging from the mountain's side. + Ah! pretty, pretty, + Ah! dear little partridge! + + Thy nest is enamelled with flowers, + With basilico, narcissus, and water-lily: + Thy place is full of dew, + Thou delightest in the fragrant odour. + Ah! pretty, pretty, + Ah! dear little partridge! + + Thy feathers are soft, + Thy neck is long, thy beak little, + The colour of thy wing is variegated: + Thou art sweeter than the dove. + Ah! pretty, pretty, + Ah! dear little partridge! + + When the little partridge descends from the tree, + And with his sweet voice chirps, + He cheers all the world, + He draws the heart from the sea of blood. + Ah! pretty, pretty, + Ah! dear little partridge. + + All the birds call thee blessed, + They come with thee in flocks, + They come around thee chirping: + In truth there is not one like thee. + Ah! pretty, pretty, + Ah! beautiful little partridge! + +Another song gives the piteous plaint of an unhappy partridge who was +snared and eaten. "Like St Gregory, they let me down into a deep +well; then they took me up and sat round a table, and they cut me into +little pieces, like St James the Intercised." The crane, who, with +the stork, brings the promise of summer on his wing, receives a warm +welcome, and when the Armenian sees a crane in some foreign country he +will say to him:-- + + Crane, whence dost thou come? I am the servant of thy voice. + Crane, hast thou not news from our country? Hasten not to thy + flock; thou wilt arrive soon enough! Crane, hast thou not news + from our country? + + I have left my possessions and vineyard and come hither. How + often do I sigh; it seems that my soul is taken from me. + Crane, stay a little, thy voice is in my soul. Crane, hast + thou not news from our country? My God, I ask of thee grace + and favour, the heart of the pilgrim is wounded, his lungs are + consumed; the bread he eats is bitter, the water he drinks is + tasteless. Crane, hast thou not news from our country? + + Thou comest from Bagdad, and goest to the frontiers. I will + write a little letter and give it to thee. God will be the + witness over thee; thou wilt carry it and give it to my dear + ones. + + I have put in my letter that I am here, that I have never even + for a single day been happy. O, my dear ones, I am always + anxious for you! Crane, hast thou not news from our country? + + The autumn is near, and thou art ready to go: thou hast + joined a large flock: thou hast not answered me, and thou art + flown! Crane, go from our country and fly far away! + +The nameless author of these lines has had Dante's thought: + + Tu proverai sì come sa di sale + Lo pane altrui ... + +It is strange that the Armenians should be at once one of the most +scattered peoples on the face of the earth, and one of the most +passionately devoted to their fatherland. + +It should not be forgotten, when reading these Armenian bird-lays, +that an old belief yet survives in that country that the souls of the +blessed dead fly down from heaven, in the shape of beautiful birds, +and perching in the branches of the trees, look fondly at their dear +ones on earth as they pass beneath. When the peasant sees the birds +fluttering above overhead in the wood he will on no account molest +them, but says to his boy, "That is your dear mother, your little +brother, your sister--be a good child, or it will fly away and never +look at you again with its sweet little eyes." + +The clear cool streams and vast treacherous salt lakes of Armenia +are not without their laureates. Thus sings the bard of a mountain +rivulet: + + "Down from yon distant mountain + The water flows through the village, Ha! + A dark boy comes forth, + And washing his hands and face, + Washing, yes washing, + And turning to the water, asked, Ha! + Water, from what mountain dost thou come? + O my cool and sweet water! Ha! + I came from that mountain, + Where the old and new snow lie one on the other. + Water, to what river dost thou go? + O my cool and sweet water! Ha! + I go to that river + Where the bunches of violets abound. Ha! + Water, to what vineyard dost thou go? + O my cool and sweet water! Ha! + I go to that vineyard + Where the vine-dresser is within! Ha! + Water, what plant dost thou water? + O my cool and sweet water! Ha! + I water that plant + Whose roots give food to the lamb, + The roots give food to the lamb, + Where there are the apple tree and the anemone. + Water, to what garden dost thou go? + O my cool and sweet water! Ha! + I go into that garden + Where there is the sweet song of the nightingale! Ha! + Water, into what fountain dost thou go? + O my cool and sweet little water! + I go to that fountain + Where thy love comes and drinks. + I go to meet her and kiss her chin, + And satiate myself with her love. + +The dwellers on the shores of Van--the largest lake in Armenia, which +is situated between 5000 and 6000 feet above the sea, and covers more +than 400 square miles--are celebrated for possessing the poetic gift +in a pre-eminent degree. Their district is fertile and picturesque, +so picturesque that when Semiramis passed that way she employed 12,000 +workmen and 600 architects to build her a city on the banks of the +lake, which was named Aghthamar, and which she thereafter made her +summer residence. The business that brought Semiramis into Armenia +was a strange romance. Ara, eighth patriarch of Hayasdan, was famed +through all the East for his surpassing beauty, and the Assyrian queen +hearing that he was the fairest to look upon of all mortal men, sent +him a proposal of marriage; but he, staunch to the faith in the one +true God, which he believed had been transmitted to him from Noah, +would have nothing to say to the offer of the idolatrous ruler. +Semiramis, greatly incensed, advanced with her army into the heart of +Armenia, and defeated the forces of the Patriarch; but bitter were the +fruits of the victory, for Ara, instead of being taken alive, as +she had commanded, was struck down at the head of his men, and his +beautiful form, stiffened by death, was laid at the queen's feet. +Semiramis was plunged in the wildest despair; she endeavoured to bring +him to life by magic; that failing, she had his body embalmed and +placed in a golden coffin, which was set in her chamber; no one was +allowed to call him dead, and she spoke of him as her beloved consort. +A spot is pointed out to the traveller bearing the name of Ara Seni, +"Ara is sacrificed." + +The favourite theme of the men of Van is, of course, the treacherous +element on which the lot of most of them is cast. One of their songs +gives the legend of the "Old Man and the Ship." Our Lord, as an old +man with a white beard, cried sweetly to the sailors to take him into +the ship. The sailors answer that the ship is freighted by a merchant, +and the passage-money is great. "Go away, white-bearded old man," they +say. But our Lord pays the money and comes into the ship. Presently +a gale blows up and the sailors are exceeding wroth, for they imagine +the strange passenger has brought them ill-luck. They ask, "Whence +didst them come, O sinful man? Thou art lost, and thou hast lost us!" +"I a sinner!" replies the Lord, "give me the ship, and go you to sweet +sleep." He made the sign of the cross with his right hand, with his +left he steered the helm. It was not yet mid-day when the ship safely +reached the shore. + + Brothers, arise from your sweet sleep, from your sweet sleep + and your sad dreams. Fall at the feet of Jesus; here is our + Lord, here is our ship. + +"Sweet sleep and sad dreams"--he must have been a true poet who +thus crystallised the sense of poor humanity's unrest, even in its +profoundest repose. The whole little story strikes one as full of +delicate suggestiveness. + +One more sample of the style of the Armenian "Lake-school." + +ON ONE WHO WAS SHIPWRECKED ON THE LAKE OF VAN. + + We sailed in the ship from Aghthamar, + We directed our ship towards Avan; + When we arrived before Vosdan + We saw the dark sun of the dark day. + + Dull clouds covered the sky, + Obscuring at once stars and moon; + The winds blew fiercely, + And took from my eyes land and shore. + + Thundered the heaven, thundered the earth, + The waters of the blue sea arose; + On every side the heavens shot forth fire; + Black terror invaded my heart. + + There is the sky, but the earth is not seen, + There is the earth, but the sun is not seen; + The waves come like mountains + And open before me a deep abyss. + + O sea, if thou lovest thy God, + Have pity on me, forlorn and wretched; + Take not from me my sweet sun, + And betray me not to flinty-hearted Death. + + Pity, O sea, O terrible sea! + Give me not up to the cold winds; + My tears implore thee + And the thousand sorrows of my heart.... + + The savage sea has no pity! + It hears not the plaintive voice of my broken heart; + The blood freezes in my veins, + Black night descends upon my eyes.... + + Go tell to my mother + To sit and weep for her darkened son; + That John was the prey of the sea, + The sun of the young man is set! + +Summer, with its flowers, and warmth, and wealth, never stays long +enough in Armenia for it to become a common ordinary thing. It is a +beautiful wonder-time, a brief, splendid nature-fair, which vanishes +like a dream before the first astonishment and delight are worn into +indifference. The season when "the nightingale sings to the rose at +dewy dawn" departs swiftly, and envious winter strangles autumn in its +birth. + +What a winter, too! a winter which despotically governs the complete +economy of the people's system of life. Let us take a peep into an +Armenian interior on a December evening. Three months the snow has +been in possession of mountain and valley; for more than four months +more it will remain. Abroad it is light enough, though night has +fallen; for the moon shines down in wonderful brightness upon the +ice-bound earth. On the hill-slope various little unevennesses are +discernible, jutting out from the snow like mushrooms. In one part the +ground is cut away perpendicularly for a few feet; this is the front +of the homestead, the body of which lies burrowed in the slope of the +hill. When the house was made the floor was dug out some five feet +underground, while the ceiling beams rose three or four feet above it; +but all the dug-out soil was thrown about the roof and back and side +walls, and thus the whole is now embedded in the hillock. The roof was +neatly turfed over when the house was finished, so that in summer the +lambs and children play upon it, and not unfrequently, in the great +heats, the family sleep there--"at the moon's inn." What look like +mushrooms are in reality the broad-topped chimneys, on which the +summer storks build their nests. The homestead has but one entrance; +a large front door which leads through a long dark passage to a second +door that swings-to after you, and is hung with a rough red-dyed +sheepskin. This door opens upon the entrance-hall, whence you mount +half-a-dozen steps to a raised platform, under which the house dogs +are located. On two sides the platform is bounded by solid stone +walls, from which are suspended saddles, guns, pistols, and one or two +pictures representing the deeds of some Persian hero, and bought of +Persian hawkers. On the other two sides an open woodwork fence divides +it from a vast stable. Nearest the grating are fastened the horses +of the clan-chief; next are the donkeys, then the cows; sheep and +chickens find places where they can. The breath of these animals +materially contributes to the warmth of the house, which is at times +almost like an oven, even in the coldest weather. A clear hot fire +burns on the hearth; the fuel used is tezek, a preparation of cow-dung +pressed into a substance resembling peat turf. By day the habitation +is obscurely lighted through a small aperture in the roof glazed with +oiled silk, and supplemented by a sort of funnel, the wide opening +downwards. Now, in the evening, the oil burning in a simple iron lamp +over the hearth, affords a dim illumination. + +The platform above described is the salemlik, or hall of reception. It +contains no chairs, but divans richly draped with Koordish stuffs; the +floor is carpeted with tekeke, a kind of grey felt. To the right of +the hearth sits the head of the family, a venerable old man, whose +word is incontrovertible law to every member of his house. He is also +Al Sakal, or "white beard" of the village, a dignity conferred on +him by the unanimous voice of his neighbours, and constituting him +intermediary in all transactions with government. When important +matters are at stake, he meets the elders of the surrounding hamlets, +who, resolved into committee, form the Commune. This ancient usage +bears witness to the essentially patriarchal and democratic basis of +Armenian society. + +Our family party consists of three dozen persons, the representatives +of four generations. The young married women come in and out from +directing the preparations of the supper. Nothing is to be seen of +their faces except their lustrous eyes (Armenian eyes are famous for +their brilliancy), a tightly-fitting veil enclosing the rest of their +features. Without this covering they do not by any chance appear even +in the house; it is said they wear it also at night. One of them is +a bride; her dress is rich and striking--a close-fitting bodice, +fastening at the neck with silver clasps, full trousers of +rose-coloured silk gathered in at the ankles by a fillet of silver, +the feet bare, a silver girdle of curious workmanship loosely +encircling the waist, and a long padded garment open down the front +which hangs from the shoulders. Poor little bride! She has not uttered +a single word save when alone with her husband since she pronounced +the marriage vow. She may not hope to do so till after the birth of +her first-born child; then she will talk to her nursling, after a +while to her mother-in-law, sometime later she may converse with her +own mother, and by-and-by, in a subdued whisper, with the young girls +of the house. During the first year of her married life she may not +go out of the house except twice to church. Her disciplinary education +will not be complete for six years, after which she will enjoy +comparative liberty, but never in her life must she open her lips to +a person of the stronger sex not related to her. Turn from the silent +little bride to that bevy of young girls, merry and playful as the +kittens they are fondling--silky-haired snowballs, of a breed peculiar +to the neighbourhood of Van, their tails dyed pink with henna like the +tail of the Shah's steed. The girls are laughing and chatting together +without restraint--most probably about their love affairs, for they +are free to dispose of their hands as they choose. And they may walk +about unveiled, and show off their pretty faces and long raven plaits +to the fullest advantage. + +Suddenly a knocking is heard outside; the dogs yell from under the +platform; the Whitebeard says whoever be the wanderer he shall have +bed and board, and he orders fresh tezek to be thrown on the fire; for +to-night it is bitter cold out abroad--were a man to stand still five +minutes, he would freeze in his shoes. One of the sons descends the +steps, pushes aside the sheep-skin, and leads the traveller in. +This one says he is the minstrel. What joy in the family! The blind +minstrel, who will sing the most exciting ballads and tell the most +marvellous tales. He is welcomed by all; only the young bride steals +out of the room--she may not remain in a stranger's presence. The +lively girls want to hear a story at once; but the Whitebeard says the +guest must first have rest and refreshment. But while they are waiting +for the meal to be laid out, the blind minstrel relates something of +his recent travels, which in itself is almost as good as a fairy tale. +He has just arrived from Persia, whither he will soon return; for he +has only come back to the snows of Armenia to breathe the air of home +for a little. Did he go to Teheran? No; to say the truth, he deemed it +wiser to keep at a discreet distance from that capital. Such a thing +had been heard of ere now as the Shah putting under requisition any +skilful musicians who came in his way to teach their art to the fair +ones of the harem; so that occasionally it was unpleasantly difficult +to get out of Teheran when once you were in it. Still he was by no +means without interesting news. In a certain part of Persia he had +met another blind master-singer, with whom he strove for the prize of +minstrelsy. Both were entertained by a great Persian prince. When +the day came they were led out upon an open grass-plot and seated one +facing the other. The prince took up his position, and five thousand +people made a circle round the competitors. Then the grand brain-fight +began; the rivals contended in song and verse, riddle and repartee. +Now one starts an acrostic on the prince's name, in which each side +takes alternate letters; then the other versifies some sacred passage, +which his opponent must catch up when he breaks off. The ball is kept +flying to and fro with unflagging zeal; the crowd is rapturous in its +plaudits. But at length our minstrel's adversary pauses, hesitates, +fails to seize the drift of his rival's latest sally, and answers at +random. A shout proclaims him beaten. The triumphant bard is led to +where he stands, and taking his lyre from him breaks it into atoms. +The vanquished retires discomfited to the obscurity of his native +village, where haply his humble talents will not be despised. The +victor is robed in the prince's mantle, and taken to the highest seat +in the banqueting-hall. + +This is what the minstrel has to tell as he warms his hands over the +fire while the young married women serve the supper. A rush-mat is +placed upon the low round board, over that the table-cloth; then a +large tray is set in the middle, with the viands arranged on it in +metal dishes: onion soup, salted salmon-trout from the blue Gokschai, +hard-boiled eggs shelled and sliced, oil made from Kunjut seeds, which +does instead of butter; pilau, a dish resembling porridge; mutton +stewed with quinces, leeks, and various raw and preserved roots, cream +cheese, sour milk, dried apricots, and stoned raisins, form the bill +of fair. A can of golden wine is set out: there is plenty more in the +goatskins should it be wanted. The provisions are completed by an +item more important in Armenia than with us--bread. The flour-cake +or _losh_, a yard long and thin as paper, which is placed before each +guest, answers for plate, knives, forks, napkin, all of which are +absent. The Whitebeard says grace and the Lord's Prayer, everyone +crossing himself. The company wipe their mouths with a _losh_, and +proceed to help themselves with it to anything that tempts their fancy +on the middle tray. Some make a promiscuous sandwich of fish, mutton, +and leeks wrapped up in a piece of _losh_; others twist the _losh_ +into the shape of a spoon and ladle out the sour milk, swallowing +both together. The members of the family watch the minstrel's least +gesture, so as to anticipate his wishes; one after the other they +claim the privilege of waiting on him. When the meal is done, a young +housewife gently washes the guest's head and feet, and the whole party +adjourn to the chimney-corner. The evening flies mirthfully away, +listening to the minstrel's tales and ballads, these latter being +mostly in Tartar, the Provençal of the eastern troubadour. Finally, +the honoured visitor is conducted to his room, the "minstrel's +chamber," which, in every well-ordered Armenian household, is always +kept ready. + +Our little picture may be taken as the faithful reproduction of no +very extraordinary scene. Of ballad-singers such as the one here +introduced there are numbers in Armenia, where that "sixth sense," +music, is the recognised vocation of the blind. Those who are +proficient travel within a very wide area, and are everywhere received +with the highest consideration. + +In the East, the ballad-singer and the story-teller are just where +they were centuries ago. At Constantinople, the story-teller sits +down on his mat in the public place or at the _café_; listeners gather +round; he begins his story in a conversational tone, varying his voice +according to the characters; and soon both himself and his hearers are +as far away in the wondrous mazes of the "Arabian Nights" as if Europe +were still trembling before the sword of the Caliph. + +With regard to the unique marriage customs of Armenia, I ought to say +that they are asserted to result in the happiest unions. The general +idea upon which they rest seems to be derived from a series of +conclusions logical enough if you grant the premisses--indeed, +curiously more like some pen and paper scheme evolved out of the inner +consciousness of a German professor than a working system of +actual life. The prevailing custom in the East, as in some European +countries, is for the young girl to know nothing whatever of her +intended husband; only in the one case this is followed by total +seclusion after marriage, and in the other by complete emancipation. +In Armenia, on the contrary, the young girl makes her own choice, and +love-matches are not uncommon; but the choice once made and ratified +by the priest, the order of things is so arranged as to cause her +husband to become the woman's absorbing thought, his society her sole +solace, his pleasure the whole business of her life. For the rest she +is treated with much solicitude; even the peasant will not let his +wife do out-door work. + +Moses of Khoren gives the history of a wedding that took place about +one hundred years after Christ. In those days the tribes of the Alans, +in league with the mountaineers of the Caucasus and a part of the +people of Georgia, descended upon Armenia in considerable numbers. +Ardashes, the Armenian king, assembled his troops and advanced against +them. In a battle fought upon the confines of the two nations, the +Alans gave way, and having crossed the Cyrus, encamped on the northern +bank, the river dividing the contending forces. The son of the King of +the Alans had been taken prisoner and was conducted to Ardashes. His +father offered to conclude a peace on such conditions as Ardashes +might exact and under promise, guaranteed by a solemn oath, that the +Alans would attempt no further incursions on Armenian territory. As +Ardashes refused to surrender the young prince, the sister of the +youth ran to the edge of the river and climbing upon a lofty hillock, +caused these words to be addressed to the enemy's camp by the mouth +of interpreters: "Hear me, valorous Ardashes, conqueror of the brave +Alans; grant unto me the surrender of this young man--unto me, the +maiden with beautiful eyes. It is not worthy of a hero in order to +satisfy a desire for vengeance, to take the life of the sons of heroes +or to hold them in bondage and keep up an endless feud between two +nations." Ardashes, having heard these words, approached the river. He +saw the beautiful Sathinig, listened to her wise counsels, and fell +in love with her. Then, having called Sumpad, an aged warrior who +had watched over his childhood, he laid bare the wish of his heart to +marry the princess, make a treaty of amity with her nation and send +back the prince in peace. Sumpad, having approved of these projects, +sent to ask the King of the Alans for the hand of Sathinig. "What!" +replied her father, "will the valorous King Ardashes have ever +treasure enough to offer me in return for the noble damsel of the +Alans?" + +A popular song, carefully preserved by Moses, celebrates the marriage +of Ardashes and Sathinig:-- + + The valiant King Ardashes, astride of a sable charger, + Drew forth a thong of leather, garnished with golden rings: + And quick as fast-flying eagle he crossed the flowing river + And the crimson leather thong, garnished with rings of gold, + Cast he about the body of the Virgin of the Alans, + Clasping in painful embrace the maiden's tender form: + Even so he drew her swiftly to his encampment. + +Once again Ardashes appears in the people's poetry. He is no longer +the triumphant victor in love and war; the hour of his death draws +near. "Oh!" says the dying king, "who will give me back the smoke of +my hearth, and the joyous New Year's morning, and the spring of the +deer, and the lightness of the roe?" Then his mind wanders away to the +ruling passion: "We sounded the trumpets; after the manner of kings we +beat the drums." + +The Armenian princes were in the habit, when they married, of throwing +pieces of money from the threshold of their palace, whilst the royal +brides scattered pearls about the nuptial chamber. To this custom +allusion is made in two lines which used to be sung as a sort of +marriage chaunt:-- + + A rain of gold fell at the wedding of Ardashes, + A rain of pearls fell on the nuptials of Sathinig. + +Armenian nuptial songs, like all other folk-epithalamiums, so far as I +am aware, seem to point to an early state of society when the girl was +simply carried off by her marauding lover by fraud or force. Exulting +in what relates to the bridegroom, the favourite song on this subject +is profoundly melancholy as concerns the bride. The mother was cajoled +with a pack of linen, the father with a cup of wine, the brother +with a pair of boots, the little sister with a finger of antimony--so +complains the dismal ditty of a new bride. There is great pathos in +the words in which she begs her mother not to sweep the sand off the +little plank, so that the slight trace of her girl's footsteps may not +be effaced. + +Marriage is called in Armenian, "The Imposition of the Crown," from +the practice of crowning bride and bridegroom with fresh, white +flowers. I remember how, in one of the last marriages celebrated in +the little Armenian church in the Rue Monsieur (which was closed a +few years ago, when the Mekhitarist property in Paris was sold), this +ceremony was omitted by particular request of the bridegroom, a rising +French Diplomatist, who did not wish to wear a wreath of roses. The +Armenian marriage formulæ are extremely explicit. The priest, taking +the right hand of the bride, and placing it in that of the bridegroom, +says: "According to the Divine order God gave to our ancestors, I give +thee now this wife in subjection. Wilt thou be her master?" To which +the answer is, "Through the help of God, I will." The priest then asks +the woman: "Wilt thou be obedient to him?" She answers: "I am obedient +according to the order of God." The interrogations are repeated three +times, and three times responded to. + +An Armenian author, M. Ermine, published at Moscow in 1850 a treatise +on the historical and popular songs of ancient Armenia. + +Of popular songs current in more recent times there was not, till +lately, a single specimen within reach of the public, though it was +confidently surmised that such must exist. The Mekhitarist monks have +taken the lead in this as in every other branch of Armenian research, +and my examples are quoted from a small collection issued by their +press at Venice. I am not sure that I have chosen those that are +intrinsically the best, but think that those which figure in these +pages are amongst the most characteristic of their authors and origin. +The larger portion of these songs are printed from manuscripts in the +library of San Lazzaro; the date of their composition is thought +to vary from the end of the thirteenth to the end of the eighteenth +century. The language in which they are written is the vulgar +tongue of Armenia, but in several instances it attains a very close +approximation to the classical Armenian. + +It may not be amiss if I conclude this sketch with a brief account +of the remarkable order of the Mekhitarists, which is so intimately +related with all that bears on the subject of Armenian literature. +Those who are well acquainted with it will not object to hear the +history of this order recapitulated; while I believe that many who +have visited the Convent of San Lazzaro have yet but vague notions +regarding the work and aims of its inmates. It is to be conjectured +that, as a matter of fact, the majority of Englishmen go to San +Lazzaro rather in the spirit of a Byron-pilgrimage than from any +definite interest in the convent; and without doubt were its only +attraction its association with the English poet it would still be +worth a visit. Byron's connection with San Lazzaro was not one of the +least interesting episodes of his life; and it is pleasant to remember +the tranquil hours he spent in the society of the learned monks, and +the fascination exercised over him by their sterling and unpretentious +merit. "The neatness, the comfort, the gentleness, the unaffected +devotion of the brethren of the order," he wrote, "are well fitted to +strike the man of the world with the conviction that there is 'Another +and a better even in this life.'" The desire to present himself with +an excuse for frequent intercourse with the brothers was probably at +the bottom of Byron's sudden discovery that his mind "wanted something +craggy to break upon, and that Armenian was just the thing to torture +it into attention." He says it was the most difficult thing to be +found in Venice by way of an amusement, and describes the Armenian +character as a very "Waterloo of an alphabet." The origin of this +character is exceedingly curious, it being the only alphabet known +to have been the work of a single man, with the exception of the +Georgian, and now obsolete Caucasian Albanian. St Mesrop, an Armenian, +invented all the three about A.D. 406. Byron informs Moore, with some +elation, of the fate that befell a French professorship of Armenian, +which had then been recently instituted: "Twenty pupils presented +themselves on Monday morning, full of noble ardour, ingenuous youth, +and impregnable industry. They persevered with a courage worthy of the +nation, and of universal conquest till Thursday, then _fifteen_ out +of the _twenty_ succumbed to the six-and-twentieth letter of the +alphabet." The poet himself mastered all thirty-three letters, and a +good deal more besides, under the superintendence of the librarian, +Padre Paschal Aucher, a man who combined great learning with much +knowledge of the world. As the result of these studies we have a +translation into Scriptural English of two apocryphal epistles of St +Paul, and an Anglo-Armenian grammar, of which, with characteristic +liberality, Byron defrayed the cost of publication. + +The order was founded by Varthabed Mekhitar, who was born at Sebaste, +in Asia Minor, in 1676. Mekhitar was one of those men to whom it comes +quite naturally to go forth with David's sling and stone against the +Philistine and his host. He could have been scarcely more than twenty +years of age when fearlessly and steadfastly he set himself to the +gigantic task of raising his country out of the stagnant slough of +ignorance in which he saw it sunk. He was then a candidate for holy +orders, studying in an Armenian convent. + +The monks he found no less ignorant than the rest of the population; +those to whom he broached his ideas greeted them with derision, and +this did not fail to turn to cruel persecution when he began to preach +against certain prejudices which appeared to him to keep the Armenians +from conforming with the Latin Church--a union he earnestly desired. +Mekhitar now went to Constantinople, where he set on foot a small +monastic society; presently he moved to Modon, in the Morea, then +under the rule of Venice, but before he had been there long, the place +was seized by the Turks. A few of the monks, with their head, managed +to escape to Venice; the others were taken prisoners, and sold into +a temporary slavery. At Venice, in 1717, the Signory made over to +the fugitives in perpetuity a small barren island in the Lagune, once +tenanted by the Benedictines, who had there established a hospital for +lepers, but which, since the disappearance of that disease, had been +entirely uninhabited. Mekhitar immediately organised a printing +press, and began making translations of standard works, which were +disseminated wherever Armenians were to be found, that is to say, +all over the East. When he died in 1747, the work of the society was +already placed on a solid foundation; but it received considerable +development and extension from the hands of the third abbot-general, +Count Stephen Aconzkover, Archbishop of Sinnia, by birth a member of +an Armenian colony in Hungary, who sought admittance into the order, +and lived in the retirement of San Lazzaro for sixty-seven years. +He was a poet, a scholar of no mean attainments, and the author of +a universal geography in twelve volumes. The Society is now +self-supporting, large numbers of its publications being sold in +Persia, and India, and at Constantinople. These publications consist +of numerous translations and of reproductions of the great part of +Armenian literature. Many works have been printed from MSS. which are +collected by emissaries sent out from San Lazzaro to travel over the +plains and valleys of Armenia for the purpose of rescuing the literary +relics which are widely scattered, and are in constant danger of loss +or destruction, and at the same time to distribute Armenian versions +of the Bible. Another of the undertakings of the convent is a school +exclusively for the education of Armenian boys. About one hundred +boys receive free instruction in the two colleges at Venice. What this +order have effected, both towards the enlightenment of their country +and in keeping alive the sentiment of Armenian nationality, is simply +incalculable. In their self-imposed exile they have nobly carried out +the precept of an Armenian folk-poet: + + Forget not our Armenian nation, + And always assist and protect it. + Always keep in thy mind + To be useful to thy fatherland. + +On my first visit I passed a long summer morning in examining all +the points of interest about the monastery--the house and printing +presses, the library with its beautiful Pali papyrus of the Buddhist +ordination service, and its illuminated manuscripts, the minaretted +chapel, and the silent little Campo Santo, under the direction of +the most courteous and accomplished of cicerones, Padre Giacomo, +Dr Issaverdenz: a name signifying "Jesus-given." I saw the bright, +intelligent band of scholars: "of these," said my conductor, "five or +six will remain with us." I was shown the page of the visitor's book +inscribed with Byron's signature in English and in Armenian. Later +entries form a long roll of royal and notable names. The little museum +contains Daniel Manin's tricolor scarf of office, given to the monks +by the son of that devoted patriot. Queen Margherita does not fail to +pay San Lazzaro a yearly visit, and has lately accepted the dedication +of a book of Armenian church music. + +During this tour of inspection, various topics were discussed: the +tendencies of modern thought, the future of the church, with +other matters of a more personal nature--and upon each my guide's +observations displayed a singularly intellectual and tolerant attitude +of mind, together with a way of looking at things and speaking of +people in which "sweetness and light" were felicitously apparent. It +was difficult to tear oneself away from the open window in Byron's +little study. The day was one of those matchless Venetian days, when +the heat is tempered by a breeze just fresh enough to agitate the +awning of your gondola; and the Molo and Riva, and Fortune's golden +ball on the Dogana, the white San Giorgio Maggiore, the ships eastward +bound, the billowy line of the mountains of Vicenza against the +horizon, lie steeped in a bath of sunshine. But the outlook from the +convent window is not upon these. Beneath are the green berceaux of +a small vineyard, a little garden gay in its tangle of purple +convolvulus, a pomegranate lifting its laden boughs towards us--to +remind the Armenians of the "flowering pomegranates" of their beloved +country. Beyond the vineyard stretches the aquamarine surface of the +lagune--then the interminable reach of Lido--after that the ethereal +blue of the Adriatic melting away into the sky. Such is the scene +which till they die the good monks will have under their eyes. Perhaps +they are rather to be envied than compassionated; for it is manifest +that for them, duty--to use the eloquent expression of an English +divine--has become transfigured into happiness. "I shall stay here +whilst I live," Dr Issaverdenz said, "and I am happy--quite happy!" + + + + +VENETIAN FOLK-SONGS. + + +To the idealised vision that goes along with hereditary culture +a large town may seem an impressive spectacle. For Wordsworth, +worshipper of nature though he was, earth had not anything to show +more fair than London from Westminster Bridge, and Victor Hugo found +endless inspiration on the top of a Parisian omnibus. As shrines of +art, as foci of historic memories, even simply as vast aggregates of +human beings working out the tragi-comedy of life, great cities have +furnished the key-note to much fine poetry. But it is different +with the letterless masses. The student of literature, who turns to +folk-songs in search of a new enjoyment, will meet with little to +attract him in urban rhymes; if there are many that present points +of antiquarian interest, there are few that have any kind of poetic +worth. The people's poetry grows not out of an ideal world of +association and aspiration, but from the springs of their life. They +cannot see with their minds as well as with their eyes. What they do +see in most great towns is the monotonous ugliness which surrounds +their homes and their labour. Then again, it is a well-known fact that +with the people loss of individuality means loss of the power of +song; and where there is density of population there is generally a +uniformity as featureless as that of pebbles on the sea beach. +Still to the rule that folk-poesy is not a thing of town growth one +exception has to be made. Venice, unique under every aspect, has songs +which, if not of the highest, are unquestionably of a high order. The +generalising influences at play in great political centres have hardly +affected the inhabitants of the city which for a thousand years of +independence was a body politic complete in itself. Nor has Venetian +common life lacked those elements of beauty without whose presence the +popular muse is dumb. The very industries of the Venetians were +arts, and when they were young and spiritually teachable, their chief +bread-winning work of every day was Venice--her ducal chapel, her +campanile, her palaces of marble and porphyry. In the process of +making her the delight of after ages, they attended an excellent +school of poetry. + +The gondolier contemporary with Byron was correctly described as +songless. At a date closely coinciding with the overthrow of Venetian +freedom, the boatmen left off waking the echoes of the Grand Canal, +except by those cries of warning which, no one can quite say why, so +thrill and move the hearer. It was no rare thing to find among the +Italians of the Lombardo-Venetian provinces the old pathetic instinct +of keeping silence before the stranger. I recollect a story told me +by one of them. When he was a boy, Antonio--that was his name--had to +make a journey with two young Austrian officers. They took notice of +the lad, who was sprightly and good-looking, and by and by they asked +him to sing. "Canta, canta, il piccolo," said they; "sing us the songs +of Italy." He refused. They insisted, and, coming to a tavern, they +gave him wine, which sent the blood to his head. So at last he said, +"Very well, I will sing you the songs of Italy." What he sang was one +of the most furiously anti-Austrian songs of '48. "Ah! taci, taci il +piccolo!" cried the officers, but the "piccolo" would not be quiet +until he had sung the whole revolutionary repertory. The Austrians +knew how to appreciate the boy's spirit, for they pressed on him a ten +franc piece at parting. + +To return to Venice. In the year 1819 an English traveller asked for +a song of a man who was reported to have once chanted Tasso _alla +barcaruolo_; the old gondolier shook his head. "In times like these," +he said, "he had no heart to sing." Foreign visitors had to fall back +on the beautiful German music, at the sound of which Venetians ran +out of the Piazza, lest they might be seduced by its hated sweetness. +Meanwhile the people went on singing in their own quarters, and away +from the chance of ministering to their masters' amusement. It is +even probable that the moral casemate to which they fled favoured the +preservation of their old ways, that of poetising included. Instead of +aiming at something novel and modern, the Venetian wished to be like +what his fathers were when the flags on St Mark's staffs were not +yellow and black. So, like his fathers, he made songs and sang songs, +of which a good collection has been formed, partly in past years, +and partly since the black-and-yellow standard has given place, +not, indeed, to the conquered emblems of the Greek isles, but to the +colours of Italy, reconquered for herself. + +Venetian folk-poesy begins at the cradle. The baby Venetian, like +most other babies, is assured that he is the most perfect of created +beings. Here and there, underlying the baby nonsense, is a dash of +pathos. "Would you weep if I were dead?" a mother asks, and the child +is made to answer, "How could I help weeping for my own mamma, who +loves me so in her heart?" A child is told that if he asks his mother, +who is standing by the door, "What are you doing there?" she will +reply, "I am waiting for thy father; I wait and wait, and do not see +him coming; I think I shall die thus waiting." The little Venetian has +the failings of baby-kind all the world over; he cries and he laughs +when he ought to be fast asleep. His mother tells him that he was born +to live in Paradise; she is sure that the angels would rejoice in her +darling's beauty. "Sleep well, for thy mother sits near thee," she +sings, "and if by chance I go away, God will watch thee when I am +gone." + +A christening is regarded in Venice as an event of much social as +well as religious importance. By canon law the bonds of relationship +established by godfatherhood count for the same as those of blood, for +which reason the Venetian nobles used to choose a person of inferior +rank to stand sponsor for their children, thus escaping the creation +of ties prohibitive of marriage between persons of their own class. In +this case the material responsibilities of the sponsor were slight--it +was his part to take presents, and not to make them. By way of +acknowledging the new connection, the child's father sent the +godfather a marchpane, that cake of mystic origin which is still +honoured and eaten from Nuremberg to Malaga. With the poor, another +order of things is in force. The _compare de l'anelo_--the person +who acted as groomsman at the marriage--is chosen as sponsor to the +first-born child. His duties begin even before the christening. When +he hears of the child's birth, he gets a piece of meat, a fowl, and +two new-laid eggs, packs them in a basket, and despatches them to +the young mother. Eight days after the birth comes the baptism. On +returning from the church, the sponsor, now called _compare de +San Zuane_, visits the mother, before whom he displays his +presents--twelve or fifteen lire for herself; for the baby a pair of +earrings, if it be a girl; and if a boy, a pair of boy's earrings, +or a single ornament to be worn in the right ear. Henceforth the +godfather is the child's natural guardian next to its parents; and +should they die, he is expected to provide for it. Should the child +die, he must buy the _zogia_ (the "joy"), a wreath of flowers now set +on the coffins of dead infants, but formerly placed on their heads +when they were carried to the grave-isle in full sight of the people. +This last custom led to even more care being given to the toilet of +dead children than what might seem required by decency and affection. +To dress a dead child badly was considered shameful. Tradition tells +of what happened to a woman who was so miserly that she made her +little girl a winding-sheet of rags and tatters. When the night of +the dead came round and all the ghosts went in procession, the injured +babe, instead of going with the rest, tapped at its mother's door and +cried, "Mamma, do you see me? I cannot go in procession because I +am all ragged." Every year on the night of the dead the baby girl +returned to make the same reproach. + +Venetian children say before they go to bed: + + Bona sera ai vivi, + E riposo ai poveri morti; + Bon viagio ai naveganti + E bona note ai tuti quanti. + +There is a sort of touching simplicity in this; and somehow the wish +of peace to the "poor dead" recalls a line of Baudelaire's-- + + Les morts, les pauvres morts, ont de grandes douleurs. + +But as a whole, the rhymes of the Venetian nursery are not +interesting, save from their extreme resemblance to the nursery rhymes +of England, France, or any other European country. They need not, +therefore, detain us. + +Twilight is of an Eastern brevity on the Adriatic shore, both in +nature and in life. The child of yesterday is the man of to-day, and +as soon as the young Venetian discovers that he has a heart, he takes +pains to lose it to a _Tosa_ proportionately youthful. The Venetian +and Provençal word _Tosa_ signifies maiden, though whether the +famous Cima Tosa is thus a sister to the Jungfrau is not sure, some +authorities believing it to bear the more prosaic designation +of baldheaded ("Tonsurata"). Our young Venetian may perhaps be +unacquainted with the girl he has marked out for preference. In any +case he walks up and down or rows up and down assiduously under her +window. One night he will sing to a slow, languorous air--possibly an +operatic air, but so altered as to be not easy of recognition--"I wish +all good to all in this house, to father and to mother and as many as +there be; and to Marieta who is my beloved, she whom you have in +your house." The name of the singer is most likely Nane, for Nane and +Marieta are the commonest names in Venice, which is explained by +the impression that persons so called cannot be bewitched, a serious +advantage in a place where the Black Art is by no means extinct. The +maiden long remembers the night when first her rest was disturbed +by some such greeting as the above. She has rendered account of her +feelings: + + Ah! how mine eyes are weighed in slumber deep! + Now all my life it seems has gone to sleep; + But if a lover passes by the door, + Then seems it this my life will sleep no more. + +It does not do to appropriate a serenade with too much precipitation. +Don Quixote gave it as his experience that no woman would believe that +a poem was written expressly for her unless it made an acrostic on her +name spelt out in full. Venetian damsels proceed with less caution: +hence now and then a sad disappointment. A girl who starts up all +pit-a-pat at the twanging of a guitar may be doomed to hear the cruel +sentence pronounced in Lord Houghton's pretty lyric: + + "I am passing--Premé--but I stay not for you! + Premé--not for you!" + +Even more unkind are the literal words of the Venetian: "If I pass +this way and sing as I pass, think not, fair one, that it is for +you--it is for another love, whose beauty surpasses yours!" + +A brother or a friend occasionally undertakes the serenading. He +is not paid like the professional Trovador whom the Valencian lover +engages to act as his interpreter. He has no reward in view but empty +thanks, and it is scarcely surprising if on damp nights he is inclined +to fall into a rather querulous vein. "My song is meant for the +_Morosa_ of my companion," says one of these accommodating minstrels. +"If only I knew where she was! But he told me that she was somewhere +in here. The rain is wetting me to the skin!" Another exclaims more +cheerfully, "Beautiful angel, if it pleases God, you will become my +sister-in-law!" + +After the singing of the preliminary songs, Nane seeks a hint of the +effect produced on the beloved Marieta. As she comes out of church, +he makes her a most respectful bow, and if it be returned ever so +slightly, he musters up courage, and asks in so many words whether +she will have him. Marieta reflects for about three days; then she +communicates her answer by sign or song. If she does not want him, she +shuts herself up in the house and will not look out for a moment. +Nane begs her to show her face at the window: "Come, oh! come! If thou +comest not 'tis a sign that thou lovest me not; draw my heart out of +all these pangs." Marieta, if she is quite decided, sings back from +behind the half-closed shutters, "You pass this way, and you pass in +vain: in vain you wear out shoes and soles; expect no fair words from +me." It may be that she confesses to not knowing her own mind: "I +should like to be married, but I know not to whom: when Nane passes, I +long to say 'Yes;' when Toni passes, I am fain to look kindly at him; +when Bepi passes, I wish to cry, God bless you!" Or again, it may be +that her heart is not hers to give: + + Wouldst thou my love? For love I have no heart; + I had it once, and gave it once away; + To my first love I gave it on a day ... + Wouldst thou my love? For love I have no heart. + +In the event of the girl intimating that she is disposed to listen to +her _Moroso_ if all goes well, he turns to her parents and formally +asks permission to pay his addresses to their daughter. That +permission is, of course, not always granted. If the parents have +thoughts of a wealthier match, the poor serenader finds himself +unceremoniously sent about his business. A sad state of things ensues. +Marieta steals many a sorrowful glance at the despised Nane, who, on +his side, vents his indignation on the authors of her being in terms +much wanting in respect. "When I behold thee so impassioned," he +cries, "I curse those who have caused this grief; I curse thy papa and +thy mamma, who will not let us make love." No idea is here implied +of dispensing with the parental fiat; the same cannot be said of the +following observations: "When I pass this house, my heart aches. The +girl wills me well, her people will me ill; her people will not hear +of it, nor, indeed, will mine. So we have to make love secretly. But +that cannot really be done. He who wishes for a girl, goes and asks +for her--out of politeness. He who wants to have her, carries her +off." It would seem that the maiden has been known to be the first to +incite rebellion: + + Do, my beloved, as other lovers do, + Go to my father, and ask leave to woo; + And if my father to reply is loth, + Come back to me, for thou hast got my troth. +When the parents have no _primâ facie_ objection to the youth, they +set about inquiring whether he bears a good character, and whether +the girl has a real liking for him. These two points cleared up +satisfactorily, they still defer their final answer for some weeks or +months, to make a trial of the suitor and to let the young people get +better acquainted. The lover, borne up by hope, but not yet sure of +his prize, calls to his aid the most effective songs in his repertory. +The last thing at night Marieta hears:-- + + Sleep thou, most fair, in all security, + For I have made me guardian of thy gate, + Safe shalt thou be, for I will watch and wait; + Sleep thou, most fair, in all security. + +The first thing in the morning she is greeted thus: + + Art thou awake, O fairest, dearest, best? + Raise thy blond head and bid thy slumbers fly; + This is the hour thy lover passes by, + Throw him a kiss, and then return to rest. + +If she has any lurking doubts of Nane's constancy she receives the +assurance, "One of these days I will surely make thee my bride--be not +so pensive, fairest angel!" If, on the other hand, Nane lacks complete +confidence in her affection, he appeals to her in words resembling I +know not what Eastern love-song: "Oh, how many steps I have taken to +have thee, and how many more I would take to gain thee! I have taken +so many, many steps that I think thou wilt not forsake me." + +The time of probation over, the girl's parents give a feast, to which +the youth and his parents are invited. He brings with him, as a first +offering, a small ring ornamented with a turquoise or a cornelian. +Being now the acknowledged lover, he may come and openly pay his court +every Sunday. On Saturday Marieta says to herself, "_Ancuo xe sabo, +doman xe festa_--to-morrow is fête day, and to-morrow I expect Nane!" +Then she pictures how he will come "dressed for the _festa_ with a +little flower in his hand;" and her heart beats with impatience. +If, after all, by some chance--who knows? by some faithlessness +perhaps--he fails to appear, what grief, what tears! Marieta's first +thought when she rises on Sunday morning is this: "No one works to-day +for it is _festa_; I pray you come betimes, dearest love!" Then comes +the second thought: "If he does not come betimes, it is a sign that he +is near to death; if later I do not see him, it is a sign that he is +dead." The day passes, evening is here--no Nane! "Vespers sound and +my love comes not; either he is dead, or" (the third and bitterest +thought of all) "a love-thief has stolen him from me!" + +Some little while after the lover has been formally accepted, he +presents the maiden with a plain gold ring called _el segno_, and a +second dinner or supper takes place at her parent's house, answering +to the German betrothal feast; henceforth he is the _sposo_ and she +the _novizza_, and, as in Germany, people look on the pair as very +little less than wedded. The new bride gives the bridegroom a silk +handkerchief, to which allusion is made in a verse running, "What is +that handkerchief you are wearing? Did you steal it or borrow it? I +neither stole it nor borrowed it; my _Morosa_ tied it round my neck." +At Easter the _sposo_ gives a cake and a couple of bottles of Cyprus +or Malaga; at Christmas a box of almond sweetmeats and a little jug +of _mostarda_ (a Venetian _spécialité_ composed of quinces dressed in +honey and mustard); at the feast of St Martin, sweet chestnuts; at the +feast of St Mark, _el bocolo_--that is, a rosebud, emblematical of the +opening year. The lover may also employ his generosity on New Year's +day, on the girl's name-day, and on other days not specified, taking +in the whole 365. Some maidens show a decided taste for homage +in kind. "My lover bids me sing, and to please him I will do it," +observes one girl, thus far displaying only the most disinterested +amiability. But presently she reveals her motives: "He has a ring with +a white stone; when I have sung he will give it to me." A less sordid +damsel asks only for a bunch of flowers; it shall be paid for with a +kiss, she says. Certain things there are which may be neither given +nor taken by lovers who would not recklessly tempt fate. Combs are +placed under the ban, for they may be made to serve the purposes of +witchcraft; saintly images and church-books, for they have to do +with trouble and repentance; scissors, for scissors stand for evil +speaking; and needles, for it is the nature of needles to prick. + +Whether through the unwise exchange of these prohibited articles, or +from other causes, it does sometimes happen that the betrothed lovers +who have been hailed by everybody as _novizza_ and _sposo_ yet manage +to fall out beyond any hopes of falling in again. If it is the youth's +fault that the match is broken off, all his presents remain in the +girl's undisputed possession; if the girl is to blame, she must send +back the _segno_ and all else that she has received. It is said that +in some districts of Venetia the young man keeps an accurate account +of whatever he spends on behalf of his betrothed, and in the case of +her growing tired of him, she has to pay double the sum total, besides +defraying the loss incurred by the hours he has sacrificed to her, and +the boots he has worn out in the course of his visits. + +It is more usual, as well as more satisfactory, for the betrothal +to be followed in due time by marriage. After the _segno_ has been +"passed," the _sposo_ sings a new song. "When," asks he, "will be the +day whereon to thy mamma I shall say 'Madona;' to thy papa 'Missier;' +and to thee, darling, 'Wife'?" "Madona" is still the ordinary term for +mother-in-law at Venice; in Tuscan songs the word is also used in that +sense, though it has fallen out of common parlance. Wherever it is +to be found, it points to the days when the house-mother exercised an +unchallenged authority over all members of the family. Even now the +mother-in-law of Italian folk-songs is a formidable personage; to say +the truth, there is no scant measure of self-congratulation when she +happens not to exist. "Oh! Dio del siel, mandeme un ziovenin senza +madona!" is the heartfelt prayer of the Venetian girl. + +If the youth thinks of the wedding day as the occasion of forming new +ties--above all that dearest tie which will give him his _anzola bela_ +for his own--the maiden dreams of it as the _zornada santa_; the day +when she will kneel at the altar and receive the solemn benediction of +the church upon entering into a new station of life. "Ah! when shall +come to pass that holy day, when the priest will say to me, 'Are you +content?' when he shall bless me with the holy water--ah! when shall +it come to pass?" + +It has been noticed that the institution of marriage is not regarded +in a very favourable light by the majority of folk-poets, but Venetian +rhymers as a rule take an encouraging view of it. "He who has a wife," +sings a poet of Chioggia, "lives right merrily _co la sua cara sposa +in compagnia_." Warning voices are not, however, wanting to tell the +maiden that wedded life is not all roses: "You would never want to be +married, my dear, if you knew what it was like," says one such; +while another mutters, "Reflect, girls, reflect, before ye wed these +gallants; on the Ponte di Rialto bird cages are sold." + +The marriage generally comes off on a Sunday. Who weds on Monday +goes mad; Tuesday will bring a bad end; Wednesday is a day good for +nothing; Thursday all manner of witches are abroad; Friday leads to +early death; and, as to Saturday, you must not choose that, _parchè de +sabo piove_, "because on Saturday it rains!" + +The bride has two toilets--one for the church, one for the wedding +dinner. At the church she wears a black veil, at the feast she appears +crowned with flowers. After she is dressed and before the bridegroom +arrives, the young girl goes to her father's room and kneeling down +before him, she prays with tears in her eyes to be forgiven whatever +grief she may have caused him. He grants her his pardon and gives her +his blessing. In the early dawn the wedding party go to church either +on foot or in gondolas, for it is customary for the marriage knot to +be tied at the conclusion of the first mass. When the right moment +comes the priest puts the _vera_, or wedding ring, on the tip of the +bride's finger, and the bridegroom pushes it down into its proper +place. If the _vera_ hitches, it is a frightfully bad omen. When once +it is safely adjusted, the best man steps forward and restores to +the bride's middle finger the little ring which formed the lover's +earliest gift; for this reason he is called _compare de l'anelo_, a +style and title he will one day exchange for that of _compare de San +Zuane_. + +At the end of the service the bride returns to her father's house, +where she remains quietly till it is time to get ready for dinner. As +the clock strikes four, the entire wedding party, with the parents +of bride and bridegroom and a host of friends and relations, start in +gondolas for the inn at which the repast is to take place. The whole +population of the _calle_ or _campo_ is there to see their departure, +and to admire or criticise, as the case may be. After dinner, when +everyone has tasted the good wine and enjoyed the good fare, the feast +breaks up with cries of _Viva la novizza!_ followed by songs, stories, +laughter, and much flirtation between the girls and boys, who make the +most of the freedom of intercourse conceded to them in honour of +the day. Then the music begins, the table is whisked away, and the +assembled guests join lustily in the dance; the women perhaps, singing +at intervals, "Enôta, enôta, enìo!" a burden borne over to Venice +from the Grecian shore. The romance is finished; Marieta and Nane are +married, the _zornada santa_ wanes to its close, the tired dancers +accompany the bride to the threshold of her new home, and so adieu! + +Before leaving the subject of Venetian love-songs it may be as well to +glance at a few points characteristic of the popular mind which it has +not been convenient to touch upon in following the Venetian youth and +maiden from the _prima radice_ of their love to its consecration at +the altar. What, for instance, does the Venetian singer say of poverty +and riches?--for there is no surer test of character than the way +of regarding money and the lack of it. It is taken pretty well for +granted at Venice as elsewhere, that inequality of fortune is a bar to +matrimony. The poor girl says to her better-to-do lover, "Thou passest +this way sad and grieving, thou thinkest to speak to my father, and +on thy finger thou dost carry a little ring. But thy thought does not +fall in with my thought, and thy thought is not worth a gazette. Thou +art rich and I am a poor little one!" Here the girl puts all faith in +the good intentions of her suitor: it is not his fault if her poverty +divides them; it is the nature of things, against which there is no +appeal. But there is more than one song that betrays the suspicion +that if a girl grows poor her lover will be only too eager and ready +to desert her. "My lady mother has always told me that she who falls +into poverty loses her lover; loses friend and loses hope. The purse +does not sing when there is no coin in it." Still, on the whole, a +more high-minded view prevails. "Do not look to my being a poor man," +says one lover, + + Che povatà no guasta gentilissa, + +--"for poverty does not spoil or prevent gentle manners." A girl +sings, "All tell me that I am poor, the world's honour is my riches; I +am poor, I am of fair fame; poor both of us, let us make love." One is +reminded of "how the good wife taught her daughter" in the old English +poem of the fifteenth century: + + I pray the, my dere childe, loke thou bere the so well + That alle men may seyen thou art so trewe as stele; + Gode name is golde worth, my leve childe! + +A brave little Venetian maiden cries: "How many there are who desire +fortune! and I, poor little thing, desire it not. This is the fortune +I desire, to wed a youth of twenty-one years." One lover pines for +riches, but only that he may offer them to his beloved: "Fair Marieta, +I wish to make my fortune, to go where the Turk has his cradle, and +work myself nearly to death, so that afterwards I may come back to +thee, my fair one, and marry thee." Finally, a town youth says that if +his country love has but a milk-pail for her dowry, what matters? + + De dota la me dà quel viso belo! + +The Venetian displays no marked enthusiasm for fair hair, +notwithstanding the fame of Giorgione's sunset heads and the +traditional expedients by which Venetian ladies of past times +sought to bring their dark locks into conformity with that painter's +favourite hue. In Venetian songs there is nothing about the "golden +spun silk" of Sicily; if a Venetian folk-poet does speak of fair hair, +he calls it by the common-place generic term of blond. The available +evidence goes rather to show that in his own heart he prefers a +brunette. "My lady mother always told me that I should never be +enamoured of white roses," says a sententious young man; "she told +me that I should love the little mulberries, which are sweeter than +honey." "Cara mora," _mora_, or mulberry, meaning brunette, is +an ordinary caressing term. Two frank young people carry on this +dialogue: "Will you come to me, fair maid?" "No; I will not come, for +I am fair." "If you are fair, I am no less so; if you are the rose, I +am the spotless lily." Beauty, therefore, is valued, especially by +the possessors of it. But the Venetian admits the possibility of that +which Keats found so hard to comprehend--the love of the plain. A +girl says, and it is a pretty saying, "Se no so bela, ghe piaso al +mio amore" ("If I am not fair, I please my beloved"). A soldier, +whose _morosa_ dies, does not weep for her beauty, for she was not +beautiful; nor for her riches, for she was not rich; he weeps for her +sweet manners and conversation--it was that that made him love her. +The universal weakness for a little flattery from the hand of the +portrait-painter is expressed in a sprightly little song: + + What does it matter if I am not fair, + Who have a lover, who a painter is? + He will portray me like a star, I wis; + What does it matter if I am not fair? + +We hear a good deal of lovers' quarrels, and of the transitoriness of +love. "Oh! God! how the sky is overcast! It seems about to rain, and +then it passes; so is it with a man in love; he loves a fair woman, +and then he leaves her." That is her version of the affair. He has +not anything complimentary to say: "If I get out of this squall alive, +never more shall woman in the world befool me. I have been befooled +upon a pledge of sacred faith: mad is the man who believes in women." +Another man says, with more serious bitterness: "What time have I not +lost in loving you! Had I lost it in saying so many prayers, I should +have found favour before God, and my mother would have blessed me." A +matter-of-fact girl remarks, "No one will grow thin on your account, +nor will any one die on mine." When her lover says that he has sent +her his heart in a basket, she replies that she sends back both basket +and heart, being in want of neither; and if he should really happen to +die, she unfeelingly meditates, "My love is dead, and I have not wept; +I had thought to suffer more torment. A Pope dies, another is made; +not otherwise do I weep for my love." + +Certain vocations are looked upon with suspicion: + + Sailor's trade--at sea to die! + Merchant's trade--that's bankruptcy; + Gambler's trade in cursing ends, + Thief's trade to the gallows sends. + +But in spite of the second line about "l'arte del mercante," a girl +does not much mind marrying a merchant or shopkeeper; nay, it is +sometimes her avowed ambition: + + I want no fisher with a fishy smell, + A market gardener would not suit me well; + Nor yet a mariner who sails the sea: + A fine flour-merchant is the man for me. + +A miller seems to think that he stands a good chance: "Come to the +window, Columbine! I am that miller who brought thee, the other +evening, the pure white flour." Shoemakers are in very bad odour: "I +calegheri ga na trista fama." Fishermen are considered poor penniless +folk, and she who weds a sailor, does so at her peril: + + L'amor del mariner no dura un 'ora, + La dove che lu el và, lu s' inamora. + +And even if the sailor's troth can be trusted, is it not his trade "at +sea to die"? But the young girl will not be persuaded. "All say to me, +'Beauty, do not take the mariner, for he will make thee die;' if he +make me die, so must it be; I will wed him, for he is my soul." And +when he is gone, she sings: "My soul, as thou art beyond the port, +send me word if thou art alive or dead, if the waters of the sea have +taken thee?" She returns sadly to her work, the work of all Venetian +maidens: + + My love is far and far away from me, + I am at home, and he has gone to sea; + He is at sea, and he has sails to spread, + I am at home, and I have beads to thread. + +The boatman's love can afford to sing in a lighter strain; there is +not the shadow of interminable voyages upon her. "I go out on the +balcony, I see Venice, and I see my joy, who starts; I go out on the +balcony, I see the sea, and I see my love, who rows." Another song is +perhaps a statement of fact, though it sounds like a poetic fancy: + + To-night their boats must seek the sea, + One night his boat will linger yet; + They bear a freight of wood, and he + A freight of rose and violet. + +Who forgets the coming into Venice in the early morning light of the +boats laden with fresh flowers and fruit? + +Isaac d'Israeli states that the fishermen's wives of the Lido, +particularly those of the districts of Malamocca and Pelestrina (its +extreme end), sat along the shore in the evenings while the men were +out fishing, and sang stanzas from Tasso and other songs at the +pitch of their voices, going on till each one could distinguish the +responses of her own husband in the distance. + +At first sight the songs of the various Italian provinces appear to be +greatly alike, but at first sight only. Under further examination they +display essential differences, and even the songs which travel all +over Italy almost always receive some distinctive touch of local +colour in the districts where they obtain naturalisation. The Venetian +poet has as strongly marked an identity as any of his fellows. Not +to speak of his having invented the four-lined song known as the +"Vilota," the quality of his work unmistakably reflects his peculiar +idiosyncracies. An Italian writer has said, "nella parola e nello +scritto ognuno imita sè stesso;" and the Venetian "imitates himself" +faithfully enough in his verses. He has a well-developed sense of +humour, and his finer wit discerns less objectionable paths than +those of parody and burlesque, for which the Sicilian shows so fatal +a leaning. He is often in a mood of half-playful cynicism; if his +paramount theme is love, he is yet fully inclined to have a laugh at +the expense of the whole race of lovers: + + A feast I will prepare for love to eat, + Non-suited suitors I will ask to dine; + They shall have pain and sorrow for their meat, + They shall have tears and sobs to drink for wine; + And sighs shall be the servitors most fit + To wait at table where the lovers sit. + +As compared with the Tuscan, the Venetian is a confirmed egotist. +While the former well-nigh effaces his individual personality out +of his hymns of adoration, the latter is apt to talk so much of his +private feelings, his wishes, his disappointments, that the idol +stands in danger of being forgotten. There is, indeed, a single +song--the song of one of the despised mariners--which combines +the sweet humility of Tuscan lyrics with a glow and fervour truly +Venetian--possibly its author was in reality some Istriot seaman, for +the _canti popolari_ of Istria are known to partake of both styles. +Anyhow, it may figure here, justified by what seems to me its own +excellence of conception: + + Fair art thou born, but love is not for me; + A sailor's calling sends me forth to sea. + I do desire to paint thee on my sail, + And o'er the briny deep I'd carry thee. + They ask, What ensign? when the boat they hail-- + For woman's love I bear this effigy; + For woman's love, for love of maiden fair; + If her I may not love, I love forswear! + +When he is most in earnest and most excited, the Venetian is still +homely--he has none of the Sicilian's luxuriant imagination. I may +call to mind a remark of Edgar Poe's to the effect that passion +demands a homeliness of expression. Passionate the Venetian poet +certainly is. Never a man was readier to "dare e'en death" at the +behest of his mistress-- + + Wouldst have me die? Then I'll no longer live. + Grant unto me for sepulchre thy bed, + Make me straightway a pillow of thy head, + And with thy mouth one kiss, beloved one, give. + +At Chioggia, where still in the summer evenings _Orlando Furioso_ is +read in the public places, and where artists go in quest of the old +Venetian type, they sing a yet more impassioned little song. + + Oh, Morning Star, I ask of thee this grace, + This only grace I ask of thee, and pray: + The water where thou hast washed thy breast and face, + In kindly pity throw it not away. + Give it to me for medicine; I will take + A draught before I sleep and when I wake; + And if this medicine shall not make me whole, + To earth my body, and to hell my soul! + +It must be added that Venetian folk-poesy lacks the innate sympathy +with all beautiful natural things which pervades the poesy of the +Apennines. This is in part the result of outward conditions: nature, +though splendid, is unvaried at Venice. The temperament of the +Venetian poet explains the rest. If he alludes to the _bel seren con +tante stelle_, it is only to say that "it would be just the night to +run away with somebody"--to which assertion he tacks the disreputable +rider, "he who carries off girls is not called a thief, he is called +an enamoured young man." + +Even in the most lovely and the most poetic of cities you cannot +breathe the pure air of the hills. The Venetian is without the intense +refinement of the Tuscan mountaineer, as he is without his love of +natural beauty. The Tuscan but rarely mentions the beloved one's +name--he respects it as the Eastern mystic respects the name of +the Deity; the Venetian sings it out for the edification of all the +boatmen of the canal. The Tuscan has come to regard a kiss as a thing +too sacred to talk about; the Venetian has as few scruples on the +subject as the poet of Sirmio. Nevertheless, it should be recognised +that a not very blameable unreservedness of speech is the most serious +charge to be brought against all save a small minority of Venetian +singers. I believe that the able and conscientious collector, Signor +Bernoni, has exercised but slight censorship over the mass of songs he +has placed on record, notwithstanding which the number of those that +can be accused of an immoral tendency is extremely limited. Whence it +is to be inferred that the looseness of manners prevailing amongst the +higher classes at Venice in the decadence of the Republic at no time +became general in the lower and sounder strata of society. + +At the beginning of this century, songs that were called Venetian +ballads were very popular in London drawing-rooms. That they were sung +with more effect before those who had never heard them in their own +country than before those who had, will be easily believed. A charming +letter-writer of that time described the contrast made by the gay or +impassioned strain of the poetry to "the stucco face of the statue who +doles it forth;" whilst in Venice, he added, it is seconded by all the +nice inflections of voice, grace of gesture, play of features, that +distinguish Venetian women. One of the Venetian songs which gained +most popularity abroad was the story of the damsel who drops her ring +into the sea, and of the fisherman who fishes it up, refusing all +other reward than a kiss: + + Oh! pescator dell 'onda, + Findelin, + Vieni pescar in qua! + Colla bella sua barca + Colla bella se ne va + Findelin! lin, la! + +But this song is not peculiarly Venetian; it is sung everywhere on the +Adriatic and Mediterranean coasts. And the version used was in pure +Italian. Judged as poetry, the existing Venetian ballads take a +lower place than the _Vilote_. They are often not much removed from +doggerel, as may be shown by a lamentable history which confusedly +suggests Enoch Arden with the moral of "Tue-la:" + + "Who is that knocking at my gates? + Who is that knocking at my door?" + "A London captain 'tis who waits, + Your very humble servitor." + In deshabille the fair one ran, + Straightway the door she opened wide: + "Tell me, my fair one, if you can, + Where does your husband now abide?" + "My husband he has gone to France, + Pray heaven that back he may not come;" + --Just then the fair one gave a glance, + It was her spouse arrived at home! + "Forgive, forgive," the fair one cried, + "Forgive if I have done amiss;" + "There is no pardon," he replied, + For women who have sinned like this." + Her head fell off at the first blow, + The first blow wielded by his sword; + So does just Heaven its anger show + Against the wife who wrongs her lord. + +Venetian songs will serve as a guide to the character, but scarcely +to the opinions, of the Venetians. The long struggle with Austria has +left no other trace than a handful of rough verses dating from the +Siege--mere strings of _Evvivas_ to the dictator and the army. It may +be argued that the fact is not exceptional, that like the _Fratelli +d'ltalia_ of Goffredo Mameli, the war-songs of the Italian movement +were all composed for the people and not by them. Still there have +been genuine folk-poets who have discoursed after their fashion of +_Italia libera_. The Tuscan peasants sang as they stored the olives of +1859-- + + L'amore l'ho in Piamonte, + Bandiera tricolor! + +There is not in Venetian songs an allusion to the national cause so +naïvely, so caressingly expressive as this. It cannot be that the +Venetian _popolano_ did not care; whenever his love of country was +put to the test, it was found in no way wanting. Was it that to his +positive turn of mind there appeared to be an absence of connection +between politics and poetry? Looking back to the songs of an earlier +period, we find the same habit of ignoring public events. A rhyme, +answering the purpose of our "Ride a cock horse," contains the sole +reference to the wars of Venice with the Porte-- + + Andemo a la guera + Per mare e per tera, + E cataremo i Turchi, + Li mazzaremo tuti, &c. + +In the proverbs, if not in the songs, a somewhat stronger impress +remains of the independent attitude assumed by the Republic in its +dealings with the Vatican. The Venetians denied Papal infallibility +by anticipation in the saying, "The Pope and the countryman know more +than the Pope alone;" and in one line of a nursery ditty, "El Papa no +xè Rè," they quietly abolished the temporal power. When Paul V. +laid the city under an interdict, the citizens made answer, "Prima +Veneziani e poi cristiani," a proverb that survives to this day. +"Venetians first" was the first article of faith of these men, or +rather it was to them a vital instinct. Their patriotism was a kind of +magnificent _amour propre_. No modern nation has felt a pride of +state so absorbing, so convinced, so transcendent: a pride which lives +incarnate in the forms and faces of the Venetian senators who look +serenely down on us from the walls of the Art Gallery out of the +company of kings, of saints, of angels, and of such as are higher than +the angels. + +A chance word or phrase now and then accidentally carries us back to +Republican times and institutions. The expression, "Thy thought is not +worth a _gazeta_," occurring in a love-song cited above, reminds us +that the term gazette is derived from a Venetian coin of that name, +value three-quarters of a farthing, which was the fee charged for the +privilege of hearing read aloud the earliest venture in journalism, a +manuscript news-sheet issued once a month at Venice in the sixteenth +century. The figure of speech, "We must have fifty-seven," meaning, +"we are entering on a serious business," has its origin in the +fifty-seven votes necessary to the passing of any weighty measure +in the Venetian Senate. The Venetian adapter of Molière's favourite +ditty, in lieu of preferring his sweetheart to the "bonne ville de +Paris," prefers her to "the Mint, the Arsenal, and the Bucentaur." +Every one is familiar with the quaint description of the outward +glories of St Mark's Square: + + In St Mark's Place three standards you descry, + And chargers four that seem about to fly; + There is a time-piece which appears a tower, + And there are twelve black men who strike the hour. + +Social prejudices creep in where politics are almost excluded. A group +of _Vilote_ relates to the feud--old as Venice--between the islanders +of San Nicolo and the islanders of Castello, the two sections of the +town east of the Grand Canal, in the first of which stands St Mark's, +in the last the arsenal. The best account of the two factions is +embodied in an ancient poem celebrating the fight that rendered +memorable St Simon's Day, 1521. The anonymous writer tells his tale +with an impartiality that might be envied by greater historians, and +he ends by putting a canto of peaceable advice into the mouth of a +dying champion, who urges his countrymen to dwell in harmony and love +one another as brothers. Are they not made of the same flesh and bone, +children alike of St Mark and his State? + + Tuti a la fin no semio patrioti, + Cresciu in sti campi, ste cale e cantoni? + +The counsel was not taken, and the old rivalry continued unabated, +fostered up to a certain point by the Republic, which saw in it, +amongst other things, a check on the power of the patricians. The +two sides represented the aristocratic and democratic elements of +the population: the Castellani had wealth and birth and fine palaces, +their upper classes monopolised the high offices of State, their lower +classes worked in the arsenal, served as pilots to the men-of-war, and +acted as rowers in the Bucentaur. The better-to-do Nicoloti came off +with a share of the secondary employs, whilst the larger portion of +the San Nicolo folk were poor fishermen. But their sense of personal +dignity was intense. They had a doge of their own, usually an old +sailor, who on high days and holidays sat beside the "renowned prince, +the Duke of Venice." This doge, or _Gastaldo dei Nicoloti_, was +answerable for the conduct of his people, of whom he was at once +superior and equal. "Ti voghi el dose et mi vogo col dose" ("You row +the doge, I row with the doge"), a Nicoloto would say to his rival. +It is easy to see how the party spirit engendered by the old feud +produced a sentiment of independence in even the poorest members +of the community, and how it thus became of great service to the +Republic. Its principal drawback was that of leading to hard blows, +the last occasion of its doing so being St Simon's Day, 1817, when a +fierce local outbreak was severely suppressed by the Austrians. Since +then the contending forces have agreed to dwell in harmony; whether +they love one another as brothers is not so clear. There are songs +still sung in which mutual recrimination takes the form of too strong +language for ears polite. "If a Nicoloto is born, a Count is born; if +a Castellan is born--set up the gallows," is the mildest dictum of a +son of San Nicolo, to which his neighbour replies, "When a Castellan +is born, a god is born; when a Nicoloto is born, a brigand is born." +The feud lingers on even in the matter of love. "Who is that youth who +passes so often?" inquires a girl; "if it be a Castellan, bid him be +off; if it be a Nicoloto, bid him come in." + +On the night of the Redeemer (in July) still takes place what was +perhaps one of the most ancient of Venetian customs. A fantastic +illumination, a bridge of boats, a people's ball, a prize-giving to +the best gondolas, a promiscuous wandering about the public gardens, +these form some of the features of the festival. But its most +remarkable point is the expedition to the Lido at three o'clock in the +morning to see the dawn. As the sun rises from his cradle of eastern +gold, he is greeted by the shout of thousands. Many of the youths leap +into the water and disport themselves like wild creatures of the sea. + +A word in conclusion as to the dialect in which Venetian songs are +composed. The earliest specimen extant consists in the distich-- + + Lom po far e die in pensar + E vega quelo che li po inchiontrar, + +which is to be read on the façade of St Mark's, opposite the ducal +palace. The meaning is, Look before you leap--an adage well suited +to the people who had the reputation of being the most prudent in the +world. This inscription belongs to the twelfth century. There used to +be a song sung at Ascension-tide on the occasion of the marriage of +the doge with the Adriatic, of which the signification of the words +was lost and only the sound preserved. It is a pity that it was never +written out phonetically; for modern scholars would probably have +proved equal to the task of interpreting it, even as they have given +us the secret of the runes on the neck of the Greek lion at the +arsenal. We owe to Dante a line of early Venetian--one of those +tantalising fragments of dialect poems in his posthumous work, _De +Vulgari Eloquentia_--fragments perhaps jotted down with the intention +of copying the full stanzas had he lived to finish the treatise. +Students have long been puzzled by Dante's judgment on the Venetian +dialect, which he said was so harsh that it made the conversation of +a woman resemble that of a man. The greatest master of the Italian +tongue was ruthless in his condemnation of its less perfect forms, +to the knowledge of which he was all the same indebted in no slight +degree. But it must not be overlooked that the question in Dante's day +was whether Italy should have a language or whether the nation should +go on oscillating between Latin and _patois_. For reasons patriotic +and political quite as much as literary, Dante's heart was set on the +adoption of one "illustrious, cardinal, aulic and polite" speech by +the country at large, and to that end he contributed incalculably, +though less by his treatise than by his poem. The involuntary hatred +of _patois_ as an outward sign of disunion has reappeared again in +some of those who in our own time have done and suffered most for +united Italy. Thus I once heard Signor Benedetto Cairoli say: "When +we were children, our mother would on no account let us speak anything +but good Italian." It is possible that Dante's strong feeling on the +subject made him unjust. It is also possible that the Venetian and the +other dialects have undergone a radical change, though this is not so +likely as may at first be supposed. A piece of nonsense written in the +seventeenth century gives an admirable idea of what the popular idiom +was then and is now: + + Mi son tanto inamorao + In dona Nina mia vesina + Che me dà gran disciplina, + Che me vedo desparao. + Gnao bao, bao gnao, + Mi son tanto inamorao! + + Mi me sento tanti afani + (Tuti i porto per so amore!) + Che par proprio che sia cani + Ch'al mi cor fazza brusore; + Che da tute quante l'ore + Mi me sento passionao. + Gnao bao, bao gnao, + Mi son tanto inamorao! + +In most respects Venetian would approach closely to standard Italian +were it not for the pronunciation; yet to the uneducated Venetian, +Italian sounds very strange. A maid-servant who had picked up a few +purely Italian words, was found to be under the delusion that she had +been learning English. The Venetian is unable to detect a foreigner by +his accent. An English traveller had been talking for some while to a +woman of Burano, when she asked in all seriousness, "Are you a Roman?" +A deficiency of grammar, a richness in expressive colloquialisms, and +the possession of certain terms of Greek origin, constitute the main +features of the Venetian dialect as it is known to us. It was used by +the Republic in the affairs of state, and it was generally understood +throughout Italy, because, as Evelyn records, all the world repaired +to Venice "to see the folly and madnesse of the Carnevall." With the +exception of Dante, every one seems to have been struck by its merits, +of which the chief, to modern ears, are vivacity and an exceeding +softness. It can boast of much elegant lettered poetry, as well as of +Goldoni's best comedies. To the reading of the latter when a child, +Alfieri traced his particular partiality for "the jargon of the +lagunes." Byron declared that its _naïveté_ was always pleasant in +the mouth of a woman, and George Sand mentions it approvingly as "ce +gentil parler Vénitien, fait à ce qu'il me semble pour la bouche des +enfants." + + + + +SICILIAN FOLK-SONG. + + +L'Isola del Fuoco--the Isle of Fire, as Dante named it--is singularly +rich in poetic associations. Acis, the sweet wood-born stream, +Galatea, the calm of the summer sea, and how many more flower-children +of a world which had not learned to "look before and after," of a +people who deified nature and naturalised deity, and felt at one with +both, send us thence across the ages the fragrance of their immortal +youth. Our mind's magic lantern shows us Sappho and Alcæus welcomed +in Sicily as guests, Pindar writing his Sicilian Odes, the mighty +Æschylus, burdened always perhaps with a sorrow--untainted by fretful +anger--because of that slight, sprung from the enthusiasm for the +younger poet, the heat of politics, we know not what, which drove him +forth from Athens: yet withal solaced by the homage paid to his grey +hairs, and not ill-content to die + + On the bank of Gela productive of corn. + +To Sicily we trace the germs of Greek comedy, and the addition of the +epode to the strophe and anti-strophe. We remember the story of how, +when the greatness of Athens had gone to wreck off Syracuse, a few +of the starving slaves in the _latomiæ_ were told they were free men, +thanks to their ability to recite passages from Euripides; we remember +also that new story, narrated in English verse, of the adventure which +befell the Rhodian maid Balaustion, on these Sicilian shores, and of +the good stead stood her by the knowledge of _Alcestis_. We think +of Sicily as the birth-place of the Idyllists, the soil which bore +through them an aftermath of Grecian song thick with blossom as the +last autumn yield of Alpine meads. Then by a strange transformation +scene we get a glimpse of Arabian Kasîdes hymning the beauties of the +Conca d'Oro, and as these disappear, arise the forms of the poets of +whom Petrarch says-- + + ... i Sicilian! + Che fur già primi + +--those wonderful poet discoverers, more wonderful as discoverers than +as poets, who found out that a new music was to be made in a tongue, +not Latin, nor yet Provençal--a tongue which had grown into life under +the double foster-fathership of Arabian culture and Norman rule, the +_lingua cortigiana_ of the palaces of Palermo, the "common speech" of +Dante. When we recollect how the earliest written essays in Italian +were composed in what once was styled Sicilian, it seems a trifle +unfair for the practical adaptator--in this case as often happens in +the case of individuals--to have so completely borne away the glory +from the original inventor as to cause the latter to be all but +forgotten. We now hear only of the "sweet Tuscan tongue," and even +the pure pronunciation of educated Sicilians is not admitted without +a comment of surprise. But whilst the people of Tuscany quickly +assimilated the _lingua cortigiana_ and made it their own, the people +of Sicily stuck fast to their old wild-flower language, and left +ungathered the gigantic lily nurtured in Palermitan hot-houses and +carried by the great Florentine into heaven and hell. They continued +speaking, not the Sicilian we call Italian, but the Sicilian we call +patois--the Sicilian of the folk-songs. The study of Italic dialects +is one by no means ill-calculated to repay the trouble bestowed +upon it, and that from a point of view not connected with their +philological aspect. How far, or it may be I should say, how soon they +will die out, in presence of the political unity of the country, and +of the general modern tendency towards the adoption of standard forms +of language, it is not quite easy to decide. Were we not aware of the +astonishing rapidity with which dialects, like some other things, may +give way when once the least breach is opened, we might suppose +that those of Italy were good for many hundred years. Even the +upper classes have not yet abandoned them: it is said that there +are deputies at Monte Citorio who find the flow of their ideas sadly +baulked by the parliamentary etiquette which expects them to be +delivered in Italian. And the country-people are still so strongly +attached to their respective idioms as to incline them to believe +that they are the "real right thing," to the disadvantage of all +competitors. Not long ago, a Lombard peasant-woman employed as nurse +to a neuralgic Sicilian gentleman who spoke as correctly as any +Tuscan, assured a third person with whom she chatted in her own +dialect--it was at a bath establishment--that her patient did not know +a single word of Italian! But it is reported that in some parts of +Italy the peasants are beginning to forget their songs; and when +a generation or two has lived through the æra of facile +inter-communication that makes Reggio but two or three days' journey +from Turin, when every full-grown man has served his term of military +service in districts far removed from his home, the vitality of the +various dialects will be put to a severe test. Come when it may, the +change will have in it much that is desirable for Italy: of this there +can be no question; nor can it be disputed that as a whole standard +Italian offers a more complete and plastic medium of expression than +Venetian, or Neapolitan, or Sicilian. Nevertheless, in the mouth of +the people the local dialects have a charm which standard Italian has +not--a charm that consists in clothing their thought after a +fashion which, like the national peasant costumes, has an essential +suitability to the purpose it is used for, and while wanting neither +grace nor richness, suggests no comparisons that can reflect upon it +unfavourably. The naïve ditty of a poet of Termini or Partinico is +too much a thing _sui generis_ for it to suffer by contrast with the +faultless finish of a sonnet in _Vita di Madonna Laura_. + +Sicily is notoriously richer in songs than any province of the +mainland; Vigo collected 5000, and the number of those since written +down seems almost incredible. It has even been conjectured that Sicily +was the original fountain-head of Italian popular poetry, and that it +is still the source of the greater part of the songs which circulate +through Italy.[A] Songs that rhyme imperfectly in the Tuscan version +have been found correct when put into Sicilian, a fact which points +to the island as their first home. Dr Pitrè, however, deprecates +such speculations as premature, and when so distinguished and so +conscientious an investigator bids us suspend our judgment, we can do +no better than to obey. What can be stated with confidence is, that +popular songs are inveterate travellers, and fly from place to place, +no one knows how, at much the same electrical rate as news spreads +amongst the people--a phenomenon of which the more we convince +ourselves that the only explanation is the commonplace one that lies +on the surface, the more amazing and even mysterious does it appear. + + [Footnote A: "Noi crediamo ... che il Canto popolare italiano + sia nativo di Sicilia. Nè con questo intendiamo asserire che + le plebi delle altre provincie sieno prive di poetica facoltà, + e che non vi sieno poesie popolari sorte in altre regioni + italiane, ed ivi cresciute e di là diramate attorno. Ma + crediamo che, nella maggior parte des casi, il Canto abbia per + patria di origine l'Isola, e per patria di adozione la + Toscana: che, nato con veste di dialetto in Sicilia, in + Toscana abbia assunto forma illustre e comune, e con siffatta + veste novella sia migrato nelle altre provincie."--_La Poesia + Popolare Italiana: Studj di Alessandro d'Ancona_, p. 285.] + +As regards the date of the origin of folk-songs in Sicily, the boldest +guess possibly comes nearest the truth, and this takes us back to a +time before Theocritus. Cautious students rest satisfied with adducing +undoubted evidence of their existence as early as the twelfth century, +in the reign of William II., whose court was famed for "good speakers +in rhyme of _every condition_." Moreover, it is certain that Sicilian +songs had begun to travel orally and in writing to the Continent +considerably before the invention of printing; and it is not unlikely +that many _canzuni_ now current in the island could lay claim to an +antiquity of at least six or seven hundred years. Folk-songs change +much less than might at first sight be expected in the course of their +transmission from father to son, from century to century; and some +among the songs still popular in Sicily have been discovered written +down in old manuscripts in a form almost identical to that in which +they are sung to-day. Although the methodical collection of folk-songs +is a thing but recently undertaken, the fact of there being such songs +in Sicily was long ago perfectly well known. An English traveller +writing in the last century remarks, that "the whole nation are poets, +even the peasants, and a man stands a poor chance for a mistress that +is not capable of celebrating her." He goes on to say, that happily in +the matter of serenades the obligations of a chivalrous lover are not +so onerous as they were in the days of the Spaniards, when a fair +dame would frown upon the most devoted swain who had not a cold in his +head--the presumed proof of his having dutifully spent the night "with +the heavens for his house, the stars for his shelter, the damp earth +for his mattress, and for pillow a harsh thistle"--to borrow the exact +words of a folk-poet. + +One class of folk-songs may be fairly trusted to speak for themselves +as to the date of their composition, namely, that which deals with +historical facts and personages. Until lately the songs of Italy were +believed, with the exception of Piedmont, to be of an exclusively +lyrical character; but fresh researches, and, above all, the +unremitting and enthusiastic efforts of Signor Salvatore +Salomone-Marino, have brought to light a goodly quantity of Sicilian +songs in which the Greek, Arabian, Norman, and Angevin denominations +all come in for their share of commemoration. And that the authors +of these songs spoke of the present, not of the past, is a natural +inference, when actual observation certifies that such is the +invariable custom of living folk-poets. For the people events soon +pass into a misty perspective, and the folk-poet is a sort of people's +journalist; he makes his song as the contributor to a newspaper writes +his leading article, about the matter uppermost for the moment in +men's minds, whether it be important or trivial. In 1860 he sang +of "the bringers of the tricolor," the "milli famusi guirreri," and +"Aribaldi lu libiraturi." In 1868 he joked over the grand innovation +by which "the poor folk of the piazza were sent to Paradise in a fine +coach," _i.e._, the substitution, by order of the municipality of +Palermo, of first, second, and third class funeral cars in lieu of the +old system of bearers. In 1870 he was very curious about the eclipse +which had been predicted. "We shall see if God confirms this news that +the learned tell us, of the war there is going to be between the moon +and the sun," says he, discreetly careful not to tie himself down to +too much faith or too much distrust. Then, when the eclipse has +duly taken place, his admiration knows no bounds. "What heads--what +beautiful minds God gives these learned men!" he cries; "what grace +is granted to man that he can read even the thoughts of God!" The +Franco-German war inspired a great many poets, who displayed, at all +events in the first stages of the struggle, a strong predilection for +the German side. All these songs long survive the period of the events +they allude to, and help materially to keep their memory alive; but +for a new song to be composed on an incident ten years old, would +simply argue that its author was not a folk-poet at all, in the strict +sense of the word. The great majority of the historical songs are +short, detached pieces, bearing no relation to each other; but now and +then we come upon a group of stanzas which suggest the idea of their +having once formed part of a consecutive whole; and in one instance, +that of the historical legend of the Baronessa di Carini, the +assembled fragments approach the proportions of a popular epic. But +it is doubtful whether this poem--for so we may call it--is thoroughly +popular in origin, though the people have completely adopted it, and +account it "the most beautiful and most dolorous of all the histories +and songs," thinking all the more of it in consequence of the profound +secrecy with which it has been preserved out of fear of provoking +the wrath of a powerful Sicilian family, very roughly handled by its +author. + +Of religious songs there are a vast number in Sicily, and the stock is +perpetually fed by the pious rhyme tournaments held in celebration of +notable saints' days at the village fairs. On such occasions the image +or relics of the saints are exhibited in the public square, and +the competitors, the assembled poetic talent of the neighbourhood, +proceed, one after the other, to improvise verses in his honour. If +they succeed in gaining the suffrage of their audience, which may +amount to five or six thousand persons, they go home liberally +rewarded. Along with these saintly eulogiums may be mentioned a style +of composition more ancient than edifying--the Sicilian parodies. +A pious or complimentary song is travestied into a piece of coarse +abuse, or a sample of that unblushing, astounding irreverence which +sometimes startles the most hardened sceptic, travelling in countries +where the empire of Catholicism has been least shaken--in Tyrol, +for instance, and in Spain. We cannot be sure whether the Sicilian +parodist deliberately intends to be profane, or is only indifferent as +to what weapons he uses in his eagerness to cast ridicule upon a rival +versifier--the last hypothesis seems to me to be the most plausible; +but it takes nothing from the significance of his profanity as it +stands. It is pleasant to turn from these several sections of Sicilian +verse, which, though valuable in helping us to know the people from +whom they spring, for the most part have but small merits when judged +as poetry, to the stream of genuine song which flows side by side with +them: a stream, fresh, clear, pure: a poesy always true in its artless +art, generally bright and ingenious in its imagery, sometimes tersely +felicitous in its expression. In his love lyrics, and but rarely save +in them, the Sicilian _popolano_ rises from the rhymester to the poet. + +The most characteristic forms of the love-songs of Sicily are those of +the _ciuri_, called in Tuscany _stornelli_, and the _canzuni_, called +in Tuscany _rispetti_. The _ciuri_ (flowers) are couplets or triplets +beginning with the name of a flower, with which the other line +or lines should rhyme. They abound throughout the island, and +notwithstanding the poor estimation in which the peasants hold them, +and the difficulty of persuading them that they are worth putting +on record, a very dainty compliment--just the thing to figure on +a valentine--may often be found compressed into their diminutive +compass. To turn such airy nothings into a language foreign and +uncongenial to them, is like manipulating a soap-bubble: the bubble +vanishes, and we have only a little soapy water left in the hollow +of our hand: a simile which unhappily is not far from holding good of +attempts at translating any species of Italian popular poetry. It +is true that in _Fra Lippo Lippi_ there are two or three charming +imitations of the _stornello_; but, then, Mr Browning is the poet who, +of all others, has got most inside of the Italian mind. Here is an +_aubade_, which will give a notion of the unsubstantial stuff the +_ciuri_ are made of: + + Rosa marina, + Lucinu l'alba e la stidda Diana: + Lu cantu è fattu, addui, duci Rusina. + +"Rose of the sea, the dawn and the star Diana are shining: the song is +done, farewell sweet Rosina." + +One of these flower-poets, invoking the Violet by way of heading, +tells his love that "all men who look on her forget their sorrows;" +another takes his oath that she outrivals sun, and moon, and stars. +"Jasmine of Araby," cries a third, "when thou art not near, I am +consumed by rage." A fourth says, "White floweret, before thy door I +make a great weeping." A fifth, night and day, bewails his evil fate. +A sixth observes that he has been singing for five hours, but that +he might just as well sing to the wind. A seventh feels the thorns +of jealousy. An eighth asks, "Who knows if Rosa will not listen to +another lover?" A ninth exclaims, + + Flower of the night, + Whoever wills me ill shall die to-night! + +With which ominous sentiment I will leave the _ciuri_, and pass on +to the yet more interesting _canzuni_: little poems, usually in eight +lines, of which there are so many thousand graceful specimens that it +is embarrassing to have to make a selection. + +Despite the wide gulf which separates lettered from illiterate poetry, +it is curious to note the not unfrequent coincidence between the +thought of the ignorant peasant bard and that of cultured poets. In +particular, we are now and then reminded of the pretty conceits of +Herrick, and also of the blithe paganism, the happy unconsciousness +that "Pan is dead," which lay in the nature of that most incongruous +of country parsons. Thus we find a parallel to "Gather ye Rosebuds:" + + Sweet, let us pick the fresh and opening rose, + Which doth each charm of form and hue display: + Hard by the margent of yon font it blows, + Mid guarding thorns and many a tufted spray; + And in yourself while springtide freshly glows, + Dear heart, with some sweet bloom my love repay: + Soon winter comes, all flowers to nip and close, + Nor love itself can hinder time's decay. + +No poet is more determined to deal out his compliments in a liberal, +open-handed way than is the Sicilian. While the Venetians and the +Tuscans are content with claiming seven distinctive beauties for +the object of their affection, the Sicilian boldly asserts that his +_bedda_ possesses no less than thirty-three _biddizzi_. In the same +manner, when he is about sending his salutations, he sends them +without stint: + + Many the stars that sparkle in the sky, + Many the grains of sand and pebbles small; + And in the ocean's plains the finny fry + And leaves that flourish in the woods and fall, + Countless earth's human hordes that live and die, + The flowers that wake to life at April's call, + And all the fruits the summer heats supply-- + My greetings sent to thee out-number all. + +On some rare occasions the incident which suggested the song may be +gathered from the lips of the person who recites it. In one case we +are told that a certain sailor, on his return from a long voyage, +hastened to the house of his betrothed, to bid her prepare for the +wedding. But he was met by the mother-in-law elect, who told him to go +his way, for his love was dead--the truth being that she had meanwhile +married a shoemaker. One fine day the disconsolate sailor had the not +unmixed gratification of seeing her alive and well, looking out of her +husband's house, and that night he sang her a reproachful serenade, +inquiring wherefore she had hidden from him, that though dead to him +she lived for another? This deceived mariner must have been a +rather exceptional individual, for although there are baker-poets, +carpenter-poets, waggoner-poets, poets in short of almost every branch +of labour and humble trade, a sailor-poet is not often to be heard of. +Dr Pitrè remarks that sailors pick up foreign songs in their voyages, +mostly English and American, and come home inclined to look down upon +the folk-songs and singers of their native land. + +The serenades and aubades are among the most delicate and elegant of +all the _canzuni d'amuri_; this is one, which contains a favourite +fancy of peasant lovers: + + Life of my life, who art my spirit and soul, + By no suspicions be nor doubts oppressed, + Love me, and scorn false jealousy's control-- + I not a thousand hearts have in my breast, + I had but one, and gave to thee the whole. + Come then and see, if thou the truth wouldst test, + Instead of my own heart, my love, my soul, + Thou wilt thine image find within my breast! + +Another poet treats somewhat the same idea in a drolly realistic way-- + + Last night I dreamt we both were dead, + And, love! beside each other laid. + Doctors and Surgeons filled the place + To make autopsy of the case-- + Knives, scissors, saws, with eager zest + Of each laid open wide the breast:-- + Dumfounded then was every one, + Yours held two hearts, but mine had none! + +The _canzuni_ differ very much as to adherence to the strict laws of +rhyme and metre; more often than not assonants are readily accepted in +place of rhymes, and their entire absence has been thought to cast a +suspicion of education on the author of a song. One truly illiterate +living folk-poet was, however, heard severely to criticise some of the +printed _canzuni_ which were read aloud to him, on just this ground of +irregularity of metre and rhyme. His name is Salvatore Calafiore, and +he was employed a few years ago in a foundry at Palermo, where he was +known among the workmen as "the poet." Being very poor, and having a +young wife and family to support, he bethought himself of appealing to +the proprietor of the foundry for a rise of wages, but the expedient +was hazardous: those who made complaints ran a great chance of getting +nothing by it save dismissal. So he offered up his petition in a +little poem to this effect: "As the poor little hungry serpent comes +out of its hole in search of food, heeding not the risk of being +crushed, thus Calafiore, timorous and hard-pressed, O most just sir, +asks of you help!" Calafiore was once asked what he knew about the +classical characters whose names he introduced into his poems: he +answered that some one had told him of them who knew little more of +them than he did. He added that "Jove was God of heaven, Apollo god of +music, Venus the planet of love, Cicero a good orator." On the whole, +the folk-poets are not very lavish in mythological allusion; when they +do make it, it is ordinarily fairly appropriate. "Wherever thou dost +place thy feet," runs a Borgetto _canzuna_, "carnations and roses, +and a thousand divers flowers, are born. My beautiful one, the goddess +Venus has promised thee seven and twenty things--new gardens, new +heavens, new songs of birds in the spot where thou dost take thy +rest." The Siren is one of the ancient myths most in favour: at +Partinico they sing: + + Within her sea-girt home the Siren dwells + And lures the spell-bound sailor with her lay, + Amid the shoals the fated bark compels + Or holds upon the reef a willing prey, + None ever 'scape her toils, while sinks and swells + Her rhythmic chant at close and break of day-- + Thou, Maiden, art the Siren of the sea, + Who with thy songs dost hold and fetter me. + +It is rarely indeed that we can trace a couple of these lyrics to the +same brain--we may not say "to the same hand," for the folk-poet's +hand is taken up with striking the anvil or guiding the plough; to +more intellectual uses he does not put it--yet expressing as they do +emotions which are not only the same at bottom, but are here felt and +regarded in precisely the same way, there results so much unity of +design and execution, that, as we read, unawares the songs weave +themselves into slight pastoral idylls--typical peasant romances in +which real _contadini_ speak to us of the new life wrought in them +by love. Even the repeated mention of the Sicilian diminutives of +the names of Salvatore and Rosina helps the illusion that a thread of +personal identity connects together many of the fugitive _canzuni_. +Thus we are tempted to imagine Turiddu and Rusidda as a pair of lovers +dwelling in the sunny Conca d'Oro--he "so sweet and beautiful a youth, +that God himself must surely have fashioned him"--a youth with "black +and laughing eyes, and a little mouth from whence drops honey:" she a +maiden of + + ... quattordicianni, + L'occhi cilestri e li capiddi biunni-- + +"fourteen years, celestial eyes, blonde hair;" to see her long tresses +"shining like gold spun by the angels," one would think "that she +had just fallen out of Paradise." "She is fairer than the foam of the +sea"-- + + "My little Rose in January born, + Born in the month of cold and drifted snow, + Its whiteness stays thy beauty to adorn, + Nought than thy velvet skin more white can show. + Thou art the star that shines, tho' bright the morn, + And casts on all around a silver glow." + +But Rusidda's mother will have nothing to say to poor Turiddu; he +complains, "Ah! God, what grief to have a tongue and not to be able to +speak; to see her and dare not make any sign! Ah, God in heaven, and +Virgin Mary, tell me what I am to do? I look at her, she looks at me, +neither I nor she can say a word!" Then an idea strikes him; he gets a +friend to take her a message: "When we pass each other in the street, +we must not let the folk see that we are in love, but you will lower +your eyes and I will lower my head; this shall be our way of saluting +one another. Every saint has his day, we must await ours." Encouraged +by this stratagem, Turiddu grows bold, and one dark night, when none +can see who it is, he serenades his "little Rose:" + + "Sleep, sleep, my hope, yea sleep, nor be afraid, + Sleep, sleep, my hope, in confidence serene, + For if we both in the same scales be weighed, + But little difference will be found between. + Have you for me unfeignèd love displayed, + My love for you shall greater still be seen. + If we could both in the same scales be weighed, + But small the difference would be found between." + +He does not think the song nearly good enough for her: "I know not +what song I can sing that is worthy of you," he says: he wishes he +were "a goldfinch or a nightingale, and had no equal for singing;" or, +better still, he would fain "have an angel come and sing her a song +that had never before been heard of out Paradise," for in Paradise +alone can a song be found appropriate to her. One day (it is Rusidda's +fête-day), Turiddu makes a little poem, and says in it: "All in roses +would I be clad, for I am in love with roses; I would have palaces +and little houses of roses, and a ship with roses decked, and a little +staircase all of roses, which I the fortunate one would ascend; but +ere I go up it, I wish to say to you, my darling, that for you I +languish." He watches her go to church: "how beautiful she is! Her air +is that of a noble lady!" The mother lingers behind with her gossips, +and Turiddu whispers to Rusidda, "All but the crown you look like a +queen." She answers: "If there rode hither a king with his crown who +said, 'I should like to place it on your head,' I should say this +little word, 'I want Turiddu, I want no crown.'" Turiddu tells her he +is sick from melancholy: "it is a sickness which the doctors cannot +cure, and you and I both suffer from it. It will only go away the day +we go to church together." + +But there seems no prospect of their getting married; Turiddu sends +his love four sighs, "e tutti quattru suspiri d'amuri:" + + "Four sighs I breathe and send thee, + Which from my heart love forces; + Health with the first attend thee, + The next our love discourses; + The third a kiss comes stealing; + The fourth before thee kneeling; + And all hard fate accusing + Thee to my sight refusing." + +And now he has to go upon a long journey; but before he starts he +contrives one meeting with Rusidda. "Though I shall no longer see +you, we yet may hope, for death is the only real parting," he says. "I +would have you constant, firm, and faithful; I would have you faithful +even unto death." She answers, "If I should die, still would my spirit +stay with you." A year passes; on Rusidda's _festa_ a letter arrives +from Turiddu: "Go, letter mine, written in my blood, go to my dear +delight; happy paper! you will touch the white hand of my love. I am +far away, and cannot speak to her; paper, do you speak for me." + +At last Turiddu returns--but where is Rusidda? "Ye stars that are in +the infinite heavens, give me news of my love!" + +Through the night "he wanders like the moon," he wanders seeking his +love. In his path he encounters Brown Death. "Seek her no more," says +this one; "I have her under the sod. If you do not believe me, my fine +fellow, go to San Francesco, and take up the stone of the sepulchre: +there you will find her." ... Alas! "love begins with sweetness and +ends in bitterness." + +The Sicilian's "Beautiful ideal" would seem to be the white rose +rather than the red, in accordance, perhaps, with the rule that makes +the uncommon always the most prized; or it may be, from a perception +of that touch of the unearthly, that pale radiance which gives the +fair Southerner a look of closer kinship with the pensive Madonna +gazing out of her aureole in the wayside shrine, than with the dark +damsels of the more predominant type. Some such angelical association +attached to golden heads has possibly disposed the Sicilian +folk-poet towards thinking too little of the national black eyes and +olive-carnation colouring. Not that brunettes are wholly without +their singers; one of these has even the courage to say that since his +_bedda_ is brown and the moon is white, it is plain that the moon must +leave the field vanquished. One dark beauty of Termini shows that she +is quite equal to standing up for herself. "You say that I am black?" +she cries, "and what of that? Black writing looks well on white paper, +black spices are worth more than white curds, and while dusky wine +is drunk in a glass goblet, the snow melts away unregarded in the +ditch."[1] But the apologetic, albeit spirited tone of this protest, +indicates pretty clearly that the popular voice gives the palm to +milk-white and snowy faced maidens; the possessors of _capiddi biunni_ +and _capidduzzi d'oru_ have no need to defend their charms, a hundred +canzuni proclaim them irresistible. "Before everything I am enamoured +of thy blonde tresses," says one lyrist. The luxuriant hair of the +Sicilian women is proverbial. A story is told how, when once Palermo +was about to surrender to the Saracens because there were no more +bowstrings in the town, an abundant supply was suddenly produced by +the patriotic dames cutting off their long locks and turning them to +this purpose. The deed so inspired the Palermitan warriors that they +speedily drove the enemy back, and the siege was raised. A gallant +poet adds: "The hair of our ladies is still employed in the same +office, but now it discharges no other shafts but those of Cupid, and +the only cords it forms are cords of love." + +In the early morning, almost all the year round the women may be +seen sitting before their doors undoing and doing up again this long +abundant hair. The chief part of their domestic work they perform out +in the sunshine; one thing only, but that the most important of all, +has to be done in the house--the never finished task of weaving the +clothes of the family. From earliest girlhood to past middle age the +Sicilian women spend many hours every day at the loom. A woman +of eighty, Rosa Cataldi of Borgetto, made the noble boast to +Salomone-Marino: "I have clothed with stuff woven by my hands from +fourteen to fifty years, myself, my brothers, my children, and their +children." A girl who cannot, or will not, weave is not likely to +find a husband. As they ply the shuttle, the women hardly cease from +singing, and many, and excellent also, are the songs composed in +praise of the active workers. The girl, not yet affianced, who is +weaving perhaps her modest marriage clothes, may hear, coming up from +the street, the first avowal of love: + + Ciuri d'aranci. + Bedda, tu tessi e tessennu mi vinci; + Bedda, tu canti, e lu me' cori chianci. + +It has been said that love begins with sweetness and ends in +bitterness. What a fine world it would be were Brown Death the only +agent in the bitter end of love! It is not so. Rusidda, who dies, is +possibly more fortunate than Rusidda who is married. When bride +and bridegroom return from the marriage rite, the husband sometimes +solemnly strikes his wife in presence of the assembled guests as a +sign of his henceforth unlimited authority. The symbol has but too +great appropriateness. Even in what may be called a happy marriage, +there is a formality akin to estrangement, once the knot is tied. +Husband and wife say "voi" to each other, talking to a third person, +they speak of one another as "he" and "she," as "mio cristiano," and +"mia cristiana," never as "my husband" and "my wife." The wife sits +down to table with the husband, but she scrupulously waits for him to +begin first, and takes tiny mouthfuls as if she were ashamed of eating +before him. Then, if the husband be out of humour, or if he thinks +that the wife does not work hard enough (an "enough" which can +never be reached), the nuptial blow is repeated in sad and miserable +earnest. The woman will not even weep; she bears all in silence, +saying meekly afterwards, "We women are always in the wrong, the +husband is the husband, he has a right even to kill us since we live +by him." These things have been recorded by one who loves the Sicilian +peasant, and who has defended him against many unfounded charges. A +hard case it would be for wedded Rusidda if she had not her songs and +the sun to console her. + +All the _canzuni_ that have been quoted are, so far as can be judged, +of strictly popular origin, nor is there any sign of continental +derivation in their wording or shape. Several, however, are the +common property of most of the Italian provinces. There is a charming +Vicentine version of "The Siren," and the "Four Sighs" makes its +appearance in Tuscany under a dress of pure Italian. Has Sicily, +then, a right to the honour of their invention? There is a +strong presumption that it has. On the other hand, there are some +Sicilianized songs of plainly foreign birth, which shows that if the +island gave much to the peninsula, it has had at least something back +in return. There is a third category, comprising the songs of the +Lombard colonies of Piazza and San Fratello, which have a purely +accidental connection with Sicily. The founders of this community were +Lombards or Longobards, who were attracted to Sicily somewhere in +the eleventh century, either by the fine climate and the demand for +soldiers of fortune, or by the marriage of Adelaide of Monferrato with +Count Roger of Hauteville. But what is far more curious than how or +why they came, is the circumstance of the extraordinary isolation in +which they seem to have lived, and their preservation to this day of +a dialect analogous with that spoken at Monferrato. In this dialect +there exist a good many songs, but a full collection of them has yet +to be made. + +Besides the _ciuri_ and _canzuni_, there is another style of +love-song, very highly esteemed by the Sicilian peasantry, and that +is the _aria_. When a peasant youth serenades his _'nnamurata_ with an +_aria_, he pays her by common consent the most consummate compliment +that lies in his power. The _arii_ are songs of four or more +stanzas--a form which is not so germane to the Sicilian folk-poet as +that of the _canzuna_; and, although he does use it occasionally, +it may be suspected that he more often adapts a lettered or foreign +_aria_ than composes a new one. An aria is nothing unless sung to a +guitar accompaniment, and is heard to great advantage when performed +by the barbers, who are in the habit of whiling away their idle hours +with that instrument. The Sicilian (lettered) poet, Giovanni Meli, +has written some admirable _arii_, many of which have become popular +songs. + +Meli's name is as oddly yoked with the title of _abate_ as Herrick's +with the designation of clergyman. He does not seem, as a matter of +fact, to have ever been an _abate_ at all. Once, when dining with a +person influential at court, his host inquired why he did not ask to +be appointed to a rich benefice then vacant. "Because," he replied, "I +am not a priest." And it appeared that when a young man he had adopted +the clerical habit for no other reason than that he intended to +practise medicine, and wished to gain access to convents, and to make +himself acceptable to the nuns. It was not an uncommon thing to do. +The public generally dubbed him with the ecclesiastical title. Not +long before his death, in 1815, he actually assumed the lesser orders, +and in true Sicilian fashion, wrote some verses to his powerful friend +to beg him to get him preferment, but he died too soon after to profit +by the result. The Sicilians are very proud of Meli. It is for them +alone probably to find much pleasure in his occasional odes--to others +their noble sentiments will be rather suggestive of the _sinfonia +eroica_ played on a flute; but the charm and lightness of his +Anacreontic poems must be recognised by all who care for poetry. He +had a nice feeling for nature too, as is shown in a sonnet of rare +beauty: + + Ye gentle hills, with intercepting vales, + Ye rocks with musk and clinging ivy dight; + Ye sparkling falls of water, silvery pale, + Still meres, and brooks that babble in the light; + Deep chasms, wooded steeps that heaven assail, + Unfruitful rushes, broom with blossoms bright, + And ancient trunks, encased in gnarled mail, + And caves adorned with crystal stalactite; + Thou solitary bird of plaintive song, + Echo that all dost hear, and then repeat, + Frail vines upheld by stately elms and strong, + And silent mist, and shade, and dim retreat; + Welcome me! tranquil scenes for which I long-- + The friend of haunts where peace and quiet meet. + +I must not omit to say a word about a class of songs which, in +Sicily as elsewhere, affords the most curious illustration of the +universality of certain branches of folk-lore--I mean the nursery +rhymes. One instance of this will serve for all. Sicilian nurses play +a sort of game on the babies' features, which consists in lightly +touching nose, mouth, eyes, &c., giving a caressing slap to the chin, +and repeating at the same time-- + + Varvaruttedu, + Vucca d'aneddu, + Nasu affilatu, + Occhi di stiddi, + Frunti quatrata, + E te' ccà 'na timpulata! + +Now this rhyme has not only its counterpart in the local dialect of +every Italian province, but also in most European languages. In France +they have it: + + Beau front, + Petits yeux, + Nez cancan, + Bouche d'argent, + Menton fleuri, + Chichirichi. + +We find a similar doggerel in Germany, and in England, as most people +know, there are at least two versions, one being-- + + Eye winker, + Tom Tinker, + Nose dropper. + Mouth eater, + Chinchopper, + Chinchopper. + +Of more intrinsic interest than this ubiquitous old nurse's nonsense +are the Sicilian cradle songs, in some of which there may also +be traced a family likeness with the corresponding songs of other +nations. As soon as the little Sicilian gets up in the morning he is +made to say-- + + While I lay in my bed five saints stood by; + Three at the head, two at the foot--in the midst was Jesus Christ. + +The Greek-speaking peasants of Terra d'Otranto have a song somewhat +after the same plan: + + I lay me down to sleep in my little bed; I lay me down to + sleep with my Mamma Mary: the Mamma Mary goes hence and leaves + me Christ to keep me company. + +Very tender is the four-line Sicilian hushaby, in which the proud +mother says-- + + How beautiful my son is in his swaddling clothes; just think + what he will be when he is big! Sleep, my babe, for the angel + passes: he takes from thee heaviness, and he leaves thee + slumber. + +There is in Vigo's collection a lullaby so exquisite in its blended +echoes from the cradle and the grave that it makes one wish for two +great masters in the pathos of childish things, such as Blake and +Schumann, to translate and set it to music. It is called "The Widow." + + Sweet, my child, in slumber lie, + Father's dead, is dead and gone. + Sleep then, sleep, my little son, + Sleep, my son, and lullaby. + + Thou for kisses dost not cry, + Which thy cheeks he heaped upon. + Sleep then, sleep, my pretty one, + Sleep, my child, and lullaby. + + We are lonely, thou and I, + And with grief and fear I faint. + Sleep then, sleep, my little saint, + Sleep, my child, and lullaby. + + Why dost weep? No father nigh. + Ah, my God! tears break his rest. + Darling, nestle to my breast, + Sleep, my child, and lullaby. + +Very scant information is to be had regarding the Sicilian folk-poets +of the past; with one exception their names and personalities have +almost wholly slipped out of the memory of the people, and that +exception is full three parts a myth. If you ask a Sicilian popolano +who was the chief and master of all rustic poets, he will promptly +answer, "Pietro Fullone;" and he will tell you a string of stories +about the poetic quarry-workman, dissolute in youth, devout in +old age, whose fame was as great as his fortune was small, and who +addressed a troop of admiring strangers who had travelled to Palermo +to visit him, and were surprised to find him in rags, in the following +dignified strain: + + Beneath these pilgrim weeds so coarse and worn + A heart may still be found of priceless worth. + The rose is ever coupled to the thorn. + The spotless lily springs from blackest earth. + Rubies and precious stones are only born + Amidst the rugged rocks, uncouth and swarth. + Then wonder not though till the end I wear + Nought but this pilgrim raiment poor and bare. + +Unfortunately nothing is more sure than that the real Pietro Fullone, +who lived in the 17th century, and published some volumes of poetry, +mostly religious, had as little to do with this legendary Fullone as +can well be imagined. It is credible that he may have begun life as +a quarry workman and ignorant poet, as tradition reports; but it is +neither credible that a tithe of the _canzuna_ attributed to him +are by the same author as the writer of the printed and distinctly +lettered poems which bear his name, nor that the bulk of the anecdotes +which profess to relate to him have any other foundation than that of +popular fiction. But though we hear but little, and cannot trust the +little we hear, of the folk-poet of times gone by, for us to +become intimately acquainted with him, we have only to go to his +representative, who lives and poetizes at the present moment. In +this or that Sicilian hamlet there is a man known by the name of "the +Poet," or perhaps "the Goldfinch." He is completely illiterate and +belongs to the poorest class; he is a blacksmith, a fisherman, or +a tiller of the soil. If he has the gift of improvisation, his +fellow-villagers have the satisfaction of hearing him applauded by the +Great Public--the dwellers in all the surrounding hamlets assembled at +the fair on St John's Eve. Or it may be he is of a meditative turn of +mind, and makes his poetry leisurely as he lies full length under +the lemon-trees taking his noontide rest. Should you pass by, it is +unlikely he will give himself the trouble of lifting his eyes: He +could not say the alphabet to save his life; but the beautiful earth +and skies and sea which he has looked on every day since he was born +have taught him some things not learnt in school. The little poem he +has made in his head is indeed a humble sort of poetry, but it is not +unworthy of the praise it gets from the neighbours who come dropping +into his cottage door, uninvited, but sure of a friendly welcome next +Sunday after mass, their errand being to find out if the rumour is +true that "the Goldfinch" has invented a fresh _canzuna_? + +Such is the peasant poet of to-day; such he was five hundred or a +thousand years ago. He presents a not unlovely picture of a stage in +civilisation which is not ours. To-morrow it will not be his either; +he will learn to read and write; he will taste the fruit of the Tree +of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as it grows in our great centres +of intellectual activity; he will begin to "look before and after." +Still, he will do all this in his own way, not in our way, and so much +of his childhood having clung to him in youth, it follows that his +youth will not wholly depart from him in manhood. Through all the +wonderfully mixed vicissitudes of his country the Sicilian has +preserved an unique continuity of spiritual life; Christianity +itself brought him to the brink of no moral cataclysm like that which +engulfed the Norseman when he forsook Odin and Thor for the White +Christ. It may therefore be anticipated that the new epoch he is +entering upon will modify, not change his character. That he has +remained outside of it so long, is due rather to the conditions under +which he has lived than to the man; for the Sicilian grasps new ideas +with an almost alarming rapidity when once he gets hold of them; +of all quick Italians he is the quickest of apprehension. This very +intelligence of his, called into action by the lawlessness of his +rulers and by ages of political tyranny and social oppression, has +enabled him to accomplish that systemization of crime which at one +time bred the Society of the Blessed Pauls, and now is manifested in +the Mafia. You cannot do any business harmless or harmful, you +cannot buy or sell, beg or steal, without feeling the hand of an +unacknowledged but ever present power which decides for you what you +are to do, and levies a tax on whatever profit you may get out of +the transaction. If a costermonger sells a melon for less than the +established price, his fellows consider that they are only executing +the laws of their real masters when they make him pay for his temerity +with his life. The wife of an English naval officer went with her maid +to the market at Palermo, and asked the price of a fish which, it was +stated, cost two francs. She passed on to another stall where a fish +of the same sort was offered her for 1.50. She said she would buy it, +and took out of her purse a note for five _lire_, which she gave the +vendor to change. Meanwhile, unobserved, the first man had come up +behind them, and no sooner was the bargain concluded, than he whipped +a knife out of his pocket, and in a moment more would have plunged it +in the second man's breast, had not the lady pushed back his arm, +and cried by some sudden inspiration, "Wait, he has not given me my +change!" No imaginable words would have served their purpose so well; +the man dropped the knife, burst out laughing, and exclaimed: "Che +coraggio!" The brave Englishwoman nearly fainted when she returned +home. Her husband asked what was the matter, to which she answered: "I +have saved a man's life, and I have no idea how I did it." + +Something has been done to lessen the hereditary evil, but the cure +has yet to come. It behoves the Sicilians of a near future to stamp +out this plague spot on the face of their beautiful island, and thus +allow it to garner the full harvest of prosperity lying in its mineral +wealth and in the incomparable fertility of its soil. That it is only +too probable that the people will lose their lyre in proportion as +they learn their letters is a poor reason for us to bid them stand +still while the world moves on; human progress is rarely achieved +without some sacrifices--the one sacrifice we may not make, whatever +be the apparent gain, is that of truth and the pursuit of it. + + [Footnote 1: So Virgil: + + "Alba ligustra cadunt, vaccinia nigra leguntur." + ] + + + + +GREEK SONGS OF CALABRIA. + + +That the connecting link between Calabria and Greece was at one time +completely cut in two, is an assumption which is commonly made, but +it is scarcely a proved fact. What happened to the Italian Greeks on +their surrender to Rome? In a few instances they certainly disappeared +with extreme rapidity. Aristoxenus, the peripatetic musician, relates +of the Poseidonians--"whose fate it was, having been originally Greek, +to be barbarised, becoming Tuscans or Romans," that they still met to +keep one annual festival, at which, after commemorating their ancient +customs, they wept together over their lost nationality. This is +the pathetic record of men who could not hope. In a little while, +Poseidonia was an obscure Roman town famous only for its beautiful +roses. But the process of "barbarisation" was not everywhere so swift. +Along the coast-line from Rhegium to Tarentum, Magna Græcia, in the +strict use of the term, the people are known to have clung so long +to their old language and their old conditions of life that it is at +least open to doubt if they were not clinging to them still when it +came to be again a habit with Greeks to seek an Italian home. In the +ninth and tenth centuries the tide of Byzantine supremacy swept into +Calabria from Constantinople, only, however, to subside almost as +suddenly as it advanced. Once more history well-nigh loses sight of +the Greeks of Italy. Yet at a moment of critical importance to modern +learning their existence was honourably felt. Petrarch's friend and +master, Barlaam, who carried the forgotten knowledge of Homer across +the Alps, was by birth a Calabrian. In Barlaam's day there were large +communities of Greeks both in Calabria and in Terra d'Otranto. A +steady decrease from then till now has brought their numbers down to +about 22,800 souls in all. These few survivors speak a language which +is substantially the same as modern Greek, with the exceptions that it +is naturally affected by the surrounding Italic dialects and that it +contains hardly a Turkish or a Sclavonic word. Their precise origin is +still a subject of conjecture. Soon after Niebuhr had hailed them as +Magna Græcians pure and simple, they were pronounced offhand to be +quite recent immigrants; then the date of their arrival was assigned +to the reign of the first or second Basil; and lastly there is a +growing tendency to push it back still further and even to admit that +some strain of the blood of the original colonists may have entered +into the elements of their descent. On the whole, it seems easier to +believe that though their idiom was divided from the Romaic, it yet +underwent much the same series of modifications, than to suppose them +to have been in Greece when the language of that country was saturated +with Sclavonic phrases, which have only been partly weeded out within +the last thirty years. + +Henry Swinburne visited the Greek settlements in 1780 or thereabouts, +but like most of his contemporaries he mixes up the Greek with the +Albanians, of whom there are considerable colonies in Calabria, dating +from the death of Skanderbeg. Even in this century a German savant +was assured at Naples that the so-called Greeks were one and all +Albanians. The confusion is not taken as a compliment. No one has +stayed in the Hellenic kingdom without noticing the pride that goes +along with the name of Greek--a pride which it is excusable to smile +at, but which yet has both its touching and its practical aspect, for +it has remade a nation. The Greeks of Southern Italy have always had +their share of a like feeling. "We are not ashamed of our race, +Greeks we are, and we glory in it," wrote De Ferraris, a Greek born +at Galatone in 1444, and the words would be warmly endorsed by the +enlightened citizens of Bova and Ammendolea, who quarrel as to which +of the two places gave birth to Praxiteles. The letterless classes do +not understand the grounds of the Magna Græcian pretensions, but they +too have a vague pleasure in calling themselves Greek and a vague idea +of superiority over their "Latin" fellow-countrymen. "Wake up," sings +the peasant of Martignano in Terra d'Otranto, "wake up early to hear a +Grecian lay, so that the Latins may not learn it." + + Fsunna, fsunna, na cusi ena sonetto + Grico, na mi to matun i Latini. + +Bova is the chief place in Calabria where Greek survives. The +inhabitants call it "Vua," or simply "Hora." The word "hora," _the +city_, is applied by the Greeks of Terra d'Otranto to that part of +their hamlets which an Englishman would call "the old village." It is +not generally known that "city" is used in an identical sense by old +country-folks in the English Eastern counties. The Bovesi make a third +of the whole Greek-speaking population of Calabria, and Bova has the +dignity of being an episcopal seat, though its bishop has moved his +residence to the Marina, a sort of seaside suburb, five miles distant +from the town. Thirty years ago the ecclesiastical authorities were +already agitating for the transfer, but the people opposed it till the +completion of the railway to Reggio and the opening of a station at +the Marina di Bova settled the case against them. The cathedral, the +four or five lesser churches, the citadel, even the Ghetto, all tell +of the unwritten age of Bova's prosperity. Old street-names perpetuate +the memory of the familiar spirits of the place; the Lamiæ who lived +in a particular quarter, the _Fullitto_ who frequented the lane under +the cathedral wall. Ignoring Praxiteles, the poorer Bovesi set faith +in a tradition that their ancestors dwelt on the coast, and that it +was in consequence of Saracenic incursions that they abandoned their +homes and built a town on the crags of Aspromonte near the lofty +pastures to which herds of cattle (_bovi_) were driven in the summer. +The name of Bova would thus be accounted for, and its site bears out +the idea that it was chosen as a refuge. The little Greek city hangs +in air. To more than one traveller toiling up to it by the old Reggio +route it has seemed suggestive of an optical delusion. There is +refreshment to be had on the way: a feast for the sight in pink and +white flowers of gigantic oleanders; a feast for the taste in the +sweet and perfumed fruit of the wild vine. Still it is disturbing +to see your destination suspended above your head at a distance that +seems to get longer instead of shorter. Some comfort may be got from +hearing Greek spoken at Ammendolea, itself an eyrie, and again at +Condufuri. A last, long, resolute effort brings you, in spite of your +forebodings, to Bova, real as far as stones and fountains, men and +women, and lightly-clothed children can make it; yet still half a +dream, you think, when you sit on the terrace at sunset and look +across the blue Ionian to the outline, unbroken from base to crown, of +"Snowy Ætna, nurse of endless frost, the prop of heaven." + +There is plenty of activity among the Greeks of Calabria Ultra. Many +of them contrive to get a livelihood out of the chase; game of +every sort abounds, and wolves are not extinct. In the mountaineers' +cottages, which shelter a remarkable range of animals, an infant wolf +sometimes lies down with a tame sheep; whilst on the table hops a +domesticated eagle, taken when young from its nest in defiance of +the stones dropped upon the robber by the outraged parent-birds. The +peasants till the soil, sow corn, plant vegetables, harvest the olives +and grapes, gather the prickly pears, make cheese, tend cattle, and +are wise in the care of hives. It is a kind of wisdom of which their +race has ever had the secret. The Greek Calabrians love bees as they +were loved by the idyllic poets. "Ehi tin cardia to melissa" ("he has +the heart of a bee"), is said of a kindly and helpful man. Sicilian +Hybla cannot have yielded more excellent honey than Bova and +Ammendolea. It is sad to think of, but it is stated on good authority +that the people of those lofty cities quarrel over their honey as much +as about Praxiteles. Somehow envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness +find a way into the best of real idylls. You may live at the top of +a mountain and cordially detest your neighbour. The folk of Condufuri +greet the folk of Bova as Vutáni dogs, which is answered by the +epithet of Spesi-spásu, all the more disagreeable because nobody knows +what it means. In Terra d'Otranto the dwellers in the various Greek +hamlets call each other thieves, asses, simpletons, and necromancers. +The Italian peasants are inclined to class Greeks and Albanians alike +in the category of "Turchi," and though the word Turk, as used by +Italians, in some cases simply means foreign, it is a questionable +term to apply to individuals. The Greeks, with curious scorn, are +content to fling back the charge of Latin blood. + +When the day's work is done, comes the frugal evening meal; a dish of +_ricotta_, a glass of wine and snow. Wine is cheap in Calabria, where +the finest variety is of a white sweet kind called _Greco_; and the +heights of Aspromonte provide a supply of frozen snow, which is a +necessary rather than a luxury in this climate. About the hour of +Avemmaria the bagpipers approach. In the mountains the flocks +follow the wild notes of the "Zampogna" or "Ceramedda," unerringly +distinguishing the music of their own shepherd. A visit from the +Zampognari to hill-town, or village sets all the world on the alert. +There is gossiping, and dancing, and the singing of songs, in which +expression takes the place of air. Two young men sing together, +without accompaniment, or one sings alone, accompanied by bagpipe, +violin, and guitar. So the evening passes by, till the moon rises and +turns the brief, early darkness into a more glorified day. The little +hum of human sound dies in the silence of the hills; only perhaps a +single clear, sweet voice prolongs the monotone of love. + +The Italian complimentary alphabet is unknown to the Greek poets. The +person whom they address is not apostrophised as Beauty or Beloved, +or star, or angel, or _Fior eterno_, or _Delicatella mia_. They do not +carry about ready for use a pocketful of poetic-sugared rose-leaves, +nor have they the art of making each word serve as an act of homage or +a caress. It is true that "caxedda," a word that occurs frequently in +their songs, has been resolved by etymologists into "pupil of my eye;" +but for the people it means simply "maiden." The Greek Calabrian gives +one the impression of rarely saying a thing because it is a pretty +thing to say. If he treats a fanciful idea, he presents it, as it +were, in the rough. Take for instance the following:-- + + Oh! were I earth, and thou didst tread on me, + Or of thy shoe the sole, this too were sweet! + Or were I just the dress that covers thee, + So might I fall entangling round thy feet. + Were I the crock, and thou didst strike on me, + And we two stooped to catch the waters fleet; + Or were I just the dress that covers thee, + So without me thou couldst not cross the street. + +Here the fancy is the mere servant of the thought behind it. The lover +does not figure himself as the fly on the cheek of his mistress, or +the flower on her breast. There is no intrinsic prettiness in the +common earth or the common water-vessel, in the sole of a worn shoe, +or in a workaday gown. + +It cannot be pretended that the Greek is so advanced in untaught +culture as some of his Italian brothers; in fact there are specimens +of the _Sonetto Grico_ which are so bald and prosaic that the "Latins" +might not be at much pains to learn them even were they sung at +noonday. The Titianesque glow which illuminates the plain materials +of Venetian song must not be looked for. What will be found +in Græco-Calabrian poesy is a strong appearance of sincerity, +supplemented at times by an almost startling revelation of tender and +chivalrous feeling. To these Greek poets of Calabria love is another +name for self-sacrifice. "I marvel how so fair a face can have a heart +so tyrannous, in that thou bearest thyself so haughtily towards me, +while for thee I take no rest; and thou dost as thou wilt, because +I love thee--if needs be that I should pour out my blood with all my +heart for thee, I will do it." This is love which discerns in its own +depths the cause of its defeat. A reproach suggestive of Heine in +its mocking bitterness changes in less than a moment to a cry of +despairing entreaty-- + + I know you love me not, say what you may, + I'll not believe, no, no, my faithless one; + With all the rest I see you laugh and play, + 'Tis only I, I only whom you shun. + Ah, could I follow where you lead the way: + The obstinate thoughts upon your traces run + Make me a feint of love, though you have none, + For I must think upon you night and day. + +The scene is easily pictured: the bravery of words at meeting, all the +just displeasure of many a day bursting forth; then the cessation of +anger in the beloved presence and the final unconditional surrender. A +lighter mood succeeds, but love's royal clemency is still the text: + + Say, little girl, what have I done to thee, + What have I done to thee that thou art dumb? + Oft wouldst thou seek me once, such friends were we, + But now thou goest away whene'er I come. + If thou hast missed in aught, why quick, confess it, + For thee this heart will all, yes all, forgive; + If miss be mine, contrive that I should guess it; + And soon the thing shall finish, as I live! + +The dutiful lover rings all the changes on humble remonstrance: + + I go where I may see thee all alone, + So I may kneel before thee on the ground, + And ask of thee how is it that unknown + Unto thy heart is every prick and wound? + Canst thou not see that e'en my breath is flown, + Thinking of thee while still the days go round? + If thou wouldst not that I should quickly die, + Love only me and bid the rest good-bye. + +He might as well speak to the winds or to the stones, and he admits +as much. "Whensoever I pass I sing to make thee glad; if I do not come +for a few hours I send thee a greeting with my eyes. But thou dost act +the deaf and likewise the dumb: pity thou hast none for my tears." +If he fails to fulfil his prophecy of dying outright, at any rate he +falls into the old age of youth, which arrives as soon as the bank of +hope breaks: + + Come night, come day, one only thought have I, + Which graven on my heart must ever stay; + Grey grows my hair and dismal age draws nigh, + Wilt thou not cease the tyrant's part to play? + Thou seem'st a very Turk for cruelty, + Of Barbary a very Turk I say; + I know not why thy love thou dost deny, + Or why with hate my love thou dost repay. + +This may be compared with a song taken down from the mouth of a +peasant near Reggio, an amusing illustration of the kind of thing in +favour with Calabrian herdsmen:-- + + Angelical thou art and not terrene, + Who dost kings' wives excel in loveliness! + Thou art a pearl, or Grecian Helen, I ween, + For whom Troy town was brought to sore distress; + Thine are the locks which graced the Magdalene, + Lucrece of Rome did scarce thy worth possess: + If thou art pitiless to me, oh, my Queen, + No Christian thou, a Turk, and nothing less! + +A glance at the daughter of Greek Calabria will throw some light on +the plaints of her devoted suitors. The name she bears = _Dihatera_, +brings directly to mind the Sanskrit _Duhita_; and the vocation of the +Græco-Calabrian girl is often as purely pastoral as that of the Aryan +milkmaid who stood sponsor for so large a part of maidenhood in +Asia and in Europe. She is sent out into the hills to keep sheep; a +circumstance not ignored by the shepherd lad who sits in the shade and +trills on his treble reed. Ewe's milk is as much esteemed as in the +days of Theocritus; it forms the staple of the inevitable _ricotta_. +In the house the Greek damsel never has her hands idle. She knows how +to make the mysterious cakes and comfits, for which the stranger is +bound to have as large an appetite in Calabria as in the isles of +Greece. A light heart lightens her work, whatever it be. "You sit on +the doorstep and laugh as you wind the reels, then you go to the +loom, _e ecínda magna travudia travudia_" ("and sing those beautiful +songs"). So says the ill-starred poet, who discovers to his cost that +it is just this inexhaustible merriment that lends a sharp edge to +maiden cruelty. "I have loved you since you were a little thing, never +can you leave my heart; you bound me with a light chain; my mind +and your mind were one. Now,"--such is the melancholy outcome of it +all--"now you are a perfect little fox to me, while you will join in +any frolic with the others." The fair tyrant develops an originality +of thought which surprises her best friends: "Ever since you were +beloved, you have always an idea and an opinion!" It is beyond human +power to account for her caprices: "You are like a fay in the rainbow, +showing not one colour, but a thousand." When trouble comes to her as +it comes to all--when she has a slight experience of the pain she +is so ready to inflict--she does not meekly bow her head and suffer. +"Manamu," cries a girl who seems to have been neglected for some one +of higher stature. "Mother mine, I have got a little letter, and all +sorts of despair. _She_ is tall, and _I_ am little, and I have not the +power to tear her in pieces!"--as she has probably torn the sheet of +paper which brought the unwelcome intelligence. She goes on to say +that she will put up a vow in a chapel, so as to be enabled to do +some personal, but not clearly explained damage to the cause of her +misfortunes. There is nothing new under the sun; the word "anathema" +originally meant a votive offering: one of those execratory tablets, +deposited in the sacred places, by means of which the ancient Greeks +committed their enemies to the wrath of the Infernal Goddesses. Mr +Newton has shown that it was the gentler sex which availed itself, by +far the most earnestly, of the privilege. Most likely our Lady of Hate +in Brittany would have the same tale to tell. Impotence seeks strange +ways to compass its revenge. + +In some extremities the lover has recourse, not indeed to anathemas, +but to irony. "I am not a reed," he protests, "that where you bend me +I should go; nor am I a leaf, that you should move me with a breath." +Then, after observing that poison has been poured on his fevered +vitals, he exclaims, "Give your love to others, and just see if they +will love you as I do!" One poet has arrived at the conclusion that +all the women of a particular street in Bova are hopelessly false: +"Did you ever see a shepherd wolf, or a fox minding chickens, or a pig +planting lettuces, or an ox, as sacristan, snuffing out tapers with +his horns? As soon will you find a woman of Cuveddi who keeps her +faith." Another begins his song with sympathy, but ends by uttering a +somewhat severe warning: + + Alas, alas! my heart it bleeds to see + How now thou goest along disconsolate; + And in thy sorrow I no help can be-- + My own poor heart is in a piteous state. + Come with sweet words--ah! come and doctor me, + And lift from off my heart this dolorous weight. + If thou come not, then none can pardon thee: + Go not to Rome for shrift; it is too late. + +The Calabrian Greek has more than his share of the pangs of unrequited +love; that it is so he assures us with an iteration that must prove +convincing. Still, some balm is left in Gilead. Even at Bova there +are maidens who do not think it essential to their dignity to act the +_rôle_ of Eunica. The poorest herdsman, the humblest shepherd, has a +chance of getting listened to; a poor, bare chance perhaps, but one +which unlocks the door to as much of happiness as there is in the +world. At least the accepted lover in the mountains of Calabria would +be unwilling to admit that there exists a greater felicity than his. +If he goes without shoes, still "love is enough:" + + Little I murmur against my load of woe-- + Our love will never fail, nor yet decline; + For to behold thy form contents me so, + To see thee laugh with those red lips of thine. + Dost thou say not a word when past I go? + This of thy love for me is most sure sign; + Our love will no decline or failing know + Till in the sky the sun shall cease to shine. + +Karro, the day-labourer (to whom we will give the credit of inventing +this song), would not, if he could, put one jot of his burden on +Filomena of the Red Lips. Provided she laughs, he is sufficiently +blest. It so happens that Filomena is his master's granddaughter; +hence, alas! the need of silence as the sign of love. The wealthy old +peasant has sworn that the child of his dead son shall never wed a +penniless lad, who might have starved last winter if he had not given +him work to do, out of sheer charity. Karro comes to a desperate +resolution: he will go down to Reggio and make his fortune. When he +thinks it over, he feels quite confident of success: other folks have +brought back lots of money to Bova out of the great world, and why +should not he? In the early morning he calls Filomena to bid her a +cheerful farewell: + + Come hither! run! thy friend must go away; + Come with a kiss--the time is flying fast. + Sure am I thou thy word wilt not betray, + And for remembrance' sake my heart thou hast. + Weep not because I leave thee for a day-- + Nay, do not weep, for it will soon be past; + And, I advise thee, heed not if they say, + "Journeys like this long years are wont to last." + +Down at Reggio, Karro makes much poetry, and, were it not for his +defective education, one might think that he had been studying Byron: + + If I am forced far from thine eyes to go, + Doubt not, ah! never doubt my constancy; + The very truth I tell, if thou wouldst know-- + Distance makes stronger my fidelity. + On my sure faith how shouldst thou not rely? + How think through distance I can faithless grow? + Remember how I loved thee, and reply + If distance love like mine can overthrow. + +The fact is that he has not found fortune-making quite so quick a +business as he had hoped. To the sun he says, when it rises, "O Sun! +thou that travellest from east to west, if thou shouldst see her whom +I love, greet her from me, and see if she shall laugh. If she asks how +I fare, tell her that many are my ills; if she asks not this of thee, +never can I be consoled." One day, in the market place, he meets a +friend of his, Toto Sgrò, who has come from Bova with wine to sell. +Here is an opportunity of safely sending a _sonetto_ to the red-lipped +Filomena. The public letter-writer is resorted to. This functionary +gets out the stock of deep pink paper which is kept expressly in the +intention of enamoured clients, and says gravely "Proceed." "An ímme +lárga an' du lúcchiu tu dicússu," begins Karro. "Pray use a tongue +known to Christians," interposes the scribe. Toto Sgrò, who is +present, remarks in Greek that such insolence should be punished; but +Karro counsels peace, and racks his brains for a poem in the Calabrese +dialect. Most of the men of Bova can poetize in two languages. The +poem, which is produced after a moderate amount of labour, turns +chiefly on the idle talk of mischief-makers, who are sure to insinuate +that the absent are in the wrong. "The tongue of people is evil +speaking; it murmurs more than the water of the stream; it babbles +more than the water of the sea. But what ill can folks say of us if we +love each other? I love thee eternally. Love me, Filomena, and think +nothing about it." + + Amame, Filomena, e nu' pensare! + +Towards spring-time, Karro goes to Scilla to help in the sword-fish +taking; it is a bad year, and the venture does not succeed. He nearly +loses courage--fate seems so thoroughly against him. Just then he +hears a piece of news: at the _osteria_ there is an _Inglese_ who has +set his mind on the possession of a live wolf cub. "Mad, quite mad, +like all _Inglesi_," is the comment of the inhabitants of Scilla. +"Who ever heard of taking a live wolf?" Karro, as a mountaineer, sees +matters in a different light. Forthwith he has an interview with the +Englishman; then he vanishes from the scene for two months. "Poveru +giuvinetto," says the host at the inn, "he has been caught by an +old wolf instead of catching a young one!" At the end of the time, +however, Karro limps up to the door with an injured leg, and hardly +a rag left to cover him; but carrying on his back a sack holding two +wolf cubs, unhurt and tame as kittens. The gratified _Inglese_ gives a +bountiful reward; he is not the first of his race who has acted as the +_deus ex machina_ of a love-play on an Italian stage. Nothing remains +to be done but for Karro to hasten back to Bova. Yet a kind of +uneasiness mixes with his joy. What has Filomena been doing and +thinking all this while! He holds his heart in suspense at the sight +of her beauty: + + In all the world fair women met my gaze, + But none I saw who could with thee compare; + I saw the dames whom most the Rhegians praise, + And by the thought of thee they seemed not fair. + When thou art dressed to take the morning air + The sun stands still in wonder and amaze; + If thou shouldst scorn thy love of other days, + I go a wanderer, I know not where. + +The story ends well. Filomena proves as faithful as she is fair; +Karro's leg is quickly cured, and the old man gives his consent to the +marriage--nay more, feeble as he is now, he is glad to hand over the +whole management of the farm to his son-in-law. Thus the young couple +start in life with the three inestimable blessings which a Greek poet +reckons as representing the sum total of human prosperity: a full +granary, a dairy-house to make cheese in, and a fine pig. + +In collections of Tuscan and Sicilian songs it is common to find a +goodly number placed under the heading "Delle loro bellezze." The +Greek songs of Calabria that exactly answer to this description +are few. A new Zeuxis might successfully paint an unseen Tuscan or +Sicilian girl--local Anacreons by the score would give him the needful +details: the colour of the hair and eyes, the height, complexion, +breadth of shoulders, smallness of waist; nor would they forget to +mention the nobility of pose and carriage, _il leggiadro portamento +altero_, which is the crowning gift of women south of the Alps. It can +be recognized at once that the poets of Sicily and Tuscany have not +merely a vague admiration for beauty in general; they have an innate +artistic perception of what goes to constitute the particular form +of beauty before their eyes. Poorer in words and ideas, the Greek +Calabrian hardly knows what to say of his beloved, except that she is +_dulce ridentem_, "sweetly-laughing," and that she has small red lips, +between which he is sure that she must carry honey-- + + To meli ferri s' ettunda hilúcia ... + +He seems scarcely to notice whether she is fair or dark. Fortunately +it is not impossible to fill in the blank spaces in the picture. The +old Greek stamp has left a deep impression at home and abroad. Where +there were Greeks there are still men and women whose features are +cut, not moulded, and who have a peculiar symmetry of form, which is +not less characteristic though it has been less discussed. A friend +of mine, who accompanied the Expedition of the Thousand, was struck +by the conformity of the standard of proportion to be observed in the +women of certain country districts in Sicily with the rule followed in +Greek sculpture; it is a pity that the subject is not taken in hand +by some one who has more time to give to it than a volunteer on the +march. I have said "men _or_ women," for it is a strange fact that the +heritage of Greek beauty seems to fall to only one sex at a time. At +Athens and in Cyprus young men may be seen who would have done credit +to the gymnasia, but never a handsome girl; whilst at Arles, in +Sicily, and in Greek Calabria the women are easily first in the race. +The typical Græco-Calabrian maiden has soft light hair, a fairness of +skin which no summer heats can stain, and the straight outline of a +statue. There is another pattern of beauty in Calabria: low forehead, +straight, strongly-marked eyebrows, dark, blue, serious eyes, lithe +figure, elastic step. Place beside the women of the last type a man +dyed copper-colour, with black, lank locks, and the startled look of +a wild animal. The Greeks have many dark faces, and many ugly faces, +too; for that matter, uncompromising plainness was always amongst the +possibilities of an Hellenic physiognomy. But the beautiful dark girl +and her lank-locked companion do not belong to them. Whom they do +belong to is an open question; perhaps to those early Brettians who +dwelt in the forest of the Syla, despised by the Greeks as savages, +and docketed by the Romans, without rhyme or reason, as the +descendants of escaped criminals. Calabria offers an inviting field +to the ethnologist. It is probable that the juxtaposition of various +races has not led in any commensurate degree to a mixture of +blood. Each commune is a unit perpetually reformed out of the same +constituents. Till lately intermarriage was carried to such a pitch +that it was rare to meet with a man in a village who was not closely +related to every other inhabitant of it. + +The Greeks of Terra d'Otranto bear a strong physical resemblance to +the Greeks of Calabria Ultra. It is fifty or sixty years since the +Hon. R. Keppel Craven remarked a "striking regularity of feature and +beauty of complexion" in the women of Martano and Calimera. At Martano +they have a pretty song in praise of some incomparable maid: + + My Sun, where art thou going? Stay to see + How passing beautiful is she I love. + My Sun, that round and round the world dost move, + Hast thou seen any beautiful as she? + My Sun, that hast the whole world travelled round, + One beautiful as she thou hast not found! + +Next to his lady's laughter, the South Italian Greek worships the sun. +It is the only feature in nature to which he pays much heed. In common +with other forms of modern Greek the Calabrian possesses the beautiful +periphrase for sunset, _o íglio vasiléggui_ ([Greek: ho hêlios +basileuei]). Language, which is altogether a kind of poetry, has not +anything more profoundly poetic. There is a brisk, lively ring in the +"Sun up!" of the American Far West; but an intellectual Atlantic flows +between it and the Greek ascription of kingship, of heroship, to the +Day-giver at the end of his course-- + + Wie herrlich die Sonne dort untergeht, + So stirbt ein Held! Anbetungswürdig! + +When we were young, were not our hearts stirred to their inmost depths +by this? + +The love-songs of Bova include one composed by a young man who had the +ill-luck to get into prison. "Remember," he says, "the words I spoke +to thee when we were seated on the grass; for the love of Christ, +remember them, so as not to make my life a torment. Think not that I +shall stay in here for ever; already I have completed one day. But if +it should happen that thou art forgetful of my words, beyond a doubt +this prison awaits me!" The singer seems to wish it to be inferred +that his line of conduct in the given case will be such as to entitle +him to board and lodging at the expense of the state for the rest of +his days. In times still recent, prisoners at Bova could see and be +seen, and hear and be heard, through the bars. Thus the incarcerated +lover had not to wait long for an answer, which must have greatly +relieved his mind: "The words that thou didst say to me on the tender +grass, I remember them--I forget them not. I would not have thee +say them over again; but be sure I love thee. Night and day I go to +church, and of Christ I ask this grace: 'My Christ, make short the +hours--bring to me him whom I love!'" + +The Greeks have a crafty proverb, "If they see me I laugh; but if not, +I rob and run." A Græco-Italic word[1], _maheri_, or "poignard," has +been suggested as the origin of _Mafia_, the name of one of the two +great organisations for crime which poison the social atmosphere of +southern Italy. The way of looking upon an experience of the penalties +of the law, not as a retribution or a disgrace, but as a simple +mischance, still prevails in the provinces of the ex-kingdom of +Naples. "The prisons," says a Calabrian poet, "are made for honest +men." Yet the people of Calabria are rather to be charged with a +confusion of moral sense than with a completely debased morality. What +has been said of the modern Greek could with equal truth be said of +them, whether Greeks or otherwise: put them upon their point of honour +and they may be highly trusted. At a date when, in Sicily, no one +went unarmed, it was the habit in Calabria to leave doors and windows +unfastened during an absence of weeks or months; and it is still +remembered how, after the great earthquake of 1783, five Calabrians +who happened to be at Naples brought back to the treasury 200 ducats +(received by them out of the royal bounty) on learning, through +private sources, that their homesteads were safe. The sort of honesty +here involved is not so common as it might be, even under the best of +social conditions. + +In that year of catastrophe--1783--it is more than possible that some +of the Greek-speaking communities were swallowed up, leaving no trace +behind. Calabria was the theatre of a series of awful transformation +scenes; heroism and depravity took strange forms, and men intent on +pillage were as ready to rush into the tottering buildings as men +intent on rescue. A horrid rejoicing kept pace with terror and +despair. In contrast to all this was the surprising calmness +with which in some cases the ordeal was faced. At Oppido, a place +originally Greek, a pretty young woman, aged nineteen years, was +immured for thirty hours, and shortly after her husband had extricated +her she became a mother. Dolomieu asked what had been her thoughts in +her living tomb; to which she simply answered, "I waited." The Prince +of Scilla and four thousand people were swept into the sea by a single +volcanic wave. Only the mountains stood firm. Bova, piled against the +rock like a child's card-city, suffered no harm, whilst the most solid +structures on the shore and in the plain were pitched about as ships +in a storm. Still, in the popular belief the whole mischief was brewed +deep down in the innermost heart of Aspromonte. It may be that +the theory grew out of the immemorial dread inspired by the Bitter +Mount--a dread which seems in a way prophetic of the dark shadow it +was fated to cast across the fair page of Italian redemption. + +A thousand years ago every nook and cranny in the Calabrian mountains +had its Greek hermit. Now and then one of these anchorites descended +to the towns, and preached to flocks of penitents in the Greek idiom, +which was understood by all. Under Byzantine rule the people generally +adhered to the Greek rite; nor was it without the imposition of the +heavy hand of Rome that they were finally brought to renounce it. As +late as the sixteenth century the liturgies were performed in Greek +at Rossano, and perhaps much later in the hill-towns, where there +are women who still treasure up scraps of Greek prayers. Greek, in an +older sense than any attached to the ritual of the Eastern Church, is +the train of thought marked out in this line from a folk-song of Bova: +"O Juro pu en chi jerusia" ("The Lord who hath not age"). The Italian +imagines the Creator as an old man; witness, to take only one example, +the frescoes on the walls of the Pisan Campo Santo. A Tuscan +proverb, which means no evil, though it would not very well bear +translating--"Lascia fare a Dio che è Santo Vecchio"--shows how +in this, as in other respects, Italian art is but the concrete +presentation of Italian popular sentiment. The grander idea of "a +Divine power which grows not old" seems very like an exotic in Italy. +Without yielding too much to the weakness of seeking analogies, +one other coincidence may be mentioned in passing. The Greek mother +soothes her crying child by telling him that "the wild doves drink at +the _holy sea_." This "ago Thalassia" recalls the [Greek: hals dia] of +the greatest folk-poet who ever lived. _Thalassia_ is now replaced +in ordinary conversation by the Italian _mare_; indeed, in Terra +d'Otranto it is currently supposed to be the proper name of a saint. +The next step would naturally lead to the establishment of a cult of +St Thalassia; and this may have been the kind of way in which were +established a good many of those cults that pass for evidences of +nature-worship. + +The language of the Græco-Calabrian songs, mixed though it is with +numberless Calabrese corruptions, is still far more Greek than the +actual spoken tongue. So it always happens; poetry, whether the +highest or the lowest, is the shrine in which the purer forms +of speech are preserved. The Greeks of Calabria are at present +bi-lingual, reminding one of Horace's "Canusini more bilinguis." It +is a comparatively new state of things. Henry Swinburne says that the +women he saw knew only Greek or "Albanese," as he calls it, which, he +adds, "they pronounce with great sweetness of accent." The advance +of Calabrese is attended by the decline of Greek, and a systematic +examination of the latter has not been undertaken a moment too soon. +The good work, begun by Domenico Comparetti and Giuseppe Morosi, is +being completed by professor Astorre Pellegrini, who has published one +volume of _Studi sui dialetti Greco-Calabro di Bova_, which will be +followed in due course by a second instalment. I am glad to be able +to record my own debt to this excellent and most courteous scholar. +He informs me that he hopes to finish his researches by a thorough +inspection of the stones and mural tablets in Calabrian graveyards. +The dead have elsewhere told so much about the living that the best +results are to be anticipated. + +It need scarcely be said that the leavings of the past in the southern +extremity of Italy are not confined to the narrow space where a Greek +idiom is spoken. There is not even warrant for supposing them to lie +chiefly within that area. The talisman which the hunter or brigand +wears next to his heart, believing that it renders him invulnerable; +the bagpipe which calls the sheep in the hills, and which the wild +herds of swine follow docilely over the marshes; the faggot which the +youth throws upon his mother's threshold before he crosses it +after the day's toil; the kick, aimed against the house door, which +signifies the last summons of the debtor; the shout of "Barca!" raised +by boys who lie in wait to get the first glimpse of the returning +fishing fleet, expecting largess for the publication of the good +news; the chaff showered down by vine-dressers upon bashful maids +and country lads going home from market; the abuse of strangers who +venture into the vineyards at the vintage season--these are among the +things of the young world that may be sought in Calabria. + +Other things there are to take the mind back to the time when the +coins the peasant turns up with his hoe were fresh from the mint at +Locri, and when the mildest of philosophies was first-- + + ... dimly taught + In old Crotona; + +wild flowers as sweet as those that made Persephone forsake the plain +of Enna; maidens as fair as the five beautiful virgins after whom +Zeuxis painted his _Helen_; grasshoppers as loudly chirping as +the "cricket" that saved the prize to Eunomus; and, high in the +transparent air, the stars at which Pythagoras gazed straining his +ears to catch their eternal harmonies. + + [Footnote 1: In classical Greek, [Greek: machaira].] + + + + +FOLK SONGS OF PROVENCE. + + +On a day in the late autumn it happened to me to be standing at a +window looking down into an untidy back street at Avignon. It was a +way of getting through the hours between a busy morning and a busy +evening--hours which did not seem inclined to go. If ever man be +tempted to upbraid the slowness of the flight of time, it is surely +in the vacant intervals of travel. The prospect at the window could +hardly be called enlivening; by-and-by, however, the dulness of +the outlook was lessened a little. The sounds of a powerful and not +unmusical voice came along the street; people hastened to their doors, +and in a minute or so a young lame man made his appearance. He was +singing Provençal songs. Here was the last of the troubadours! + +If it needed some imagination to see in this humble minstrel the +representative of the courtly adepts in the gay science, still his +relationship to them was not purely fanciful. The itinerant singer +used to be the troubadour of the poor. No doubt his more illustrious +brother grudged him the name. "I am astonished," said Giraud Riquier +to Alfonso of Aragon, "that folks confound the troubadours with +those ignorant and uncouth persons who, as soon as they can play some +screeching instrument, go through the streets asking alms and singing +before a vile rabble;" and Alfonso answered that in future the noble +appellation of "joglaria" should be granted no longer to mountebanks +who went about with dancing dogs, goats, monkeys, or puppets, +imitating the song of birds, or for a meagre pittance singing before +people of base extraction, but that they should be called "bufos," +as in Lombardy. Giraud Riquier was not benevolently inclined when he +embodied in verse his protest and the King's endorsement of it; yet +his words now lend an ancient dignity to the class they were meant +to bring into contempt. The lame young man at Avignon had no dancing +dogs, nor did he mimic the song of birds--an art still practised +with wonderful skill in Italy.[1] He helped out his entertainment by +another device, one suitable to an age which reads; he sold printed +songs, and he presented "letters." If you bought two sous' worth of +songs you were entitled to a "letter." It has to be explained that +"letters" form a kind of fortune-telling, very popular in Provence. A +number of small scraps of paper are attached to a ring; you pull off +one at hazard, and on it you find a full account of the fate reserved +to you. Nothing more simple. As to the songs, loose sheets containing +four or five of them are to be had for fifteen centimes. I have seen +on the quay at Marseilles an open bookstall, where four thousand of +these songs are advertised for sale. Some are in Provençal, some in +French; many are interlarded with prose sentences, in which case +they are called "cansounetto émé parla." Formerly the same style of +composition bore the name of _cantefable_. The subjects chosen are +comic, or sentimental, or patriotic, or, again, simply local. There +is, for example, a dialogue between a proprietor and a lodger. +"Workman, why are you always grumbling?" asks the "moussu," who speaks +French, as do angels and upper-class people generally in Provençal +songs. "If your old quarters are to be pulled down, a fine new one +will be built instead. Ere long the town of Marseilles will become a +paradise, and the universe will exclaim, 'What a marvel! Fine palaces +replace miserable hovels!'" For all that, replies the workman in +Provençal patois, the abandonment of his old quarter costs a pang to +a child _deis Carmes_ (an old part of Marseilles, standing where the +Greek town stood). It was full of attraction to him. There his father +lived before him; there his friends had grown with him to manhood; +there he had brought up his children, and lived content. The +proprietor argues that it was far less clean than could be +wished--there was too much insectivorous activity in it. He tells the +workman that he can find a lodging, after all not very expensive, in +some brand-new building outside the town; the railway will bring +him to his work. Unconvinced, the workman returns to his refrain, +"Regreterai toujour moun vieil Marsïo." If the rhymes are bad, if the +subject is prosaic, we have here at least the force of a fact +pregnant with social danger. Is it only at Marseilles that the grand +improvements of modern days mean, for the man who lives by his labour, +the break-up of his home, the destruction of his household gods, the +dispersion of all that sweetened and hallowed his poverty? The songs +usually bear an author's name; but the authors of the original pieces, +though they may enjoy a solid popularity in Provence, are rarely known +to a wider fame. One of them, M. Marius Féraud, whose address I hold +in my hands, will be happy to compose songs or romances for marriages, +baptisms, and other such events, either in Provençal or in French, +introducing any surname and Christian name indicated, and arranging +the metre so as to suit the favourite tune of the person who orders +the poem. + +Street ditties occupy an intermediate place between literate and +illiterate poesy. Once the repertory of the itinerant _bufo_ was drawn +from a source which might be called popular without qualifying the +term. With the pilgrim and the roving apprentice he was a chief agent +in the diffusion of ballads. Even now he has a right to be remembered +in any account of the songs of Provence; but, having given him +mention, we must leave the streets to go to the well-heads of popular +inspiration--the straggling village, the isolated farm, the cottage +alone on the byeway. + +When in the present century there was a revival of Provençal +literature, after a suspension of some five hundred years, the poets +who devoted their not mean gifts to this labour of love discerned, +with true insight, that the only Provençal who was still thoroughly +alive was the peasant. Through the long lapse of time in the progress +of which Provence had lost its very name--becoming a thing of French +departments--the peasant, it was discovered, had not changed much; +acting on which discovery, the new Provençal school produced two works +of a value that could not have been reached had it been attempted +either to give an archaic dress to the ideas and interests of the +modern world, or to galvanise the dry bones of mediæval romance into a +dubious animation. These works are _Mirèio_ and _Margarido_. Mistral, +with the idealising touch of the imaginative artist, paints the +Provence of the valley of the Rhone, whilst Marius Trussy photographs +the ruder and wilder Provence of mountain and torrent. Taken together, +the two poems perfectly illustrate the _Wahrheit und Dichtung_ of the +life of the people whose songs we have to study. + +Since there is record of them the Provençals have danced and sung. +They may be said to have furnished songs and dances to all France, and +even to lands far beyond the border of France. A French critic relates +how, when he was young, he went night after night to a certain +theatre in Paris to see a dance performed by a company of English +pantomimists. The dancers gradually stripped a staff, or may-pole, +of its many-coloured ribbons, which became in their hands a sort +of moving kaleidoscope. This, that he thought at the time to be an +exclusively English invention, was the old Provençal dance of the +_olivette_. In the Carnival season dances of an analogous kind are +still performed, here and there; by bands of young men, who march in +appropriate costume from place to place, led by their harlequin and by +a player on the _galooubé_, the little pipe which should be considered +the national instrument of Provence. Harlequin improvises couplets +in a sarcastic vein, and the crowd of spectators is not slow to +apply each sally to some well-known person; whence it comes that Ash +Wednesday carries a sense of relief to many worthy individuals. May +brings with it more dances and milder songs. Young men plant a tree, +with a nosegay atop, before their sweethearts' doors, and then go +singing-- + + Lou premier jour de mai, + O Diou d'eime! + Quand tout se renouvelo + Rossignolet! + Quand tout se renouvelo. + +The great business of the month is sheep-shearing, a labour celebrated +in a special song. "When the month of May comes, the shearers come: +they shear by night, they shear by day; for a month, and a fortnight, +and three weeks they shear the wool of these white sheep." When the +shearers go, the washers come; when the washers go, the carders come; +then come the spinners, the weavers, the buyers, and the ragmen who +gather up the bits. Across the nonsense of which it is composed the +ditty reflects the old excitement caused in the lonely homesteads by +the annual visit of the plyers of these several trades, who turned +everything upside down and brought strange news of the world. At +harvest there was, and there is yet, a great gathering at the larger +farms. Troops of labourers assemble to do the needful work. Sometimes, +after the evening meal, a curious song called the "Reapers' Grace" +is sung before the men go to rest. It has two parts: the first is a +variation on the first chapter of Genesis. Adam and _nouestro maire +Evo_ are put into the Garden of Eden. Adam is forbidden to eat of the +fruit of life; he eats thereof, and the day of his death is foretold +him. He will be buried under a palm, a cypress, and an olive, and out +of the wood of the olive the Cross will be made. The second part, sung +to a quick, lively air, is an expression of goodwill to the master and +the mistress of the farm, every verse ending, "Adorem devotoment +Jesù eme Mario." A few years ago the harvest led on naturally to +the vintage. It is not so now. The vines of Provence, excellent +in themselves, though never turned to the same account as those +of Burgundy or Bordeaux, have been almost completely ruined by the +phylloxera. The Provençal was satisfied if his wine was good enough to +suit his own taste and that of his neighbours; thus he had not laid +by wealth to support him in the evil day that has come. "Is there no +help?" I asked of a man of the poorer class. "Only rain, much rain, +can do good," he answered, "and," he added, "we have not had a drop +for four months." The national disaster has been borne with the finest +fortitude, but in Provence at least there seems to be small faith in +any method of grappling with it. The vines, they say, are spoilt by +the attempt to submit them to an artificial deluge; so one after the +other, the peasant roots them up, and tries to plant cabbages or what +not. Three hundred years back the Provençals would have known what +measures to take: the offending insect would have been prosecuted. +Between 1545 and 1596 there was a run of these remarkable trials +at Arles. In 1565 the Arlesiens asked for the expulsion of the +grasshoppers. The case came before the Tribunal de l'Officialité, and +Maître Marin was assigned to the insects as counsel. He defended his +clients with much zeal. Since the accused had been created, he argued +that they were justified in eating what was necessary to them. The +opposite counsel cited the serpent in the Garden of Eden, and sundry +other animals mentioned in Scripture, as having incurred severe +penalties. The grasshoppers got the worst of it, and were ordered to +quit the territory, with a threat of anathematizatiom from the altar, +to be repeated till the last of them had obeyed the sentence of the +honourable court. + +One night in the winter of 1819 there was a frost which, had it been a +few times repeated, would have done as final mischief to the olives +as the phylloxera has done to the vines. The terror of that night is +remembered still. Corn, vine, and olive--these were the gifts of the +Greek to Provence, and the third is the most precious of all. The +olive has here an Eastern importance; the Provençals would see a +living truth in the story of how the trees said unto it, "Reign thou +over us." In the flowering season the slightest sharpness in the air +sends half the rural population bare-foot upon a pilgrimage to the +nearest St Briggitte or St Rossoline. The olive harvest is the +supreme event of the year. It has its song too. In the warm days of St +Martin's summer, says the late Damase Arbaud, some worker in the olive +woods will begin to sing of a sudden-- + + Ai rescountrat ma mio--diluns. + +It is a mere nonsense song respecting the meeting of a lover and his +lass on every day of the week, she being each day on her way to buy +provisions, and he giving her the invariable advice that she had +better come back, because it is raining. Were it the rarest poetry the +effect could be hardly more beautiful than it is. When the first voice +has sung, "I met my love ..." ascending slowly from a low note, the +whole group of olive-gatherers take it up, then the next, and again +the next, till the country-side is made all musical by the swell and +fall of sound sent forth from every grey coppice; and even long after +the nearer singers have ceased, others unseen in the distance still +raise the high-pitched call, "Come back, my love, come back! ... come +back!" + +On the first of November it is customary in Provence for families +to meet and dine. The fruits of the earth are garnered, the year's +business is over and done. The year has brought perhaps new faces into +the family; very likely it has taken old faces away. Towards evening +the bells begin to toll for the vigil of the feast of All Souls. Tears +come into the eyes of the older guests, and the children are hurried +off to bed. Why should they be present at this letting loose of grief? +To induce them to retire with good grace, they are allowed to take +with them what is left of the dessert--chestnuts, or grapes, or figs. +The child puts a portion of his spoils at the bottom of his bed for +the _armettes_: so are called the spirits of the dead who are still in +a state of relation with the living, not being yet finally translated +into their future abode. Children are told that if they are good the +_armettes_ will kiss them this night; if they are naughty, they will +scratch their little feet. + +The Provençal religious songs, poor though they are from a literary +point of view, yet possess more points of interest than can be +commonly looked for in folk-songs which treat of religion. They +contain frequent allusions to beliefs that have to be sought either +in the earliest apocryphal writings of the Christian æra, or in the +lately unearthed records of rabbinical tradition. Various of them +have regard to what is still, as M. Lenthéric says, "one of the great +popular emotions of the South of France"--the reputed presence there +of Mary Magdalene. M. Lenthéric is convinced that certain Jewish +Christians, flying from persecution at home, did come to Provence +(between the ports of which and the East there was constant +communication) a short time after the Crucifixion. He is further +inclined to give credit to the impression that Mary Magdalene and her +companions were among these fugitives. I will not go into the reasons +that have been urged against the story by English and German scholars; +it is enough for us that it is a popular credence of very ancient +origin. One side issue of it is particularly worth noting. A little +servant girl named Sara is supposed to have accompanied the Jewish +emigrants, and her the gypsies of Provence have adopted as their +patroness. Once a year they pay their respects to her tomb at Saintes +Maries de la Mer. This is almost the only case in which the gypsy race +has shown any disposition to identify itself with a religious cultus. +The fairy legend of Tarascon is another offshoot from the main +tradition. "Have you seen the Tarasque?" I was asked in the course +of a saunter through that town one cold morning between the hours +of seven and eight. It seemed that the original animal was kept in a +stall. To stimulate my anxiety to make its acquaintance I was handed +the portrait of a beast, half hedgehog, half hippopotamus, out of +whose somewhat human jaw dangled the legs of a small boy. Later I +heard the story from the lips of the sister of the landlord at the +primitive little inn; much did it gain from the vivacious grace of the +narrator, in whom there is as surely proof positive of a Greek descent +as can be seen in any of the more famous daughters of Arles. "When +the friends of our Lord landed in Provence, St Mary Magdalene went +to Sainte Baume, St Lazarus to Marseilles, and St Martha came here to +Tarascon. Now there was a terrible monster called the Tarasque, which +was desolating all the country round and carrying off all the young +children to eat. When St Martha was told of the straits the folks were +in, she went out to meet the monster with a piece of red ribbon in her +hand. Soon it came, snorting fire out of its nostrils; but the saint +threw the red ribbon over its neck, and lo! it grew quite still and +quiet, and followed her back into the town as if it had been a good +dog. To keep the memory of this marvel, we at Tarascon have a wooden +Tarasque, which we take round the town at Whitsuntide with much +rejoicing. About once in twenty years there is a very grand _fête_ +indeed, and people come from far, far off. I have--naturally--seen +this grand celebration only once." A gleam of coquetry lit up the +long eyes: our friend clearly did not wish to be supposed to have an +experience ranging over too long a period. Then she went on, "You must +know that at Beaucaire, just there across the Rhone, the folks have +been always ready to die of jealousy of our Tarasque. Once upon a +time they thought they would have one as well as we; so they made the +biggest Tarasque that ever had been dreamt of. How proud they were! +But, alas! when the day came to take it round the town, it was found +that it would not come out of the door of the workshop! Ah! those dear +Beaucairos!" This I believe to be a pure fable, like the rest; to the +good people of Tarascon it appears the most pleasing part of the whole +story. My informant added, with a merry laugh, "There came this way +an Englishman--a very sceptical Englishman. When he heard about the +difficulty of the Beaucairos he asked, 'Why did they not have recourse +to St Martha?'" + +As I have strayed into personal reminiscence, the record of one other +item of conversation will perhaps be allowed. That same morning I went +to breakfast at the house of a Provençal friend to meet the ablest +exponent of political positivism, the Radical deputy for Montmartre. +Over our host's strawberries (strawberries never end at Tarascon) I +imparted my newly acquired knowledge. When it came to the point of +saying that certain elderly persons were credibly stated to have +preserved a lively faith in the authenticity of the legend, M. +Clémenceau listened with a look of such unmistakable concern that I +said, half amused, "You do not believe much in poetry?" The answer +was characteristic. "Yes, I believe in it much; but is it necessary +to poetry that the people should credit such absurdities?" Is it +necessary? Possibly Marius Trussy, who inveighs so passionately +against "lou progrê," would say that it is. Anyhow the Tarasques of +the world are doomed; whether they will be without successors is a +different question. Some one has said that mankind has always lived +upon illusions, and always will, the essential thing being to change +the nature of these illusions from time to time, so as to bring them +into harmony with the spirit of the age. + +Provençal folk-songs have but few analogies with the literature which +heedlessly, though beyond recall, has been named Provençal. The poetry +of the Miejour was a literary orchid of the fabulous sort that has +neither root nor fruit. A chance stanza, addressed to some high-born +Blancoflour, finds its way occasionally into the popular verse of +Provence with the marks of lettered authorship still clinging to it; +but further than this the resemblance does not go. The love poets of +the people make use of a flower language, which is supposed to be a +legacy of the Moors. Thyme accompanies a declaration; the violet means +doubt or uneasiness; rosemary signifies complaint; nettles announce a +quarrel. The course of true love nowhere flows less smoothly than +in old Provence. As soon as a country girl is suspected of having a +liking for some youth, she is set upon by her family as if she were +guilty of a monstrous crime. A microscopic distinction of rank, a +divergence in politics, or a deficiency of money will be snatched +as the excuse for putting the lover under the ban of absolute +proscription. From the inexplicable obstacles placed in the way of +lovers it follows that a large proportion of Provençal marriages +are the result of an elopement. The expedient never fails; Provençal +parents do not lock up their runaway daughters in convents where no +one can get at them. The delinquents are married as fast as possible. +What is more, no evil is thought or spoken of them. To make assurance +doubly sure, a curious formality is observed. The girl calls upon two +persons, secretly convened for the purpose, to bear witness that she +carries off her lover, who afterwards protests that his part in the +comedy was purely passive. In less than twenty years the same drama +is enacted with Margarido, the daughter, in the _rôle_ of Mario the +mother. + + L'herbo que grio + Toujours reverdilho; + L'herbo d'amour + Reverdilho toujours. + +The plant of love grows where there are young hearts; but how comes +it that middle-aged hearts turn inevitably to cast iron? There is one +song which has the right to be accepted as the typical love-song of +Provence. Mistral adapted it to his own use, and it figures in his +poem as the "Chanson de Majali." My translation follows as closely +as may be after the popular version which is sung from the Comtat +Venaissin to the Var: + + Margaret! my first love, + Do not say me nay! + A morning music thou must have, + A waking roundelay. + --Your waking music irks me, + And irk me all who play; + If this goes on much longer + I'll drown myself one day. + --If this goes on much longer, + And thou wilt drown one day, + Why, then a swimmer I will be, + And save thee sans delay. + --If then a swimmer thou wilt be, + And save me sans delay, + Then I will be an eel, and slip + From 'twixt thy hands away. + --If thou wilt be an eel, and slip + From 'twixt my hands away, + Why, I will be the fisherman + Whom all the fish obey. + --If thou wilt be the fisherman + Whom all the fish obey, + Then I will be the tender grass + That yonder turns to hay. + --If thou wilt be the tender grass + That yonder turns to hay, + Why, then a mower I will be, + And mow thee in the may. + --If thou a mower then wilt be, + And mow me in the may, + I, as a little hare, will go + In yonder wood to stray. + --If thou a little hare wilt go + In yonder wood to stray, + Then will I come, a hunter bold, + And have thee as my prey. + --If thou wilt come a hunter bold + To have me as thy prey, + Then I will be the endive small + In yonder garden gay. + --If thou wilt be the endive small + In yonder garden gay, + Then I will be the falling dew, + And fall on thee alway. + --If thou wilt be the falling dew, + And fall on me alway, + Then I will be the white, white rose + On yonder thorny spray. + --If thou wilt be the white, white rose + On yonder thorny spray, + Then I will be the honey bee, + And kiss thee all the day. + --If thou wilt be the honey bee, + And kiss me all the day, + Then I will be in yonder heaven + The star of brightest ray. + --If thou wilt be in yonder heaven + The star of brighest ray, + Then I will be the dawn, and we + Shall meet at break of day. + --If thou wilt be the dawn, so we + May meet at break of day, + Then I will be a nun professed, + A nun of orders grey. + --If thou wilt be a nun professed, + A nun of orders grey, + Then I will be the prior, and thou + To me thy sins must say. + --If thou wilt be the prior, and I + To thee my sins must say, + Then will I sleep among the dead, + While the sisters weep and pray. + --If thou wilt sleep among the dead, + While the sisters weep and pray, + Then I will be the holy earth + That on thee they shall lay. + --If thou wilt be the holy earth + That on me they shall lay-- + Well--since some gallant I must have, + I will not say thee nay. + +A distinguished French scholar thought that he heard in this an echo +of Anacreon's ode [Greek: k' eus korên]. The inference suggested is +too hazardous for acceptance; yet that in some sort the song may date +from Greek Provence would seem to be the opinion even of cautious +critics. Thus we are led to look back to those associations which, +without giving a personal or political splendour such as that attached +to Magna Græcia, lend nevertheless to Provençal memories the exquisite +charm, the "_bouquet_" (if the word does not sound absurd) of all +things Greek. The legend of Greek beginnings in Provence will bear +being once more told. Four hundred and ninety years before Christ a +little fleet of Greek fortune-seekers left Phocæa, in Asia Minor, and +put into a small creek on the Provençal coast, the port of the future +Marseilles. As soon as they had disembarked, deeming it to be of +importance to them to stand well with the people of the land, they +sent to the king of the tribes inhabiting those shores an ambassador +bearing gifts and overtures of friendly intercourse. When the +ambassador reached Arles, Nann, the king, was giving a great feast +to his warriors, from among whom his daughter Gyptis was that day to +choose a husband. The young Greek entered the banqueting-hall and +sat down at the king's board. When the feasting was over, fair-haired +Gyptis, the royal maiden, rose from her seat and went straightway to +the strange guest; then, lifting in her hands the cup of espousal, +she offered it to his lips. He drank, and Provence became the bride of +Greece. + +The children of that marriage left behind them a graveyard to tell +their history. Desecrated and despoiled though it is, still the +great Arlesian cemetery bears unique witness as well to the civilised +prosperity of the Provençal Greeks as to their decline under the +influences which formed the modern Provence. Irreverence towards the +dead--a comparatively new human characteristic--can nowhere be more +fully observed than in the _Elysii Campi_ of Arles. The love of +destruction has been doing its worst there for some centuries. To any +king coming to the town the townsfolk would make a gift of a priceless +treasure stolen from their dead ancestors, while the peasant who +wanted a cattle trough, or the mason in need of a door lintel, went +unrebuked and carried off what thing suited him. Not even the halo of +Christian romance could save the Alyscamps. The legend is well known. +St Trefume, man or myth, summoned the bishops of Gaul and Provence to +the consecration of this burial-ground. When they were assembled and +the rite was to be performed, each one shrank from taking on himself +so high an office; then Christ appeared in their midst and made the +sign of the cross over the sleeping-place of the pagan dead. Out +of the countless stories of the meeting of the new faith and the +old--stories too often of a nascent or an expiring fanaticism, there +is not one which breathes a gentler spirit. It was long believed, that +the devil had little power with the dead that lay in Arles. Hence +the multitude of sepulchres which Dante saw _ove 'l Rodano stagna_. +Princes and archbishops and an innumerable host of minor folks left +instructions that they might be buried in the Alyscamps. A simple mode +of transport was adopted by the population of the higher Rhone valley. +The body, bound to a raft or bier, was committed to the current of the +river, with a sum of money called the "drue de mourtalage" attached +to it. These silent travellers always reached their destination in +safety, persons appointed to the task being in readiness to receive +them. The sea water washed the limits of the cemetery in the days of +the Greeks, who looked across the dark, calm surface of the immense +lagune and thought of dying as of embarkation upon a voyage--not the +last voyage of the body down the river of life, but the first voyage +of the soul over the sea of death--and they wished their dead [Greek: +euploi]. + +The Greek traces that exist in the living people of Provence are +few, but distinct. There is, in the first place, the type of beauty +particularly associated with the women of Arles. As a rule, the +Provençal woman is not beautiful; nor is she very willing to admit +that her Arlesian sisters are one whit more beautiful than she. The +secret of their fame is interpreted by her in the stereotyped remark, +"C'est la coiffe!" But the coif of Arles, picturesque though it is in +its stern simplicity, could not change an ugly face into a pretty one, +and the wearers of it are well entitled to the honour they claim as +their birthright. Scarcely due attention has been paid to the good +looks of the older and even of the aged women; I have not seen their +equals save among a face of quite another type, the Teutonic amazons +of the Val Mastalone. In countries where the sun is fire, if youth +does not always mean beauty, beauty means almost always youth. M. +Lenthéric thinks that he detects a second clear trace of the Greeks +in the horn wrestling practised all over the dried-up lagune which the +fork of the Rhone below Arles forms into an island. Astride of their +wild white steeds, the horsemen drive one of the superb black bulls of +the Camargue towards a group of young men on foot, who, catching him +by his horns, wrestle with him till he is forced to bend the knee and +bite the dust. The amusement is dangerous, but it is not brutal. The +horses escape unhurt, so does the bull; the risk is for the men alone, +and it is a risk voluntarily and eagerly run. So popular is the +sport that it is difficult to prevent children from joining in it. In +Thessaly it was called [Greek: keratisis], and the bull in the act of +submission is represented on a large number of Massaliote and other +coins. + +Marseilles, which has lost the art and the type of Greece, has kept +the Greek temperament. It is no more French than Naples is Italian: +both are Greek towns, though the characteristics that prove them such +have been somewhat differentiated by unlike external conditions. Still +they have points in common which are many and strong. Marsalia can +match in _émeutes_ the proverbial _quattordici rebellioni_ of "loyal" +Parthenope; and quickness of intelligence, love of display, mobility +of feeling, together with an astounding vitality, belong as much +to Marseillais as to Neapolitan. The people of Marseilles, the most +thriftless in France, have thriven three thousand years, and are +thriving now, in spite of the readiness of each small middle-class +family to lay out a half-year's savings on a breakfast at Roubion's; +in spite of the alacrity with which each working man sacrifices a +week's wages in order to "demonstrate" in favour of, or still better +against, no matter whom or what. Nowhere is there a more overweening +local pride. "Paris," say the Marseillais, "would be a fine town if it +had our _Cannebière_." Nowhere, as has been made lamentably plain, +are the hatreds of race and caste and politics more fierce or more +ruthless. Even with her own citizens Marseilles is stern; only after +protest does she grant a monument to Adolphe Thiers--himself just +a Greek Massaliote thrown into the French political arena. There is +reason to think that Greek was a spoken tongue at Marseilles at least +as late as the sixth century A.D. The Sanjanen, the fisherman of St +John's Quarter, has still a whole vocabulary of purely Greek terms +incidental to his calling. The Greek character of the speech of the +Marseillais sailors was noticed by the Abbé Papon, who attributed +to the same source the peculiar prosody and intonation of the +street cries of Marseilles. The Provençal historian remarks, with an +acuteness rare in the age in which he wrote (the early part of the +last century), "I draw my examples from the people, because it is with +them that we must seek the precious remains of ancient manners and +usages. Amongst the great, amongst people of the world, one sees only +the imprint of fashion, and fashion never stands still." + +The Sanjanens are credited with the authorship of this cynical little +song: + + Fisher, fishing in the sea, + Fish my mistress up for me. + + Fish her up before she drowns, + Thou shalt have four hundred crowns. + + Fish her for me dead and cold, + Thou shalt have my all in gold. + +The romantic ballads of Provence are of an importance which demands, +properly speaking, a separate study. Provence was, beyond a doubt, +one of the main sources of the ballad literature of France, Spain, and +Italy. That certain still existing Provençal ballads passed over into +Piedmont as early as the thirteenth century is the opinion of Count +Nigra, the Italian diplomatist, not the least of whose distinguished +services to his country has been the support he was one of the first +to give to the cause of popular research. In all these songs the +plot goes for everything, the poetry for little or nothing; I shall +therefore best economise my space by giving a rough outline of the +stories of two or three of them. "Fluranço" is a characteristic +specimen. Fluranço, "la flour d'aquest pays," was married when she was +a little thing, and her husband at once went away to the wars. Monday +they were wed, Tuesday he was gone. At the end of seven years the +knight comes back, knocks at the door, and asks for Fluranço. His +mother says that she is no longer here; they sent her to fetch water, +and the Moors, the Saracen Moors, carried her off. "Where did they +take her to?" "They took her a hundred leagues away." The knight makes +a ship of gold and silver; he sails and sails without seeing aught but +the washer-women washing fine linen. At last he asks of them: "Tell +me whose tower is that, and to whom that castle belongs." "It is the +castle of the Saracen Moor." "How can I get into it?" "Dress yourself +as a poor pilgrim, and ask alms in Christ's name." In this way he +gains admittance, and Fluranço (she it is) bids the servant set the +table for the "poor pilgrim." When the knight is seated at table, +Fluranço begins to laugh. "What are you laughing at, Madamo?" She +confesses that she knows who he is. They collect a quantity of fine +gold; then they go the stable, and she mounts the russet horse and he +mounts the grey. Just as they are crossing the bridge the Moor sees +them. "Seven years," he cries, "I have clothed thee in fine damask, +seven years I have given thee morocco shoes, seven years I have laid +thee in fine linen, seven years I have kept thee--for one of my sons!" +The carelessness or cruelty of a stepmother (the head-wife of Asiatic +tales) is a prolific central idea in Provençal romance. While the +husband was engaged in distant adventures--tournaments, feudal wars, +or crusading expeditions--the wife, who was often little more than a +child, remained at the mercy of the occasionally unamiable dowager who +ruled the masterless _château_. The case of cruelty is exemplified +in the story of Guilhem de Beauvoire, who has to leave his child-wife +five weeks after marriage. "I counsel you, mother," he says as he sets +out, "to put her to do no kind of work: neither to fetch water, nor +to spin, nor yet to knead bread. Send her to mass, and give her good +dinners, and let her go out walking with other ladies." At the end of +five weeks the mother put the young wife to keep swine. The swine girl +went up to the mountain top and sang and sang. Guilhem de Beauvoire, +who was beyond the sea, said to his page, "Does it not seem as though +my wife were singing?" He travels at all speed over mountain and sea +till he comes to his home, where no man knows him. On the way he meets +the swine girl, and from her he hears that she has to eat only that +which is rejected of the swine. At the house he is welcomed as an +honoured guest; supper is laid for him, and he asks that the swine +girl whom he has seen may come and sup with him. When she sits down +beside him the swine girl bursts into tears. "Why do you weep, swine +girl?" "For seven years I have not supped at table!" Then in the +bitterness of yet another outrage to which the vile woman subjects +her, she cries aloud, "Oh! Guilhem de Beauvoire, who art beyond +the sea, God help thee! Verily thy cruel mother has abandoned me!" +Secretly Guilhem tells her who he is, and in proof of it shows her the +ring she gave him. In the morning the mother calls the swine girl to +go after her pigs. "If you were not my mother," says Guilhem, "I would +have you hung; as you are my mother, I will wall you up between two +walls." + +The antiquity of the ballads of _Fluranco_ and _Guilhem de Beauvoire_ +is shown by the fact that they plainly belong to a time when such work +as fetching water or making bread was regarded as amongst the likely +employments of noble ladies--though, from excess of indulgence, +Guilhem did not wish his wife to be set even to these light tasks. A +ballad, probably of about the same date, treats the case of a man who, +through the weakness which is the cause of half the crimes, becomes +the agent of his mother's guilt. The tragedy is unfolded with almost +the sublime laconicism of the _Divina Commedia_. Françoiso was married +when she was so young that she did not know how to do the service, and +the cruel mother was always saying to her son that Françoiso must die. +One day, after the young wife had laid the table, and had set thereon +the wine and the bread, and the fresh water, her husband said to her, +"My Françoiso, is there not anyone, no friend, who shall protect thy +life?" "I have my mother and my father, and you, who are my husband, +very well will you protect my life." Then, as they sit at meat, he +takes a knife and kills her; and he lifts her in his arms and kisses +her, and lays her under the flower of the jessamine, and he goes to +his mother and says, "My mother, your greatest wish is fulfilled: I +have killed Françoiso." + +The genuine Provençal does not shrink from violence. Old inhabitants +still tell tales of the savage brigandage of the Estérel, of the +horrors of the _Terreur blanche_. Mild manners and social amenities +have never been characteristic of fair Provence. Even now the peasant +cannot disentangle his thoughts without a volley of oaths--harmless +indeed, for the most part (except those which are borrowed from +the _franciots_), but in sound terrific. Yet if it be true that the +character of a nation is asserted in its songs, it must be owned that +the songs of Provence speak favourably for the Provençal people. They +say that they are a people who have a steady and abiding sympathy +with honest men and virtuous women. They say further that rough and +ruthless though they may be when their blood is stirred, yet have they +a pitiful heart. The Provençal singer is slow to utterly condemn; +he grasps the saving inconsistencies of human nature; he makes the +murderer lay his victim "souto lou flour dou jaussemin:" under the +white jessamine flower, cherished beyond all flowers in Provence, +which has a strange passion for white things--white horses, white +dogs, white sheep, white doves, and the fair white hand of woman. Many +songs deal directly with almsgivings, the ritual of pity. To no part +of the Bible is there more frequent reference than to the parable of +the rich man and Lazarus; no neocatholic legend has been more gladly +accepted than the story in which some tattered beggar proves to +be Christ--a story, by the by, that holds in it the essence of the +Christian faith. If a Greek saw a beautiful unknown youth playing his +pipe beside some babbling stream, he believed him to be a god; the +Christian of the early ages recognised Christ in each mendicant +in loathsome rags, in each leper succoured at the risk of mortal +infection. + +The Provençal tongue is not a mixture (as is too often said) of +Italian and French; nor is physical Provence a less fair Italy or a +fairer France. A land wildly convulsed in its storms, mysteriously +breathless in its calms; a garden here, a desert there; a land of +translucent inlets and red porphyry hills; before all, a land of the +illimitable grey of olive and limestone--this is Provence. Anyone +finding himself of a sudden where the Provençal olives raise their +dwarf heads with a weary look of eternity to the rainless heaven, +would say that the dominant feature in the landscape was its exceeding +seriousness. Sometimes on the coast the prevailing note changes from +grey to blue; the blanched rocks catch the colour of the sea, and not +the sky only, but dry fine air close around seems of a blueness so +intense as to make the senses swim. Better suited to a Nature thus +made up of crude discords and subtle harmonies is the old Provençal +speech, howsoever corrupt, than the exquisite French of Parisian +_salons_. But the language goes and the songs go too. Damase Arbaud +relates how, when he went on a long journey to speak with a man +reported to have cognisance of much traditional matter, he met, +issuing from the house door, not the man, but his coffin. The fact +is typical; the old order of things passes away: _nouastei diou se'n +van_. + + [Footnote 1: I am told that the peasants of the country round + Moscow have a natural gift for imitating birds, and that they + intersperse the singing of their own sad songs with this sweet + carolling.] + + + + +THE WHITE PATERNOSTER. + + +In a paper published under the head of "Chaucer's Night Spell" in the +Folk-lore Record (part i. p. 145), Mr Thoms drew attention to four +lines spoken by the carpenter in Chaucer's _Miller's Tale_: + + Lord Jhesu Crist, and seynte Benedyht + Blesse this hous from every wikked wight, + Fro nyghtes verray, the White Paternostre + When wonestow now, seynte Petres soster. + +("Verray" is commonly supposed to mean night-mare, but Mr Thoms +referred it to "Werra," a Sclavonic deity.) + +Mention of the White Paternoster occurs again in White's _Way to the +True Church_ (1624): + + White Paternoster, Saint Peter's brother, + What hast i' th t'one hand? white booke leaves, + What hast i' th t'other hand? heaven gate keyes. + Open heaven gates, and streike (shut) hell gates: + And let every crysome child creepe to its own mother. + White Paternoster, Amen. + +A reading of the formula is preserved in the _Enchiridion Papæ +Leonis_, a book translated into French soon after its first appearance +in Latin at Rome in 1502: + + Au soir, m'allant coucher, je trouvis trois anges à mon lit + couchés, un aux pieds, deux au chevet, la bonne Vierge Marie + du milieu, qui me dit que je me couchis, que rien ne doutis. + Le bon Dieu est mon Père, la bonne Vierge est ma mère, les + trois vierges sont mes s[oe]urs. La chemise où Dieu fut né, + mon corps en est enveloppé; la croix Sainte Marguerite à ma + poitrine est écrite; madame d'en va sur les champs à Dieu + pleurant, rencontrit Monsieur Saint Jean. Monsieur Saint Jean, + d'où venez vous? Je viens d' _Ave Salus_. Vous n'avez pas vu + le bon Dieu; si est, il est dans l'arbre de la croix, les + pieds pendans, les mains clouans, un petit chapeau d'épine + blanche sur la tête. + + Qui la dira trois fois au soir, trois fois au matin, gagnera + le Paradis à la fin. + +Curious as are the above citations, they only go a little way towards +filling up the blanks in the history of this waif from the fabric +of early Christian popular lore. A search of some years has yielded +evidence that the White Paternoster is still a part of the living +traditional matter of at least five European countries. Most persons +are familiar with the English version which runs thus: + + Four corners to my bed, + Four angels round my head, + One to watch, one to pray, + And two to bear my soul away. + +A second English variant was set on record by Aubrey, and may also be +read in Ady's "Candle in the Dark" (1655): + + Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, + Bless the bed that I lye on; + And blessed guardian angel keep + Me safe from danger while I sleep. + +Halliwell suggests that the two last lines were imitated from the +following in Bishop Ken's Evening Hymn: + + Let my blest guardian, while I sleep, + His watchful station near me keep. +But if there was any imitation in the case, it was the bishop who +copied from the folk-rhymer, not the folk-rhymer from the bishop. + +The thought of the coming of death in sleep, is expressed in a prayer +that may be sometimes seen inscribed at the head and foot of the bed +in Norwegian homesteads: + +HEAD. + + Here is my bed and sleeping place; + God, let me sleep in peace + And blithe open my eyes + And go to work. + +FOOT. + + Go into thy bed, take thee a slumber, + Reflect now on the last hour; + Reflect now, + That thou mayest take thy last slumber. + +Analogous in spirit is a quatrain that has been known to me since +childhood, but which I do not remember to have seen in print: + + I lay me down to rest me, + And pray the Lord to bless me. + If I should sleep no more to wake + I pray the Lord my soul to take. + +The _Petite Patenôtre Blanche_ lingers in France in a variety of +shapes. One version was written down as late as 1872 from the mouth of +an old woman named Cathérine Bastien, an inhabitant of the department +of the Loire. It was afterwards communicated to _Mélusine_. + + Jésu m'endort, + Si je trépasse, mande mon corps, + Si je trépasse, mande mon âme, + Si je vis, mande mon esprit. + (Je) prends les anges pour mes amis, + Le bon Dieu pour mon père, + La Sainte Vierge pour ma mère, + Saint Louis de Gonzague, + Aux quatre coins de ma chambre, + Aux quatre coins be mon lit; + Preservez moi de l'ennemi, + Seigneur, à l'heure de ma mort. + +Quenot, in his _Statistique de la Charante_ (1818), gives the +subjoined: + + Dieu l'a faite, je la dit; + J'ai trouvé quatre anges couchés dans mon lit; + Deux à la tête, deux aux pieds, + Et le bon Dieu aux milieu. + De quoi puis-je avoir peur? + Le bon Dieu est mon père, + La Vierge ma mère, + Les saints mes frères, + Les saints mes s[oe]urs; + Le bon Dieu m'a dit: + Lève-toi, couche-toi, + Ne crains rien; le feu, l'orage, et la tempête + Ne peuvent rien contre toi. + Saint Jean, Saint Marc, Saint Luc, et St Matthieu, + Qui mettez les âmes en repos, + Mettez-y la mienne si Dieu veut. + +In Provence many a worthy country woman repeats each night this +_preiro doou soir_:-- + + Au liech de Diou + Me couche iou, + Sept anges n'en trouve iou, + Tres es peds, + Quatre au capet (caput--head); + La Buoeno Mero es au mitan + Uno roso blanco à la man. + +The white rose borne by the Good Mother is a pretty and characteristic +interpolation peculiar to flower-loving Provence. In the conclusion +of the prayer the _Boueno Mero_ tells whosoever recites it to have no +fear of dog or wolf, or wandering storm or running water, or shining +fire, or any evil folk. M. Damase Arbaud got together a number of +other devotional fragments that may be regarded as offshoots from the +parent stem. St Joseph, "Nourricier de Diou," is asked to preserve the +supplicant from sudden death, "et de l'infer et de ses flammos." +St Ann, "mero-grand de Jésus Christ," is prayed to teach the way to +Paradise. To St Denis a very practical petition is addressed: + + Grand Sant Danis de Franço, + Gardetz me moun bouen sens, ma boueno remembranço. + +Another verse points distinctly to a desire for protection against +witchcraft. The Provençals, by the bye, are of opinion that the +_Angelus_ was instituted to scare away any ill-conditioned spirits +that might be tempted out by the approach of night. + +In Germany the guardian saints are dispensed with, but the angels are +retained in force. I am indebted to Mr C. G. Leland for a translation +of the most popular German even-song: + + Fourteen angels in a band + Every night around me stand. + Two to my left hand, + Two to my right, + Who watch me ever + By day and night. + Two at my head, + Two at my feet, + To guard my slumber + Soft and sweet; + Two to wake me + At break of day, + When night and darkness + Pass away; + Two to cover me + Warm and nice, + And two to lead me + To Paradise. + +Passing on to Italy we find an embarrassing abundance of folk-prayers +framed after the self-same model. The repose of the Venetian is under +the charge of the Perfect Angel, the Angel of God, St Bartholomew, the +Blessed Mother, St Elizabeth, the Four Evangelists, and St John the +Baptist. Venetian children are taught to say: "I go to bed, I know not +if I shall arise. Thou, Lord, who knowest, keep good watch over me. +Before my soul separates from my body, give me help and good comfort. +In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, so be it. +Bless my heart and my soul!" The Venetians also have a "Paternoster +pichenin," and a "Paternoster grande," both of which are, in their +existing form, little else than nonsense. The native of the Marches +goes to his rest accompanied by our Lord, the Madonna, the Four +Evangelists, _l'Angelo perfetto_, four greater angels, and three +others--one at the foot, one at the head, one in the middle. The +Tuscan, like the German, has only angels around him: of these he has +seven--one at the head, one at the foot, two at the sides, one to +cover him, one to watch him, and one to bear him to Paradise. The +Sicilian says: "I lay me down in this bed, with Jesus on my breast. I +sleep and he watches. In this bed where I am laid, five saints I find: +two at the head, two at the feet, in the middle is St Michael." + +Perhaps the best expression of the belief in the divine guardians of +sleep is that given to it by an ancient Sardinian poet:-- + + Su letto meo est de battor cantones, + Et battor anghelos si bie ponen; + Duos in pes, et duos in cabitta, + Nostra Segnora a costazu m'ista. + E a me narat: Dormi e reposa, + No hapas paura de mala cosa, + No hapas paura de mala fine. + S' Anghelu Serafine, + S' Anghelu Biancu, + S' Ispiridu Santu, + Sa Vigine Maria, + Tote siant in cumpagnia mea. + Anghelu de Deu, + Custodio meo, + Custa nott' illuminame! + Guarda e difende a me + Ca eo mi incommando a tie. + + My bed has four corners and four angels standing by it. Two at + the foot and two at the head; our Lady is beside me. And to me + she says, "Sleep and repose; have no fear of evil things; have + no fear of an evil end." The angel Serafine, the angel + Blanche, the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary--all are here to + keep me company. Angel of God, thou my guardian, illuminate me + this night. Watch and defend me, for I commend myself to thee. + +A Spanish verse, so near to this that it would be needless to give it +a separate translation, was sent by a friend who at that time was in +the Royal College of Santa Ysabel at Madrid: + + Quatro pirondelitas + Tiene mi cama; + Quatro angelitos + Me la acompaña. + La madre de dios + Esta enmedio, + Dicendome: + Duerme y reposa, + Que no te sucedera + Ninguna mala cosa. + + Amen. + +In harmony with the leading idea of the White Paternoster, the +recumbent figures of the Archbishops in Canterbury Cathedral have +angels kneeling at each corner of their altar tombs. It is worth +remarking, too, how certain English lettered compositions have become +truly popular through the fact of their introducing the same idea. +A former Dean of Canterbury once asked an old woman, who lived alone +without chick or child, whether she said her prayers? "Oh! yes," was +the reply, "I say every night of my life, + + "Hush, my babe, lie still in slumber, + Holy angels guard thy bed!" + +The White Paternoster itself, in the form of "Matthew, Mark, Luke, +John," was, till lately, a not uncommon evening prayer in the +agricultural parts of Kent. At present the orthodox night and morning +prayers of the people in Catholic countries are the Lord's Prayer, +_Credo_ and _Ave Maria_, but to these, as has been seen, the White +Paternoster is often added, and at the date of the Reformation--when +the "Hail Mary" had scarcely come into general use--it is probable +that it was rarely omitted. Prayers that partake of the nature of +charms, have always been popular, and people have ever indulged in +odd, little roundabout devices to increase the efficacy of even the +most sacred words. Boccaccio, for instance, speaks of "the Paternoster +of San Giuliano," which seems to have been a Paternoster said for +the repose of the souls of the father and mother of St Julian, in +gratitude for which attention, the Saint was bound to give a good +night's lodging. It remains to be asked, why the White Paternoster is +called white? In the actual state of our knowledge, the reason is not +apparent; but possibly the term is to be taken simply in an +apologetic sense, as when applied to a stated form of dealing with +the supernatural. White charms had a recognised place in popular +extra-belief. It was sweet to be able to compel the invisible powers +to do what you would, and yet to feel secure from uncomfortable +consequences. Of course, in such a case, the thing willed must be of +an innocent nature. The Breton who begs vengeance of St Yves, knows +tolerably well that what he is doing is very black indeed, even though +the saint were ten times a saint. Topsy-turvy as may be his moral +perceptions, he would not call this procedure a "white charm." He +has, however, white charms of his own, one of which was described with +great spirit by Auguste Brizeux, the Breton poet who wove many of the +wild superstitions of his country into picturesque verse. Brizeux' +poems are not very well known either in France or out of it, but they +should be dear to students of folk-lore. The following is a version of +"La Poussière Sainte:" + + Sweeping an ancient chapel through the night + (A ruin now), built 'neath a rocky height, + The aged Coulm's old wife was muttering, + As if some secret strange abroad to fling. + + "I brave, thee tempest, and will do alone + What by my grand-dame in her youth was done, + When at her beck (of Leon's land, the pride), + The ocean, lion-headed, curbed its tide. + + "Sweep, sweep, my broom, until my charm uprears + A force more strong than sighs, more strong than tears: + Charm loved of heaven, which forces wind and wave, + Though fierce and mad, our children's lives to save. + + "My angel knows, a Christian true am I; + No Pagan, nor in league with sorcery. + Hence I dispense to the four winds of God, + To quell their rage, dust from the holy sod. + + "Sweep on my broom; by virtues such as these + Oft through the air I scattered swarms of bees. + And you, old Coulm, to-morrow shall be prest, + You, and my children three, against my breast." + + In Enn-Tell's port meanwhile, the pier along + Pressed forward, mute, dismayed, the anxious throng. + And as the billows howl, the lightnings flash, + And skies, lead-black, to earth seem like to dash; + Neighbours clasped hand to hand, and each one prayed, + Through superstition, speechless, while afraid. + Still as the port a sail did safely reach, + All shouting hurried forward to the beach: + "Father, is't you? Speak, father is it true?" + Others, "Hast seen my son?" "My brother, you?" + "Brave man, the truth, whate'er has happened, say, + Am I a widow?" Night in such dismay + Dragged 'neath a sky without a moon or star. + Thank God! Meanwhile all boats in safety are, + And every hearth is blazing--all save one, + The Columban's. But that was void and lone. + But you, Coulm's wife, still battle with the storm, + Fixed on the rocks, your task you still perform,-- + You cast, towards east, towards west, and towards the north, + And towards the south, your incantations forth. + + "Go, holy dust, 'gainst all the winds that fly. + No sorceress, but a Christian true am I. + By the lamp's light, when I the fire had lit, + In God's own house, my hands collected it. + + "You from the statues of the saints I swept, + And silken flags, still on the pillars kept, + And the dark tombs, of those whose sons neglect, + But you, with your white winding-sheet protect. + + "Go, holy dust! To stem the winds depart! + Born beneath Christian feet, thou glorious art: + When from the porch, I to the altar sped, + I seemed upon some heavenly path to tread. + + "On you the deacons and the priests have trod, + Pilgrims who live, forefathers 'neath the sod; + Wood flowers, sweet grains of incense, saintly bones; + By dawn you will restore my spouse and sons." + + She ceased her charm; and from the chapel then + She saw approach four bare-foot fishermen. + The aged dame in tears fell on her knees + And cried, "I knew they would escape the seas!" + Then cleansing sand and sea-weed o'er them spread, + With happy lips she kissed each cherished head. + + + + +THE DIFFUSION OF BALLADS. + +I.--LORD RONALD IN ITALY. + + +Several causes have combined to give the professional minstrel a more +tenacious hold on life in Italy than in France or Germany or England. +One of them is, that Italian culture has always been less dependent +on education--or what the English poor call "book-learning"--than the +culture of those countries. + +To this day you may count upon finding a blind ballad-singer in every +Italian city. The connection of blindness with popular songs is a +noteworthy thing. It is not, perhaps, a great exaggeration to say +that, had there been no blind folks in the world, there would have +been few ballads. Who knows, indeed, but that Homer would not have +earned his bread by bread-making instead of by enchanting the children +and wise men of all after-ages, had he not been "one who followed +a guide"? Every one remembers how it was the singing of a "blinde +crowder, with no rougher voice than rude style," that moved the heroic +heart of Sidney more than the blare of trumpets. Every one may not +know that in the East of Europe and in Armenia, "blinde crowders" +still wander from village to village, carrying, wheresoever they go, +the songs of a former day and the news of the latest hour; +acting, after a fashion, as professors of history and "special +correspondents," and keeping alive the sentiment of nationality +under circumstances in which, except for their agency, it must almost +without a doubt have expired. + +When the Austrians occupied Trebinje in the Herzegovina, they forbade +the playing of the "guzla," the little stringed instrument which +accompanies the ballads; but the ballads will not be forgotten. +Proscription does not kill a song. What kills it sometimes, if it have +a political sense, is the fulfilment of the hopes it expresses; then +it may die a natural death. I hunted all over Naples for some one who +could sing a song which every Neapolitan, man and boy, hummed through +the year when the Redshirts brought freedom: _Camicia rossa, camicia +ardente_. It seemed that there was not one who still knew it. Just as +I was on the point of giving up the search, a blind man was produced +out of a tavern at Posilippo; a poor creature in threadbare clothes, +holding a wretched violin. He sang the words with spirit and pathos; +he is old, however, and perhaps the knowledge of them will not survive +him. + +Our present business is not with songs of a national or local +interest, but with those which can hardly be said to belong to any +country in particular. And, first of all, we have to go back to a +certain _Camillo, detto il Bianchino cieco fiorentino_, who sang +ballads at Verona in the year 1629, and who had printed for the +greater diffusion of his fame a sort of rhymed advertisement +containing the first few lines of some twenty songs that belonged to +his repertory. Last but one of these samples stands the following: + + "Dov' andastú jersera, + Figlioul mio ricco, savio e gentil; + Dov' andastú jersera?" + +"When I come to look at it," adds Camillo, "this is too long; it ought +to have been the first to be sung"--alluding, of course, to the song, +not to the sample. + +Later in the same century, the ballad mentioned above had the honour +of being cited before a more polite audience than that which was +probably in the habit of listening to the blind Florentine. On +the 24th of September 1656, Canon Lorenzo Panciatichi reminded +his fellow-academicians of the Crusca of what he called "a fine +observation" that had been made regarding the song: + + "Dov' andastú a cena figlioul mio + Ricco, savio, e gentile?" + +The observation (continued the Canon) turned on the answer the son +makes to the mother when she asks him what his sweetheart gave him for +supper. "She gave me," says the son, "_un' anguilla arrosto cotta +nel pentolin dell' olio_." The idea of a roasted eel cooked in an oil +pipkin offended the academical sense of the fitness of things; it had +therefore been proposed to say instead that the eel was hashed: + + "Madonna Madre, + Il cuore stá male, + Per un anguilla in guazzetto." + +Had we nothing to guide us beyond these fragments, there could be no +question but that in this Italian ballad we might safely recognise +one of the most spirited pieces in the whole range of popular +literature--the song of Lord Ronald, otherwise Rowlande, or Randal, or +"Billy, my son:" + + "O where hae ye been, Lord Ronald, my son? + O where hae ye been, my handsome young man?" + "I hae been to the wood; mother, make my bed soon, + For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain would lie down." + + "Where gat ye your dinner, Lord Ronald, my son? + Where gat ye your dinner, my handsome young man?" + "I dined wi' my love; mother, make my bed soon, + For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain would lie down." + + "What gat ye to dinner, Lord Ronald, my son? + What gat ye to dinner, my handsome young man?" + "I gat eels boil'd in broo; mother, make my bed soon, + For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain would lie down." + + "And where are your bloodhounds, Lord Ronald, my son? + And where are your bloodhounds, my handsome young man?" + "O they swell'd and they died; mother, make my bed soon, + For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain would lie down." + + "O I fear ye are poison'd, Lord Ronald, my son! + O I fear ye are poison'd, my handsome young man!" + "O yes, I am poison'd! mother, make my bed soon, + For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain would lie down." + +This version, which I quote from Mr Allingham's _Ballad Book_ (1864), +ends here; so does that given by Sir Walter Scott in the _Border +Minstrelsy_. There is, however, another version which goes on: + + "What will ye leave to your father, Lord Ronald, my son? + What will ye leave to your father, my handsome young man?" + "Baith my houses and land; mither, mak' my bed sune + For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie doun." + + "What will ye leave to your brither, Lord Ronald, my son? + What will ye leave to your brither, my handsome young man?" + "My horse and my saddle; mither, mak' my bed sune, + For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie doun." + + "What will ye leave to your sister, Lord Ronald, my son? + What will ye leave to your sister, my handsome young man?" + "Baith my gold box and rings; mither, mak' my bed sune, + For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie doun." + + "What will ye leave to your true love, Lord Ronald, my son? + What will ye leave to your true love, my handsome young man?" + "The tow and the halter, for to hang on yon tree, + And let her hang there for the poisoning o' me." + +Lord Ronald has already been met with, though somewhat disguised, both +in Germany and in Sweden, but his appearance two hundred and fifty +years ago at Verona has a peculiar interest attached to it. That +England shares most of her songs with the Northern nations is a fact +familiar to all; but, unless I am mistaken, this is almost the first +time of discovering a purely popular British ballad in an Italian +dress. + +It so happens that to the fragments quoted by Camillo and the Canon +can be added the complete story as sung at the present date in +Tuscany, Venetia, and Lombardy. Professor d'Ancona has taken pains to +collate the slightly different texts, because few Italian folk-songs +now extant can be traced even as far back as the seventeenth century. +The learned Professor, whose great antiquarian services are well +known, does not seem to be aware that the song has currency out of +Italy. The best version is one set down from word of mouth in the +district of Como, and of this I subjoin a literal rendering: + + "Where were you yester eve? + My son, beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + Where were you yester eve?" + "I with my love abode; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + I with my love abode; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + "What supper gave she you? + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + What supper gave she you?" + "I supped on roasted eel; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + I supped on roasted eel; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + "And did you eat it all? + My son, beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + And did you eat it all?" + "Only the half I eat; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + Only the half I eat; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + "Where went the other half? + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + Where went the other half?" + "I gave it to the dog; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + I gave it to the dog; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die?" + + "What did you with the dog? + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + What did you with the dog?" + "It died upon the way; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + It died upon the way; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + "Poisoned it must have been! + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + Poisoned it must have been!" + "Quick for the doctor send; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + Quick for the doctor send; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die. + + "Wherefore the doctor call? + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + Wherefore the doctor call?" + "That he may visit me; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + That he may visit me; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + * * * * * + + "Quick for the parson send; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + Quick for the parson send; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + "Wherefore the parson call? + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + Wherefore the parson call?" + "So that I may confess; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + So that I may confess; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + * * * * * + + "Send for the notary; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + Send for the notary; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + "Why call the notary? + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + Why call the notary?" + "To make my testament; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + To make my testament; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + "What to your mother leave? + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + What to your mother leave?" + "To her my palace goes; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + To her my palace goes; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + "What to your brothers leave? + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + What to your brothers leave?" + "To them the coach and team; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + To them the coach and team; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + "What to your sisters leave? + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + What to your sisters leave?" + "A dower to marry them; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + A dower to marry them; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + "What to your servants leave? + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + What to your servants leave?" + "The road to go to Mass; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + The road to go to Mass; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + "What leave you to your tomb? + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + What leave you to your tomb?" + "Masses seven score and ten; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + Masses seven score and ten; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + "What leave you to your love? + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + What leave you to your love?" + "The tree to hang her on; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + The tree to hang her on; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + +At first sight it would seem that the supreme dramatic element of the +English song--the circumstance that the mother does not know, but only +suspects, with increasing conviction, the presence of foul play--is +weakened in the Lombard ballad by the refrain, "Alas, alas, that I +should have to die." But a little more reflection will show that this +is essentially of the nature of an _aside_. In many instances the +office of the burden in old ballads resembles that of the chorus in +a Greek play: it is designed to suggest to the audience a clue to the +events enacting which is not possessed by the _dramatis personæ_--at +least not by all of them. + +In the northern songs, Lord Ronald is a murdered child: a character +in which he likewise figures in the Scotch lay of "The Croodlin Doo." +This is the Swedish variant: + + "Where hast thou been so long, my little daughter?" + "I have been to B[oe]nne to see my brother; + Alas! how I suffer." + + "What gave they thee to eat, my little daughter?" + "Roast eel and pepper, my step-mother. + Alas! how I suffer." + + "What didst thou do with the bones, my little daughter?" + "I threw them to the dogs, my step-mother. + Alas! how I suffer." + + "What happened to the dogs, my little daughter?" + "Their bodies went to pieces, my step-mother. + Alas! how I suffer." + + "What dost thou wish for thy father, my little daughter?" + "Good grain in the grange, my step-mother. + Alas! how I suffer." + + "What dost thou wish for thy brother, my little daughter?" + "A big ship to sail in, my step-mother. + Alas! how I suffer." + + "What dost thou wish for thy sister, my little daughter?" + "Coffers and caskets of gold, my step-mother. + Alas! how I suffer." + + "What dost thou wish for thy step-mother, my little daughter?" + "The chains of hell, step-mother. + Alas! how I suffer." + + "What dost thou wish for thy nurse, my little daughter?" + "The same hell, my nurse. + Alas! how I suffer." + +A point connected with the diffusion of ballads is the extraordinarily +wide adoption of certain conventional forms. One of these is the form +of testamentary instructions by means of which the plot of a song is +worked up to its climax. It reappears in the "Cruel Brother"--which, I +suppose, is altogether to be regarded as of the Roland type: + + "O what would ye leave to your father, dear?" + _With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay._ + "The milk-white steed that brought me here," + _As the primrose spreads so sweetly._ + + "What would ye give to your mother, dear?" + _With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay._ + "My wedding shift which I do wear," + _As the primrose spreads so sweetly._ + + "But she must wash it very clean," + _With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay_, + "For my heart's blood sticks in every seam," + _As the primrose spreads so sweetly_. + + "What would ye give to your sister Anne?" + _With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay._ + "My gay gold ring and my feathered fan," + _As the primrose spreads so sweetly_. + + "What would ye give to your brother John?" + _With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay._ + "A rope and a gallows to hang him on!" + _As the primrose spreads so sweetly_. + + "What would ye give to your brother John's wife?" + _With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay._ + "Grief and sorrow to end her life!" + _As the primrose spreads so sweetly_. + + "What would ye give to your own true lover?" + _With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay._ + "My dying kiss, and my love for ever!" + _As the primrose spreads so sweetly_. + +The Portuguese ballad of "Helena," which has not much in common with +"Lord Roland"--except that it is a story of treachery--is brought into +relation with it by its bequests. Helena is a blameless wife whom a +cruel mother-in-law first encourages to pay a visit to her parents, +and then represents to her husband as having run away from him in +his absence. No sooner has he returned from his journey than he rides +irate after his wife. When he arrives he is met by the news that a son +is born to him, but unappeased he orders the young mother to rise +from her bed and follow him. She obeys, saying that in a well-ordered +marriage it is the husband who commands; only, before she goes, she +kisses her son and bids her mother tell him of these kisses when he +grows up. Then her husband takes her to a high mountain, where the +agony of death comes upon her. The husband asks: "To whom leavest thou +thy jewels?" She answers: "To my sister; if thou wilt permit it." +"To whom leavest thou thy cross and the stones of thy necklace?" "The +cross I leave to my mother; surely she will pray for me; she will +not care to have the stones, thou canst keep them--if to another thou +givest them, better than I, let her adorn herself with them." "Thy +substance, to whom leavest thou?" "To thee, my husband; God grant it +may profit thee." "To whom leavest thou thy son, that he may be well +brought up?" "To thy mother, and may it please God that he should make +himself loved of her." "Not to that dog," cries the husband, his eyes +at last opened, "she might well kill him. Leave him rather to thy +mother, who will bring him up well; she will know how to wash him with +her tears, and she will take the coif from her head to swaddle him." + +A strange, wild Roumanian song, translated by Mr C. F. Keary +(_Nineteenth Century_, No. lxviii.), closes with a list of "gifts" of +the same character: + + "But mother, oh mother, say how + Shall I speak, and what name call him now?" + "My beloved, my step-son, + My heart's love, my cherished one." + "And her, O my mother, what word + Shall I give her, what name?" + "My step-daughter, abhorred, + The whole world's shame." + "Then, my mother, what shall I take him? + What gift shall I make him?" + "A handkerchief fine, little daughter, + Bread of white wheat for thy loved one to eat, + And a glass of wine, my daughter." + "And what shall I take _her_, little mother, + + What gift shall I make _her_?" + "A kerchief of thorns, little daughter; + A loaf of black bread for her whom he wed, + And a cup of poison, my daughter." + +Before parting with "Lord Ronald" it should be noticed that the song +clearly travelled in song-shape, not simply as a popular tradition; +and that its different adaptators have been still more faithful to the +shape than to the substance. It is not so easy to decide whether the +victim was originally a child or a lover, whether the north or the +south has preserved the more correct version. Some crime of the middle +ages may have been the foundation of the ballad; on the other hand +it is conceivable that it formed part of the enormous accumulation of +literary odds and ends brought to Europe from the east, by pilgrims +and crusaders. Stories that, as we know them, seem distinctly +mediæval, such as Boccaccio's "Falcon," have been traced to India. +If a collection were made of the ballads now sung by no more widely +extended class than the three thousand ballad singers inscribed in the +last census of the North-Western Provinces and Oude, what a priceless +boon would not be conferred upon the student of comparative folk-lore! +We cannot arrive at a certainty even in regard to the minor question +of whether Lord Ronald made his appearance first in England or in +Italy. The English and Italian songs bear a closer affinity to +each other than is possessed by either towards the Swedish variant. +Supposing the one to be directly derived from the other--a supposition +which in this case does not seem improbable--the Italian was most +likely the original. There was a steady migration into England of +Italian literature, literate and probably also illiterate, from the +thirteenth to the sixteenth century. The English ballad-singers may +have been as much on the look-out for a new, orally communicated song +from foreign parts, as Chaucer was for a poem of Petrarch's or a tale +of Boccaccio's. + + +II.--THE THEFT OF A SHROUD. + +The ballad with which we have now to deal has had probably as wide a +currency as that of "Lord Ronald." The student of folk-lore recognises +at once, in its evident fitness for local adaptation, its simple yet +terrifying motive, and the logical march of its events, the elements +that give a popular song a free pass among the peoples. + +M. Allègre took down from word of mouth and communicated to the late +Damase Arbaud a Provençal version, which runs as follows: + + His scarlet cape the Prior donned, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + His scarlet cape the Prior donned, + And all the souls in Paradise + With joy and triumph fill the skies. + + His sable cape the Prior donned, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + His sable cape the Prior donned, + And all the spirits of the dead + Fast tears within the graveyard shed. + + Now, Ringer, to the belfry speed, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Now, Ringer, to the belfry speed, + Ring loud, to-night thy ringing tolls + An office for the dead men's souls. + + Ring loud the bell of good St John: + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Ring loud the bell of good St John: + Pray all, for the poor dead; aye pray, + Kind folks, for spirits passed away. + + Soon as the midnight hour strikes, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Soon as the midnight hour strikes, + The pale moon sheds around her light, + And all the graveyard waxeth white. + + What seest thou, Ringer, in the close? + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + What seest thou, Ringer, in the close? + "I see the dead men wake and sit + Each one by his deserted pit." + + Full thousands seven and hundreds five, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Full thousands seven and hundreds five, + Each on his grave's edge, yawning wide, + His dead man's wrappings lays aside. + + Then leave they their white winding-sheets, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Then leave they their white winding-sheets, + And walk, accomplishing their doom, + In sad procession from the tomb. + + Full one thousand and hundreds five, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Full one thousand and hundreds five, + And each one falls upon his knees + Soon as the holy cross he sees. + + Full one thousand and hundreds five, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Full one thousand and hundreds five + Arrest their footsteps, weeping sore + When they have reached their children's door. + + Full one thousand and hundreds five, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Full one thousand and hundreds five + Turn them aside and, listening, stay + Whene'er they hear some kind soul pray. + + Full one thousand and hundreds five, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Full one thousand and hundreds five, + Who stand apart and groan bereft, + Seeing for them no friends are left. + + But soon as ever the white cock stirs, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + But soon as ever the white cock stirs, + They take again their cerements white, + And in their hands a torch alight. + + But soon as ever the red cock crows, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + But soon as ever the red cock crows, + All sing the Holy Passion song, + And in procession march along. + + But soon as the gilded cock doth shine, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + But soon as the gilded cock doth shine, + Their hands and their two arms they cross, + And each descends into his foss. + + 'Tis now the dead men's second night, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Tis now the dead men's second night: + Peter, go up to ring; nor dread + If thou shouldst chance to see the dead. + + "The dead, the dead, they fright me not," + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + "The dead, the dead, they fright me not, + --Yet prayers are due for the dead, I ween, + And due respect should they be seen." + + When next the midnight hour strikes, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + When next the midnight hour strikes, + The graves gape wide and ghastly show + The dead who issue from below. + + Three diverse ways they pass along, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Three diverse ways they pass along, + Nought seen but wan white skeletons + Weeping, nought heard but sighs and moans. + + Down from the belfry Peter came, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Down from the belfry Peter came, + While still the bell of good St John + Gave forth its sound: barin, baron. + + He carried off a dead man's shroud, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + He carried off a dead man's shroud; + At once it seemed no longer night, + The holy close was all alight. + + The holy Cross that midmost stands, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + The holy Cross that midmost stands + Grew red as though with blood 'twas dyed, + And all the altars loudly sighed. + + Now, when the dead regained the close, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Now, when the dead regained the close + --The Holy Passion sung again-- + They passed along in solemn train. + + Then he who found his cerements gone, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Then he who found his cerements gone, + From out the graveyard gazed and signed + His winding-sheet should be resigned. + + But Peter every entrance closed, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + But Peter every entrance closed + With locks and bolts, approach defies, + Then looks at him--but keeps the prize! + + He with his arm, and with his hand, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + He with his arm, and with his hand, + Made signs in vain, two times or three, + And then the belfry entered he. + + A noise is mounting up the stair, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + A noise is mounting up the stair, + The bolts are shattered, and the door + Is burst and dashed upon the floor. + + The Ringer trembled with dismay, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + The Ringer trembled with dismay, + And still the bell of good St John + For ever swung: barin, baron. + + At the first stroke of Angelus, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + At the first stroke of Angelus + The skeleton broke all his bones, + Falling to earth upon the stones. + + Peter upon his bed was laid, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Peter upon his bed was laid, + Confessed his sin, repenting sore, + Lingered three days, then lived no more. + +It will be seen that, in this ballad, which is locally called "Lou +Jour des Mouerts," the officiating priest assumes red vestments in +the morning, and changes them in the course of the day for black. +The vestments appropriate to the evening of All Saints' Day are still +black (it being the Vigil of All Souls'), but in the morning the +colour worn is white or gold. An explanation, however, is at hand. The +feast of All Saints had its beginning in the dedication of the Roman +Pantheon by Boniface IV., in the year 607, to _S. Maria ad Martyres_, +and red ornaments were naturally chosen for a day set apart especially +to the commemoration of martyrdom. These were only discarded when the +feast came to have a more general character, and there is evidence +of their retention here and there in French churches till a date as +advanced as the fifteenth century. Thus, we gain incidentally some +notion of the age of the song. + +Not long after giving a first reading to the Provençal ballad of the +Shroud-theft, I became convinced of its substantial identity with a +poem whose author holds quite another rank to that of the nameless +folk-poet. Goethe's "Todten Tanz" tends less to edification than "Lou +jour des Mouerts;" nor has it, I venture to think, an equal power. +We miss the pathetic picture of the companies of sad ghosts; these +kneeling before the wayside crosses; these lingering by their +children's thresholds; these listening to the prayers of the pious +on their behalf; these others weeping, _en vesent que n'ant plus +d'amics_. But the divergence of treatment cannot hide the fact that +the two ballads are made out of one tale. + + THE DANCE OF DEATH. + + The watcher looks down in the dead of the night + On graves in trim order gleaming; + The moon steeps the world all around in her light-- + 'Tis clear as if noon were beaming. + One grave gaped apart, then another began; + Here forth steps a woman, and there steps a man, + White winding-sheets trailing behind them. + + On sport they determine, nor pause they for long, + All feel for the measure advancing; + The rich and the poor, the old and the young; + But winding-sheets hinder the dancing. + Since sense of decorum no longer impedes, + They hasten to shake themselves free of their weeds, + And tombstones are quickly beshrouded. + + Then legs kick about and are lifted in air, + Strange gesture and antic repeating; + The bones crack and rattle, and crash here and there, + As if to keep time they were beating. + The sight fills the watcher with mirth 'stead of fear, + And the sly one, the Tempter, speaks low in his ear: + "Now go and a winding-sheet plunder!" + + The hint he soon followed, the deed it was done, + Then behind the church-door he sought shelter; + The moon in her splendour unceasingly shone, + And still dance the dead helter-skelter. + At last, one by one, they all cease from the play, + And, wrapt in the winding-sheets, hasten away, + Beneath the turf silently sinking. + + One only still staggers and stumbles along, + The grave edges groping and feeling; + 'Tis no brother ghost who has done him the wrong; + Now his scent shows the place of concealing. + The church-door he shakes, but his strength is represt; + 'Tis well for the watcher the portals are blest + By crosses resplendent protected. + + His shirt he must have, upon this he is bent, + No time has he now for reflection; + Each sculpture of Gothic some holding has lent, + He scales and he climbs each projection. + Dread vengeance o'ertakes him, 'tis up with the spy! + From arch unto arch draws the skeleton nigh, + Like lengthy-legged horrible spider. + + The watcher turns pale, and he trembles full sore, + The shroud to return he beseeches; + But a claw (it is done, he is living no more), + A claw to the shroud barely reaches. + The moonlight grows faint; it strikes one by the clock; + A thunderclap burst with a terrible shock; + To earth falls the skeleton shattered. + +It needed but small penetration to guess that Goethe had neither seen +nor heard of the Provençal song. It seemed, therefore, certain that +a version of the Shroud-theft must exist in Germany, or near it--an +inference I found to be correct on consulting that excellent work, +Goethe's _Gedichte erläutert von Heinrich Viehoff_ (Stuttgart, 1870). +So far as the title and the incident of the dancing are concerned, +Goethe apparently had recourse to a popular story given in Appel's +_Book of Spectres_, where it is related how, when the guards of the +tower looked out at midnight, they saw Master Willibert rise from his +grave in the moonshine, seat himself on a high tombstone, and begin to +perform on his pocket pipe. Then several other tombs opened, and the +dead came forth and danced cheerily over the mounds of the graves. The +white shrouds fluttered round their dried-up limbs, and their bones +clattered and shook till the clock struck one, when each returned +into his narrow house, and the piper put his pipe under his arm +and followed their example. The part of the ballad which has to do +directly with the Shroud-theft is based upon oral traditions collected +by the poet during his sojourn at Teplitz, in Bohemia, in the summer +of 1813. Viehoff has ascertained that there are also traces of the +legend in Silesia, Moravia, and Tyrol. In these countries the story +would seem to be oftenest told in prose; but Viehoff prints a rhymed +rendering of the variant localised in Tyrol, where the events are +supposed to have occurred at the village of Burgeis: + + The twelve night strokes have ceased to sound, + The watchman of Burgeis looks around, + The country all in moonlight sleeps; + Standing the belfry tower beneath + The tombstones, with their wreaths of death, + The wan moon's ghastly pallor steeps. + + "Does the young mother in child-birth dead + Rise in her shroud from her lonely bed, + For the sake of the child she has left behind? + To mock them (they say) makes the dead ones grieve, + Let's see if I cannot her work relieve, + Or she no end to her toil may find." + + So spake he, when something, with movement slow, + Stirs in the deep-dug grave below, + And in its trailing shroud comes out; + And the little garments that infants have + It hangs and stretches on gate and grave, + On rail and trellis, the yard about. + + The rest of the buried in sleep repose, + That nothing of waking or trouble knows, + For the woman the sleep of the grave is killed; + Her leaden sleep, each midnight hour, + Flees, and her limbs regain their power, + And she hastes as to tend her new-born child. + + All with rash spite the watchman views, + And with cruel laughter the form pursues, + As he leans from the belfrey's narrow height, + And in sinful scorn on the tower rails + Linen and sheets and bands he trails, + Mocking her acts in the moon's wan light. + + Lo, with swift steps, foreboding doom, + From the churchyard's edge o'er grave and tomb + The ghost to the tower wends its ways; + And climbs and glides, ne'er fearing fall, + Up by the ledges, the lofty wall, + Fixing the sinner with fearful gaze. + + The watcher grows pale, and with hasty hand, + Tears from the tower the shrouds and bands; + Vainly! That threatening grin draws nigh! + With a trembling hand he tolls the hour, + And the skeleton down from the belfry-tower, + Shattered and crumbling, falls from high. + +This story overlaps the great cycle of popular belief which treats +of the help given by a dead mother to her bereaved child. They say +in Germany, when the sheets are ruffled in the bed of a motherless +infant, that the mother has lain beside it and suckled it. Kindred +superstitions stretch through the world. The sin of the Burgeis +watchman is that of heartless malice, but it stops short of actual +robbery, which is perhaps the reason why he escapes with his life, +having the presence of mind to toll forth the first hour of day, +when-- + + Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, + The extravagant and erring spirit hies + To his confine. + +The prose legends which bear upon one or another point in the +Shroud-theft, are both numerous and important. Joseph Macé, a +cabin-boy of Saint Cast, in Upper Brittany, related the following to +the able collector of Breton folk-lore, M. Paul Sébillot. There was a +young man who went to see a young girl; his parents begged him not to +go again to her, but he replied: "Mind your own business and leave me +to mind mine." One evening he invited two or three of his comrades to +accompany him, and as they passed by a stile they saw a woman standing +there, dressed all in white. "I'll take off her coif," said the youth. +"No," said the others, "let her alone." But he went straight up to +her and carried off her coif--there only remained the little skullcap +underneath, but he did not see her face. He went with the others to +his sweetheart, and showed her the coif. "Ah!" said he, "as I came +here I met a woman all in white, and I carried off her coif." "Give +me the coif," replied his sweetheart; "I will put it away in my +wardrobe." Next evening he started again to see the girl, and on +reaching the stile he saw a woman in white like the one of the day +before, but this one had no head. "Dear me," he said to himself, "it +is the same as yesterday; still I did not think I had pulled off her +head." When he went in to his sweetheart, she said, "I wore to-day +the coif you gave me; you can't think how nice I look in it!" "Give it +back to me, I beg of you," said the young man. She gave it back, and +when he got home he told his mother the whole story. "Ah, my poor +lad," she said, "you have kept sorry company. I told you some ill +would befall you." He went to bed, but in the night his mother heard +sighs coming from the bed of her son. She woke her good man and said, +"Listen; one would say someone was moaning." She went to her son's +bed and found him bathed in sweat. "What is the matter with you?" +she asked. "Ah, my mother, I had a weight of more than three hundred +pounds on my body; it stifled me, I could bear it no longer." Next day +the youth went to confession, and he told all to the curate. "My boy," +said the priest, "the person you saw was a woman who came from the +grave to do penance; it was your dead sister." "What can I do?" asked +the young man. "You must go and take her back her coif, and set it +on the neck on the side to which it leans." "Ah! sir, I should never +dare, I should die of fright!" Still he went that evening to the +stile, where he saw the woman who was dressed in white and had no +head; he set the coif just on the side the neck leant to; all at once +a head showed itself inside it, and a voice said, "Ah! my brother, you +hindered me from doing penance; to-morrow you will come and help me +to finish it." The young man went back to bed, but next day he did not +get up when the others did, and when they went to his bed he was dead. + +At Saint Suliac a young man saw three young girls kneeling in the +cemetery. He took the cap off one of them, saying that he would not +give it back till she came to embrace him. Next day, instead of the +cap he found a death's head. At midnight he carried it back, holding +in his arms a new-born infant. The death's head became once more a +cap, the woman disappeared, and the young man, thanks to the child, +suffered no harm. + +In a third Breton legend a child commits the theft, but without any +consciousness of wrong-doing. A little girl picked up a small bone in +a graveyard and took it away to amuse herself with it. In the evening, +when she returned home, she heard a voice saying: + + Give me back my bone! + Give me back my bone! + +"What's that?" asked the mother. + +"Perhaps it is because of a bone I picked up in the cemetery." + +"Well, it must be given back." + +The little girl opened the door and threw the bone into the court, but +the voice went on saying: + + Give me back my bone! + Give me back my bone! + +"Maybe it is the bone of a dead man; take the candle, go into the +court and give it back to him." + +It is most unfortunate to possess a human bone, even by accident. +It establishes unholy relations between the possessor and the spirit +world which render him defenceless against spells and enchantments. A +late chaplain to the forces in Mauritius told me that the witches, +or rather wizards, who have it all their own way in that island, +contrived, after a course of preparatory persecution, to +surreptitiously introduce into his house the little finger of a child. +He could not think what to do with it: at last he consulted a friend, +a Catholic priest, who advised him to burn it, which was done. We all +know "the finger of birth-strangled babe" in the witches' cauldron in +_Macbeth_; but it is somewhat surprising to find a similar "charm for +powerful trouble" in current use in a British colony. + +A Corsican legend, reported by M. Frédéric Ortoli, should have a place +here. On the Day of the Dead a certain man had to go to Sartena to +sell chestnuts. Overnight he filled his panniers, so as to be ready to +start with the first gleam of daylight. The only thing left for him to +do was to go and get his horse, which was out at pasture not far from +the village. So he went to bed, but hardly had he lain down when a +fearful storm broke over the house. Cries and curses echoed all round: +"Cursed be thou! cursed be thy wife! cursed be thy children!" The +wretched man grew cold with fear; he got quite close to his wife, who +asked: "Did you put the water outside the window?" "Sangu di Cristu!" +cried the man, "I forgot!" He rose at once to put vessels filled with +water on the balcony. The dead--whose vigil it was--were in fact come, +and finding no water either to drink or to wash and purify their sins +in, they had made a frightful noise and hurled maledictions against +him who had forgotten their wants. The poor man went to bed again, but +the storm continued, though the cursing and blaspheming had ceased. + +Towards three in the morning the man wished to get up, "Stay," said +his wife, "do not go." + +"No, go I must." + +"The weather is so bad, the wind so high; some mischief will come to +you." + +"Never mind; keep me no more." + +And so saying the husband went out to find his horse. He had barely +reached the crossway when by the path from Giufari, he saw, marching +towards him, the _squadra d'Arrozza_--the Dead Battalion. Each dead +man held a taper, and chanted the _Miserere_. + +The poor peasant was as if petrified; his blood stood still in his +veins, and he could not utter a word. Meanwhile the troop surrounded +him, and he who was at its head offered him the taper he was carrying. +"Take hold!" he said, and the poor wretch took it. + +Then the most dreadful groans and cries were heard. "Woe! woe! woe! Be +accursed, be accursed, be accursed." + +The villager soon came to himself, but oh! horrid sight! in his hand +was the arm of a little child. It was that, and not a taper, that the +dead had given him. He tried to get rid of it, but every effort proved +fruitless. In despair, he went to the priest, and told him all about +it. "Men should never take what spirits offer them," said the priest, +"it is always a snare they set for us; but now that the mischief is +done, let us see how best we can repair it." + +"What must I do?" + +"For three successive nights the Dead Battalion will come under your +windows at the same hour as when you met it: some will cry, some +will sob, others will curse you, and ask persistently for the little +child's arm; the bells of all the churches will set to tolling the +funeral knell, but have no fear. At first you must not throw them the +arm--only on the third day may you get rid of it, and this is how. +Get ready a lot of hot ashes; then when the dead come and begin to cry +and groan, throw them a part. That will make them furious; they will +wish to attack your house--you will let them in, but when all the +spectres are inside, suddenly throw at them what is left of the hot +ashes with the child's arm along with it. The dead will take it away, +and you will be saved." + +Everything happened just as the priest said; for three nights cries, +groans, and imprecations surrounded the man's house, while the bells +tolled the death-knell. It was only by throwing hot ashes on the +ghosts that he got rid of the child's arm. Not long after, he died. +"Woe be to him who forgets to give drink to the dead." + +The Dead Battalion, or Confraternity of Ghosts, walk abroad dressed as +penitents, with hoods over their heads. The solitary night traveller +sees them from time to time, defiling down the mountain gorges; they +invariably try to make him accept some object, not to be recognised +in the dark--but beware, lest you accept! If some important person +is about to die, they come out to receive his soul into their dread +brotherhood. + +Ghost stories are common in Corsica. What wilder tale could be desired +than that of the girl, betrayed by her lover to wed a richer bride, +who returns thrice, and lies down between man and wife--twice she +vanishes at cock-crow, the third time she clasps her betrayer in her +chilly arms, saying, "Thou art mine, O beloved! mine thou wilt be +forever, we part no more." While she speaks he breathes his last +breath. + +The dead, when assembled in numbers, and when not employed in +rehearsing the business or calling of their former lives, are usually +engaged either in dancing or in going through some sort of religious +exercise. On this point there is a conformity of evidence. A spectre's +mass is a very common superstition. On All Soul's Eve an old woman +went to pray in the now ruined church of St Martin, at Bonn. Priests +were performing the service, and there was a large congregation, but +by and by the old woman became convinced that she was the only living +mortal in the church. She wished to get away, but she could not; just +as Mass was ending, however, her deceased husband whispered to her +that now was the time to fly for her life. She ran to the door, but +she stopped for one moment at the spot in the aisle where two of her +children were buried, just to say, "Peace be unto them." The door +swung open and closed after her: a bit of her cloak was shut in, so +that she had to leave it behind. Soon after she sickened and died; the +neighbours said it must be because a piece of her clothes had remained +in the possession of the dead. + +The dance of the dead sometimes takes the form not of an amusement but +of a doom. One of the most curious instances of this is embodied in a +Rhineland legend, which has the advantage of giving names, dates, and +full particulars. In the 14th century, Freiherr von Metternich placed +his daughter Ida in a convent on the island of Oberwörth, in order +to separate her from her lover, one Gerbert, to whom she was secretly +betrothed. A year later the maiden lay sick in the nunnery, attended +by an aged lay sister. "Alas!" she said, "I die unwed though a +betrothed wife." "Heaven forefend!" cried her companion, "then you +would be doomed to dance the death-dance." The old sister went on to +explain that betrothed maidens who die without having either married +or taken religious vows, are condemned to dance on a grassless spot +in the middle of the island, there being but one chance of escape--the +coming of a lover, no matter whether the original betrothed or +another, with whom the whole company dances round and round till +he dies; then the youngest of the ghosts makes him her own, and may +henceforth rest in her grave. The old nun's gossip does not delay +(possibly it hastens) the hapless Ida's departure, and Gerbert, +who hears of her illness on the shores of the Boden See, arrives at +Coblentz only to have tidings of her death. He rows over to Oberwörth: +it is midnight in midwinter. Under the moonlight dance the unwed +brides, veiled and in flowing robes; Gerbert thinks he sees Ida +amongst them. He joins in the dance; fast and furious it becomes, to +the sound of a wild, unearthly music. At last the clock strikes, and +the ghosts vanish--only one, as it goes, seems to stoop and kiss the +youth, who sinks to the ground. There the gardener finds him on +the morrow, and in spite of all the care bestowed upon him by the +sisterhood he dies before sundown. + +In China they are more practical. In the natural course of things the +spirit of an engaged girl would certainly haunt her lover, but there +is a way to prevent it, and that way he takes. He must go to the house +where she died, step over the coffin containing her body, and carry +home a pair of her shoes. Then he is safe. + +A story may be added which comes from a Dutch source. The gravedigger +happened to have a fever on All Saints' Day. "Is it not unlucky?" he +said to a friend who came to see him, "I am ill, and must go to-night +in the cold and snow to dig a grave." "Oh, I'll do that for you," said +the gossip. "That's a little service." So it was agreed. The gossip +took a spade and a pick-axe, and cheered himself with a glass at the +alehouse; then, by half-past eleven, the work was done. As he +was going away from the churchyard he saw a procession of white +friars--they went round the close, each with a taper in his hand. When +they passed the gossip, they threw down the tapers, and the last flung +him a big ball of wax with two wicks. The gossip laughed quite loudly: +all this wax would sell for a pretty sum! He picked up the tapers and +hid them under his bed. Next day was All Souls'. The gossip went to +bed betimes, but he could not get to sleep, and as twelve struck he +heard three knocks. He jumped up and opened the door--there stood all +the white monks, only they had no tapers! The gossip fell back on his +bed from fright, and the monks marched into the room and stood all +round him. Then their white robes dropped off, and, only to think of +it! they were all skeletons! But no skeleton was complete; one lacked +an arm, another a leg, another a backbone, and one had no head. +Somehow the cloth in which the gossip had wrapped the wax came out +from under the bed and fell open; instead of tapers it was full of +bones. The skeletons now called out for their missing members: "Give +me my rib," "Give me my backbone," and so on. The gossip gave back all +the pieces, and put the skull on the right shoulders--it was what he +had mistaken for a ball of wax. The moment the owner of the head had +got it back he snatched a violin which was hanging against the wall, +and told the gossip to begin to play forthwith, he himself extending +his arms in the right position to conduct the music. All the skeletons +danced, making a fearful clatter, and the gossip dared not leave off +fiddling till the morning came and the monks put on their clothes and +went away. The gossip and his wife did not say one word of what had +happened till their last hour, when they thought it wisest to tell +their confessor. + +Mr Benjamin Thorpe saw a link between the above legend, of which he +gave a translation in his "Northern Mythology," and the Netherlandish +proverb, "Let no one take a bone from the churchyard: the dead +will torment him till he return it." Its general analogy with our +Shroud-theft does not admit of doubt, though the proceedings of the +expropriator of wax lights are more easily accounted for than +are those of the Shroud-thief. Peter of Provence either stole the +winding-sheet out of sheer mischief, or he took it to enable him +to see sights not lawfully visible to mortal eyes. In any case a +well-worn shroud could scarcely enrich the thief, while the wax used +for ecclesiastical candles was, and is still, a distinctly marketable +commodity. A stranger who goes into a church at Florence in the +dusk of the evening, when a funeral ceremony is in the course of +performance, is surprised to see men and boys dodging the footsteps of +the brethren of the _Misericordia_, and stooping at every turn to the +pavement; if he asks what is the object of their peculiar antics, he +will hear that it is to collect + + The droppings of the wax to sell again. + +The industry is time-honoured in Italy. At Naples in the last century, +the wax-men flourished exceedingly by reason of a usage described by +Henry Swinburne. Candidates for holy orders who had not money enough +to pay the fees, were in the habit of letting themselves out to attend +funerals, so that they might be able to lay by the sum needful. But as +they were often indisposed to fulfil the duties thus undertaken, they +dressed up the city vagrants in their clothes and sent them to pray +and sing instead of them. These latter made their account out of the +transaction by having a friend near, who held a paper bag, into which +they made the tapers waste plenteously. Other devices for improving +the trade were common at that date in the Neapolitan kingdom. Once, +when an archbishop was to be buried, and four hundred genuine friars +were in attendance, suddenly a mad bull was let loose amongst them, +whereupon they dropped their wax lights, and the thieves, who had laid +the plot, picked them up. At another great funeral, each assistant +was respectfully asked for his taper by an individual dressed like +a sacristan; the tapers were then extinguished and quietly carried +away--only afterwards it was discovered that the supposed sacristans +belonged to a gang of thieves. The Shroud-theft is a product of the +peculiar fascination exercised by the human skeleton upon the mediæval +fancy. The part played by the skeleton in the early art and early +fiction of the Christian æra is one of large importance; the horrible, +the grotesque, the pathetic, the humorous--all are grouped round the +bare remnants of humanity. The skeleton, figuring as Death, still +looks at you from the _façades_ of the village churches in the north +of Italy and the Trentino--sometimes alone, sometimes with other stray +members of the _Danse Macabre_; carrying generally an inscription to +this purport: + + Giunge la morte plena de egualeza, + Sole ve voglio e non vostra richeza. + Digna mi son de portar corona, + E che signoresi ogni persona. + +The _Danse Macabre_ itself is a subject which is well nigh +exhaustless. The secret of its immense popularity can be read in the +lines just quoted: it proclaimed equality. "Nous mourrons tous," said +the French preacher--then, catching the eye of the king, he politely +substituted "_presque_ tous." Now there is no "presque" in the Dance +of Death. Whether painted by Holbein's brush, or by that of any humble +artist of the Italian valleys, the moral is the same: grand lady and +milkmaid, monarch and herdsman, all have to go. Who shall fathom the +grim comfort there was in this vivid, this highly intelligible showing +forth of the indisputable fact? It was a foretaste of the declaration +of the rights of man. Professor Pellegrini, who has added an +instructive monograph to the literature of the _Danse Macabre_, +mentions that on the way to the cemetery of Galliate a wall bears the +guiding inscription: "Via al vero comunismo!" + +The old custom of way-side ossuaries contributed no doubt towards +keeping strongly before the people the symbol and image of the great +King. I have often reflected on the effect, certainly if unconsciously +felt, of the constant and unveiled presence of the dead. I remember +once passing one of the still standing chapels through the gratings +of which may be seen neatly ranged rows of human bones, as I was +descending late one night a mountain in Lombardy. The moon fell +through the bars upon the village ancestors; one old man went by along +the narrow way, and said gravely as he went the two words: "È +tardi!" It was a scene which always comes back to me when I study the +literature of the skeleton. + + + + +SONGS FOR THE RITE OF MAY. + + +One of the first of living painters has pointed to the old English +custom of carrying about flowers on May Day as a sign that, in the +Middle Ages, artistic sensibility and a pleasure in natural beauty +were not dead among the common people of England. Nothing can be truer +than this way of judging the observance of the Rite of May. Whatever +might be the foolishness that it led to here and there, its origin lay +always in pure satisfaction at the returned glory of the earth; in the +wish to establish a link that could be seen and felt--if only that +of holding a green bough or of wearing a daffodil crown--between +the children of men and the new and beautiful growth of nature. The +sentiment is the same everywhere, but the manner of its expression +varies. In warmer lands it finds a vent long before the coming of +May. March, in fact, rather than May, seems to have been chosen as the +typical spring month in ancient Greece and Rome; and when we see the +almond-trees blooming down towards Ponte Molle in the earliest week in +February, even March strikes us as a little late for the beginning +of the spring festival. A few icicles next morning on the Trevi, act, +however, as a corrective to our ideas. In a famous passage Ovid tells +the reason why the Romans kept holiday on the first of March: "The +ice being broken up, winter at last yields, and the snow melts away, +conquered by the sun's gentle warmth; the leaves come back to the +trees that were stripped by the cold, the sap-filled bud swells with +the tender twig, and the fertile grass, that long lay unseen, finds +hidden passages and uplifts itself in the air. Now is the field +fruitful, now is the time of the birth of cattle, now the bird +prepares its house and home in the bough." (_Fastorum_, lib. iii.) + +March day is still kept in Greece by bands of youngsters who go +from house to house in the hopes of getting little gifts of fruit or +cheese. They take with them a wooden swallow which they spin round to +the song: + + The swallow speeds her flight + O'er the sea-foam white, + And then a-singing she doth slake her wing. + "March, March, my delight, + And February wan and wet, + For all thy snow and rain thou yet + Hast a perfume of the spring." + +Or perhaps to the following variant, given by Mr Lewis Sergeant in +_New Greece_: + + She is here, she is here, + The swallow that brings us the beautiful year; + Open wide the door, + We are children again, we are old no more. + +These little swallow-songs are worth the attention of the Folk-Lore +student, since they are of a greater antiquity than can be proved on +written evidence in the case, so far as I know, of any other folk-song +still current. More than two thousand years ago they existed in the +form quoted from Theognis by Athenæus as "an excellent song sung by +the children of Rhodes." + + The swallow comes! She comes, she brings + Glad days and hours upon her wings. + See on her back + Her plumes are black, + But all below + As white as snow. + Then from your well-stored house with haste, + Bring sweet cakes of dainty taste, + Bring a flagon full of wine, + Wheaten meal bring, white and fine; + And a platter load with cheese, + Eggs and porridge add--for these + Will the swallow not decline. + Now shall we go, or gifts receive! + Give, or ne'er your house we leave, + Till we the door or lintel break, + Or your little wife we take; + She so light, small toil will make. + But whate'er ye bring us forth, + Let the gift be one of worth. + Ope, ope your door, to greet the swallow then, + For we are only boys, not bearded men. + +In Ægina the children's prattle runs: "March is come, sing, ye hills +and ye flowers and little birds! Say, say, little swallow, where hast +thou passed? where hast thou halted?" And in Corfu: "Little swallow, +my joyous one, joyous my swallow; thou that comest from the desert, +what good things bringest thou? Health, joy, and red eggs." Yet +another version of the swallow song deals in scant compliments to the +month of March, which was welcomed so gladly at its first coming: + + From the Black Sea the swallow comes, + She o'er the waves has sped, + And she has built herself a nest + And resting there she said: + "Thou February cold and wet, + And snowy March and drear, + Soft April heralds its approach, + And soon it will be here. + The little birds begin to sing, + Trees don their green array, + Hens in the yard begin to cluck, + And store of eggs to lay. + The herds their winter shelter leave + For mountain-side and top; + The goats begin to sport and skip, + And early buds to crop; + Beasts, birds, and men all give themselves + To joy and merry heart, + And ice and snow and northern winds + Are melted and depart. + Foul February, snowy March, + Fair April will not tarry. + Hence, February! March, begone! + Away the winter carry!" + +When they leave off singing, the children cry "Pritz! Pritz!" +imitating the sound of the rapid flight of a bird. Longfellow +translated a curious Stork-carol sung in spring-time by the Hungarian +boys on the islands of the Danube: + + Stork! Stork! Poor Stork! + Why is thy foot so bloody? + A Turkish boy hath torn it, + Hungarian boy will heal it, + With fiddle, fife, and drum. + +Before the sun was up on May-day morning, the people of Edinburgh +assembled at Arthur's Seat to "meet the dew." May-dew was thought to +possess all kinds of virtues. English girls went into the fields at +dawn to wash their faces in it, in order to procure a good complexion. +Pepys speaks of his wife going to Woolwich for a little change of air, +and to gather the May-dew. In Croatia, the women get from the woods +flowers and grasses which they throw into water taken from under a +mill-wheel, and next morning they bathe in the water, imagining that +thus the new strength of Nature enters into them. There is said to +also exist a singular rain-custom in Croatia. When a drought threatens +to injure the crops, a young girl, generally a gipsy, dresses herself +entirely in flowers and grasses, in which primitive raiment she is +conducted through the village by her companions, who sing to the skies +for mercy. In Greece, too, there are many songs and ceremonies in +connection with a desire for the rain, which never comes during the +whole pitiless summer. + +If there be a part of the world where spring plays the laggard, it is +certainly the upper valley of the Inn. Nevertheless the children +of the Engadine trudge forth bravely over the snow, shaking their +cow-bells and singing lustily: + + Chalanda Mars, chaland'Avrigl + Lasché las vachias our d'nuilg. + +Were the cows to leave their stables as is here enjoined, they would +not find a blade of grass to eat--but that does not matter. The +children have probably sung that song ever since their forefathers +came up to the mountains; came up in all likelihood from sunny +Tuscany. The Engadine lads, after doing justice to their March-day +fare, set out for the boundaries of their commune, where they are met +by another band of boys, with whom they contend in various trials +of strength, which sometimes end in hand-to-hand fights. This may be +analogous to the old English usage of beating the younger generation +once a year at the village boundaries in order to impress on them a +lasting idea of local geography. By the Lake of Poschiavo it is the +custom to "call after the grass"--"chiamar l'erba"--on March-day. + +In the end, as has been seen, March gets an ill-word from the Greek +folk-singer, who is not more constant in his praise of April. It is +the old fatality which makes the Better the Enemy of the Good. + + May is coming, May is coming, comes the month so blithe and gay; + April truly has its flowers, but all roses bloom in May; + April, thou accurst one, vanish! Sweet May-month I long to see; + May fills all the world with flowers, May will give my love to me. + +May is pre-eminently the bridal month in Greece; a strange +contradiction to the prejudice against May marriages that prevails +in most parts of Europe. "Marry in May, rue for aye." The Romans have +been held responsible for this superstition. They kept their festival +of the dead during May, and while it lasted other forms of worship +were suspended. To contract marriage would have been to defy the +fates. Traces of a spring feast of souls survive in France, where, on +Palm Sunday, _Pâques fleuries_ as it is called, it is customary to set +the first fresh flowers of the year upon the graves. Nor is it by any +means uninteresting to note that in one great empire far outside of +the Roman world the _fête des morts_ is assigned not to the quiet +close of the year but to the delightful spring. The Chinese festival +of Clear Weather which falls in April is the chosen time for +worshipping at the family tombs. + +The marriage of Mary Queen of Scots and James Bothwell was celebrated +on the 16th of May; an unknown hand wrote upon the gate of Holyrood +Palace Ovid's warning: + + Si te proverbia tangunt, + Mense malas Maio nubere vulgus ait. + +Of English songs treating of that "observance" or "rite" of May to +which Chaucer and Shakespeare bear witness, there are unfortunately +few. The old nursery rhyme: + + Here we go a-piping, + First in spring and then in May, + +tells the usual story of house-to-house visiting and expected largess. +In Devonshire, children used to take round a richly-dressed doll; such +a doll is still borne in triumph by the children of Great Missenden, +Bucks, where a doggerel is sung, of which these are the concluding +verses: + + A branch of May I have you brought, + And at your door I stand; + 'Tis but a spray that's well put out + By the works of the mighty Lord's hand. + + If you have got no strong beer, + We'll be content with small; + And take the goodwill of your house, + And give good thanks for all. + + God bless the master of this house, + The mistress also; + Likewise the little children + That round the table go. + + My song is done, I must be gone, + No longer can I stay; + God bless you all, both great and small, + And send you a joyful May. + +The poets of Great Missenden not being prolific, the two middle +stanzas are used at Christmas as well as on May-day. + +May-poles were prohibited by the Long Parliament of 1644, being +denounced as a "heathenish vanity generally abused to superstition and +wickedness." A long while before, the Roman Floralia, the feast when +people carried green boughs and wore fresh garlands, had been put +down for somewhat the same reasons. With regard to May-poles I am not +inclined to think too harshly of them. They died hard: an old Essex +man told me on his death-bed of how when he was a lad the young folks +danced regularly round the May-pole on May-day, and in his opinion it +was a good time. It was a time, he went on to say, when the country +was a different thing; twice a day the postillion's horn sounded down +the village street, the Woolpack Inn was often full even to the attics +in its pretty gabled roof, all sorts of persons of quality fell out +of the clouds, or to speak exactly, emerged from the London coach. +The life of the place seemed to be gone, said my friend, and yet "the +place" is in the very highest state of modern prosperity. + +The parade of sweeps in bowers of greenery lingered on rather longer +in England than May-poles. It is stated to have originated in this +way. Edward Wortley Montagu (born about 1714), who later was destined +to win celebrity by still stranger freaks, escaped when a boy from +Westminster School and borrowed the clothes of a chimney sweep, +in whose trade he became an adept. A long search resulted in his +discovery and restoration to his parents on May 1; in recollection +of which event Mrs Elizabeth Montagu is said to have instituted +the May-day feast given by her for many years to the London +chimney-sweepers. + +In the country west of Glasgow it is still remembered how once the +houses were adorned with flowers and branches on the first of May, +and in some parts of Ireland they still plant a May-tree or May-bush +before the door of the farmhouse, throwing it at sundown into a +bonfire. The lighting of fires was not an uncommon feature of May-day +observance, but it is a practice which seems to me to have strayed +into that connection from its proper place in the great festival of +the summer solstice on St John's Eve. Among people of English speech, +May-day customs are little more than a cheerful memory. Herrick wrote: + + Wash, dress, be brief in praying, + Few beads are best when once we go a-maying. + +People neglect their "beads" or the equivalents now from other +motives. + +May night is the German Walpurgis-nacht. The witches ride up to the +Brocken on magpies' tails, not a magpie can be seen for the next +twenty-four hours--they are all gone and they have not had time to +return. The witches dance on the Brocken till they have danced away +the winter's snow. May-brides and May-kings are still to be heard of +in Germany, and children run about on May-day with buttercups or +with a twist of bread, a _Bretzel_, decked with ribbons, or holding +imprisoned may-flies, which they let loose whilst they sing: + + Maïkäferchen fliege, + Dein Vater ist in kriege, + Deine Mutter ist in Pommerland, + Pommerland ist abgebrannt, + Maïkäferchen fliege. + +May chafer must fly away home, his father is at the wars, his mother +is in Pomerania, Pomerania is all burnt. May chafer in short is the +brother of our ladybird. Dr Karl Blind is of opinion that "Pommerland" +is a later interpolation for "Holler-land"--the land of Freya--Holda, +the Teutonic Aphrodite; and he and other German students of mythology +see in the conflagration an allusion to the final end and doom of the +kingdom of the gods. It is pointed out that the ladybird was Freya's +messenger, whose business it was to call the unborn from their +tranquil sojourn amongst celestial flowers, into the storms of human +existence. There is an airy May chafer song in Alsace--Teutonic in +tradition, though French in tongue: + + Avril, tu t'en vas, + Car Mai vient là-bas, + Pour balayer ta figure + De pluie, aussi de froidure. + Hanneton, vole! + Hanneton, vole! + + Au firmament bleu + Ton nid est en feu, + Les Turcs avec leur épée + Viennent tuer ta couvée. + Hanneton, vole! + Hanneton, vole! + +Dr Blind recollects taking part, as a boy, in an extremely curious +children's drama, which is still played in some places in the open +air. It is an allegory of the expulsion of winter, who is killed and +burnt, and of the arrival of summer, who comes decked with flowers and +garlands. The children repeat: + + Now have we chased death away, + And we bring the summer weather; + Summer dear and eke the May, + And the flowers all together: + Bringing summer we are come, + Summer tide and sunshine home. + +With this may be compared an account given by Olaus Magnus, a Swedish +writer of the fifteenth century, of how May Day was celebrated in +his time. "A number of youths on horseback were drawn up in two lines +facing each other, the one party representing 'Winter' and the other +'Summer.' The leader of the former was clad in wild beasts' skins, +and he and his men were armed with snow-balls and pieces of ice. +The commander of the latter--'Maj Greve,' or Count May--was, on the +contrary, decorated with leaves and flowers, and his followers had +for weapons branches of the birch or linden tree, which, having been +previously steeped in water, were then in leaf. At a given signal, a +sham fight ensued between the opposing forces. If the season was cold +and backward, 'Winter' and his party were impetuous in their attack, +and in the beginning the advantage was supposed to rest with them; +but if the weather was genial, and the spring had fairly set in, 'Maj +Greve' and his men carried all before them. Under any circumstances, +however, the umpire always declared the victory to rest with 'Summer.' +The winter party then strewed ashes on the ground, and a joyous +banquet terminated the game." Mr L. Lloyd, author of "Peasant Life +in Sweden" (1870), records some lines sung by Swedish children when +collecting provisions for the _Maj gille_ or May feast, which recall +the "Swallow-song": + + "Best loves from Mr and Mrs Magpie, + From all their eggs and all their fry, + O give them alms, if ever so small, + Else hens and chickens and eggs and all, + A prey to 'Piet' will surely fall." + +The Swedes raise their _Maj st[)a]ng_ or May-pole, not on May, but +on St John's Eve, a change due, I suspect, to the exigencies of the +climate. + +German _Mailieder_ are one very much like the other; they are full of +the simple gladness of children who have been shut up in houses, and +who now can run about in the sunny air. I came across the following in +Switzerland: + + "Alles neu macht der Mai, + Macht die Seele frisch und frei. + Lasst dans Haus! + Kommt hinaus! + Windet einen Strauss! + + "Rings erglänzet Sonnenschein, + Dustend pranget Flur und Hain. + Vögel-sang, + Lust'ger Klang + Tönt den Wald entlang." + +In Lorraine girls dressed in white go from village to village +stringing off couplets, in which the inhabitants are turned into +somewhat unmerciful ridicule. The girls of this place enlighten the +people of that as to their small failings, and so _vice versâ_. All +the winter the village poets harvest the jokes made by one community +at the expense of another, in order to shape them into a consecutive +whole for recital on May Day. The girls are rewarded for their part in +the business by small coin, cakes and fruit. The May-songs of Lorraine +are termed "Trimazos," from the fact that they are always sung to the +refrain, + + "O Trimazot, ç'at lo Maye; + O mi-Maye! + Ç'at lo joli mois de Maye, + Ç'at lo Trimazot." + +The derivation of _Trimazo_ is uncertain; someone suggested that _Tri_ +stands for three, and _mazo_ for maidens; but I think _mazo_ is more +likely to be connected with the Italian _mazzo_, "nosegay." The word +is known outside Lorraine: at Islettes children say: + + "Trimazot! en nous allant + Nous pormenés eddans les champs + Nous y ons trouvé les blés si grands + Les Aubépin' en fleurissant." + +They beg for money to buy a taper for the Virgin's altar; for it +must not be forgotten that the month of May is the month of Mary. +The villagers add a little flour to their pious offering, so that the +children may make cakes. Elsewhere in Champagne young girls collect +the taper money; they cunningly appeal to the tenderness of the young +mother by bringing to her mind the hour "when she takes her pretty +child up in the morning and lays him to sleep at night." There was +a day on which the girls of the neighbourhood of Remiremont used to +way-lay every youth they met on the road to the church of Dommartin +and insist on sticking a sprig of rosemary or laurel in his cap, +saying, "We have found a fine gentleman, God give him joy and health; +take the May, the pretty May!" The fine gentleman was requested to +give "what he liked" for the dear Virgin's sake. In the department of +the Jura there are May-brides, and in Bresse they have a May-queen who +is attended by a youth, selected for the purpose, and by a little +boy who carries a green bough ornamented with ribands. She heads the +village girls and boys, who walk as in a marriage procession, and who +receive eggs, wine, or money. A song still sung in Burgundy recalls +the præ-revolutionary æra and the respect inspired by the seigneurial +woods:-- + + "Le voilà venu le joli mois, + Laissez bourgeonner le bois; + Le voilà venu le joli mois, + Le joli bois bourgeonne. + Il faut laisser bourgeonner le bois, + Le bois du gentilhomme." + +The young peasants of Poitou betake themselves to the door of each +homestead before the dawn of the May morning and summon the mistress +of the house to waken her daughters:-- + + "For we are come before hath come the day + To sing the coming of the month of May." + +But they do not ask the damsels to stand there listening to +compliments; "Go to the hen-roost," they say, "and get eighteen, or +still better, twenty new laid eggs." If the eggs cannot be had, they +can bring money, only let them make haste, as day-break is near and +the road is long. By way of acknowledgment the spokesman adds a sort +of "And your petitioners will ever pray;" they will pray for the +purse which held the money and for the hen that laid the eggs. If St +Nicholas only hears them that hen will eat the fox, instead of the fox +eating the hen. The gift is seemly. Now the dwellers in the homestead +may go back to their beds and bar doors and windows; "as for us, we go +through all the night singing at the arrival of sweet spring." + +The antiquary in search of May-songs will turn to the Motets and +Pastorals of that six-hundred-year-old Comic Opera "Li gieus de +Robin et de Marion." Its origin was not illiterate, but in Adam de la +Halle's time and country poets who had some letters and poets who +had none did not stand so widely apart. The May month, the summer +sweetness, the lilies of the valley, the green meadows--these +constituted pretty well the whole idea which the French rustic had +formed to himself of what poetry was. It cannot be denied that he +came to use these things occasionally as mere commonplaces, a tendency +which increased as time wore on. But he has his better moods, and +some of his ditties are not wanting in elegance. Here is an old song +preserved in Burgundy: + + Voici venu le mois des fleurs + Des chansons et des senteurs; + Le mois qui tout enchante + Le mois de douce attente. + Le buisson reprend ses couleurs + Au bois l'oiseau chante. + + Il est venu sans mes amours + One j'attends, hélas, toujours; + Tandis que l'oiseau chante + Et que le mai l' on plante + Seule en ces bois que je parcours + Seule je me lamente. + +In the France of the sixteenth century, the planting of the May took a +literary turn. At Lyons, for instance, the printers were in the habit +of setting up what was called "Le Mai des Imprimeurs" before the door +of some distinguished person. The members of the illustrious Lombard +house of Trivulzi, who between them held the government of Lyons +for more than twenty-five years, were on several occasions chosen as +recipients of the May-day compliment. "Le Grand Trivulce," marshal of +France, was a great patron of literature, and the encouragement of the +liberal arts grew to be a tradition in the family. In 1529 Theodore +de Trivulce had a May planted in his honour bearing a poetical address +from the pen of Clement Marot, and Pompone de Trivulce received a like +distinction in 1535, when Etienne Dolet wrote for the occasion an +ode in the purest Latin, which may be read in Mr R. C. Christie's +biography of its author. + +Giulio Cesare Croce, the famous ballad-singer of Bologna (born 1550), +wrote a "Canzonetta vaga in lode del bel mese di maggio et delle +regine o contesse che si fanno quel giorno in Bologna," and in 1622, a +small book was published at Bologna, entitled: "Ragionamenti piacevoli +intorno alle contesse di maggio; piantar il maggio; nozze che si +fanno in maggio." The author, Vincenzo Giacchiroli, observes: "These +countesses, according to what I have read, the Florentines call Dukes +of May--perhaps because there they have real dukes." The first of May, +he continues, the young girls select one from among them and set her +on a high seat or throne in some public street, adorned and surrounded +with greenery, and with such flowers as the season affords. To +this maiden, in semblance like the goddess Flora, they compel every +passer-by to give something, either by catching him by his clothes, or +by holding a cord across the street to intercept him, singing at the +same time, "Alla contessa, alla contessa!" They who pass, therefore, +throw into a plate or receptacle prepared for the purpose, money, or +flowers, or what not, for the new countess. In some places it was the +custom to kiss the countess; "neither," adds the author, "is this +to be condemned, since so were wont to do the ancients as a sign of +honour." + +Regarding a similar usage at Mantua, Merlinus Coccaius (Folengo) +wrote: + + "Accidit una dies qua Mantua tota bagordat + Prima dies mensis Maii quo quisque piantat + Per stradas ramos frondosos nomine mazzos." &c. + +Exactly the same practice lingers in Spain. In the town of Almeria, +improvised temples are raised at the street corners and gateways, +where, on an altar covered with damask or other rich stuff, a girl +decked with flowers is seated, whilst around her in a circle stand +other girls, also crowned with flowers, who hold hands, and intone, +like a Greek chorus-- + + "Un cuartito para la Maya, + Que no tiene manto ni saya." + +"A penny for the May who has neither mantle nor petticoat." + +Lorenzo de' Medici says in one of his ballads: + + Se tu vuo' appiccare un maio. + A qualcuna che tu ami.... + +In his day "Singing the May" was almost a trade; the country folk +flocked into Florence with their May trees and rustic instruments and +took toll of the citizens. The custom continues along the Ligurian +coast. At Spezia I saw the boys come round on May-day piping and +singing, and led by one, taller than the rest, who carried an Italian +flag covered with garlands. The name of the master of the house before +which they halt is introduced into a song that begins: + + Siam venuti a cantar maggio, + Al Signore ---- + Come ogn' anno usar si suole, + Nella stagion di primavera. + +Since Chaucer, who loved so dearly the "May Kalendes" and the "See of +the day," no one has celebrated them with a more ingenuous charm than +the country lads of the island of Sardinia, who sing "May, May, be +thou welcome, with all Sun and Love; with the Flower and with the +Soul, and with the Marguerite." A Tuscan and a Pisan _Rispetto_ may be +taken as representative of Italian May-song: + + 'Twas in the Calends of the month of May, + I went into the garden for a flower, + A wild bird there I saw upon a spray, + Singing of love with skilled melodious power. + O little bird, who dost from Florence speed + Teach me whence loving doth at first proceed? + Love has its birth in music and in songs + Its end, alas! to tears and grief belongs. + + Era di maggio, se ben mi ricordo + Quando c'incominciammo a ben volere + Eran fiorite le rose dell'orto, + E le ciliege diventavan nere; + Ciliege nere e pere moscatelle, + Siete il trionfo delle donne belle + Ciliege nere e pere moscatate. + Siete il trionfo delle innamorate + Ciliege nere e pere moscatine. + Siete il trionfo delle piu belline. + +The child's or lover's play of words in this last baffles all attempt +at translation: it is not sense but sweetness, not poetry but music. +It is as much without rule or study or conventionality as the song of +birds when in Italian phrase, _fanno primavera_. + +In the Province of Brescia the Thursday of Mid-Lent is kept by what +is called "Burning the old women." A doll made of straw or rags, +representing the oldest woman, is hung outside the window; or, if in +a street, suspended from a cord passed from one side to the other. +Everyone makes the tour of town or village to see _le Vecchie_ who at +sundown are consigned to the flames, generally with a distaff placed +in their hands. It is a picturesque sight at Salò, when the bonfires +blaze at different heights up the hills, casting long reflections +across the clear lake-water. The sacrifice is consummated--but what +sacrifice? I was at first disposed to simply consider the "old woman" +as a type of winter, but I am informed that by those who have studied +relics of the same usage in other lands, she is held to be a relative +of the "harvest-man" or growth-genius, who must be either appeased or +destroyed. Yet a third interpretation occurs to me, which I offer for +what it is worth. Might not the _Vecchia_ be the husk which must be +cast off before the miracle of new birth is accomplished? "The seed +that thou sowest shall not quicken unless it die." Hardly any idea has +furnished so much occasion for symbolism as this, that life is death, +and death is life. + +Professor d'Ancona believes, that to the custom of keeping May by +singing from house to house and collecting largess of eggs or fruit or +cheese, may be traced the dramatic representations, which, under the +name of _Maggi_, can still be witnessed in certain districts of the +Tuscan Hills and of the plain of Pisa. These May-plays are performed +any Sunday in Spring, just after Mass; the men, women, and children, +hastening from the church-door to the roughly-built theatre which has +the sky for roof, the grey olives and purple hills for background. +The verses of the play (it is always in verse) are sung to a sort of +monotonous but elastic chant, in nearly every case unaccompanied +by instruments. No one can do more than guess when that chant was +composed; it may have been five hundred years ago and it may have been +much more. Grief or joy, love and hate, all are expressed upon the +same notes. It is possible that some such recitative was used in the +Greek drama. A play that was not sung would not seem a play to +the Tuscan contadino. The characters are acted by men or boys, the +peasants not liking their wives and daughters to perform in public. +A considerable number of _Maggi_ exist in print or in MS. carefully +copied for the convenience of the actors. The subjects range from +King David to Count Ugolino, from the siege of Troy to the French +Revolution. They seem for most part modern compositions, cast in a +form which was probably invented before the age of Dante. + + + + +THE IDEA OF FATE IN SOUTHERN TRADITIONS. + + +In the early world of Greece and Italy, the beliefs relating to +Fate had a vital and penetrative force which belonged only to them. +"Nothing," says Sophocles, "is so terrible to man as Fate." It was the +shadow cast down the broad sunlight of the roofless Hellenic life. All +Greece, its gods and men, bowed at that word which Victor Hugo saw, +or imagined that he saw, graven on a pillar of Nôtre Dame: [Greek: +Anankê]. Necessity alone of the supernatural powers was not made by +man in his own image. It had no sacred grove, for in the whole world +there was no place where to escape from it, no peculiar sect of +votaries, for all were bound equally to obey; it could not be bought +off with riches nor withstood by valour; no man worshipped it, many +groaned under its dispensation; but by all it was vaguely felt to be +the instrument of a pure justice. If they did not, with Herder, call +Fate's law "Eternal Truth," yet their idea of necessity carried these +men nearer than did any other of their speculative guesses to the idea +of a morally-governed universe. + +The belief in one Fate had its train of accessorial beliefs. The +Parcae and the Erinnyes figured as dark angels of Destiny. Then, in +response to the double needs of superstition and materialism, the +impersonal Fate itself took the form of the Greek Tyche, and of that +Fortuna, who, in Rome alone, had no less than eight temples. There +were some indeed who saw in Fortune nothing else than the old _dira +necessitas_; but to the popular mind, she was nearer to chance than to +necessity; she dealt out the favourable accident which goes further +to secure success than do the subtlest combinations of men. The Romans +did not only demand of a military leader that he should have talent, +foresight, energy; they asked, was he _felix_--happy, fortunate? Since +human life was seen to be, on the whole, but a sorry business, +and since it was also seen that the prosperous were not always the +meritorious, the inference followed that Fortune was capricious, +changeable, and, if not immoral, at least unmoral. With this character +she came down to the Middle Ages, having contrived to outlive the +whole Roman pantheon. + +So Dante found her, and inquired of his guide who and what she might +really be? + + Maestro, dissi lui, or mi di' anche: + Questa Fortuna di che tu mi tocche, + Che è, che i ben del mondo ha sì tra branche? + +Dante had no wish to level the spiritual windmills that lay in his +path: he left them standing, only seeking a proper reason for their +being there. Therefore he did not answer himself in the words of the +Tuscan proverb: "Chi crede in sorte, non crede in Dio;" but, on the +contrary, tried to prove that the two beliefs might be perfectly +reconciled. "He whose knowledge transcends all things" (is the reply) +"fashioned the heavens, and gave unto them a controlling force in such +wise that each part shines upon each, distributing equally the +light. Also to worldly splendours he ordained a general minister, and +captain, who should timely change the tide of vain prosperity from +race to race and from blood to blood. Why these prevail, and those +languish, according to her ruling, is hidden, like the snake in the +grass; your knowledge has in her no counterpart; she provides, +judges, and pursues her governance, as do theirs the other gods. Her +permutations have no truce, necessity makes her swift; for he is swift +in coming who would have his turn. This is she who is upbraided +even by those who should praise her, giving her blame wrongfully and +ill-repute; but she continues blessed, and hearkens not; glad among +the other primal creatures, she revolves her sphere, and being +blessed, rejoices." + +The peasants, the _pagani_ of Italy, did not give their name for +nothing to the entire system of antiquity. They were its last, its +most faithful adherents, and to this day their inmost being is +watered from the springs of the antique. They have preserved old-world +thoughts as they have preserved old-world pots and pans. In the +isolated Tuscan farm you will be lighted to your bed by a woman +carrying an oil lamp identical in form with those buried in Etruscan +tombs; on the Neapolitan hill-side a girl will give you to drink +out of a jar not to be distinguished from the amphoræ of Pompeii. A +stranger hunting in the campagna may often hear himself addressed with +the "Tu" of Roman simplicity. The living Italian people are the most +interesting of classical remains. Even their religion has helped +to perpetuate practices older than Italy. How is it possible, for +instance, to see the humble shrine by vineyard or maize field, +with its posy of flowers and its wreath of box hung before the mild +countenance of some local saint, without remembering what the chorus +says to Admetus: "Deem not, O king, of the tomb of thy wife as of +the vulgar departed; rather let it be kept in religious veneration, +a cynosure for the way-faring man. And as one climbs the slanting +pathway, these will be the words he utters: 'This was she who erewhile +laid down her life for her husband; now she is a saint for evermore. +Hail, blessed spirit, befriend and aid us!' Such the words that will +be spoken." + +Can it be doubted that the Catholic honour of the dead--nay, even the +cult of the Virgin, which crept so mysteriously into the exercise +of Christian worship--had birth, not in the councils of priests and +schoolmen, but in the all-unconscious grafting by the people of Italy +of the new faith upon an older stock? + +With this persistency of thought, observable in outward trifles, as in +the deepest yearnings of the soul, it would be strange if the Italian +mind had ceased to occupy itself with the old wonder about fate. The +folk-lore of the country will show the mould into which the ancient +speculations have been cast, and in how far these have undergone +change, whether in the sense of assimilating new theories or in that +of reverting to a still earlier order of ideas. + +They tell at Venice the story of a husbandman who had set his heart +on finding _one who was just_ to be sponsor to his new-born child. He +took the babe in his arms and went forth into the public ways to seek +_El Giusto_. He walked and walked and met a man (who was our Lord) and +to him he said, "I have got this son to christen, but I do not wish +to give him to any one who is not just. Are you just?" To him the Lord +replied, "But I do not know if I am just." Then the husbandman went +a little further and met a woman (who was the Madonna), and to her he +said, "I have this son to christen, but I only wish to give him to one +who is just. Are you just?" "I know not," said the Madonna; "but go a +little further and you will meet one who is just." After that, he went +a little further, and met another woman who was Death. "I have been +sent to you," he said, "for they say you are just. I have a child to +christen, and I do not wish to give him except to one who is just. +Are you just?" "Why, yes; I think I am just," said Death; "but let us +christen the babe and afterwards I will show you if I am just." So +the boy was christened, and then this woman led the husbandman into a +long, long room where there were an immense number of lighted lamps. +"Gossip," said the man, who marvelled at seeing so many lamps, "what +is the meaning of all these lights?" Said Death: "These are the lights +of all the souls that are in the world. Would you like just to see, +Gossip? That is yours, and that is your son's." And the husbandman, +who saw that his lamp was going out, said, "And when there is no more +oil, Gossip?" "Then," replied Death, "one has to come to me, for I +am Death." "Oh! for charity," said the husbandman, "do let me pour a +little of the oil out of my son's lamp into mine!" "No, no, Gossip," +said Death, "I don't go in for that sort of thing. A just one you +wished to meet, and a just one you have found. And now, go you to your +house and put your affairs in order, for I am waiting for you."[1] + +In this parable, we see a severe fatalism, which is still more +oriental than antique. + + ... God gives each man one life, like a lamp, then gives + That lamp due measure of oil.... + +The Mahomedans say that there are trees in heaven on each of whose +leaves is the name of a human being, and whenever one of these leaves +withers and falls, the man whose name it bears dies with it. The +conception of human life as of something bound up and incorporated +with an object seemingly foreign, lies at the very root of elementary +beliefs. In an Indian tale the life of a boy resides in a gold +necklace which is in the heart of a fish; in another a woman's life is +contained in a bird: when the bird is killed, the woman must perish. +In a third a prince plants a tree before he goes on a journey, saying +as he does so, "This tree is my life. When you see the tree green and +fresh, then know that it is well with me. When you see the tree fade +in some parts, then know that I am in an ill case. When you see the +whole tree fade, then know that I am dead and gone." + +According to a legend of wide extension--it is known from Esthonia to +the Pyrenees--all men were once aware of the hour of their death. But +one day Christ went by and saw a man raising a hedge of straw. "That +hedge will last but for a short while," He said; to which the man +answered, "It will be good for as long as I live; that it should last +longer, matters not;" and forthwith Christ ordained that no man should +thereafter know when he should die. + +The southern populations of Italy cling to the idea that from the +moment of a man's birth his future lot is decided, whether for good +or evil hap, and that he has but little power of altering or modifying +the irrevocable sentence. There are lucky and unlucky days to be born +on; lucky and unlucky circumstances attendant on an entry into the +world, which affect all stages of the subsequent career. He who is +born on the last day of the year, will always arrive late. It is very +unfortunate to be born when there is no moon. Anciently the moon was +taken as symbol both of Fortune, and of Hecate, goddess of Magic. +The Calabrian children have a song: "Moon, holy moon, send me good +fortune; thou shining, and I content, lustrous thou, I fortunate." +Also at Cagliari, in Sardinia, they sing: "Moon, my moon, give me +luck; give me money, so I may amuse myself; give it soon, so I may buy +sweetmeats." The changing phases of the moon doubtless contributed to +its identification with fortune; "Wind, women, and fortune," runs the +Basque proverb, "change like the moon." But yet more, its influence +over terrestrial phenomena, always mysterious to the ignorant observer +and by him readily magnified to any extent, served to connect it with +whatever occult, unaccountable power was uppermost in people's minds. + +In Italy, nothing is done without consulting the _Lunario_. All kinds +of roots and seeds must be planted with the new moon, or they will +bear no produce. Timber must be cut down with the old moon, or it will +quickly rot. These rules and many more are usually followed; and it +is reported as a matter of fact, that their infringement brings the +looked-for results. In the Neapolitan province, old women go to the +graveyards by night and count the tombs illuminated by the moonlight; +the sum total gives them a "number" for the lottery. The extraordinary +vagaries of superstition kept alive by the public lotteries are of +almost endless variety and complexity. No well-known man dies without +thousands of the poorest Neapolitans racking their brains with abtruse +calculations on the dates of his birth, death, and so on, in the hope +of discovering a lucky number. Fortune, chance (what, after all, shall +it be called?) sometimes strangely favours these pagan devices. When +Pio Nono died, the losses of the Italian exchequer were enormous; and +in January 1884, the numbers staked on the occasion of the death of +the patriot De Sanctis, produced winnings to the amount of over two +million francs. During the last cholera epidemic, the daily rate of +mortality was eagerly studied with a view to happy combinations. Even +in North Italy such things are not unknown. At Venice, when a notable +Englishman died some years ago in a hotel, the number of his room was +played next day by half the population. Domestic servants are among +the most inveterate gamblers; they all have their cabalistic books, +and a large part of their earnings goes to the insatiable "lotto." + +The feeling of helplessness in the hands of Fate is strongest in those +countries where there is the least control over Nature. The relations +between man and Nature affect not only the social life, but also the +theology and politics of whole races of men. A learned Armenian who +lives at Venice, came to London for a week in June to see some English +friends. It rained every day, and when he left Dover, the white +cliffs were enveloped in impenetrable fog. "I asked myself" (he wrote, +describing his experiences) "how it was possible that a great nation +should exist behind all that vapour?" It was suggested to him that +in the continual but, in the long run, victorious struggle with an +ungenial climate might lie the secret of the development of that great +nation. Different are the lands where the soil yields its increase +almost without the labour of man, till one fine day the whole is +swallowed up by flood or earthquake. + +The songs of luck, or rather of ill-luck, nearly all come from the +Calabrias. There are hundreds of variations upon the monotonous +theme of predestined misery. "In my mother's womb I began to have no +fortune; my swaddling clothes were woven of melancholy; when we +went to church, the woman who carried me died upon the way, and the +godfather who held me at the font said, 'Misfortunate art thou born, +my daughter!'" Here is another: "Hapless was I born, and with a +darkened moon; never did a fair day dawn for me. Habited in weeds, and +attended by cruel fortune, I sail upon a sea of grief and trouble." Or +this: "Wretched am I, for against me conspired heaven and fortune and +destiny; and the four elements decreed that never should I prosper: +earth would engulf me; air took away my breath; water flowed with my +tears; fire burnt this poor heart." Again: "I was created under an +ill-star; never had I an hour's content. By my friends I saw myself +forsaken, and chased away by my mistress. The heavens moved against +me, the stars, the planets, and fortune; if there is no better lot +for me, open thou earth and give me sepulchre!" The luckless wretch +imagines that the sea, even where it was deepest, dried up at his +birth; and the spring dried up for that year, and all the flowers that +were in the world dried up; and the birds went singing: "I am the most +luckless wight on earth!" Human friendship is a delusion: "I was the +friend of all, and a true friend--for my friends I reckoned life as +little." But he is not served so by others: "Wretched is he who trusts +in fortune; sad is he who hopes in human friendship! Every friend +abandons thee at need, and walks afar from thy sorrow." No good can +come to him who is born for ill: "When I was born, it was at sea, +amongst Turks and Moors. A gipsy asked to tell my fortune; 'Dig,' she +said, 'and thou shalt find a great treasure.' I took the spade in my +hand to dig, but I found neither silver nor gold. Traitress gipsy who +deceived me! Who is born afflicted, dies disconsolate." + +So continues the long tale of woe; childish in part, but withal tragic +by other force of iteration. This song of Nardò may be taken as its +epitome: + + The heavens were overcast when I was born; + No luck for me, no, luckless and forlorn, + E'en from my cradle, all forlorn was I; + No luck for me, no, grief for ever nigh. + I loved--my love was paid by fraud and scorn; + No luck for me, no, luckless and forlorn. + The stars and moon were darkened in the sky, + No luck for me, no, naught but misery! + +The Calabrians have a house-spirit called the _Auguriellu_, who +appears generally dressed as a little monk, and who has his post +especially by babies' cradles: he is thought to be one of the less +erring fallen angels, and is harmless and even beneficent if kindly +treated. The "house-women" (_Donne di casa_) of Sicily are also in the +habit of watching the sleep of infants. But in no part of Italy does +there seem to be any distinct recollection of the Parcae. In Greece, +on the other hand, the three dread sisters are still honoured by +propitiatory rites, and they figure frequently in the folk-lore of +Bulgaria and Albania. A Bulgarian song shows them weaving the destiny +of the infant Saviour. In M. Auguste Dozon's collection of Albanian +stories, there is one called "The sold child," which bears directly on +the survival of the Parcae. "There was an old man and woman who had no +children" (so runs the tale). "At last at the end of I do not know how +many years, God gave them a son, and their joy was without bounds that +the Lord had thus remembered them. Two nights had passed since the +birth, and the third drew nigh, when the Three Women would come to +assign the child his destiny. + +"That night it was raining so frightfully that nobody dared put his +nose out of doors, lest he should be carried away by the waters and +drowned. Nevertheless, who should arrive through the rain but a Pasha, +who asked the old man for a night's lodging. The latter, seeing that +it was a person of importance, was very glad; he put him in the place +of honour at the hearth, lit a large fire, gave him to eat what he +could find; and putting aside certain objects, which he set in a +corner, he made room for the Pasha's horse--for this house was only +half covered in, a part of the roof was missing. + +"The Pasha, when he was warmed and refreshed, had nothing more to do +but to go to sleep; but how can one let himself go to sleep when he +has I know not how many thousand piastres about him? + +"That night, as we have said already, the Three Women were to come and +apportion the child his destiny. They came, sure enough, and sat down +by the fire. The Pasha, at the sight of that, was in a great fright, +but he kept quiet, and did not make the least sound. + +"Let us leave the Pasha and busy ourselves with these women. The first +of the three said, 'This child will not live long; he will die early.' +The second said, replying to her who had just spoken, 'This child +will live many years, and then he will die by the hand of his father.' +Finally the third spoke as follows: 'My friends, what are you talking +about? This child will live sufficiently long to kill the Pasha you +see there, rob him of his authority, and marry his daughter.'" + +How the Pasha froze with fear when he heard that sentence, how he +persuaded the old man to let him have the child under pretence of +adopting him, how he endeavoured by every means, but vainly, to put +him out of the way, and how, in the end, he fell into an ambush he +had prepared for his predestined successor, must be read in M. Dozon's +entertaining pages. Though not precisely stated, it would seem that +the mistaken predictions of the two first women arose rather from a +misinterpretation of the future than from complete ignorance. The +boy but narrowly escaped the evils they threatened. In Scandinavian +traditions a disagreement among the Norns is not uncommon. In one +case, two Norns assign to a newborn child long life and happiness, but +the third and youngest decrees that he shall only live while a lighted +taper burns. The eldest Norn snatches the taper, puts it out, and +gives it to the child's mother, not to be kindled till the last day of +his life. + +In India it is the deity Bidhata-Purusha who forecasts the events of +each man's life, writing them succinctly on the forehead of the child +six days after birth. The apportionment of good and evil fortune +belongs to Lakshmi and Sani. Once they fell out in heaven, and Sani, +the giver of ill, said that he ranked higher than the beneficent +Lakshmi. The gods and goddesses were equally ranged on either side, +so the two disputants decided to refer the case to a just mortal. To +which end they approached a wise and wealthy man called Sribatsa. Now +Sribatsa means "the child of Fortune," Sri being one of the names of +Lakshmi. Sribatsa did not know what to do lest he should give offence +to one or the other of the celestial powers. At last he set out two +stools without saying a word; one was silver, and on that he bade Sani +sit; the other was gold, and to that he conducted Lakshmi. But Sani +was furious at having only the silver stool, so he swore that he would +cast his evil eye upon Sribatsa for three years, "and I should like to +see how you fare at the end of that time," he added. When he was gone, +Lakshmi said: "My child, do not fear; I'll befriend you." Needless to +say that after the three trial years were passed, Sribatsa became far +more prosperous than he had ever been before. + +Among the Parsis, a tray with writing materials including a sheet of +blank paper is placed by the mother's bed on the night of the sixth +day. The goddess who rules human destiny traces upon the paper the +course of the child's future, which henceforth cannot be changed, +though the writing is invisible to mortal eyes. + +In Calabria there is a plant called "Fortune's Grass," which is +suspended to the beams of the ceiling: if the leaves turn upwards, +Fortune is sure to follow; if downwards, things may be expected to go +wrong. The oracle is chiefly consulted on Ascension Day, when it is +asked to tell the secrets confided to it by Christ when He walked upon +the earth. + +Auguries, portents, charms, waxen images, votive offerings, the evil +eye and its antidotes, happy "finds," such as horseshoes, four-leaved +shamrocks, and two-tailed lizards: these, and an infinite number of +kindred superstitions, are closely linked with what may be called +the Science of Luck. Fortune and Hecate come into no mere chance +contiguity when they meet in the moon. For the rest, there is hardly +any popular belief that has not points of contact with magic, and that +is not in some sort made the more comprehensible by looking at the +premises on which magical rites rest. Magic is the power admitted to +exist among all classes not so very long ago, of entering by certain +processes into relation with invisible powers. For modern convenience +it was distinguished into black magic, and natural, and white--the +latter name being given when the intention of the operant was only +good or allowable, and when the powers invoked were only such as +might be supposed, whether great or small, to be working in good +understanding with the Creator. The reason of existence of all magic, +which runs up into unfathomable antiquity, lies in the maxim of the +ancient sages, Egyptian, Hebrew, Platonist, that all things visible +and sensible are but types of things or beings immediately above +them, and have their origin in such. Hence, in magical rites, black +or white, men used and offered to the unseen powers those words or +actions or substances which were conceived to be in correspondence +with their character or nature, employing withal certain secret +traditional man[oe]uvres. The lowest surviving form is fetish; +sacrifice also had a similar source; so had the Mosaic prescriptions, +in which only innocent rites and pure substances were to be employed. +Whereas the most horrible practices and repulsive substances have +always been associated with witches, necromancers, &c., who are +reported to have put their wills at the absolute disposal of the +infernal and malevolent powers who work in direct counter-action of +the decrees and providence of the Deity. Hence the renunciation of +baptism, treading on holy things, the significant act of saying the +Lord's Prayer backwards, _i.e._, in the opposite intention to that of +the author. This is the consummate sin of _pacti_, or, as it is said, +"selling the soul," and is the very opposite of divine magic or the +way of the typical saint: "Present yourselves a living sacrifice (not +a dead carcase) in body, soul, and spirit." To persons in the last +condition unusual effects have been ascribed, as it was believed that +those who had put themselves at the absolute disposal of the malignant +powers were also enabled to effect singular things, on the wrong side, +indeed, and very inferior in order, so long as the agreement held +good. + +The most sensible definition of magic is "an effect sought to be +produced by antecedents obviously inadequate in themselves." Certain +words, gestures, practices, have been recognised on the tradition of +ancient experience to have certain remedial or other properties or +consequents, and they are used in all simplicity by persons who can +find no other reason than that they are thought to succeed. + +One of the most remarkable of early ideas still current about human +destiny is that which pictures each man coupled with a personal and +individualised fate. This fate may be beneficent or maleficent, a +guardian angel or a possessive fiend; or it may, in appearance at +least, combine both functions. The belief in a personal fate was +deeply rooted among the Greeks and Romans, and proved especially +acceptable to the Platonists. Socrates' dæmon comes to mind: but in +that case the analogy is not clear, because the inward voice to +which the name of dæmon was afterwards given, was rather a personal +conscience than a personal fate--a difference that involves the whole +question of the responsibility of man. But the evil genii of Dion the +Syracusan and of Brutus were plainly "personal fates." Dion's evil +genius appeared to him when he was sitting alone in the portico before +his house one evening; it had the form of a gigantic woman, like one +of the furies as they were represented on the stage, sweeping the +floor with a broom. It did not speak, but the apparition was followed +by the death of Dion's son, who jumped in a fit of childish passion +from the house-top, and soon after, Dion himself was assassinated. +Brutus' dæmon was, as every-one knows, a monstrous spectre that seemed +to be standing beside him in his tent one night, a little while before +he left Asia, and which, on being questioned, said to him, "I am thy +evil genius, Brutus, thou wilt see me at Philippi." + +We catch sight again of the personal fate in the relations of +Antony with the young Octavius. Antony had in his house an Egyptian +astrologer, who advised him by all means to keep away from the young +man, "for your genius," he said, "is in fear of his; when it is alone +its port is erect and fearless, when his approaches it, it is dejected +and depressed." There were circumstances, says Plutarch, that carried +out this view, for in every kind of play, whether they cast lots or +cast the die, Antony was still the loser; in their cock fights and +quail fights, it was still "Cæsar's cock and Cæsar's quail." + +In ancient Norse and Teutonic traditions, where Salida, or Frau Sælde, +takes the place of Fortuna, we find indications of the personal fate, +both kindly and unkindly. The fate appeared to its human turn chiefly +in the hour of death, that is, in the hour of parting company. +Sometimes it was attached not to one person, but to a whole family, +passing on from one to another, as in the case of the not yet extinct +superstition of the White Lady of the Hohenzollerns. + +In a very old German story, quoted by Jacob Grimm, a poor knight is +shown, eating his frugal meal in a wood, who on looking up, sees +a monstrous creature among the boughs which cries, "I am thy +_ungelücke_!" The knight asks his "ill-luck" to share his meal, and +when it comes down, catches it, and shuts it up in a hollow oak. +Someone, who wishes to do him an ill-turn, lets out the _ungelücke_; +but instead of reverting to the knight, it jumps on the back of its +evil-minded deliverer. + +In the Sicilian story of "Feledico and Epomata," one of those +collected by Fraülein Laura Gonzenbach,[2] a childless king and queen +desire to have children. One day they see a soothsayer going by: they +call him in, and he says that the queen will bear a son, but that he +will die when he is eighteen years of age. The grief of the royal pair +is extreme, and they ask the soothsayer for advice what to do. He can +only suggest that they should shut the child up in a tower till the +unlucky hour be past, after which his fate will have no more power +over him. This is accordingly done, and the child sees no one in the +tower but the nurse and a lady of the court, whom he believes to be +his mother. One day, when the lady has gone to make her report to the +queen, the boy hears his fate crying to him in his sleep, and asking +why he stays shut up there, when his real father and mother are king +and queen and live in a fine castle? He makes inquiries, and at first +is pacified by evasive answers, but after three visits of his fate, +who always utters the same words, he insists on going to the castle +and seeing his father and mother. "His fate has found him out, there +is no good in resisting it," says the queen. However, by the agency +of Epomata, the beautiful daughter of an enchantress, who had conveyed +the prince to her castle, and had provided for his execution on the +very day ordained by his fate, Feledico tides over the fatal moment +and attains a good old age. + +Hahn states that the Greek name of [Greek: Moirai] is given by the +Albanians to what I have called personal fates, as well as to the +Parcae; but the Turkish designation of _Bakht_, meaning a sort of +protecting spirit, seems to be in more common use. The Albanian +story-teller mentions a negress who is in want of some sequins, and +who says, "Go and find my fortune (_Bakht_), but first make her a +cake, and when you offer it to her, ask her for a few gold pieces." + + +A like propitiatory offering of food to one's personal fate forms a +feature of a second Sicilian story which is so important in all its +bearings on the subject in hand, that it would not do to abridge it. +Here it is, therefore, in its entirety. + + There was a certain merchant who was so rich that he had + treasures which not even the king possessed. In his audience + chamber there were three beautiful arm-chairs, one of silver, + one of gold, and one of diamonds. This merchant had an only + daughter of the name of Caterina, who was fairer than the sun. + One day Caterina sat alone in her room, when suddenly the door + opened of itself, and there entered a tall and beautiful lady, + who held a wheel in her hands. "Caterina," said she, "when + would you like best to enjoy your life? in youth, or in age?" + Caterina gazed at her in amazement, and could not get over her + stupor. The beautiful lady asked again, "Caterina, when do you + wish to enjoy your life in youth or in age?" Then Caterina + thought, "If I say in youth, I shall have to suffer in age; + hence I prefer to enjoy my life in age, and in youth I must + get on as the Lord wills." So she said, "In age." "Be it unto + you according to your desire," said the beautiful lady, who + gave a turn to her wheel, and disappeared. This tall and + beautiful lady was poor Caterina's fate. After a few days her + father received the sudden news that several of his ships had + gone down in a storm; again, after a few days, other of his + ships met with the same fate, and to make a long story short, + a month had not gone by before he saw himself despoiled of all + his wealth. He had to sell everything, and remained poor and + miserable, and finally he fell ill and died. Thus poor + Caterina was left alone in the world, and no one would give + her a home. Then she thought, "I will go to another city and + will seek a place as serving-maid." She wandered a long way + till she reached another city. As she passed down the street, + she saw at a window a worthy-looking lady, who questioned her. + "Where are you going, all alone, fair girl?" "Oh! noble lady, + I am a poor girl, and I would willingly go into service to + earn my bread. Could you, by chance, employ me?" The worthy + lady engaged her, and Caterina served her faithfully. After a + few days the lady said one evening, "Caterina, I am going out, + and shall lock the house-door." "Very well," said Caterina, + and when her mistress was gone, she took her work and began to + sew. Suddenly the door opened, and her fate came in. "So!" + cried this one, "you are here, Caterina, and you think that I + shall leave you in peace!" With these words, she ran to the + cupboards and turned out the linen and clothes of Caterina's + mistress, and threw them all about the room. Caterina thought, + "When my mistress returns and finds everything in such a + state, she will kill me!" And out of fear she broke open the + door and fled. But her fate made all the things right again, + and gathered them up and put them in their places. When the + mistress came home, she called Caterina, but she could not + find her anywhere. She thought she must have robbed her, but + when she looked at her cupboards, she saw that nothing was + missing. She wondered greatly, but Caterina never came + back--she ran and ran till she reached another city, when, as + she passed along the street, she saw once more a lady at a + window, who asked her, "Where are you going, all alone, fair + girl?" "Ah! noble lady, I am a poor girl, and I wish to find a + place so as to earn my bread. Could you take me?" The lady + took her into her service, and Caterina thought now to remain + in peace. Only a few days had passed, when one evening, when + the lady was out, Caterina's fate appeared again, and spoke + hard words to her, saying, "So you are here, are you? and you + think to escape from me?" Then she scattered whatever she + could lay hands on, and poor Caterina once more fled out of + fright. + + To be brief, poor Caterina had to lead this terrible life for + seven years, flying from city to city in search of a place. + Whenever she entered service, after a few days her fate always + appeared and disordered her mistress' things, and so the poor + girl had to fly. As soon as she was gone, however, her fate + repaired all the damage that had been done. At last, after + seven years, it seemed as if the unhappy Caterina's fate was + weary of persecuting her. One day she arrived in a city where + she saw a lady at a window, who said, "Where go you, all + alone, fair girl?" "Ah! noble lady, I am a poor girl, and + willingly would I enter service to earn my bread; could you + employ me?" The lady replied, "I will take you, but every day + you will have to do me a certain service, and I am not sure + that you have the strength." "Tell me what it is," said + Caterina, "and if I can, I will do it." "Do you see that high + mountain?" said the lady; "every morning you will have to + carry up to the top a baker's tray of new bread, and then you + must cry aloud, 'O fate of my mistress!' three times repeated. + My fate will appear and will receive the bread." "I will do it + willingly," said Caterina, and thereupon the lady engaged her. + With this lady Caterina stayed many years, and every morning + she carried the tray of fresh bread up the mountain, and after + she had cried three times, "O fate of my mistress!" there + appeared a beautiful, stately lady, who received the bread. + Caterina often wept, thinking how she, who was once so rich, + had now to work like any poor girl, and one day her mistress + asked her, "Why are you always crying?" Caterina told her how + ill things had gone with her, and her mistress said, "You + know, Caterina, when you take the bread up the mountain + to-morrow? Well, do you beg my fate to try and persuade yours + to leave you in peace. Perhaps this may do some good." The + advice pleased poor Caterina, and the following morning when + she carried up the bread, she told her mistress' fate of the + sore straits she was in, and said, "O fate of my mistress, + pray ask my fate no longer to torment me." "Ah! poor girl," + the fate answered, "your fate is covered with a sevenfold + covering, and that is why she cannot hear you. But to-morrow + when you come, I will lead you to her." When Caterina had gone + home, her mistress' fate went to her fate, and said, "Dear + sister, why are you not tired of persecuting poor Caterina? + Let her once again see happy days." The fate replied, + "To-morrow bring her to me; I will give her something that + will supply all her needs." The next morning, when Caterina + brought the bread, her mistress' fate conducted her to her own + fate, who was covered with a sevenfold covering. The fate gave + her a skein of silk, and said, "Take care of it, it will be of + use to you." After she had returned home, Caterina said to her + mistress, "My fate has made me a present of a skein of silk; + what ought I to do with it?" "It is not worth three grains of + corn," said the mistress. "Keep it, all the same; who knows + what it may be good for?" + + After some time, it happened that the young king was about to + take a wife, and, therefore, he had himself made some new + clothes. But when the tailor was going to make up one fine + piece of stuff, he could not anywhere find silk of the same + colour with which to sew it. The king had it cried through the + land, that whosoever had silk of the right colour was to bring + it to court, and would be well paid for his pains. "Caterina," + said her mistress, "your skein of silk is of that colour; take + it to the king and he will make you a fine present." Caterina + put on her best gown, and went to court, and when she came + before the king, she was so beautiful that he could not take + his eyes off her. "Royal Majesty," she said, "I have brought a + skein of silk of the colour you could not find." "Royal + majesty," cried one of the ministers, "we should give her the + weight of her silk in gold." The king agreed, and the scales + were brought in. On one side the king placed the skein of + silk, and on the other a gold piece. Now, what do you think + happened? The silk was always the heaviest, no matter how many + gold pieces the king placed in the balance. Then he ordered a + larger pair of scales, and he put all his treasure to the one + side, but the silk remained the heaviest. Then he took his + gold crown off his head and set it with the other treasure, + and upon that the two scales became even. + + "Where did you get this silk?" asked the king. "Royal Majesty, + my mistress gave it to me." "That is not possible," cried the + king. "If you do not tell me the truth I will have your head + cut off!" Caterina related all that had happened to her since + the time when she was a rich maiden. At Court there was a very + wise lady, who said: "Caterina, you have suffered much, but + now you will see happy days, and since the gold crown made the + balance even, it is a sign that you will live to be a queen." + "She shall be a queen," cried the king, "I will make her a + queen! Caterina and no other shall be my bride." And so it + was. The king sent to his bride to say that he no longer + wanted her, and married the fair Caterina, who, after much + suffering in youth, enjoyed her age in full prosperity, living + happy and content, whereof we have assured testimony. + +The most suggestive passages in this ingenious story are those which +refer to the relative positions of a man and his fate, and of one fate +to another. On these points something further is to be gleaned from +an Indian, a Servian, and a Spanish tale, all having a family likeness +amongst themselves, and a strong affinity with our story. The Indian +variant is one of the collection due to the youthful energies of Miss +Maive Stokes, whose book of "Indian Fairy Tales" is a model of +what such a book ought to be. The Servian tale is to be found in +Karadschitsch's "Volksmaerschen der Serben;" the Spanish in Fernan +Caballero's "Cuentos y Poesias Populares Andaluses." The chief +characteristics of the personal fates, as they appear in folk-lore, +may be briefly summarised. In the first place, they know each other, +and are acquainted up to a given point with one another's secrets. +Thus, in the Servian story, a man who goes to seek his fate is +commissioned by persons he meets on the road to ask it questions +touching their own private concerns. A rich householder wants to know +why his servants are always hungry, however much food he gives them +to eat, and why "his aged, miserable father and mother do not die?" +A farmer would have him ask why his cattle perish; and a river, whose +waters bear him across, is anxious to know why no living thing dwells +in it. The fate gives a satisfactory answer to each inquiry. + +The fates exercise a certain influence, one over the other, and hence +over the destinies of the people in their charge. Caterina's mistress' +fate intercedes for her with her own fate. The attention of the fates +is not always fixed on the persons under them: they may be prevented +from hearing by fortuitous circumstances, such as the "seven coverings +or veils" of Caterina's fate, or they may be asleep, or absent from +home. Their home, by the by, is invariably placed in a spot very +difficult to get at. In the Spanish variant, the palace of Fortune is +raised "where our Lord cried three times and was not heard"--it is up +a rock so steep that not even a goat can climb it, and the sunbeams +lose their footing when trying to reach the top. A personal fate is +propitiated by suitable offerings, or, if obdurate, it may be brought +to reason by a well-timed punishment. The Indian beats his fate-stone, +just as the Ostyak beats his fetish if it does not behave well and +bring him sport. The Sicilian story gives no hint of this alternative, +but it is one strictly in harmony with the Italian way of thinking, +whether ancient or modern. Statius' declaration: + + Fataque, et injustos rabidis pulsare querelis + Cælicolas solamen erat ... + +was frequently put into practice, as when, upon the death of +Germanicus, the Roman populace cast stones at the temples, and the +altars were levelled to the ground, and the Lares thrown into the +street. Again, Augustus took revenge on Neptune for the loss of his +fleet, by not allowing his image to be carried in the procession of +the Circensian games. It is on record that at Florence, in 1498, a +ruined gamester pelted the image of the Virgin with horse dung. Luca +Landucci, who tells the story, says that the Florentines were shocked; +but in the southern kingdom the incident would have passed without +much notice. The Neapolitans have hardly now left off heaping +torrents of abuse on San Gennaro if he fails to perform the miracle +of liquefaction quick enough. Probably every country could furnish an +illustration. In the grand procession of St Leonhard, the Bavarians +used from time to time to drop the Saint into the river, as a sort of +gentle warning. + +The physical presentment of the personal fate differs considerably. +According to the Indian account, "the fates are stones, some standing, +and others lying on the ground." It has been said that this looks like +a relic of stock and stone worship: which is true if it can be said +unreservedly that anyone ever worshipped a stock or a stone. +The lowest stage of fetish worship only indicates a diseased +spiritualism--a mental state in which there is no hedge between the +real and the imagined. No savage ever supposed that his fetish was a +simple three-cornered stone and nothing more. If one could guess +the thoughts of the pigeon mentioned by Mr Romanes as worshipping a +gingerbeer bottle, it would be surely seen that this pigeon +believed his gingerbeer bottle to be other than a piece of unfeeling +earthenware. It is, however, a sign of progress when man begins to +picture the ruling powers not as stones, or even as animals, but as +men. This point is reached in the Servian narrative, where the hero's +fortune is a hag given to him as his luck by fate. In the Spanish +tale, the aspect of the personal fate varies with its character: the +fortunate man's fate is a lovely girl, the fate of the unfortunate +man being a toothless old woman. In the _Pentamerone_ of Giambattista +Basile, Fortune is also spoken of as an old woman, but this seems a +departure from the true Italian ideal, which is neither a stone nor a +luck-hag, nor yet a varying fair-and-foul fortune, but a "bella, alta +Signora:" the imposing figure that surmounts the wheel of fortune +on the marble pavement of the Cathedral of Siena. It is a graver +conception than the gracefully fickle goddess of Jean Cousin's "Liber +Fortunæ": + + ... On souloit la pourtraire, + Tenant un voile afin d'aller au gré du vent + Des aisles aux costez pour voler bien avant. + +Shakespeare had the Emblematist's Fortune in his mind when he wrote: +"Fortune is painted blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify +to you, which is the moral of it, that she is turning, and inconstant, +and mutability, and variation: and her foot, look you, is fixed upon a +spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls, and rolls." + +In hands less light than Cousin's, it was easy for the Fortune of the +emblem writers to become grotesque, and to lose all artistic merit. +The Italian Fortuna does not in the least lend herself to caricature. +In Italy, the objects of thought, even of the common people, have +the tendency to assume concrete and æsthetic forms--a fact of great +significance in the history of a people destined to render essential +service to art. + +The "tall, beautiful lady" of the Sicilian story, reappears in a +series of South Italian folk-songs which contains further evidence of +this unconsciously artistic instinct. The Italian folk-poet, for the +most part, lets the lore of tradition altogether alone. It does not +lie in his province, which is purely lyrical. But he has seized upon +Fortune as a myth very capable of lyrical treatment, and following the +free bent of his genius, he has woven out of his subject the delicate +fancies of these songs. A series in the sense of being designed to +form a consecutive whole, they, of course, are not. No two, probably, +had the same author; the perfect individuality of the figure +presented, only showing how a type may be so firmly fixed that the +many have no difficulty in describing it with the consistency of one +man who draws the creation of his own brain. + + I. + + Once in the gloaming, Fortune met me here; + Fair did she seem, and Love was on me laid, + Her hair was raised, as were it half a sphere, + Flowered on her breast a rose that cannot fade. + Then said I, "Fortune, thou without a peer, + What rule shall tell the measure of thine aid?" + "The pathway of the moon through all the year, + The channel of the exhaustless sea," she said. + + II. + + One night, the while I slept, drew Fortune near, + At once I loved, such beauty she displayed; + A crescent moon did o'er her brows appear, + And in her hand a wheel that never stayed. + Then said I to her, "O my mistress dear, + Grant all my wishes, mine if thou wilt aid." + But she turned from me with dark sullen cheer + And "Never!" as she turned, was all she said. + + III. + + I saw my Fortune midst the sounding sea + Sit weeping on a rocky height and steep, + Said I to her, "Fortune, how is't with thee?" + "I cannot help thee, child" (so answered she), + "I cannot help thee more--so must I weep." + How sweet were those her tears, how sweet, ah me! + Even the fishes wept within the deep. + + IV. + + One day did Fortune call me to her side, + "What are the things," she asked, "that thou hast done?" + Then answered I, "Dear mistress, I have tried + To grave them upon marble, every one." + "Ah! maddest of the mad!" so she replied, + "Better hadst writ on sand than wrought in stone; + He who to marble should his love confide, + Loves when he loves till all his wits are gone." + + V. + + There where I lay asleep came Fortune in, + She came the while I slept and bid me wake, + "What dost thou now?" she said, "companion mine? + What dost thou now? Wilt thou then love forsake? + Arise," she said, "and take this violin, + And play till every stone thereat shall wake." + I was asleep when Fortune came to me, + And bid me rise, and led me unto thee! + +These songs come from different villages; from Caballino and Morciano +in Calabria, from Corigliano and Calimera in Terra d'Otranto; the two +last are in the Greek dialect spoken in the latter district. There are +a great many more, in all of which the same sweet and serious type +is preserved; but the above quintet suffices to give a notion of this +modern Magna-Græcian Idyll of Fortune. + + [Footnote 1: In a Breton variant the "Bon Dieu" is the first + to offer himself as sponsor, but is refused by the peasant, + "Because you are not just; you slay the honest bread-winner + and the mother whose children can scarce run alone, and you + let folks live who never brought aught but shame and sorrow on + their kindred." Death is accepted, "Because at least you take + the rich as well as the poor, the young as well as the old." + The German tale of "Godfather Death" begins in the same way, + but ends rather differently, as it is the godson and not the + father who is shown the many candles, and who vainly requests + Death to give him a new one instead of his own which is nearly + burnt out. A poem by Hans Sachs (1553) contains reference to + the legend, of which there are also Provençal and Hungarian + versions.] + + [Footnote 2: Laura Gonzenbach was the daughter of the Swiss + Consul at Messina, where she was born. At an early age she + developed uncommon gifts, and she was hardly twenty when she + made her collection of Sicilian stories, almost exclusively + gathered from a young servant-girl who did not know how to + write or read. It was with great difficulty that a publisher + was found who would bring out the book. Fräulein Gonzenbach + married Colonel La Racine, a Piedmontese officer, and died + five or six years ago, being still quite young. A relation of + hers, from whom I have these particulars, was much surprised + to hear that the _Sicilianische Märchen_ is widely known as + one of the best works of its class. It is somewhat singular + that the preservation of Italian folk-tales should have been + so substantially aided by two ladies not of Italian origin: + Fräulein Gonzenbach and Miss R. H. Busk, author of "The + Folk-lore of Rome."] + + + + +FOLK-LULLABIES. + + ... A nurse's song + Of lullaby, to bring her babe asleep. + + +Infancy is a great mystery. We know that we each have gone over that +stage in human life, though even this much is not always quite easy to +realise. But what else do we know about it? Something by observation, +something by intuition; by experience hardly anything at all. We have +as much personal acquaintance with a lake-dwelling or stone age infant +as with our proper selves at the time when we were passing through the +"avatar" of babyhood. The recollections of our earliest years are at +most only as the confused remembrance of a morning dream, which at one +end fades into the unconsciousness of sleep, whilst at the other it +mingles with the realities of awaking. And yet, as a fact, we did not +sleep through all the dawn of our life, nor were we unconscious; only +we were different from what we now are; the term "thinking animal" did +not then fit us so well. We were less reasonable and less material. +Babies have a way of looking at you that makes you half suspect that +they belong to a separate order of beings. You speculate as to whether +they have not invisible wings, which drop off afterwards as do the +birth wings of the young ant. There is one thing, however, in which +the baby is very human, very manlike. Of all newborn creatures he is +the least happy. You may sometimes see a little child crying softly +to himself with a look of world woe on his face that is positively +appalling. Perhaps human existence, like a new pair of shoes, is very +uncomfortable till one gets accustomed to it. Anyhow the child, being +for some reason or reasons exceedingly disposed to vex its heart, +needs much soothing. In one highly civilised country a good many +mothers are in the habit of going to the nearest druggist for the +means to tranquillise their offspring, with the result that these +latter are not unfrequently rescued from the sea of sorrows in the +most final and expeditious way. In less advanced states of society +another expedient has been resorted to from time immemorial--to wit, +the cradle song. + +Babies show an early appreciation of rhythm. They rejoice in measured +noise, whether it takes the form of words, music, or the jingle of a +bunch of keys. In the way of poetry I am afraid they must be admitted +to have a perverse preference for what goes by the name of sing-song. +It will be a long time before the infantine public are brought round +to Walt Whitman's views on versification. For the rest, they are not +very severe critics. The small ancient Roman asked for nothing better +than the song of his nurse-- + + Lalla, lalla, lalla, + Aut dormi, aut lacta. + +This two-line lullaby constitutes one of the few but sufficing proofs +which have come down to us of the existence among the people of old +Rome of a sort of folk verse not by any means resembling the Latin +classics, but bearing a considerable likeness to the _canti popolari_ +of the modern Italian peasant. It may be said parenthetically that +the study of dialect tends altogether to the conviction that there are +country people now living in Italy to whom, rather than to Cicero, we +should go if we want to know what style of speech was in use among +the humbler subjects of the Cæsars. The lettered language of the +cultivated classes changes; the spoken tongue of the uneducated +remains the same; or, if it too undergoes a process of change, the +rate at which it moves is to the other what the pace of a tortoise +is to the speed of an express train. About eight hundred years ago +a handful of Lombards went to Sicily, where they still preserve the +Lombard idiom. The Ober-Engadiner could hold converse with his remote +ancestors who took refuge in the Alps three or four centuries before +Christ; the Aragonese colony at Alghero, in Sardinia, yet discourses +in Catalan; the Roumanian language still contains terms and +expressions which, though dissimilar to both Latin and standard +Italian, find their analogues in the dialects of those eastward-facing +"Latin plains" whence, in all probability, the people of Roumania +sprang. But we must return to our lullabies. + +There exists another Latin cradle song, not indeed springing from +classical times, but which, were popular tradition to be trusted, +would have an origin greatly more illustrious than that of the laconic +effusion of the Roman nurse. It is composed in the person of the +Virgin Mary, and was, in bygone days, believed to have been actually +sung by her. Authorities differ as to its real age, some insisting +that the peculiar structure of the verse was unknown before the 12th +century. There is, however, good reason to think that the idea of +composing lullabies for the Virgin belongs to an early period. + + Dormi, fili, dormi! mater + Cantat unigenito: + Dormi puer, dormi! pater + Nato clamat parvulo: + Millies tibi laudes canimus + Mille, mille, millies. + + Lectum stravi tibi soli, + Dormi, nate bellule! + Stravi lectum foeno molli: + Dormi mi animule. + Millies tibi laudes canimus + Mille, mille, millies. + + Dormi, decus et corona! + Dormi, nectar lacteum! + Dormi, mater dabo dona, + Dabo favum melleum. + Millies tibi laudes canimus + Mille, mille, millies. + + Dormi, nate mi mellite! + Dormi plene saccharo, + Dormi, vita, meae vitae, + Casto natus utero. + Millies tibi laudes canimus + Mille, mille, millies. + + Quidquid optes, volo dare; + Dormi, parve pupule + Dormi, fili! dormi carae, + Matris deliciolae! + Millies tibi laudes canimus + Mille, mille, millies. + + Dormi cor, et meus thronus; + Dormi matris jubilum; + Aurium caelestis sonus, + Et suave sibilum! + Millies tibi laudes canimus + Mille, mille, millies. + + Dormi fili! dulce, mater + Duke melos concinam; + Dormi, nate! suave, pater, + Suave carmen accinam. + Millies tibi laudes canimus + Mille, mille, millies. + + Ne quid desit, sternam rosis, + Sternam foenum violis, + Pavimentum hyacinthis + Et praesepe liliis. + Millies tibi laudes canimus + Mille, mille, millies. + + Si vis musicam, pastores + Convocabo protinus; + Illis nulli sunt priores; + Nemo canit castius. + Millies tibi laudes canimus + Mille, mille, millies. + +Everybody who is in Rome at Christmas-tide makes a point of visiting +Santa Maria in Ara C[oe]li, the church which stands to the right of +the Capitol, where once the temple of Jupiter Feretrius is supposed +to have stood. What is at that season to be seen in the Ara C[oe]li is +well enough known--to one side a "presepio," or manger, with the ass, +the ox, St Joseph, the Virgin, and the Child on her knee; to the other +side a throng of little Roman children rehearsing in their infantine +voices the story that is pictured opposite.[1] The scene may be taken +as typical of the cult of the Infant Saviour, which, under one form +or another, has existed distinct and separable from the main stem of +Christian worship ever since a Voice in Judæa bade man seek after the +Divine in the stable of Bethlehem. It is almost a commonplace to say +that Christianity brought fresh and peculiar glory alike to infancy +and to motherhood. A new sense came into the words of the oracle-- + + Thee in all children, the eternal Child ... + +And the mother, sublimely though she appears against the horizon of +antiquity, yet rose to a higher rank--because the highest--at the +founding of the new faith. Especially in art she left the second place +that she might take the first. The sentiment of maternal love, as +illustrated, as transfigured, in the love of the Virgin for her Divine +Child, furnished the great Italian painters with their master motive, +whilst in his humble fashion the obscure folk-poet exemplifies the +selfsame thought. I am not sure that the rude rhymes of which the +following is a rendering do not convey, as well as can be conveyed in +articulate speech, the glory and the grief of the Dresden Madonna: + + Sleep, oh sleep, dear Baby mine, + King Divine; + Sleep, my Child, in sleep recline; + Lullaby, mine Infant fair, + Heaven's King + All glittering, + Full of grace as lilies rare. + + Close thine eyelids, O my treasure, + Loved past measure, + Of my soul, the Lord, the pleasure; + Lullaby, O regal Child, + On the hay + My joy I lay; + Love celestial, meek and mild. + + Why dost weep, my Babe? alas! + Cold winds that pass + Vex, or is 't the little ass? + Lullaby, O Paradise; + Of my heart + Though Saviour art; + On thy face I press a kiss. + + Wouldst thou learn so speedily, + Pain to try, + To heave a sigh? + Sleep, for thou shalt see the day + Of dire scath, + Of dreadful death, + To bitter scorn and shame a prey. + + Rays now round thy brow extend, + But in the end + A crown of cruel thorns shall bend. + Lullaby, O little one, + Gentle guest + Who for thy rest + A manger hast, to lie upon. + + Born in winter of the year, + Jesu dear, + As the lost world's prisoner. + Lullaby (for thou art bound + Pain to know, + And want and woe), + Mid the cattle standing round. + + Beauty mine, sleep peacefully; + Heaven's monarch! see, + With my veil I cover thee. + Lullaby, my Spouse, my Lord, + Fairest Child + Pure, undefiled, + Thou by all my soul adored. + + Lo! the shepherd band draws nigh; + Horns they ply + Thee their Lord to glorify. + Lullaby, my soul's delight, + For Israel, + Faithless and fell, + Thee with cruel death would smite. + + Now the milk suck from my breast, + Holiest, best, + Thy kind eyes thou openest. + Lullaby, the while I sing; + Holy Jesu + Now sleep anew, + My mantle is thy sheltering. + + Sleep, sleep, thou who dost heaven impart + My Lord thou art; + Sleep, as I press thee to my heart. + Poor the place where thou dost lie, + Earth's loveliest! + Yet take thy rest; + Sleep my Child, and lullaby. + +It would be interesting to know if Mrs Browning ever heard any one of +the many variants of this lullaby before writing her poem "The Virgin +Mary to the Child Jesus." The version given above was communicated to +me by a resident at Vallauria, in the heart of the Ligurian Alps. In +that district it is sung in the churches on Christmas Eve, when out +abroad the mountains sleep soundly in their snows and a stray wolf +is not an impossible apparition, nothing reminding you that you are +within a day's journey of the citron groves of Mentone. + +There are several old English carols which bear a strong resemblance +to the Italian sacred lullabies. One, current at least as far back as +the time of Henry IV., is preserved among the Sloane MSS.: + + Lullay! lullay! lytel child, myn owyn dere fode, + How xalt thou sufferin be nayled on the rode. + So blyssid be the tyme! + + Lullay! lullay! lytel child, myn owyn dere smerte, + How xalt thou sufferin the scharp spere to Thi herte? + So blyssid be the tyme! + + Lullay! lullay! lytel child, I synge all for Thi sake, + Many on is the scharpe schour to Thi body is schape. + So blyssid be the tyme! + + Lullay! lullay! lytel child, fayre happis the befalle, + How xalt thou sufferin to drynke ezyl and galle? + So blyssid be the tyme! + + Lullay! lullay! lytel child, I synge al beforn + How xalt thou sufferin the scharp garlong of thorn? + So blyssid be the tyme! + + Lullay! lullay! lytel child, gwy wepy Thou so sore, + Thou art bothin God and man, gwat woldyst Thou be more? + So blyssid be the tyme! + +Here, as in the Piedmontese song, the "shadow of the cross" makes its +presence distinctly felt, whereas in the Latin lullaby it is wholly +absent. Nor are there any dark or sad forebodings in the fragment: + + Dormi Jesu, mater ridet, + Quæ; tam dulcem somnum videt, + Dormi, Jesu blandule. + Si non dormis, mater plorat, + Inter fila cantans orat: + Blande, veni Somnule. + +Many Italian Christmas cradle songs are in this lighter strain. +In Italy and Spain a _presepio_ or _nacimento_ is arranged in +old-fashioned houses on the eve of Christmas, and all kinds of songs +are sung or recited before the white image of the Child as it lies in +its bower of greenery. "Flower of Nazareth sleep upon my breast, my +heart is thy cradle," sing the Tuscans, who curiously call Christmas +"the Yule-log Easter." In Sicily a thousand endearing epithets are +applied to the Infant Saviour: "figghiu duci," "Gesiuzzi beddu," +"Gesiuzzi picchiureddi." The Sicilian poet relates how once, when the +Madunazza was mending St Joseph's clothes, the Bambineddu cried in His +cradle because no one was attending to Him; so the archangel Raphael +came down and rocked Him, and said three sweet little words to Him, +"Lullaby, Jesus, Son of Mary!" Another time, when the Child was older +and the mother was going to visit St Anne, he wept because He wished +to go too. The mother let Him accompany her on condition that He would +not break St Anne's bobbins. Yet another time the Virgin went to the +fair to buy flax, and the Child said that He too would like to have +a fairing. The Virgin buys Him a tambourine, and angels descend to +listen to His playing. Such stories are endless; some, no doubt, are +invented on the spur of the moment, but the larger portion are scraps +of old legendary lore. Not a few of the popular beliefs, relating to +the Infant Jesus may be traced to the apocryphal Gospels, which were +extensively circulated during the earlier Christian centuries. +There is, for instance, a Provençal song containing the legend of an +apple-tree that bowed its branches to the Virgin, which is plainly +derived from this source. Speaking of Provence, one ought not to +forget the famous "Troubadour of Bethlehem," Saboly, who was born in +1640, and who composed more than sixty _noëls_. Five pretty lines of +his form an epitome of sacred lullabies: + + Faudra dire, faudra dire, + Quauco cansoun, + Au garçoun, + A la façoun + D'aquelo de _soum-soum_. + +George Wither deserves remembrance here for what he calls a "Rocking +hymn," written about the year of Saboly's birth. "Nurses," he says, +"usually sing their children asleep, and through want of pertinent +matter they oft make use of unprofitable, if not worse, songs; this +was therefore prepared that it might help acquaint them and their +nurse children with the loving care and kindness of their Heavenly +Father." Consciously or unconsciously, Wither caught the true spirit +of the ancient carols in the verses--charming in spite, or perhaps +because of their demure simplicity--which follow his little exordium: + + Sweet baby, sleep: what ails my dear; + What ails my darling thus to cry? + Be still, my child, and lend thine ear, + To hear me sing thy lullaby. + My pretty lamb, forbear to weep; + Be still, my dear; sweet baby, sleep. + + Thou blessed soul, what canst thou fear? + What thing to thee can mischief do? + Thy God is now thy Father dear, + His holy Spouse thy mother too. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep.... + + Whilst thus thy lullaby I sing, + For thee great blessings ripening be; + Thine eldest brother is a king, + And hath a kingdom bought for thee. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. &c., &c. + +Count Gubernatis, in his "Usi Natalizj," quotes a popular Spanish +lullaby, addressed to any ordinary child, but having reference to the +Holy Babe: + + The Baby Child of Mary, + Now cradle He has none; + His father is a carpenter, + And he shall make Him one. + + The lady good St Anna, + The lord St Joachim, + They rock the Baby's cradle, + That sleep may come to Him. + + Then sleep thou too, my baby, + My little heart so dear; + The Virgin is beside thee, + The Son of God is near. + +When they are old enough to understand the meaning of words, children +are sure to be interested up to a certain point by these saintly +fables, but, taken as a whole, the songs of the South give us the +impression that the coming of Christmas kindles the imagination of the +Southern mother rather than that of the Southern child. On the north +side of the Alps it is otherwise; there is scarcely need to say that +in the Vaterland, Christmas is before all the children's feast. We, +who have borrowed many of the German yule-tide customs, have left out +the "Christkind;" and it is well that we have done so. Transplanted +to foreign soil, that poetic piece of extra-belief would have become a +mockery. As soon try to naturalise Kolyada, the Sclavonic white-robed +New-year girl. The Christkind in His mythical attributes is nearer to +Kolyada than to the Italian Bambinello. He belongs to the people, not +to the Church. He is not swathed in jewelled swaddling clothes; His +limbs are free, and He has wings that carry Him wheresoever good +children abide. There is about Him all the dreamy charm of lands where +twilight is long and shade and shine intermingle softly, and where the +earth's wintry winding-sheet is more beautiful than her April bride +gown. The most popular of German lullabies is a truly Teutonic mixture +of piety, wonder-lore, and homeliness. Wagner has introduced the +music to which it is sung into his "Siegfried-Idyl." I have to thank a +Heidelberg friend for the text: + + Sleep, baby, sleep: + Your father tends the sheep; + Your mother shakes the branches small, + Whence happy dreams in showers fall: + Sleep, baby, sleep. + + Sleep, baby, sleep: + The sky is full of sheep; + The stars the lambs of heaven are, + For whom the shepherd moon doth care: + Sleep, baby, sleep. + + Sleep, baby, sleep: + The Christ Child owns a sheep; + He is Himself the Lamb of God; + The world to save, to death He trod: + Sleep, baby, sleep. + + Sleep, baby, sleep: + I'll give you then a sheep + With pretty bells, and you shall play + And frolic with him all the day: + Sleep, baby, sleep. + + Sleep, baby, sleep: + And do not bleat like sheep, + Or else the shepherd's dog will bite + My naughty, little, crying spright: + Sleep, baby, sleep. + + Sleep, baby, sleep: + Begone, and watch the sheep, + You naughty little dog! Begone, + And do not wake my little one: + Sleep, baby, sleep. + +In Denmark children are sung to sleep with a cradle hymn which is +believed (so I am informed by a youthful correspondent) to be "very +old." It has seven stanzas, of which the first runs, "Sleep sweetly, +little child; lie quiet and still; as sweetly sleep as the bird in the +wood, as the flowers in the meadow. God the Father has said, +'Angels stand on watch where mine, the little ones, are in bed.'" A +correspondent at Warsaw (still more youthful) sends me the even-song +of Polish children: + + The stars shine forth from the blue sky; + How great and wondrous is God's might; + Shine, stars, through all eternity, + His witness in the night. + + O Lord, Thy tired children keep: + Keep us who know and feel Thy might; + Turn Thine eye on us as we sleep, + And give us all good-night. + + Shine, stars, God's sentinels on high, + Proclaimers of His power and might; + May all things evil from us fly: + O stars, good-night, good-night! + +Is this "Dobra Noc" of strictly popular origin? From internal evidence +I should say that it is not. It seems, however, to be extremely +popular in the ordinary sense of the word. Before me lie two or three +settings of it by Polish musicians. + +The Italians call lullabies _ninne-nanne_, a term used by Dante when +he makes Forese predict the ills which are to overtake the dames of +Florence: + + E se l'anteveder qui non m' inganna, + Prima fien triste che le guance impeli + Colui che mo si consola con _nanna_. + +Some etymologists have sought to connect "nanna" with _neniæ_ or +[Greek: nênitos], but its most apparent relationship is with [Greek: +nannarismata], the modern Greek name for cradle songs, which is +derived from a root signifying the singing of a child to sleep. +The _ninne-nanne_ of the various Italian provinces are to be found +scattered here and there through volumes of folk poesy, and no attempt +has yet been made to collate and compare them. Signor Dal Medico did +indeed publish, some ten years ago, a separate collection of Venetian +nursery rhymes, but his initiative has not been followed up. The +difficulty I had in obtaining the little work just mentioned is +characteristic of the way in which Italian printed matter vanishes +out of all being; instead of passing into the obscure but secure limbo +into which much of English literature enters, it attains nothing +short of Nirv[=a]na--a happy state of non-existence. The inquiries of +several Italian book-sellers led to no other conclusion than that the +book in question was not to be had for love or money; and most likely +I should still have been waiting for it were it not for the courtesy +of the Baron Giovanni di Sardagna, who, on hearing that it was wanted +by a student of folk-lore, borrowed from the author the only copy in +his possession and made therefrom a verbatim transcript. The following +is one of Signor Dal Medico's lullabies: + + Hush! lulla, lullaby! So mother sings; + For hearken, 'tis the midnight bell that rings. + But, darling, not thy mother's bell is this: + St Lucy's priests it calls to prayer, I wis. + St Lucy gave thee eyes--a matchless pair-- + And gave the Magdalen her golden hair; + Thy cheeks their hue from heaven's angels have; + Her little loving mouth St Martha gave. + Love's mouth, sweet mouth, that Florence hath for home, + Now tell me where love springs, and how doth come?... + With music and with song doth love arise, + And then its end it hath in tears and sighs. + +The question and answer as to the beginning and end of love run +through all the songs of Italy, and in nearly every case the reply +proceeds from Florence. The personality of the answerer changes: +sometimes it is a little wild bird; on one occasion it is a preacher. +And the idea has been suggested that the last is the original form, +and that the Preacher of Florence who preaches against love is none +other than Jeronimo Savonarola. + +In an Istriot variant of the above song, "Santa Luceîa" is spoken of +as the Madonna of the eyes; "Santa Puluonia" as the Madonna of the +teeth: we hear also something of the Magdalene's old shoes and of the +white lilies she bears in her hands. It is not always quite clear +upon what principle the folk-poet shapes his descriptions of religious +personages; if the gifts and belongings he attributes to them are +at times purely conventional, at others they seem to rest on no +authority, legendary or historic. Most likely his ideas as to +the personal appearance of such or such a saint are formed by the +paintings in the church where he is accustomed to go to mass; it +is probable, too, that he is fond of talking of the patrons of his +village or of the next village, whose names are associated with the +_feste_, which as long as he can recollect have constituted the great +annual events of his life. But two or three saints have a popularity +independent of local circumstance. One of these is Lucy, whom the +people celebrate with equal enthusiasm from her native Syracuse to the +port of Pola. Perhaps the maiden patroness of the blessed faculty of +vision has come to be thought of as a sort of gracious embodiment +of that which her name signifies: of the sweet light which to the +southerner is not a mere helpmate in the performance of daily tasks, +but a providential luxury. Concerning the earthly career of their +favourite, her peasant votaries have vague notions: once when a +French traveller in the Apennines suggested that St Januarius might be +jealous of her praises, he received the answer, "_Ma che, excellenza_, +St Lucy was St Januarius' wife!" + +In Greece we find other saints invoked over the baby's cradle. The +Greek of modern times has his face, his mind, his heart, set in an +undeviating eastward position. To holy wisdom and to Marina, the +Alexandrian martyr, the Greek mother confides her cradled darling: + + Put him to bed, St Marina; send him to sleep, St Sophia! Take + him out abroad that he may see how the trees flower and how + the birds sing; then come back and bring him with you, that + his father may not ask for him, may not beat his servants, + that his mother may not seek him in vain, for she would weep + and fall sick, and her milk would turn bitter. + +At Gessopalena, in the province of Chieti (Abruzzo Citeriore) there +would seem to be much faith in numbers. Luke and Andrew, Michael and +Joseph, Hyacinth and Matthew are called in, and as if these were not +enough to nurse one baby, a summons is sent to _Sant Giusaffat_, who, +as is well known, is neither more nor less than Buddha introduced into +the Catholic calendar. + +Another of Signor Dal Medico's _ninne-nanne_ presents several points +of interest: + + O Sleep, O Sleep, O thou beguiler, Sleep, + Beguile this child, and in beguilement keep, + Keep him three hours, and keep him moments three; + Until I call beguile this child for me. + And when I call I'll call:--My root, my heart, + The people say my only wealth thou art. + Thou art my only wealth; I tell thee so. + Now, bit by bit, this boy to sleep will go; + He falls and falls to sleeping bit by bit, + Like the green wood what time the fire is lit, + Like to green wood that never flame can dart, + Heart of thy mother, of thy father heart! + Like to green wood, that never flame can shoot. + Sleep thou, my cradled hope, sleep thou, my root, + My cradled hope, my spirit's strength and stay; + Mother, who bore thee, wears her life away; + Her life she wears away, and all day long + She goes a-singing to her child this song. + +Now, in the first place, the comparison of the child's gradual falling +asleep with the slow ignition of fresh-cut wood is the common property +of all the populations whose ethnical centre of gravity lies in +Venice. I have seen an Istriot version of it, and I heard it sung by a +countrywoman at San Martino di Castrozza in the Trentino; so that, at +all event, _Italia redenta_ and _irredenta_ has a community of song. +The second thing that calls for remark is the direct invocation +of sleep. A distinct little group of cradle ditties displays this +characteristic. "Come, sleep," cries the Grecian mother, "come, sleep, +take him away; come sleep, and make him slumber. Carry him to the +vineyard of the Aga, to the gardens of the Aga. The Aga will give +him grapes; his wife, roses; his servant, pancakes." A second Greek +lullaby must have sprung from a luxuriant imagination. It comes from +Schio: + + Sleep, carry off my son, o'er whom three sentinels do watch, + Three sentinels, three warders brave, three mates you cannot match. + These guards: the sun upon the hill, the eagle on the plain, + And Boreas, whose chilly blasts do hurry o'er the main. + --The sun went down into the west, the eagle sank to sleep, + Chill Boreas to his mother sped across the briny deep. + "My son, where were you yesterday? Where on the former night? + Or with the moon or with the stars did you contend in fight? + Or with Orion did you strive--though him I deem a friend?" + "Nor with the stars, nor with the moon, did I in strife contend, + Nor with Orion did I fight, whom for your friend I hold, + But guarded in a silver cot a child as bright as gold." + +The Greeks have a curious way of looking at sleep: they seem absorbed +in the thought of what dreams may come--if indeed the word dream +rightly describes their conception of that which happens to the soul +while the body takes its rest--if they do not rather cling to some +vague notion of a real severance between matter and spirit during +sleep. + +The mothers of La Bresse (near Lyons) invoke sleep under the name of +"le souin-souin." I wish I could give here the sweet, inedited melody +which accompanies these lines: + + Le poupon voudrait bien domir; + Le souin-souin ne veut pas venir. + Souin-souin, vené, vené, vené; + Souin-souin, vené, vené, donc! + +The Chippewaya Indians were in the habit of personifying sleep as an +immense insect called Weeng, which someone once saw at the top of a +tree engaged in making a buzzing noise with its wings. Weeng produced +sleep by sending fairies, who beat the foreheads of tired mortals with +very small clubs. + +Sleep acts the part of questioner in the lullaby of the Finland +peasant woman, who sings to her child in its bark cradle: "Sleep, +little field bird; sleep sweetly, pretty redbreast. God will wake thee +when it is time. Sleep is at the door, and says to me, 'Is not there +a sweet child here who fain would sleep? a young child wrapped +in swaddling clothes, a fair child resting beneath his woollen +coverlet?'" A questioning sleep makes his appearance likewise in a +Sicilian _ninna_:-- + + My little son, I wish you well, your mother's comfort when in grief. + My pretty boy, what can I do? Will you not give one hour's relief? + Sleep has just past, and me he asked if this my son in slumber lay. + Close, close your little eyes, my child; send your sweet breath far + leagues away. + You are the fount of rose water; you are with every beauty fraught. + Sleep, darling son, my pretty one, my golden button richly wrought. + +A vein of tender reproach is sprung in that inquiry, "Ca n' ura ri +riposu 'un vuo rari?" The mother appeals to the better feeling, to +the Christian charity as it were, of the small but implacable tyrant. +Another time she waxes yet more eloquent. "Son, my comfort, I am not +happy. There are women who laugh and enjoy themselves while I chafe my +very life out. Listen to me, child; beautiful is the lullaby and all +the folk are asleep--but thou, no! My wise little son, I look about +for thy equal; nowhere do I find him. Thou art mamma's consolation. +There, do sleep just a little while." So pleads the Sicilian; her +Venetian sister tries to soften the obduracy of her infant by still +more plaintive remonstrances. "Hushaby; but if thou dost not sleep, +hear me. Thou hast robbed me of my heart and of all my sentiments. I +really do not know for what cause thou lamentest, and never will have +done lamenting." On this occasion the appeal seems to be made to some +purpose, for the song concludes, "The eyes of my joy are closing; they +open a little and then they shut. Now is my joy at peace with me and +no longer at war." So happy an issue does not always arrive. It may +happen that the perverse babe flatly refuses to listen to the mother's +voice, sing she never so sweetly. Perhaps he might have something +to say for himself could he but speak, at any rate in the matter of +mid-day slumbers. It must no doubt be rather trying to be called upon +to go straight to sleep just when the sunbeams are dancing round and +round and wildly inviting you to make your first studies in optics. +Most often the long-suffering mother, if she does not see things in +this light, acts as though she did. Her patience has no limit; her +caresses are never done; with untiring love she watches the little +wakeful, wilful culprit-- + + Chi piangendo e ridendo pargoleggia.... + +But it is not always so; there are times when she loses all patience, +and temper into the bargain. Such a contingency is only too faithfully +reflected in a Sicilian _ninna_ which ends with the utterance of a +horrible wish that Doctor Death would come and quiet the recalcitrant +baby once for all. I ought to add that this same murderous lullaby is +nevertheless brimful of protestations of affection and compliments; +the child is told that his eyes are the finest imaginable, his cheeks +two roses, his countenance like the moon's. The amount of incense +which the Sicilian mother burns before her offspring would suffice +to fill any number of cathedrals. Every moment she breaks forth into +words such as, "Hush! child of my breath, bunch of jasmine, handful of +oranges and lemons; go to sleep, my son, my beauty: I have got to take +thy portrait." It has been remarked that a person who resembled an +orange would scarcely be very attractive, whence it is inferred that +the comparison came into fashion at the date when the orange tree was +first introduced into Sicily and when its fruit was esteemed a rare +novelty. A little girl is described as a spray of lilies and a bouquet +of roses. A little boy is assured that his mother prefers him to gold +or fine silver. If she lost him where would she find a beloved son +like to him? A child dropped out of heaven, a laurel garland, one +under whose feet spring up flowers? Here is a string of blandishments +prettily wound up in a prayer: + + Hush, my little round-faced daughter; thou art like the stormy sea. + Daughter mine of finest amber, godmother sends sleep to thee. + Fair thy name, and he who gave it was a gallant gentleman. + Mirror of my soul, I marvel when thy loveliness I scan. + Flame of love, be good. I love thee better far than life I love. + Now my child sleeps. Mother Mary, look upon her from above. + +The form taken by parental flattery shows the tastes of nations and of +individuals. The other day a young and successful English artist was +heard to exclaim with profound conviction, whilst contemplating his +son and heir, twenty-four hours old, "There is a great deal of _tone_ +about that baby!" + +The Hungarian nurse tells her charge that his cot must be of rosewood +and his swaddling clothes of rainbow threads spun by angels. The +evening breeze is to rock him, the kiss of the falling star to awake +him; she would have the breath of the lily touch him gently, and the +butterflies fan him with their brilliant wings. Like the Sicilian, the +Magyar has an innate love of splendour. + +Corsica has a _ninna-nanna_ into which the whole genius of its people +seems to have passed. The village, _fêtes_, with dancing and music, +the flocks and herds and sheep-dogs, even the mountains, stars, and +sea, and the perfumed air off the _macchi_, come back to the traveller +in that island as he reads-- + + Hushaby, my darling boy; + Hushaby, my hope and joy. + You're my little ship so brave + Sailing boldly o'er the wave; + One that tempests doth not fear, + Nor the winds that blow from high. + Sleep awhile, my baby dear; + Sleep, my child, and hushaby. + + Gold and pearls my vessel lade, + Silk and cloth the cargo be, + All the sails are of brocade + Coming from beyond the sea; + And the helm of finest gold, + Made a wonder to behold. + Fast awhile in slumber lie; + Sleep, my child, and hushaby. + + After you were born full soon + You were christened all aright; + Godmother she was the moon, + Godfather the sun so bright; + All the stars in heaven told + Wore their necklaces of gold. + Fast awhile in slumber lie; + Sleep, my child, and hushaby. + + Pure and balmy was the air, + Lustrous all the heavens were; + And the seven planets shed + All their virtues on your head; + And the shepherds made a feast + Lasting for a week at least. + Fast awhile in slumber lie; + Sleep, my child, and hushaby. + + Nought was heard but minstrelsy, + Nought but dancing met the eye, + In Cassoni's vale and wood + And in all the neighbourhood; + Hawk and Blacklip, stanch and true, + Feasted in their fashion too. + Fast awhile in slumber lie; + Sleep, my child, and hushaby. + + Older years when you attain, + You will roam o'er field and plain; + Meadows will with flowers be gay, + And with oil the fountains play, + And the salt and bitter sea + Into balsam changèd be. + Fast awhile in slumber lie; + Sleep, my child, and hushaby. + + And these mountains, wild and steep, + Will be crowded o'er with sheep, + And the wild goat and the deer + Will be tame and void of fear; + Vulture, fox, and beast of prey, + From these bounds shall flee away. + Fast awhile in slumber lie; + Sleep, my child, and hushaby. + + You are savory, sweetly blowing, + You are thyme, of incense smelling, + Upon Mount Basella growing, + Upon Mount Cassoni dwelling; + You the hyacinth of the rocks + Which is pasture for the flocks. + Fast awhile in slumber lie; + Sleep, my child, and hushaby. + +At the sight of a new-born babe the Corsican involuntarily sets to +work making auguries. The mountain shepherds place great faith in +divination based on the examination of the shoulder-blades of animals: +according to the local tradition the famous prophecy of the greatness +of Napoleon was drawn up after this method. The nomad tribes of +Central Asia search the future in precisely the same way. Corsican +lullabies are often prophetical. An old woman predicts a strange sort +of millennium, to begin with the coming of age of her grandson: + + "There grew a boy in Palneca of Pumonti, and his dear + grandmother was always rocking his cradle, always wishing him + this destiny:-- + + "Sleep, O little one, thy grandmother's joy and gladness, for + I have to prepare the supper for thy dear little father, and + thy elder brothers, and I have to make their clothes. + + "When thou art older, thou wilt traverse the plains, the grass + will turn to flowers, the sea-water will become sweet balm. + + "We will make thee a jacket edged with red and turned up in + points, and a little peaked hat, trimmed with gold braid. + + "When thou art bigger, thou wilt carry arms; neither soldier + nor gendarme will frighten thee, and if thou art driven up + into a corner, thou wilt make a famous bandit. + + "Never did woman of our race pass thirteen years unwed, for + when an impertinent fellow dared so much as look at her, he + escaped not two weeks unless he gave her the ring. + + "But that scoundrel of Morando surprised the kinsfolk, + arrested them all in one day, and wrought their ruin. And the + thieves of Palneca played the spy. + + "Fifteen men were hung, all in the market-place: men of great + worth, the flower of our race. Perhaps it will be thou, O + dearest! who shall accomplish the vendetta!" + +An unexpected yet logical development leads from the peaceful +household cares, the joyous images of the familiar song, the playful +picture of the baby boy in jacket and pointed hat, to a terrible +recollection of deeds of shame and blood, long past, and perhaps +half-forgotten by the rest of the family, but at which the old dame's +breast still burns as she rocks the sleeping babe on whom is fixed her +last passionate hope of vengeance fulfilled. + +In the mountain villages scattered about the borders of the vast Sila +forest, Calabrian mothers whisper to their babes, "brigantiellu miu, +brigantiellu della mamma." They tell the little ones gathered round +their knees legends of Fra Diavolo and of Talarico, just as Sardinian +mothers tell the legend of Tolu of Florinas. This last is a story +of to-day. In 1850, Giovanni Tolu married the niece of the priest's +housekeeper. The priest opposed the marriage, and soon after it had +taken place, in the absence of Tolu, he persuaded the young wife to +leave her husband's house, never to return. Tolu, meeting his enemy +in a lonely path, fired his pistol, but by some accident it did not +go off, and the priest escaped with his life. Arrest and certain +conviction, however, awaited Tolu, who preferred to take to the +woods, where he remained for thirty years, a prince among outlaws. +He protected the weak; administered a rude but wise justice to the +scattered peasants of the waste country between Sassari and the sea; +his swift horse was always ready to fly in search of their lost or +stolen cattle; his gun was the terror of the thieves who preyed upon +these poor people. In Osilo lived two families, hereditary foes, the +Stacca and the Achena. An Achena offered Tolu five hundred francs to +kill the head of the Stacca family. Tolu not only refused, he did +not rest till he had brought about a reconciliation between the two +houses. At last, in the autumn of 1880, the gendarmes, after thirty +years' failure, arrested Tolu without a struggle at a place where he +had gone to take part in a country _festa_. For two years he was kept +untried in prison. In September 1882 he was brought before the Court +of Assize at Frosinone. Not a witness could be found to testify +against him. "Tolu," they said, "è un Dio." When asked by the +President what he had to say in his defence, he replied: "I never +fired first. The carabineers hunted me like a wild beast, because a +price was set on my head, and like a wild beast I defended myself." +The jury brought in a verdict of acquittal; and if any one wishes to +make our hero's acquaintance, he has only to take ship for Sardinia +and then find the way to the village of Florinas, where he is now +peaceably living, beloved and respected by all who know him. + +The Sardinian character has old-world virtues and old-world blemishes; +if you live in the wilder districts you may deem it advisable to keep +a loaded pistol on the table at meal-time; but then you may go all +over the island without letters of introduction, sure of a hearty +welcome, and an hospitality which gives to the stranger the best +of everything that there is. If the Sardinian has an imperfect +apprehension of the sacredness of other laws, he is blindly obedient +to that of custom; when some progressive measure is proposed, he does +not argue--he says quietly: "Custu non est secundu la moda nostra." +No man sweeps the dust on antique time less than he. One of his +distinctive traits is an overweening fondness of his children; the +ever-marvellous baby is represented not only as the glory of its +mother, but also as the light even of its most distant connexions-- + + Lullaby, sweet lullaby, + You our happiness supply; + Fair your face, and sweet your ways, + You, your mother's pride and praise. + As the coral, rare and bright, + In your life does father live; + You, of all the dear delight, + All around you pleasure give. + + All your ways, my pretty boy, + Of your parents are the joy; + You were born for good alone, + Sunshine of the family! + Wise, and kind to every one. + Light of every kinsman's eye; + Light of all who hither come, + And the gladness of our home. + Lullaby, sweet lullaby. + +On the northern shore the people speak a tongue akin to that of the +neighbouring isle, and the dialect of the south is semi-Spanish; but +in the midland Logudoro the old Sard speech is spoken much as it is +known to have been spoken a thousand years ago. It is simply a rustic +Latin. Canon Spano's loving rather than critical labours have left +Sardinia a fine field for some future folk-lore collector. The +Sardinian is short in speech, copious in song. I asked a lad, just +returned to Venetia from working in Sardinian quarries, if the people +there had many songs? "Oh! tanti!" he answered, with a gesture more +expressive than the words. He had brought back more than a touch of +that malarious fever which is the scourge of the island and a blight +upon all efforts to develop its rich resources. A Sardinian friend +tells me that the Sard poet often shows a complete contempt for +metrical rules; his poesy is apt to become a rhythmic chant of which +the words and music cannot be dissevered. But the Logudorian +lullabies are regular in form, their distinguishing feature being an +interjection with an almost classical ring that replaces the _fa la +nanna_ of Italy-- + + Oh! ninna and anninia! + Sleep, baby boy; + Oh! ninna and anninia! + God give thee joy. + Oh! ninna and anninia! + Sweet joy be thine; + Oh! ninna and anninia! + Sleep, brother mine. + + Sleep, and do not cry, + Pretty, pretty one, + Apple of mine eye, + Danger there is none; + Sleep, for I am by, + Mother's darling son. + + Oh! ninna and anninia! + Sleep, baby boy; + Oh! ninna and anninia! + God give thee joy. + Oh! ninna and anninia! + Sweet joy be thine; + Oh! ninna and anninia! + Sleep, brother mine. + +The singer is the little mother-sister: the child who, while the +mother works in the fields or goes to market, is left in charge of the +last-come member of the family, and is bound to console it as best +she may, for the absence of its natural guardian. The baby is to her +somewhat of a doll, just as to the children of the rich the doll is +somewhat of a baby. She may be met without going far afield; anyone +who has lived near an English village must know the curly-headed +little girl who sits on the cottage door-step or among the meadow +buttercups, her arms stretched at full length, round a soft, +black-eyed creature, small indeed, yet not much smaller than herself. +This, she solemnly informs you, is her baby. Not quite so often can +she be seen now as before the passing of the Education Act, prior to +which all truants fell back on the triumphant excuse, "I can't go +to school because I have to mind my baby," some neighbouring infant +brother, cousin, nephew, being producible at a moment's notice in +support of the assertion. In those days the mere sight of a baby +filled persons interested in the promotion of public instruction with +wrath and suspicion. Yet womanhood would lose a sweet and sympathetic +phase were the little mother-sister to wholly disappear. The songs +of the child-nurse are of the slenderest kind; the tether of her +imagination has not been cut by hope or memory. As a rule she dwells +upon the important fact that mother will soon be here, and when she +has said that, she has not much more to say. So it is in an Istriot +song: "This is a child who is always crying; be quiet, my soul, for +mother is coming back; she will bring thee nice milk, and then she +will put thee in the crib to hushaby." A Tuscan correspondent sends +me a sister-rhyme which is introduced by a pretty description of +the grave-eyed little maiden, of twelve or thirteen years perhaps, +responsible almost to sadness, who leans down her face over the baby +brother she is rocking in the cradle; and when he stirs and begins to +cry, sings softly the oft-told tale of how the dear mamma will come +quickly and press him lovingly to her breast: + + Che fa mai col volto chino, + Quella tacita fanciulla? + Sta vegliando il fratellino, + Adagiato nella culla. + + Ed il pargolo se desta, + E il meschino prorompe in pianto, + La bambina, mesta, mesta, + Vuol chetarlo col suo canto: + + Bambolino mio, riposa, + Presto mamma tornerà; + Cara mamma che amorosa + Al suo sen ti stringerà. + +The little French girl turns her thoughts to the hot milk and +chocolate that are being prepared, and of which she no doubt expects +to have a share:-- + + Fais dodo, Colin, mon p'tit frère, + Fais dodo, t'auras du lolo. + Le papa est en haut, qui fait le lolo, + Le maman est en bas, qui fait le colo; + Fais dodo, Colin, mon p'tit frère + Fais dodo. + +In enumerating the rewards for infantine virtue--which is sleep--I +must not forget the celebrated hare's skin to be presented to Baby +Bunting, and the "little fishy" that the English father, set to be +nurse _ad interim_, promises his "babby" when the ship comes in; nor +should I pass over the hopes raised in an inedited cradle song of +French Flanders, which opens, like the Tuscan lullaby, with a short +narration: + + Un jour un' pauv' dentillière + En amicliton ch'un petiot garchun, + Qui d'puis le matin n'fesions que blaìre, + Voulait l'endormir par une canchun. + +In this barbarous _patios_, the poor lace-maker tells her "p'tit +pocchin" (little chick) that to-morrow he shall have a cake made of +honey, spices, and rye flour; that he shall be dressed in his best +clothes "com' un bieau milord;" and that at "la Ducasse," a local +_fête_, she will buy him a laughable Polchinello and a bird-organ +playing the tune of the sugar-loaf hat. Toys are also promised in a +Japanese lullaby, which the kindness of the late author of "Child-life +in Japan" has enabled me to give in the original: + + Nén-ne ko y[=o]--nén-né ko y[=o] + Nén-né no mori wa--doko ye yuta + Ano yama koyété--sato ye yuta + Sato no miyagé ni--nani morota + Tén-tén taiko ni--sh[=o] no fuyé + Oki-agari koboshima--ìnu hari-ko. + +Signifying in English: + + Lullaby, baby, lullaby, baby + Baby's nursey, where has she gone + Over those mountains she's gone to her village; + And from her village, what will she bring? + A tum-tum drum, and a bamboo flute, + A "daruma" (which will never turn over) and a paper dog. + +Scope is allowed for unlimited extension, as the singer can go on +mentioning any number of toys. The _Daruma_ is what English children +call a tumbler; a figure weighted at the bottom, so that turn it how +you will, it always regains its equilibrium. + +More ethereal delights than chocolate, hare's skins, bird-organs, or +even paper dogs (though these last sound irresistibly seductive), form +the subject of a beautiful little Greek song of consolation: "Lullaby, +lullaby, thy mother is coming back from the laurels by the river, from +the sweet banks she will bring thee flowers; all sorts of flowers, +roses, and scented pinks." When she does come back, the Greek mother +makes such promises as eclipse all the rest: "Sleep, my child, and +I will give thee Alexandria for thy sugar, Cairo for thy rice, and +Constantinople, there to reign three years!" Those who see deep +meaning in childish things will look with interest at the young Greek +woman, who sits vaguely dreaming of empire while she rocks her babe. +The song is particularly popular in Cyprus; the English residents +there must be familiar with the melody--an air constructed on the +Oriental scale, and only the other day set on paper. The few bars of +music are like a sigh of passionate longing. + +From reward to punishment is but a step, and next in order to the +songs that refer to the recompense of good, sleepy children, must be +placed those hinting at the serious consequences which will be +the result of unyielding wakefulness. It must be confessed that +retribution does not always assume a very awful form; in fact, in +one German rhyme, it comes under so gracious a disguise, that a child +might almost lie awake on purpose to look out for it: + + Sleep, baby, sleep, + I can see two little sheep; + One is black and one is white, + And, if you do not sleep to-night, + First the black and then the white + Will give your little toes a bite. + +The translation is by "Hans Breitmann." + +In the threatening style of lullaby, the bogey plays a considerable +part. A history of the bogeys of all nations would be an instructive +book. The hero of one people is the bogey of another. Wellington and +Napoleon (or rather "Boney") served to scare naughty babies long after +the latter, at least, was laid to rest. French children still have +songs about "le Prince Noir," and the nurses sang during the siege of +Paris: + + As-tu vu Bismarck + A la porte de Chatillon? + Il lance les obus + Sur le Panthéon. + +The Moor is the nursery terror of many parts of Southern Europe; +not, however, it would seem of Sicily--a possible tribute to the +enlightened rule of the Kalifs. The Greeks do not enjoy a like +immunity: Signor Avolio mentions, in his "Canti popolari di Noto," +that besides saying "the wolf is coming," it is common for mothers +to frighten their little ones with, "Zìttiti, ca viènunu i Riece; Nu +sciri ca 'ncianu ci sù i Rieci" ("Hush, for the Greeks are coming: +don't go outside for the Greeks are there.") Noto was the centre of +the district where the ancient Sikeli made their last stand against +Greek supremacy: a coincidence that opens the way to bold speculation, +though the originals of the bogey Greeks may have been only pirates of +times far less remote. + +In Germany the same person distributes rewards and punishments: St +Nicholas in the Rhenish provinces, Knecht Ruprecht in Northern and +Central Germany, Julklapp in Pomerania. On Christmas eve, some one +cries out "Julklapp!" from behind a door, and throws the gift into the +room with the child's name pinned upon it. Even the gentle St Lucy, +the Santa Claus of Lombardy, withholds her cakes from erring babes, +and little Tuscans stand a good deal in awe of their friend the +Befana; delightful as are the treasures she puts in their shoes when +satisfied with their behaviour, she is credited with an unpleasantly +sharp eye for youthful transgressions. She has a relative in Japan of +the name of Hotii. Once upon a time Hotii, who belongs to the sterner +sex, lived on earth in the garb of a priest. His birthland was China, +and he had the happy fame of being extremely kind to children. At +present he walks about Japan with a big sack full of good things +for young people, but the eyes with which the back of his head is +furnished, enable him to see in a second if any child misconducts +itself. Of more dubious antecedents is another patron of the children +of Japan, Kishi Mojin, the mother of the child-demons. Once Kishi +Mojin had the depraved habit of stealing any young child she could lay +hands on and eating it. In spite of this, she was sincerely attached +to her own family, which numbered one thousand, and when the exalted +Amida Niorai hid one of its members to punish her for her cruel +practices, she grieved bitterly. Finally the child was given back on +condition that Kishi Mojin would never more devour her neighbours' +infants: she was advised to eat the fruit of the pomegranate whenever +she had a craving for unnatural food. Apparently she took the advice +and kept the compact, as she is honoured on the 28th day of every +month, and little children are taught to solicit her protection. The +kindness shown to children both in Japan and China is well known; +in China one baby is said to be of more service in insuring a safe +journey than an armed escort. + +"El coco," a Spanish bogey, figures in a sleep-song from Malaga: +"Sleep, little child, sleep, my soul; sleep, little star of the +morning. My child sleeps with eyes open like the hares. Little baby +girl, who has beaten thee that thine eyes look as if they had been +crying? Poor little girl! who has made thy face red? The rose on the +rose-tree is going to sleep, and to sleep goes my child, for already +it is late. Sleep little daughter for the _coco_ comes." + +The folk-poet in Spain reaps the advantage of a recognised freedom of +versification; with the great stress laid upon the vowels, a consonant +more or less counts for nothing: + + A dormir va la rosa + De los rosales; + A dormir va mi niña + Porque ya es tarde. + +All folk-poets, and notably the English, have recourse to an +occasional assonant, but the Spaniard can trust altogether to such. +Verse-making is thus made easy, provided ideas do not fail, and up to +to-day, they have not failed the Spanish peasant. He has not, like +the Italian, begun to leave off composing songs. My correspondent at +Malaga writes that at that place improvisation seems innate in the +people: they go before a house and sing the commonest thing they wish +to express. Love and hate they also turn into songs, to be rehearsed +under the window of the individual loved or hated. There is even an +old woman now living in Malaga who rhymes in Latin with extraordinary +facility. To the present section falls one other lullaby--coo-aby, +perhaps I ought to say, since the Spanish _arrullo_ means the cooing +of doves as well as the lulling of children. It is quoted by Count +Gubernatis: + + Isabellita, do not pine + Because the flowers fade away; + If flowers hasten to decay + Weep not, Isabellita mine. + + Little one, now close thine eyes, + Hark, the footsteps of the Moor! + And she asks from door to door, + Who may be the child who cries? + + When I was as small as thou + And within my cradle lying, + Angels came about me flying + And they kissed me on my brow. + + Sleep, then, little baby, sleep: + Sleep, nor cry again to-night, + Lest the angels take to flight + So as not to see thee weep. + +"The Moor" is in this instance a benignant kind of bogey, not far +removed from harmless "wee Willie Winkie" who runs upstairs and +downstairs in his nightgown: + + Tapping at the window, + Crying at the lock, + "Are the babes in their beds? + For it's now ten o'clock." + +These myths have some analogy with a being known as "La Dormette" who +frequents the neighbourhood of Poitou. She is a good old woman who +throws sand and sleep on children's eyes, and is hailed with the +words: + + Passez la Dormette, + Passez par chez nous! + Endormir gars et fillettes + La nuit et le jou. + +Now and then we hear of an angel who passes by at nightfall; it is not +clear what may be his mission, but he is plainly too much occupied to +linger with his fellow seraphs, who have nothing to do but to kiss +the babe in its sleep. A little French song speaks of this journeying +angel: + + Il est tard, l'ange a passé, + Le jour a déja baissé; + Et l'on n'entend pour tout bruit + Que le ruisseau qui s'enfuit. + Endors toi, + Mon fils! c'est moi. + Il est tard et ton ami, + L'oiseau blue, s'est endormi. + +In Calabria, when a butterfly flits around a baby's cradle, it is +believed to be either an angel or a baby's soul. + +The pendulum of good and evil is set swinging from the moment that the +infant draws its first breath. Angelical visitation has its complement +in demonial influence; it is even difficult to resist the conclusion +that the ministers of light are frequently outnumbered by the powers +of darkness. In most Christian lands the unbaptised child is given +over entirely to the latter. Sicilian women are loth to kiss a child +before its christening, because they consider it a pagan or a Turk. In +East Tyrol and Styria, persons who take a child to be baptised say on +their return--"A Jew we took away, a Christian we bring back." Some +Tyrolese mothers will not give any food to their babies till the rite +has been performed. The unbaptised Greek is thought to be simply +a small demon, and is called by no other designation than [Greek: +srakos] if a boy, and [Greek: srakoula] if a girl. Once when a +christening was unavoidably delayed, the parents got so accustomed to +calling their little girl by the snake name, that they continued doing +so even after she had been presented with one less equivocal. +Dead unchristened babes float about on the wind; in Tyrol they are +marshalled along by Berchte, the wife of Pontius Pilate; in Scotland +they may be heard moaning on calm nights. The state to which their +baby souls are relegated, is probably a lingering recollection of +that into which, in pagan days, all innocent spirits were conceived +to pass: an explanation that has also the merit of being as little +offensive as any that can be offered. There is naturally a general +wish to make baptism follow as soon as possible after birth--an +end that is sometimes pursued regardless of the bodily risks it may +involve. A poor woman gave birth to a child at the mines of Vallauria; +it was a bitterly cold winter; the snow lay deep enough to efface the +mountain tracks, and all moisture froze the instant it was exposed to +the air. However, the grandmother of the new-born babe carried it off +immediately to Tenda--many miles away--for the christening rite. As +she had been heard to remark that it was a useless encumbrance, there +were some who attributed her action to other motives than religious +zeal; but the child survived the ordeal and prospered. In several +parts of the Swiss mountains a baptism, like a funeral, is an event +for the whole community. I was present at a christening in a small +village lying near the summit of the Julier Pass. The bare, little +church was crowded, and the service was performed with a reverent +carefulness contrasting sharply with the mechanical and hurried +performance of a baptism witnessed shortly before in a very different +place, the glorious baptistry at Florence. It ended with a Lutheran +hymn, sung sweetly without accompaniment, by five or six young +girls. More than half of the congregation consisted of men, whose +weather-tried faces were wet with tears, almost without exception. +I could not find out that there was anything particularly sad in the +circumstances of the case; the women certainly wore black, but then, +the rule of attending the funerals even of mere acquaintances, causes +the best dress in Switzerland to be always one suggestive of mourning. +It seemed that the pathos of the dedication of a dawning life to the +Supreme Good was sufficient to touch the hearts of these simple folk, +starved from coarser emotion. + +In Calabria it is thought unlucky to be either born or christened on +a Friday. Saturday is likewise esteemed an inauspicious day, which +points to its association with the witches' Sabbath, once the subject +of numerous superstitious beliefs throughout the southern provinces +of Italy. Not far from the battlefield near Benevento where Charles +of Anjou defeated Manfred, grew a walnut tree, which had an almost +European fame as the scene of Sabbatical orgies. People used to hang +upon its branches the figure of a two-headed viper coiled into a ring, +a symbol of incalculable antiquity. St Barbatus had the tree cut down, +but the devil raised new shoots from the root and so it was renewed. +Shreds of snake-worship may be still collected. The Calabrians hold +that the cast-off skin of a snake is an excellent thing to put under +the pillow of a sick baby. Even after their christening, children are +unfortunately most susceptible to enchantment. When a beautiful and +healthy child sickens and dies, the Irish peasant infers that the +genuine baby has been stolen by fairies, and this miserable sprite +left in its place. Two ancient antidotes have great power to +counteract the effect of spells. One is the purifying Fire. In +Scotland, as in Italy, bewitched children, within the memory of living +men, have been set to rights by contact with its salutary heat. My +relative, Count Belli of Viterbo, was "looked at" when an infant by a +_Jettatrice_, and was in consequence put by his nurse into a mild +oven for half-an-hour. One would think that the remedy was nearly as +perilous as the practice of the lake-dwellers of cutting a little hole +in their children's heads to let out the evil spirits, but in the case +mentioned it seems to have answered well. + +The other important curative agent is the purifying spittle. In +Scotland and in Greece, any one who should exclaim, "What a beautiful +child!" is expected to slightly spit upon the object of the remark, or +some misfortune will follow. Ladies in a high position at Athens have +been observed to do this quite lately. The Scotch and Greek uneasiness +about the "well-faured" is by no means confined to those peoples; the +same anxiety reappears in Madagascar; and the Arab does not like you +to praise the beauty of his horse without adding the qualifying "an +it please God." Persius gives an account of the precautions adopted +by the friends of the infant Roman: "Look here--a grandmother or +superstitious aunt has taken baby from his cradle and is charming his +forehead and his slavering lips against mischief by the joint action +of her middle finger and her purifying spittle; for she knows right +well how to check the evil eye. Then she dandles him in her arms, and +packs off the little pinched hope of the family, so far as wishing can +do it, to the domains of Licinus, or to the palace of Cr[oe]sus. 'May +he be a catch for my lord and lady's daughter! May the pretty ladies +scramble for him! May the ground he walks on turn to a rose-bed.'" +(Prof. Conington's translation.) + +One of the rare lullabies that contain allusion to enchantment is the +following Roumanian "Nani-nani": + + Lullaby, my little one, + Thou art mother's darling son; + Loving mother will defend thee, + Mother she will rock and tend thee, + Like a flower of delight, + Or an angel swathed in white. + + Sleep with mother, mother well + Knows the charm for every spell. + Thou shalt be a hero as + Our good lord, great Stephen, was, + Brave in war, and strong in hand, + To protect thy fatherland. + + Sleep, my baby, in thy bed; + God upon thee blessings shed. + Be thou dark, and be thine eyes + Bright as stars that gem the skies. + Maidens' love be thine, and sweet + Blossoms spring beneath thy feet. + +The last lines might be taken for a paraphrase of-- + + ....... puellae + Hunc rapiant: quicquid calcaverit hic, rosa fiat. + +The Three Fates have still their cult at Athens. When a child is three +days old, the mother places by its cot a little table spread with a +clean linen cloth, upon which she sets a pot of honey, sundry cakes +and fruits, her wedding ring, and a few pieces of money belonging +to her husband. In the honey are stuck three almonds. These are the +preparations for the visit of the [Greek: Moirai]. In some places the +Norns or Parcæ have got transformed into the three Maries; in others +they closely retain their original character. A perfect sample of the +mixing up of pagan and Christian lore is to be found in a Bulgarian +legend, which shows the three Fates weaving the destiny of the infant +Saviour during a momentary absence of the Virgin--the whole scene +occurring in the middle of a Balkan wood. In Sicily exists a belief +in certain strange ladies ("donni-di-fora"), who take charge of the +new-born babe, with or without permission. The Palermitan mother says +aloud, when she lifts her child out of the cradle, "'Nnome di Dio!" +("In God's name!")--but she quickly adds _sotto voce_: "Cu licenzi, +signuri miu!" ("By your leave, ladies"). + +At Noto, _Ronni-di-casa_, or house-women, take the place of the +_Donni-di-fora_. They inhabit every house in which a fire burns. If +offended by their host, they revenge themselves on the children: +the mother finds the infant whom she left asleep and tucked into the +cradle, rolling on the floor or screaming with sudden fright. When, +however, the _Ronni-di-casa_ are amiably disposed, they make the +sleeping child smile, after the fashion of angels in other parts of +the world. Should they wish to leave an unmistakable mark of their +good will, they twist a lock of the baby's hair into an inextricable +tress. In England, elves were supposed to tangle the hair during sleep +(_vide King Lear_: "Elf all my hair in knots;" and Mercutio's Mab +speech). The favour of the Sicilian house-women is not without its +drawbacks, for if by any mischance the knotted lock be cut off, +they will probably twist the child's spine out of spite. "'Ccussi lu +lassurii li Ronni-di-casa," says an inhabitant of Noto when he points +out to you a child suffering from spinal curvature. The voice is +lowered in mentioning these questionable guests, and there are +Noticiani who will use any amount of circumlocution to avoid actually +naming them. They are often called "certi signuri," as in this +characteristic lullaby: + + My love, I wish thee well; so lullaby! + Thy little eyes are like the cloudless sky, + My little lovely girl, my pretty one, + Mother will make of thee a little nun: + A sister of the Saviour's Priory + Where noble dames and ladies great there be. + Sleep, moon-faced treasure, sleep, the while I sing: + Thou hadst thy cradle from the Spanish king. + When thou hast slept, I'll love thee better still. + (Sleep to my daughter comes and goes at will + And in her slumber she is made to smile + By certain ladies whom I dare not style.) + Breath of my body, thou, my love, my care, + Thou art without a flaw, so wondrous fair. + Sleep then, thy mother's breath, sleep, sleep, and rest, + For thee my very soul forsakes my breast. + My very soul goes forth, and sore my heart: + Thou criest; words of comfort I impart. + Daughter, my flame, lie still and take repose, + Thou art a nosegay culled from off the rose. + +At Palermo, mothers dazzled their little girls with the prospect of +entering the convent of Santa Zita or Santa Chiara. In announcing the +birth of his child, a Sicilian peasant commonly says, "My wife has a +daughter-abbess." "What! has your wife a daughter old enough to be an +abbess?" has sometimes been the innocent rejoinder of a traveller from +the mainland. The Convent of the Saviour, which is the destination of +the paragon of beauty described in the above lullaby, was one of +the wealthiest, and what is still more to the point, one of the most +aristocratic religious houses in the island. To have a relation among +its members was a distinction ardently coveted by the citizens of +Noto; a town which once rejoiced in thirty-three noble families, one +loftier than the other. The number is now cut down, but according to +Signor Avolio such as remain are regarded with undiminished reverence. +There are households in which the whole conversation runs on the +_Barone_ and _Baronessa_, when not absorbed by the _Baronello_ and the +_Baronessella_. It is just possible that the same phenomenon might be +observed without going to Noto. _Tutto il mondo è paese_: a proverb +which would serve as an excellent motto for the Folk-lore Society. + +Outside Sicily the cradle-singer's ideal of felicity is rather +matrimonial than monastic. The Venetian is convinced that who never +loved before must succumb to her daughter's incomparable charms. It +seems, by-the-by, that the "fatal gift" can be praised without fear or +scruple in modern Italy; the visitors of a new-born babe ejaculate in +a chorus, "Quant' è bellino! O bimbo! Bimbino!" and Italian lullabies, +far more than any others, are one long catalogue of perfections, +one drawn-out reiteration of the boast of a Greek mother of Terra +d'Otranto: "There are children in the street, but like my boy there is +not one; there are children before the house, but like my child there +are none at all." The Sardinian who wishes to say something civil of +a baby will not do less than predict that "his fame will go round the +world." The cradle-singer of the Basilicata desires for her nursling +that he may outstrip the sun and moon in their race. It has been seen +that the Roumanian mother would have her son emulate the famous hero +of Moldavia; for her daughter she cherishes a gentler ambition: + + Sleep, my daughter, sleep an hour; + Mother's darling gilliflower. + Mother rocks thee, standing near, + She will wash thee in the clear + Waters that from fountains run, + To protect thee from the sun. + + Sleep, my darling, sleep an hour, + Grow thou as the gilliflower. + As a tear-drop be thou white, + As a willow, tall and slight; + Gentle as the ring-doves are, + And be lovely as a star! + +This _nani-nani_ calls to mind some words in a letter of Sydney +Dobell's: "A little girl-child! The very idea is the most exquisite of +poems! a child-daughter--wherein it seems to me that the spirit of all +dews and flowers and springs and tender, sweet wonders 'strikes +its being into bounds.'" "Tear drop" (_lacrimiòra_) is the poetic +Roumanian name for the lily of the valley. It may be needful to add +that gilliflower is the English name for the clove-pink; at least an +explanatory foot-note is now attached to the word in new editions of +the old poets. Exiled from the polite society of "bedding plants"--all +heads and no bodies--the "matted and clove gilliflowers" which Bacon +wished to have in his garden, must be sought for by the door of +the cottager who speaks of them fondly yet apologetically, as +"old-fashioned things." To the folk-singers of the small Italy on the +Danube and the great Italy on the Arno they are still the type of the +choicest excellence, of the most healthful grace. Even the long stalk, +which has been the flower's undoing, from a worldly point of view, +gets praised by the unsophisticated Tuscan. "See," he says, "with +how lordly an air it holds itself in the hand!" ("Guarda con quanta +signoria si tiene in mano!") + +The anguish of the Hindu dying childless has its root deeper down in +the human heart than the reason he gives for it, the foolish fear lest +his funeral rites be not properly performed. No man quite knows what +it is to die who leaves a child in the world; children are more than a +link with the future--they _are_ the future: the portion of ourselves +that belongs not to this day but to to-morrow. To them may be +transferred all the hopes sadly laid by, in our own case, as +illusions; the "to be" of their young lives can be turned into a +beautiful "arrangement in pink," even though experience has taught us +that the common lot of humanity is "an Imbroglio in Whity-brown." Most +parents do all this and much more; as lullabies would show were there +any need for the showing of it. One cradle-song, however, faces +the truth that of all sure things the surest is that sorrow and +disappointment will fall upon the children as it has fallen upon the +fathers. The song comes from Germany; the English version is by Mr C. +G. Leland: + + Sleep, little darling, an angel art thou! + Sleep, while I'm brushing the flies from your brow. + All is as silent as silent can be; + Close your blue eyes from the daylight and me. + + This is the time, love, to sleep and to play; + Later, oh later, is not like to-day, + When care and trouble and sorrow come sore + You never will sleep, love, as sound as before. + + Angels from heaven as lovely as thou + Sweep round thy bed, love, and smile on thee now; + Later, oh later, they'll come as to-day, + But only to wipe all the tear-drops away. + + Sleep, little darling, while night's coming round, + Mother will still by her baby be found; + If it be early, or if it be late, + Still by her baby she'll watch and she'll wait. + +The sad truth is there, but with what tenderness is it not hedged +about! These Teutonic angels are worth more than the too sensitive +little angels of Spain who fly away at the sight of tears. And the +last verse conveys a second truth, as consoling as the first is sad; +pass what must, change what may, the mother's love will not change or +pass; its healing presence will remain till death; who knows? perhaps +after. Signor Salomone-Marino records the cry of one, who out of the +depths blesses the haven of maternal love: + + Mamma, Mammuzza mia, vu' siti l'arma, + Lu mè rifugiu nni la sorti orrenna, + Vui siti la culonna e la giurlanna, + Lu celu chi vi guardi e vi mantegna! + +The soul that directs and inspires, the refuge that shelters, the +column that supports, the garland that crowns--such language would +not be natural in the mouth of an English labourer. An Englishman who +feels deeply is almost bound to hold his tongue; but the poor Sicilian +can so express himself in perfect naturalness and simplicity. + +There is a kind of sleep-song that has only the form in common with +the rose-coloured fiction that makes the bulk of cradle literature. It +is the song of the mother who lulls her child with the overflow of +her own troubled heart. The child may be the very cause of her sorest +perplexity: yet from it alone she gains the courage to live, from it +alone she learns a lesson of duty: + + "The babe I carry on my arm, + He saves for me my precious soul." + +A Corsican mother says to the infant at her breast, "Thou art my +guardian angel!"--which is the same thought spoken in another way. + +The most lovely of all sad lullabies is that written much more than +two thousand years ago by Simonides of Ceos. Acrisius, king of Argos, +was informed by an oracle that he would be killed by the son of his +daughter Danaë, who was therefore shut up in a tower, where Zeus +visited her in the form of a shower of gold. Afterwards, when she gave +birth to Perseus, Acrisius ordered mother and child to be exposed in +a wicker chest or coffin on the open sea. This is the story which +Simonides took as the subject of his poem: + + Whilst the wind blew and rattled on the decorated ark, and the + troubled deep tossed as though in terror--her own fair cheek + also not unwet--around Perseus Danaë threw her arms, and + cried: "O how grievous, my child, is my trouble; yet thou + sleepest, and with tranquil heart slumberest within this + joyless house, beneath the brazen-barred, black-gleaming, + musky heavens. Ah! little reckest thou, beloved object, of the + howling of the tempest, nor of the brine wetting thy delicate + hair, as there thou liest, clad in thy little crimson mantle! + But even were this dire pass dreadful also to thee, yet lend + thy soft ear to my words: Sleep on, my babe, I say; sleep on, + I charge thee; nay, let the wild waters sleep, and sleep the + immeasurable woe. Let me, too, see some change of will on thy + part, Zeus, father! or if the speech be deemed too venturous, + then, for thy child's sake, I pray thee pardon." + +This is not a folk-song, but it has a prescriptive right to a place +among lullabies. + +Passing over the beautiful Widow's Song, quoted in a former essay, we +come to some Basque lines, which bring before us the blank and vulgar +ugliness of modern misery with a realism that would please M. Zola: + + Hush, poor child, hush thee to sleep; + (See him lying in slumber deep!) + Thou first, then following I, + We will hush and hushaby. + + Thy bad father is at the inn; + Oh! the shame of it, and the sin! + Home at midnight he will fare, + Drunk with strong wine of Navarre. + +After each verse the singer repeats again and again: _Lo lo, lo lo_, +on three lingering notes that have the plaintive monotony of the +chiming of bells where there are but three in the belfry. + +Almost as dismal as the Basque ditty is the English nursery rhyme: + + Bye, O my baby! + When I was a lady + O then my poor baby didn't cry; + But my baby is weeping + For want of good keeping; + Oh! I fear my poor baby will die! + +--which may have been composed to fit in with some particular story, +as was the tearful little song occurring in the ballad of Childe +Waters: + + She said: Lullabye, mine own dear child, + Lullabye, my child so dear; + I would thy father were a king, + Thy mother laid on a bier. + +One feels glad that that story ends happily in a "churching and +bridal" that take place upon the same day. + +I have the copy of a lullaby for a sick child, written down from +memory by Signor Lerda, of Turin, who reports it to be popular in +Tuscany: + + Sleep, dear child, as mother bids: + If thou sleep thou shalt not die! + Sleep, and death shall pass thee by. + Close worn eyes and aching lids, + Yield to soft forgetfulness; + Let sweet sleep thy senses press: + Child, on whom my love doth dwell, + Sleep, sleep, and thou shalt be well. + + See, I strew thee, soft and light, + Bed of down that cannot pain; + Linen sheets have o'er it lain + More than snow new-fallen white. + Perfume sweet, health-giving scent, + The meadows' pride, is o'er it sprent: + Sleep, dear son, a little spell, + Sleep, sleep, and thou shalt be well. + + Change thy side and rest thee there, + Beauty! love! turn on thy side, + O my son, thou dost not bide + As of yore, so fresh and fair. + Sickness mars thee with its spite, + Cruel sickness changes quite; + How, alas! its traces tell! + Yet sleep, and thou shalt be well. + + Sleep, thy mother's kisses poured + On her darling son. Repose; + God give end to all our woes. + Sleep, and wake by sleep restored, + Pangs that make thee faint shall fly! + Sleep, my child, and lullaby! + Sleep, and fears of death dispel; + Sleep, sleep, and thou shalt be well. + +"Se tu dormi, non morrai!" In how many tongues are not these words +spoken every day by trembling lips, whilst the heart seems to stand +still, whilst the eyes dare not weep, for tears would mean the victory +of hope or fear; whilst the watcher leans expectant over the beloved +little wasted form, conscious that all that can be done has been done, +that all that care or skill can try has been tried, that there are no +other remedies to fall back upon, that there is no more strength left +for battle, and that now, even in this very hour, sleep or his brother +death will decide the issue. + +When a Sicilian hears that a child is dead, he exclaims, "Glory +and Paradise!" The phrase is jubilant almost to harshness; yet the +underlying sentiment is not harsh. The thought of a dead child makes +natural harmonies with thoughts of bright and shining things. A mother +likes to dream of her lost babe as fair and spotless and little. If +she is sad, with him it is surely well. He is gone to play with the +Holy Boys. He has won the crown of innocence. There are folk-songs +that reflect this radiancy with which love clothes dead children; +songs for the last sleep full of all the confusion of fond epithets +commonly addressed to living babies. + +Only in one direction did my efforts to obtain lullabies prove +fruitless. America has, it seems, no nursery rhymes but those which +are still current in the Old World.[2] Mr Bret Harte told me: "Our +lullabies are the same as in England, but there are also a few Dutch +ones," and he went on to relate how, when he was at a small frontier +town on the Rhine, he heard a woman singing a song to her child: it +was the old story,--if the child would not sleep it would be punished, +its shoes would be taken away; if it would go to sleep at once, Santa +Claus would bring it a beautiful gift. Words and air, said Mr +Bret Harte, were strangely familiar to him; then, after a moment's +reflection, he remembered hearing this identical lullaby sung amongst +his own kindred in the Far West of America. + + [Footnote 1: The "Preaching of the children" took place as + usual in the Christmas week of 1885, but as the convent in + connection with the church of Santa Maria is about to be + pulled down, I cannot tell whether the pretty custom will be + adhered to in future. The church, however, which was also + threatened with demolition, is now safe.] + + [Footnote 2: This is confirmed by Mr W. Newell in his + admirable book, "Games and Songs of American Children" (1885), + which might be called with equal propriety, "Games and Songs + of British Children." It is indeed the best collection of + English nursery rhymes that exists. Thus America will have + given the mother country the most satisfactory editions, both + of her ballads (Prof. F. T. Child's splendid work, now in + course of publication) and of her children's songs.] + + + + +FOLK-DIRGES. + + +There are probably many persons who could repeat by heart the greater +portion of the last scene in the last book of the _Iliad_, and who +yet have never been struck by the fact, that not its least excellence +consists in its setting before us a carefully accurate picture of a +group of usages which for the antiquity of their origin, the wide +area of their observance, and the tenacity with which they have been +preserved, may be fairly said to occupy an unique position amongst +popular customs and ceremonials. First, we are shown the citizens of +Troy bearing their vanquished hero within the walls amidst vehement +demonstrations of grief: the people cling to the chariot wheels, or +prostrate themselves on the earth; the wife and the mother of the dead +tear their hair and cast it to the winds. Then the body is laid on +a bed of state, and the leaders of a choir of professional minstrels +sing a dirge, which is at times interrupted by the wailing of the +women. When this is done, Andromache, Hecuba, and Helen in turn give +voice each one to the feelings awakened in her by their common loss; +and afterwards--so soon as the proper interval has elapsed--the body +is burnt, wine being poured over the embers of the pyre. Lastly, +the ashes are consigned to the tomb, and the mourners sit down to a +banquet. "Such honours paid they to the good knight Hector;" and such, +in their main features, are the funeral rites which may be presumed to +date back to a period not only anterior to the siege of Troy, granting +for the moment that event to have veritably taken place, but also +previous to the crystallisation of the Greek or any other of the +Indo-European nationalities which flowed westward from the uplands of +the Hindu Kush. The custom of hymning the dead, which is just now what +more particularly concerns us, once prevailed over most if not all +parts of Europe; and the firmness of its hold upon the affections +of the people may be inferred from the persistency with which they +adhered to it, even when it was opposed not only by the working of the +gradual, though fatal, law of decay to which all old usages must in +the end submit, but also by the active interposition of persons +in authority. Charlemagne, for instance, tried to put it down in +Provence--desiring that all those attending funerals, who did not know +by rote any of the appropriate psalms, should recite aloud the _Kyrie +eleison_ instead of singing "profane songs" made to suit the occasion. +But the edict seems to have met with a signal want of success; for +some five hundred years after it was issued, the Provençals still +hired Præficæ, and still introduced within the very precincts of their +churches, whole choirs of lay dirge-singers, frequently composed of +young girls who were stationed in two companies, that chanted songs +alternately to the accompaniment of instrumental music; and this +notwithstanding that the clergy of Provence showed the strongest +objection to the performance of observances at funerals, other than +such as were approved by ecclesiastical sanction. The custom in +question bears an obvious affinity to Highland coronachs and Irish +keens, and here in England there is reason to believe it to have +survived as late as the seventeenth century. That Shakespeare was +well acquainted with it is amply testified by the fourth act of +_Cymbeline_; for it is plain that the song pronounced by Guiderius +and Arviragus over the supposed corpse of Imogene was no mere poetic +outburst of regret, but a real and legitimate dirge, the singing or +saying of which was held to constitute Fidele's obsequies. In the +Cotton Library there is a MS., having reference to a Yorkshire village +in the reign of Elizabeth, which relates: "When any dieth, certaine +women sing a song to the dead bodie recyting the jorney that the +partye deceased must goe." Unhappily the English Neniæ are nearly all +lost and forgotten; I know of no genuine specimen extant, except the +famous Lyke Wake (_i.e._, Death Watch) dirge beginning: + + This ae nighte, this ae nighte, + _Everie nighte and alle_, + Fire and sleete and candle lighte, + _And Christe receive thy saule_, &c. + +To the present day we find practices closely analogous with those +recounted in the _Iliad_ scattered here and there from the shores of +the Mediterranean to the banks of Lake Onega; and the Trojan threnody +is even now reproduced in Ireland, in Corsica, Sardinia, and Roumania, +in Russia, in Greece, and South Italy. Students who may be tempted to +make observations on this strange survival of the old world, will +do well, however, to set about it at once, in parts which are either +already invaded or else threatened with an imminent invasion of +railways, for the screech of the engine sounds the very death-knell of +ancient customs. Thus the Irish practice of keening is becoming less +and less general. On recently making inquiries of a gentleman residing +in Leinster, I learnt that it had gone quite out in that province; +he added that he had once seen keeners at a funeral at Clonmacnoise +(King's County), but was told they came from the Connaught side of +the Shannon. The keens must not be confused with the peculiar wail or +death-cry known as the Ullagone; they are articulate utterances, in +a strongly marked rhythm, extolling the merits of the dead, and +reproaching him for leaving his family, with much more in the same +strain. The keeners may or may not be professional, and the keens are +more often of a traditional than of an improvised description. One +or two specimens in Gaelic have appeared in the _Journal of the Irish +Archæological Association_, but on the whole the subject is far from +having received the attention it deserves. The Irish keeners are +invariably women, as also are all the continental dirge-singers +of modern times. Whether by reason of the somewhat new-fashioned +sentiment which forbids a man to exhibit his feelings in public, +or from other motives not unconnected with selfishness, the onus of +discharging the more active and laborious obligations prescribed in +popular funeral rites has bit by bit been altogether shifted upon the +shoulders of the weaker sex; _e.g._, in places where scratching and +tearing of the face forms part of the traditional ritual, the women +are expected to continue the performance of this unpleasant ceremony +which the men have long since abandoned. Together with the dirge, a +more or less serious measure of self-disfigurement has come down from +an early date. An Etruscan funeral urn, discovered at Clusi, shows an +exact picture of the hired mourners who tear their hair and rend +their garments, whilst one stands apart, in a prophetic attitude, and +declaims to the accompaniment of a flute. Of the precise origin of +the employment of Public Wailers, or Præficæ, not much has been +ascertained. One distinguished writer on folk-lore suggests that it +had its rise not in any lack of consideration for the dead, but in the +apprehension lest the repose of their ghosts should be disturbed by a +display of grief on the part of those who had been nearest and dearest +to them in life; and his theory gains support in the abundant evidence +forthcoming to attest the existence of a widely-spread notion that +the dead are pained, and even annoyed and exasperated, by the tears +of their kindred. Traces of this belief are discoverable in Zend +and Hindu writings; also amongst the Sclavs, Germans, and +Scandinavians--and, to look nearer home, in Ireland and Scotland. On +the other hand, it is possible that the business of singing before the +dead sprang from the root of well-nigh every trade--that its duties +were at first exclusively performed by private persons, and their +passing into public hands resulted simply from people finding out +that they were executed with less trouble and more efficiency by a +professional functionary; a common-place view of the matter which is +somewhat borne out by the circumstance, that whenever a member of the +family is qualified and disposed to undertake the dirge-singing, there +seems to be no prejudice against her doing so. It is often far from +easy to determine whether such or such a death-song was composed by a +hired præfica who for the time being assumed the character of one of +the dead man's relatives, or by the latter speaking in her own person. + +In Corsica, the wailing and chanting are kept up, off and on, from +the hour of death to the hour of burial. The news that the head of +a family has expired is quickly communicated to his relations and +friends in the surrounding hamlets, who hasten to form themselves +into a troop or band locally called the Scirrata, and thus advance in +procession towards the house of mourning. If the death was caused by +violence, the scirrata makes a halt when it arrives in sight of the +village; and then it is that the Corsican women tear their hair and +scratch their faces till the blood flows--just as do their sisters in +Dalmatia and Montenegro. Shortly after this, the scirrata is met by +the deceased's fellow-villagers, accompanied by all his near relatives +with the exception of the widow, to whose abode the whole party +now proceeds with loud cries and lamentations. The widow awaits the +scirrata by the door of her house, and, as it draws near, the leader +steps forward and throws a black veil over her head to symbolise her +widowhood; the term of which must offer a dreary prospect to a woman +who has the misfortune to lose her husband while she is still in the +prime of life, for public opinion insists that she remain for years in +almost total seclusion. The mourners and as many as can enter the +room assemble round the body, which lies stretched on a table or plank +supported by benches; it is draped in a long mantle, or it is clothed +in the dead man's best suit. Now begins the dirge, or Vocero. Two +persons will perhaps start off singing together, and in that case the +words cannot be distinguished; but more often only one gets up at a +time. She will open her song with a quietly-delivered eulogy of the +virtues of the dead, and a few pointed allusions to the most important +events of his life; but before long she warms to her work, and pours +forth volleys of rhythmic lamentation with a fire and animation that +stir up the women present into a frenzied delirium of grief, in which, +as the præfica pauses to take breath, they howl, dig their nails into +their flesh, throw themselves on the ground, and sometimes cover their +heads with ashes. When the dirge is ended they join hands and dance +frantically round the plank on which the body lies. More singing takes +place on the way to the church, and thence to the graveyard. After the +funeral the men do not shave for weeks, and the women let their hair +go loose and occasionally cut it off at the grave--cutting off the +hair being, by the way, a universal sign of female mourning; it was +done by the women of ancient Greece, and it is done by the women of +India. A good deal of eating and drinking brings the ceremonials to a +close. If the bill of fare comes short of that recorded of the funeral +feast of Sir John Paston, of Barton, when 1300 eggs, 41 pigs, 40 +calves, and 10 nete were but a few of the items--nevertheless the +Corsican baked meats fall very heavily upon the pockets of such +families as deem themselves compelled to "keep up a position." Sixty +persons is not an extraordinary number to be entertained at the +banquet, and there is, over and above, a general distribution of bread +and meat to poorer neighbours. Mutton in summer, and pork in winter, +are esteemed the viands proper to the occasion. In happy contrast to +all this lugubrious feasting is the simple cup of milk drunk by each +kinsman of the shepherd who dies in the mountains; in which case his +body is laid out, like Robin Hood's, in the open air, a green sod +under his head, his loins begirt with the pistol belt, his gun at +his side, his dog at his feet. Curious are the superstitions of the +Corsican shepherds touching death. The dead, they say, call the living +in the night time, and he who answers will soon follow them; they +believe, too, that, if you listen attentively after dark, you may hear +at times the low beating of a drum, which announces that a soul has +passed. + +A notable section of the voceri treats of that insatiable thirst +after vengeance which formerly provided as fruitful a theme to French +romancers as it presented a perplexing problem to French legislators. +In these dirges we see the vendetta in its true character, as the +outgrowth and relic of times when people were, in self-defence, +almost coerced into lawlessness through the perpetual miscarriage +of constituted justice, and they enable us to better understand the +process by which what was at the outset something of the nature of a +social necessity, developed into the ruling passion of the race, and +led to the frightful abuses that are associated with its name. All +that he held sacred in heaven or on earth became bound up in the +Corsican's mind with the obligation to avenge the blood of his +kindred. Thus he made Hate his deity, and the old inexorable spirit +of the Greek _Oresteia_ lived and breathed in him anew, the Furies +themselves finding no bad counterpart in the frenzied women who +officiated at his funeral rites. As is well known, when no man was to +be found to do the deed a woman would often come forward in his stead, +and this not only among the lower orders, but in the highest ranks of +society. A lady of the noble house of Pozzo di Borgo once donned +male attire, and in velvet-tasselled cap, red doublet, high sheepskin +boots, with pistol, gun, and dagger for her weapons, started off in +search of an assassin at the head of a band of partisans. When he was +caught, however, after the guns had been two or three times levelled +at his breast, she decided to give him his life. Another fair avenger +whose name has come down to us was Maria Felice di Calacuccia, of +Niolo. Her vocero may be cited here as affording a good idea of the +tone and spirit of the vendetta dirges in general. + +"I was spinning at my distaff when I heard a loud noise; it was a +gun-shot, it re-echoed in my heart. It seemed to say to me: 'Fly! thy +brother dies.' I ran into the upper chamber. As I unlatched the door, +'I am struck to the heart,' he said; and I fell senseless to the +ground. If I too died not, it was that one thought sustained me. Whom +wouldst thou have to avenge thee? Our mother, nigh to death, or thy +sister Maria? If Lario was not dead surely all this would not end +without bloodshed. But of so great a race, thou dost only leave thy +sister: she has no cousins, she is poor, an orphan, young. Still be at +rest--to avenge thee, she suffices!" + +A dramatic vocero, dealing with the same subject, is that of the +sister of Canino, a renowned brigand, who fell at Nazza in an +encounter with the military. She begins by regretting that she has not +a voice of thunder wherewith to rehearse his prowess. Alas! one early +morning the soldiers ("barbarous set of bandits that they are!") +sallied forth on his pursuit, and pounced upon him like wolves upon +a lamb. When she heard the bustle of folks going to and fro in the +street, she put her head out of window and asked what it was all +about. "Thy brother has been slaughtered in the mountains," they +reply. Even so it was; his arquebuse was of no use to him; no, nor his +dagger, nor his pistol, nor yet his amulet. When they brought him in, +and she beheld his wounds, the bitterness of her grief redoubled. Why +did he not answer her--did he lack heart to do so? "Canino, heart of +thy sister," she cries, "how thou art grown pale! Thou that wert +so stalwart and so full of grace, thou who didst appear like unto a +nosegay of flowers. Canino, heart of thy sister, they have taken thy +life. I will plant a blackthorn in the land of Nazza, that none of our +house may henceforth pass that way--for there were not three or four, +but seven men against one. Would I could make my bed at the foot of +the chestnut tree beneath whose shade they fired upon thy breast. I +desire to cast aside these women's skirts, to arm me with poniard, and +pistol, and gun, to gird me with the belt and pouch; Canino, heart of +thy sister, I desire to avenge thy death." In the lamentations over +one Matteo, a doctor who was murdered in 1745, we have an example of +the songs improvised along the road to the grave. This time there are +plenty of male relatives--brothers, brothers-in-law, and cousins--to +accomplish the vendetta. The funeral procession passes through the +village where the crime was committed, and one of the inhabitants, +perhaps as a peace-offering, invites the whole party to come in and +refresh themselves. To this a young girl replies: "We want none of +your bread and wine; what we do want is your blood." She invokes a +thunderbolt to exterminate every soul in the blood-guilty place. But +an aged dame interposes, for a wonder, with milder counsels; she bids +her savage sisters calm their wrath: "Is not Matteo in heaven with the +Lord? Look at his winding sheet," says she, "and learn from it that +Christ dwells above, who teaches forgiveness. The waters are troubled +enough already without your goading on your men to violence." It is +not unlikely that the Corsicans may have been in the habit, like the +Irish, of intentionally parading the coffin of a murdered man past the +door of the suspected murderer, in order that they might have a public +opportunity of branding the latter with infamy. + +Having glanced at these hymns of the avenger, we will turn to the +laments expressive of grief unmixed with threats or anger. In these, +also, Corsica is very rich. Sometimes it is a wife who deplores her +husband struck down by no human hand, but by fever or accident. In one +such vocero the widow pathetically crowds epithet on epithet, in the +attempt to give words to her affection and her sorrow. "You were my +flower, my thornless rose, my stalwart one, my column, my brother, my +hope, my prop, my eastern gem, my most beautiful treasure," she says +to her lost "Petru Francescu!" She curses fate which in a brief moment +has deprived her of her paladin--she prayed so hard that he might +be spared, but it was all in vain. He was laid low, the greatly +courageous one, who seemed so strong! Is it indeed true, that he, the +clever-headed, the handy-handed, will leave his Nunziola all alone? +Then she bids Mari, her little daughter, come hither to where papa +lies, and beg him to pray God in paradise that she may have a better +lot than her little mother. She wishes her eyes may change into two +fountains ere she forgets his name; for ever would she call him her +Petru Francescu. But most of all she wishes that her heart might +break so that her poor little soul could go with his, and quit this +treacherous world where is no more joy. The typical keen given in +Carleton's _Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry_ is so like +Nunziola's vocero, that in parts it might be taken for a translation +of it. Sometimes it is a plaint of a mother whose child has met the +fate of those "whom the gods love." That saying about the gods has its +equivalent in the Corsican lines: + + Chi nasci pe u paradisu + A stu mondu un po' imbecchia, + +which occur in the lament of La Dariola Danesi, of Zuani, who mourns +her sixteen-year-old daughter Romana. Decked in feast-day raiment +the damsel sleeps in the rest of death, after all her sufferings. Her +sweet face has lost its hues of red and white; it is like a gone-out +sun. Romana was the fairest of all the young girls, a rose among +flowers; the youths of the country round were consumed by love of her, +but in her presence they were filled with decorous respect. She was +courteous to all, familiar with none; in church everybody gazed at +her, but she looked at no one; and the minute mass was over she would +say: "Mamma, let us go." Never can the mother be consoled, albeit she +knows her darling fares well up there in heaven where all things smile +and are glad. Of a surety this earth was not worthy to contain so fair +a face. "Ah! how much more beautiful Paradise will be now she is in +it!" cries the voceratrice, with the sublime audacity of maternal +love. In another dirge we have pictured a troop of girls coming early +to the house of Maria, their young companion, to escort her to the +Church of St Elia: for this morning the father of her betrothed has +settled the marriage portion, and it is seemly that she should hear +mass, and make an offering of wax tapers. But the maiden's mother +comes forth to tell the gladsome band that to-day's offering to +St Elia is not of waxen tapers; it is a peerless flower, a bouquet +adorned with ribands--surely the saint will be well pleased with such +a fine gift! For the bride elect lies dead; who will now profit by +her possessions--the twelve mattresses, the twenty-four lambs? "I will +pray the Virgin," says the mother, "I will pray my God that I may go +hence this morning, pressing my flower to my heart." The playfellows +bathe Maria's face with tears: sees she not those who loved her? Will +she leave them in their sadness? One runs to pluck flowers, a second +to gather roses; they twine her a garland, a bridal crown--will she +depart all the same, lying upon her bier? But, after all, why should +there be all this grief? "To-day little Maria becomes the spouse of +the Lord; with what honour will she not be greeted in paradise!" +Alas for broken hearts! they were never yet healed by that line of +argument. Up the street steals the chilling sound of the funeral +chant, _Ora pro eâ_. They are come to bear the maiden to St Elia's +Church; the mother sinks to the ground; fain would she follow the body +to the grave, but she faints with sorrow; only her streaming tears can +pay the tribute of her love. + +It will be observed that it is usual for the survivors to be held up +as objects of pity rather than the dead, who are generally regarded +as well off; but now and then we come across less optimist presages of +the future life. A woman named Maddelè complains that they have taken +her blonde daughter, her snow-white dove, her "Chilì, cara di Mamma," +to the worst possible of places, where no sun penetrates, and no fire +is lit. + +Sometimes to a young girl is assigned the task of bewailing her +playmate. "This morning my companion is all adorned," begins a maiden +dirge-singer; "one would think she was going to be married." But the +ceremony about to take place differs sadly from that other. The +bell tolls slowly, the cross and banner arrive at the door; the dead +companion is setting out on a long journey, she is going to find their +ancestors--the voceratrice's father, and her uncle the curé--in the +land whither each one must go in his turn and remain for ever. Since +she has made up her mind thus to change country and climate (though +it be all too soon, for she has not yet done growing), will she at any +rate listen for an instant to her friend of other days? She wishes +to give her a little letter to carry to her father; and, besides the +letter, she would like her to take him a message, and give him news of +the family he left so young, all weeping round his hearth. She is to +tell him that all goes well; that his eldest daughter is married and +has a boy, a flowering lily, who already knows his father, and points +at him with his finger. The boy is called after the grandpapa, and old +friends declare him to be his very image. To the curé she is to say +that his flock flourish and do not forget him. Now the priest enters, +bringing the holy water; everyone lifts his hat; they bear the body +away: "Go to heaven, dear; the Lord awaits you." + +It is hardly necessary to add that the voceri of Corsica are without +exception composed in the native speech of the country, which the +accomplished scholar, lexicographer, and poet, Niccolò Tommaseo, spoke +of with perfect truth as one of "the most Italian of the dialects +of Italy." The time may come when the people will renounce their own +language in favour of the idiom of their rulers, but it has not come +yet; nor do they show much disposition to abandon their old usages, as +may be guessed from the fact that even in their Gallicanised capital +the dead are considered slighted if the due amount of wailing is left +undone. + +The Sardinian Attitido--a word which has been thought to have some +connection with the Greek [Greek: ototoi], and the Latin _atat_--is +made on exactly the same pattern as the Corsican vocero. I have been +told on trustworthy authority that in some districts in the island the +keening over a married man is performed not by a dirge-singer but by +his own children, who chant a string of homely sentences, such as: +"Why art thou dead, papa? Thou didst not want for bread or wine!" A +practice may here be mentioned which recalls the milk and honey and +nuts of the Roman Inferiæ, and which, so far as I am aware, lingers on +nowhere excepting Sardinia; the attidora whilst she sings, scatters +on the bier handfuls of almonds or--if the family is well-to-do--of +sweetmeats, to be subsequently buried with the body. + +Very few specimens of the attitido have found their way into print; +but amongst these few, in Canon Spano's _Canti popolari Tempiesi_, +there is one that is highly interesting. Doubts have been raised as +to whether the bulk of the songs in Canon Spano's collection are of +purely illiterate origin; but even if the author of the dirge to which +I allude was guilty of that heinous offence in the eyes of the strict +folk-lore gleaner--the knowledge of the alphabet--it must still be +judged a remarkable production. The attidora laments the death of a +much-beloved bishop:-- + +"It was the pleasure of this good father, this gentle pastor," she +says, "at all hours to nourish his flock; to the bread of the soul he +joined the bread of the body. Was the wife naked, her sons starving +and destitute? He laboured unceasingly to console them all. The one he +clothed, the others he fed. None can tell the number of the poor whom +he succoured. The naked came to him that they might be clothed, the +hungry came to him that they might be fed, and all went their way +comforted. How many had suffered hunger in the winter's cold, had not +his tender heart proffered them help! It was a grand sight to behold +so many poor gathered together in his house--above, below, they were +so numerous there was no room to pass. And these were the comers of +every day. I do not count those to whom once a month he supplied +the needful food, nor yet those other poor to whose necessities he +ministered in secret. By the needy rogue he let himself be deceived +with shut eyes: he recognised the fraud, but he esteemed it gain so to +lose. Ah, dear father, father to us all, I ought not to weep for thee! +I mourn our common bereavement, for thy death this day has been a blow +to all of us, even to the strongest men." + +It would be hard to conceive a more lovely portrait of the Christian +priest; it is scarcely surpassed by that of Monseigneur Bienvenu +in _Les Misérables_, of whose conduct in the matter of the silver +candlesticks we are not a little reminded by the good Sardinian +bishop's compassion for the needy rogue. Neither the one nor the other +realises an ideal which would win the unconditional approval of the +Charity Organisation Society, and we must perhaps admit that humane +proclivities which indirectly encourage swindling are more a mischief +than an advantage to the State. Yet who can be insensible to the +beauty of this unconquerable pity for the evil-doer, this charity that +believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things? Who can +say how much it has done to make society possible, to keep the world +on its wheels? It is the bond that binds together all religions. Six +thousand years ago the ancient Egyptian dirge-singers chanted before +their dead: "There is no fault in him. No answer riseth up against +him. In the truth he liveth, with the truth he nourisheth himself. +The gods are satisfied with all he hath done.... He succoured the +afflicted, he gave bread to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothes +to the naked, he sheltered the outcast, his doors were open to the +stranger, he was a father to the fatherless." + +The part of France where dirge-singing stayed the longest seems to +have been the south-west. The old women of Gascony still preserve +the memory of a good many songs, some of which have been fortunately +placed on record by M. Bladé in his collection of Gascon folk-lore. +The Gascon dirge is a kind of prose recitative made up of distinct +exclamations that fall into irregular strophes. Each has a burden of +this description: + + Ah! + Ah! Ah! Ah! + Ah! Praube! + Ah! Praube! + Moun Diu! + Moun Diu! Moun Diu! + +The wife mourns for the loss of "Praube Jan;" when she was a young +girl she loved only him. "No, no! I will not have it! I will not have +them take thee to the graveyard!" "What will become of us?" asks the +daughter; "my poor mother is infirm, my brothers and sisters are too +small; there is only me to rule the house." The mother bewails her +boy: "Poor little one! I loved thee so much, thou wert so pretty, thou +wert so good. Thou didst work so well; all I bid thee do, thou didst; +all I told thee, didst thou believe; thou wert very young, yet already +didst thou earn thy bread. Poor little one, thou art dead; they carry +thee to the grave, with the cross going before. They put thee into +the earth.... Poor little one, I shall see thee no more; never! never! +never! Thou goest and I stay. My God! thou wilt be very lonely in the +graveyard this night; and I, I shall weep at home." + +If we transport ourselves to the government of Olonetz, we discover +the first cousin of the Corsican voceratrice in the Russian Voplénitsa +("the sobbing one"). But the jurisdiction of this functionary is of +wider extent; she is mistress of the ceremonies at marriages as well +as at funerals, and in both cases either improvises new songs or +adapts old ones. Mr Ralston has familiarised English readers with some +excellent samples of the Russian neniæ in his work on the _Songs of +the Russian People_. In Montenegro dirge-singing survives in its +most primitive form. During the war of 1877 there were frequent +opportunities of observing it. One such occurred at Ostrog. A wounded +man arrived at that place, which was made a sort of hospital station, +with his father and mother, his sisters and a brother. Another +brother and a cousin had fallen by his side in the last fight--the +Montenegrins have always gone into battle in families--and the women +had their faces covered with scratches, self-inflicted in their +mourning for these kindred. The man was young, lively, and courageous; +he might have got well but there were no surgical instruments to +extract the ball in his back, and so in a day or two he was dead. At +three in the morning the women began shrieking in spite of the orders +given by the doctors in the interest of the other wounded; the noise +was horrible, and no sooner were they driven away than they came back +and renewed it. The Prince, who has tried to put down the custom as +barbarous, was quartered at Ostrog, and he succeeded in having the +wailers quieted for a moment, but when the body was borne to the +cemetery the uproar began again. The women beat their breasts, +scratched their faces, and screamed at a pitch that could be heard +a mile off. It is usual to return to the house where the person +died--they made their way therefore back into the hospital (the Prince +being absent), and it was only after immense efforts on the part of +the sisters of charity and those who were in authority that they were +expelled. Then they seated themselves in the courtyard, and continued +beating their breasts and reciting their death-song. An eyewitness of +the scene described the dirge as a monotonous chant. One of the dead +man's sisters had worked herself up into a state of hysterical frenzy, +in which she seemed to have lost all control over her words and +actions; she led the dirge, and her rhythmic ejaculations flowed forth +as if she had no power to contain them. The father and brother went to +salute the Prince the day after the funeral; the old man appeared to +be extremely cheerful, but was doggedly inattentive to the advice to +go home and fight no more, as his family had suffered enough losses. +He had a son of ten, he said, who could accompany him now as there was +a gun to spare, which before had not been the case. He wished he had +ten sons to bring them all to fight the Turks. + +The Sclavs are everywhere very strict in all that regards the cult +of the dead, and the observances which have to be gone through by +Russians who have lost friends or relations are by no means confined +to the date of death and burial. Even when they have experienced +no personal loss, they are still thought called upon to visit the +cemeteries on the second Tuesday after Easter, and howl lustily over +the tombs of their ancestors. Nor would it be held sufficient to strew +flowers upon the graves, as is done on the Catholic All Souls' +day; the most orthodox ghosts want something more substantial, and +libations of beer and spirits are poured over their resting-places. +Furthermore, disagreeable consequences have been said to result upon +an omission of like marks of respect due to "the rude forefathers +of the hamlet;" there is no making sure that a highly estimable +individual will not, when thus incensed, re-enter an appearance +on life's stage in the shape of a vampire. A small volume might be +written on the preventive measures adopted to procure immunity from +such-like visitations. The people of Havellend and Altmark put a small +coin into the mouths of the dead in the hope that, so appeased, they +will not assume vampire form; but this time the superstition, like +a vast number of others, is clearly a later invention to explain a +custom, the original significance of which is forgotten. The peasants +of Roumelia also place pieces of money in the coffins, not as an +insurance against vampires--who they think may be best avoided by +burning instead of burying the mortal remains of any person they +credit with the prospect of becoming one--but to pay the entrance fee +into Paradise; a more authentic version of the old fable. The setting +apart of a day, fixed by the Church or varying according to private +anniversaries, for the special commemoration of the dead, is a +world-wide custom. + +If, as Mr Herbert Spencer thinks, the rudimentary form of all religion +is the propitiation of dead ancestors who are supposed still to exist, +some kind of _fête des morts_ was probably the oldest of religious +feasts. A theory has been started, to the effect that the time of its +appointment has been widely influenced by the rising of the Pleiades, +in support of which is cited the curious fact that the Australians and +Society Islanders keep the celebration in November, though with +them November is a spring month. But this may be no more than a +coincidence. In ancient Rome, in Russia, in China, the tendency has +been to commemorate the dead in the season of resurrection. + +The Letts and Esthonians observe the Feast of Souls, by spreading a +banquet of which they suppose their spirit relatives to partake; they +put torches on the graves to light the ghosts to the repast, and they +imagine every sound they hear through the day to be caused by the +movements of the invisible guests. Both these people celebrate +death-watches with much singing and drinking, the Esthonians +addressing long speeches to the dead, and asking him why he did +not stay longer, if his puddro (gruel) was not to his taste, &c., +precisely after the style of the keeners of less remote parts. In +some countries the entire system of life would seem to be planned and +organised mainly with a view to honouring the dead. In Albania, for +example, one of the foremost objects pursued by the peasantry is +that of marrying their daughters near home; not so much from any +affectionate unwillingness to part with them, as in order to secure +their attendance at the _vaï_ or lamentations which take place on +the death of a member of the family; and so rigorous are the mourning +regulations, that even married women who have lost their fathers +remain year after year shut up in houses deprived of light and draped +in black--they may not even go out to church. The Albanian keens are +not always versified; they sometimes consist simply in the endless +reiteration of a single phrase. M. Auguste Dozon reports that he was +at one time constantly hearing "les hurlements" of a poor Mussulman +widow who bewailed two sons; on certain anniversaries she took their +clothes out of a chest, and, placing them before her, she repeated, +without intermission, [Greek: Chalasia mon]. The Greeks have the +somewhat analogous practice, on the recurrence of the death-days +of their dear ones, of putting their lips close to the graves and +whispering to their silent tenants that they still love them. + +The near relations in Greece leave their dwelling, as soon as they +have closed the eyes of the dead, to take refuge in the house of a +friend, with whom they sojourn till the more distant connections have +had time to arrive, and the body is dressed in holiday gear. Then they +return, clothe themselves in white dresses, and take up their position +beside the bier. After some inarticulate wailing, which is strenuously +echoed back by the neighbours, the dirge is sung, the chief female +mourner usually leading off, and whosoever feels disposed following +wake. When the body is lowered into the earth, the best-beloved of the +dead--his mother or perhaps his betrothed--stoops down to the ground +and imploringly utters his name, together with the word "Come!" On his +making no reply, he is declared to be indeed dead, and the grave is +closed.[1] The usage points to a probability that all the exhortations +to awaken and to return with which the dirges of every nation +are interlarded are remnants of ancient makeshifts for a medical +certificate of death; and we may fancy with what breathless +excitement these apostrophes were spoken in former days when they were +accompanied by an actual, if faint, expectation that they would be +heard and answered. It is conceivable that the complete system of +making as much noise as possible at funerals may be derived from some +sort of notion that the uproar would wake the dead if he were not dead +at all, but sleeping. As elsewhere, so in Greece, the men take no part +in the proceedings beyond bidding one last farewell just before they +retire from the scene. Præficæ are still employed now and then; but +the art of improvisation seems to be the natural birthright of Greek +peasant women, nor do they require the inspiration of strong grief to +call their poetic gifts into operation; it is stated to be no unusual +thing to hear a girl stringing elegies over some lamb, or bird, or +flower, which may have died, while she works in the fields. The Greeks +send communications and even flowers by the dead to the dead: "Now +is the time," the folk-poet makes one say whose body is about to be +buried, "for you to give me any messages or commissions; and if your +grief is too poignant for utterance, write it down on paper and bring +me the letter." The Greek neniæ are marked by great vigour and variety +of imagery as is apparent in the subjoined extract from the dirge of a +poor young country-woman who was left a widow with two children:-- + +"The other day I beheld at our threshold a youth of lofty stature and +threatening mien; he had out-stretched wings of gleaming white, and in +his hand was a sword. 'Woman, is thy husband in the house?' 'Yes; he +combs our Nicos' hair, and caresses him so he may not cry. Go not in, +terrible youth; do not frighten our babe.' The white-winged would not +listen; I tried to drive him back, but I could not; he darted past +me, and ran to thy side, O my beloved. Hapless one, he smote thee; and +here is thy little son, thy tiny Nicos, whom likewise he was fain to +strike." ... + +So vivid was the impression created by the woman's fantasy that +some of the spectators looked towards the door, half expecting the +white-winged visitant to advance in their midst; others turned to the +child, huddled by his mother's knees. She, coming down from flights +of imagination to the bitter realities of her condition, exclaimed, +as she flung herself sobbing upon the bier: "How can I maintain the +children? How will they be able to live? What will they not suffer in +the contrast between the rough lot in store for them and the tender +care which guarded them in the happy days when their father lived?" At +last, worn out by the force of her emotions, she sank senseless to the +floor. The laments of widows, which are very rare in some localities, +are often to be met with in Greece. In one of them we come upon an +original idea respecting the requirements of spirits: the singer prays +that her tears may swell into a lake or a sea, so they may trickle +through the earth to the nether regions, to moisten those who get +no rain, to be drink to those who thirst, and--to fill up the dry +inkstands of the writers! "Then will they be able to chronicle the +chagrins of the loved ones who cross the river, taste its wave, and +forget their homes and their poor orphans." Every species of Grecian +peasant-song abounds in classical reminiscences, which are easy to +identify, although they betray some mental confusion of the attributes +and functions belonging to the personages of antiquity. Of all the +early myths, that of the Stygian ferryman is the one which has shown +greatest longevity. Far from falling into oblivion, the son of Erebus +has gone on diligently accumulating honours till he has managed to get +the arbitrament of life and death into his power, and to enlist the +birds of the air as a staff of spies, to give him prompt information +should any unlucky individual refer to him in a tone of mockery or +defiance. Perhaps this is not development but reversion. Charon may +have been a great Infernal deity before he was a boatman. The Charun +of the Etruscans could destroy life and torment the guilty--the office +of conducting shades to the other world forming only one part of his +duties. + +The opinion of Achilles, that it was better to be a slave amongst +men than a king over ghosts, is very much that which prevails in the +Greece of to-day. Visions of a Christian paradise above the skies +have much less hold on the popular mind than dread of a pagan Tartarus +under the earth; and that full conviction that after all it was a very +bad thing to die, that tendency to attach a paramount value to life, +_per se_, and _quand même_, which constituted so significant a +feature of the old Greeks, is equally characteristic of their modern +representatives. The next world of the Romaic songs is far from +being a place "where all smiles and is glad;" the forebodings of the +Corsican's Chilina's mother are common enough here in Greece. "Rejoice +in the present world, rejoice in the passing day," runs a [Greek: +myrologion], quoted by Fauriel; "to-morrow you will be under the sod, +and will behold the day no more." Down in Tartarus youths and maidens +spend their time dismally in asking if there be yet an earth and a +sky up above. Are there still churches and golden icons? Do people +continue to work at their several trades? "Blessed are the mountains +and the pastures," it is said, "where we meet not Charon." The parents +of a dying girl ask of her why she is resolved to hasten into the +other world where the cock crows not, and the hen clucks not; +where there is no water and no grass, and where the hungry find it +impossible to eat, and the tired are incapable of sleep. Why is +she not content to abide at home? The girl replies she cannot, for +yesterday, in the late evening, she was married, and her consort is +the tomb. That is the peasant elegist's way of speaking of a sudden +death, caused very likely by the chill of nightfall. Of another +damsel, who succumbed to a long illness, "who had suffered as none +before suffered under the sun," he narrates how she pressed her +father's hand to her heart, saying: "Alas! my father, I am about to +die." She clasped her mother's hand to her breast, saying: "Alas! my +mother, I am about to die." Then she sent for her betrothed, and she +bent over him and kissed him, and whispered softly into his ear: "Oh, +my friend, when I am dead deck my grave as you would have decked my +nuptial bed." We find in Greek poesy the universal legend of the lover +who kills himself on hearing of the death of his mistress; but, as +a rule, the regret of survivors is depicted as neither desperate nor +durable. Long ago, three gallant youths plotted together to contrive +an escape from Hades, and a fair-haired maiden prayed that they would +take her with them; she did so wish to see her mother mourning her +loss, her brothers weeping because she is no more. They answered: "As +to thy brothers, poor girl, they are dancing, and thy mother diverts +herself with gossiping in the street." The mournfully beautiful +music that Schubert wedded to Claudius's little poem _Der Tod und das +Mädchen_ might serve as melodious expression to many a one of these +Grecian lays of dead damsels. Death will not halt because he hears +a voice crying: "Tarry, I am still so young!" The future is as +irrevocably fixed as the past; and if fate deals hardly by mortals, +there is nothing to fall back upon but the sorry resignation of +despair; such is the sombre folk philosophy of the land of eternal +summer. Perhaps it is the very brightness of the sky and air that +makes the quitting of this mortal coil so unspeakably grievous. The +most horribly painful idea associated with death in the mind of the +modern as of the ancient Greek is the idea of darkness, of separation +from what Dante, yet more Greek than Italian in his passionate +sun-worship, describes in a line which seems somehow to hold incarnate +the thing it tells of-- + + ... l'aer dolce che dal sol s'allegra. + +It is worth noting that, whether the view entertained of immortality +be cheerful or the reverse, in the songs of Western nations the +disembodied soul is universally taken to be the exact duplicate of +the creature of flesh and blood, in wants, tastes, and semblance. The +European folk-singer could no more grasp a metaphysical conception of +the eternity of spirit, such as that implied in the grand Indian dirge +which craves everlasting good for the "unborn part" in man, than +he would know what to make of the scientific theory of the +indestructibility of matter shadowed forth in the ordinary Sanskrit +periphrases for death, signifying "the resolution of the body into its +five elementary constituents." + +Among the Greek-speaking inhabitants of Southern Italy a peculiar +metre is set apart to the composition of the neniæ, and the office +of public wailer is transmitted from mother to daughter; so that the +living præficæ are the lineal descendants of the præficæ who lived +of old in the Grecian Motherland. Unrivalled in the matter of her +improvisations as in the manner of their delivery, the hereditary +dirge-singer no doubt, like a good actress, keenly realises at +the moment the sorrow not her own, of which she undertakes the +interpretation in return for a trifling gratuity, and to her hearers +she appears as the genius or high priestess of woe: she excites them +into a whirlwind of ecstatic paroxysms not greatly differing +from kindred phenomena vouched for by the historians of religious +mysticism. There are, however, one or two of the Græco-Italic +death-songs which bear too clear and touching a stamp of sincerity for +us to attribute them even to the most skilled of hired "sobbing ones." +There is no savour of vicarious mourning in the plaint of the desolate +girl, who says to her dead mother that she will wait for her, so that +she may tell her how she has passed the day: at eight she will await +her, and if she does not come she will begin to weep; at nine she will +await her, and if she comes not she will grow black as soot; at ten +she will await her, and if she does not come at ten she will turn to +earth, to earth that may be sown in. And it is difficult to believe +that aught save the anguish of a mother's broken heart could have +quickened the senses of an ignorant peasant to the tragic intensity of +the following lament: + + Now they have buried thee, my little one, + Who will make thy little bed? + Black Death will make it for me + For a very long night. + Who will arrange thy pillows, + So thou mayst sleep softly? + Black Death will arrange them for me + With hard stones. + Who will awake thee, my daughter, + When day is up? + Down here it is always sleep, + Always dark night. + This my daughter was fair. + When I went (with her) to high mass, + The columns shone, + The way grew bright. + +The neniæ of Terra d'Otranto and of Calabria are not uncommonly +composed in a semi-dramatic form. Professor Comparetti cites one, in +which the friend of a dead girl is represented as going to pay her a +visit, in ignorance of the misfortune that has happened. She sees a +crowd at the door, and she exclaims: "How many folks are in thy house! +they come from all the neighbourhood; they are bidden by thy mother, +who shows thee the bridal array!" But on crossing the threshold she +finds that the shutters are closed: "Alas!" she cries, "I deceive +myself--I enter into darkness." Again she repeats: "How many folks are +in thy house! All Corigliano is there." The mother says: "My daughter +has bidden them by the tolling of the bell." Then the daughter is made +to ask: "What ails thee, what ails thee, my mother? wherefore +dost thou rend thy hair?" The mother rejoins: "I think of thee, my +daughter, of how thou liest down in darkness." "What ails thee, what +ails thee, my mother, that all around one can hear thee wailing?" "I +think of thee, my daughter, of how thou art turned black as soot." A +sort of chorus is appended: "All, all the mothers weep and rend their +hair: let them weep, the poor mothers who lose their children." Here +are the last four lines as they were originally set on paper: + + Ole sole i mane i cluene + Isirnune anapota ta maddia, + Afi nà clapsune tio mane misere + Pu ichannune ta pedia! + +Professor Comparetti has shaped them into looking more like Greek: + + [Greek: Olais, holais ê manai êklaioune + Êsyrnoune anapoda ta mallia + Aphêse na klapsoune tais manais] _misere_ + [Greek: Pou êchanoune ta paidia!] + +In his "Tour through the Southern Provinces of the Kingdom of Naples," +the Hon. R. Keppel Craven gave an account of a funeral at Corigliano. +The deceased, a stout, swarthy man of about fifty, had been fond of +field sports; he was, therefore, laid on his open bier in the dress of +a hunter. When the procession passed the house of a friend of the dead +man, it halted as a mark of respect, and the friend got up from his +dinner and looked out for a few minutes, afterwards philosophically +returning to the interrupted meal. The busy people in the street, +carpenters, blacksmiths, cobblers, and fruitsellers, paused from their +several occupations--all carried on, as usual, in the open air, when +the dismal chant of the priests announced the approach of the funeral, +resuming them with redoubled energy as soon as it had moved on. +A group of weeping women led the widow, whose face was pale and +motionless as a statue; her black tresses descended to her knees, +and at regular intervals she pulled out two or three hairs--the women +instantly taking hold of her hands and replacing them by her side, +where they hung till the operation was next repeated. + +The practice of plucking out the hair was so general in the last +century that even at Naples the old women had hardly a hair left from +out-living many relations. It was proper also to observe the day +of burial as a fast day. Two unlucky women near Salerno lost their +characters for ever because the dog of a visitor who had come to +condole, sniffed out a dish of tripe which had been hastily thrust +into a corner. + +The Italian, or rather Calabrese-speaking population of Calabria, +call their preficæ--where they still have any--_Reputatrici_. Some +remarkable songs have been collected in the commune of Pizzo, the +place of dubious fame by whose peasants Murat was caught and betrayed. +There is something Dantesque in the image of Death as _'nu gran +levreri_ crouching in a mountain defile: + + Joy, I saw death; Joy, I saw her yesterday; I beheld her in a + narrow way, like unto a great greyhound, and I was very + curious. "Death, whence comest thou?" "I am come from Germany, + going thence to Count Roger. I have killed princes, counts, + and cavaliers; and now I am come for a young maiden so that + with me she may go". + + Weep, mamma, weep for me, weep and never rest; weep for me + Sunday, Easter, and Christmas Day; for no more wilt thou see + thy daughter sit down at thy board to eat, and no more shalt + thou await me. + +One conclusion forced upon us incidentally by folk-dirges must seem +strange when we remember how few are the cultured poetesses who have +attained eminence--to wit, that with the unlettered multitude the +poetic faculty is equally the property of women as of men. + +In various parts of Italy the funerals of the poor are conducted +exclusively by those of like sex with the dead--a custom of which I +first took note at Varese in the year 1879. The funeral procession +came up slowly by the shady paths near the lake; long before it +appeared one could hear the sound of shrill voices chanting a litany. +When it got near to the little church of S. Vittore, it was seen that +only women followed the bier, which was carried by women. "Una povera +donna morta in parto," said a peasant standing by, as she pointed to +the coffin with a gesture of sympathy. The mourners had black shawls +thrown over their heads and bore tapers. A sight yet stranger to +unaccustomed eyes is the funeral of a child at Spezia. A number of +little girls, none older than eleven or twelve, some as young as five, +carry the small coffin to the cemetery. Some of the children hold +candles; they are nicely dressed in their best frocks; the sun plays +on their bare black or golden curls. They have the little serious look +of children engaged in some business of work or play, but no look of +gloom or sadness. The coffin is covered with a white pall on which +lies a large nosegay. No priests or elder persons are there except one +man, walking apart, who has to see that the children go the right +way. About twenty children is the average number, but there may +be sometimes a hundred. When they return, running across the grass +between the road and the sea-wall, they tumble over one another in the +scramble to snatch daisies from the ground. + +It is still common in Lombardy to ring the bells _d'allegrezza_ on the +death of an infant, "because its soul goes straight to Paradise." This +way of ringing, or, rather, chiming, consists in striking the bell +with a clapper held in the hand, when a light, dancing sound is +produced, something like that of hand-bells. On a high _festa_ all the +bells are used; for dead babies, only two. I have often heard the sad +message sounding gaily from the belfry at Salò. + +Were I sure that all these songs of the Last Parting would have +for others the same interest that they have had for me, I should +be tempted to add a study dedicated solely to the dirges of savage +nations and of those nations whose civilization has not followed the +same course as ours. I must, at all events, indicate the wonderfully +strange and wild Polynesian "Death-talks" and "Evas" (dirges proper) +collected by the Rev. W. W. Gill. The South Pacific Islanders say of +the dying, "he is passing over the sea." Their dead set out in a canoe +on a long and perilous voyage to the regions of the sun-setting. When +they get there, alas!--when they reach the mysterious spirit-land, +a horrid doom awaits them: children and old men and women--all, in +short, who have not died in battle, are devoured by a dreadful deity, +and perish for ever. But this fate does not overtake them immediately; +for a time they remain in a shadowy intermediate state till their +turn comes. The spirit-journey is described in a dirge for two little +children, composed by their father about the year 1796: + + "Thy god,[2] pet-child, is a bad one; + For thy body is attenuated; + This wasting sickness must end thy days. + Thy form, once so plump, now how changed! + Ah! that god, that bad god! + Inexpressibly bad, my child! + + * * * * * + + Thou hast entered the expanse; + And wilt visit 'the land of red parrot feathers,' + Where O[=a]rangi was once a guest. + Thou feedest now on ocean spray, + And sippest fresh water out of the rocks, + Travelling over rugged cliffs, + To the music of murmuring billows. + Thy exile spirit is overtaken + By darkness at the ocean's edge. + Fourapapa[3] there sleeps. All three[4] + Stood awhile to gaze wistfully + At the glories of the setting sun." + +There is much more, but this is perhaps sufficient to show the +particular note struck. + +I will give, in its entirety, one more dirge--the death-chant of the +tribe of Badagas, in the Neilgherry Hills--because it is unique, so +far as I know, in reversing the rule _de mortius_, and in charging, +instead, the dead man with every sin, to make sure that none are +omitted of which he is actually guilty. It is accompanied by a +singular ceremony. An unblemished buffalo-calf is led into the midst +of the mourners, and as after each verse they catch up and repeat the +refrain, "It is a sin!" the performer of the dirge lays his hand upon +the calf, to which the guilt is transferred. At the end the calf is +let loose; like the Jewish scape-goat, it must be used for no secular +work; it bears the sins of a human being, and is sacred till death. +The English version is by Mr C. E. Gover, who has done so much for the +preservation of South-Indian folk-songs. + + INVOCATION. + + In the presence of the great Bassava, + Who sprang from Banigé the holy cow. + + The dead has sinned a thousand times. + E'en all the thirteen hundred sins + That can be done by mortal men + May stain the soul that fled to-day. + Stay not their flight to God's pure feet. + Chorus--Stay not their flight. + + He killed the crawling snake + Chorus--It is a sin. + + The creeping lizard slew. + It is a sin. + + Also the harmless frog. + It is a sin. + Of brothers he told tales. + It is a sin. + The landmark stone he moved. + It is a sin. + Called in the Sircar's aid.[5] + It is a sin. + Put poison in the milk. + It is a sin. + To strangers straying on the hills, + He offered aid but guided wrong. + It is a sin. + His sister's tender love he spurned + And showed his teeth to her in rage. + It is a sin. + He dared to drain the pendent teats + Of holy cow in sacred fold. + It is a sin. + The glorious sun shone warm and bright + He turned its back towards its beams.[6] + It is a sin. + Ere drinking from the babbling brook, + He made no bow of gratitude. + It is a sin. + His envy rose against the man + Who owned a fruitful buffalo. + It is a sin. + He bound with cords and made to plough + The budding ox too young to work. + It is a sin. + While yet his wife dwelt in his house + He lusted for a younger bride. + It is a sin. + The hungry begged--he gave no meat, + The cold asked warmth--he lent no fire. + It is a sin. + He turned relations from his door, + Yet asked unworthy strangers home. + It is a sin. + The weak and poor called for his aid, + He gave no alms, denied their woe. + It is a sin. + When caught by thorns, in useless rage + He tore his cloth from side to side. + It is a sin. + The father of his wife sat on the floor + Yet he reclined on bench or couch. + It is a sin. + He cut the bund around a tank, + Set free the living water's store. + It is a sin. + + What though he sinned so much, + Or that his parents sinned? + What though the sins' long score + Was thirteen hundred crimes? + O let them every one, + Fly swift to Bas'va's feet. + Chorus--Fly swift. + + The chamber dark of death + Shall open to his soul. + The sea shall rise in waves; + Surround on every side, + But yet that awful bridge + No thicker than a thread, + Shall stand both firm and strong. + The dragon's yawning mouth + Is shut--it brings no fear. + The palaces of heaven + Throw open wide their doors. + Chorus--Open wide their doors. + + The thorny path is steep, + Yet shall his soul go safe. + The silver pillar stands + So near--he touches it. + He may approach the wall + The golden wall of heaven. + The burning pillar's flame + Shall have no heat for him. + Chorus--Shall have no heat. + + Oh let us never doubt + That all his sins are gone, + That Bassava forgives. + May it be well with him! + Chorus--May it be well! + Let all be well with him! + Chorus--Let all be well. + +Surely an impressive burial service to have been found in use amongst +a poor little obscure tribe of Indian mountaineers! + +It cannot be said that this moral attitude is often reached. Research +into funeral rites, of whatever nature, confronts us with much that +would be ludicrous were it not so very pitiful, for humanity has +displayed a fatal tendency to rush into the committal of ghastly +absurdities by way of showing the most sacred kind of grief. Yet, take +them all in all, the death laments of the people form a striking and +beautiful manifestation of such homage as "Life may give for love to +death." + + [Footnote 1: "Calling the dead" was without doubt once general + amongst all classes--which may be true of all the customs that + we are now inclined to associate with only the very poor. In + the striking mediæval ceremonial performed at the entombment + of King Alfonso in the vault at the Escurial, the final act + was that of the Lord Chamberlain, who unlocked the coffin, and + in the midst of profound silence shouted into the king's ear, + "Señor, Señor, Señor." After which he rose, saying, "His + majesty does not answer. Then it is true the king is dead."] + + [Footnote 2: The child's "personal fate."] + + [Footnote 3: The brother.] + + [Footnote 4: A little sister had died before.] + + [Footnote 5: He had recourse to the Rajahs, whose courts under + the old régime, had become a byeword for oppression and + corruption.] + + [Footnote 6: Compare _Inferno_, Canto vii.] + + + + +BOOKS OF REFERENCE. + + + Alecsandri, Vasile. Poesii Populare ale Romanilor. 1867. + + ---- Les Doïnas. Poésies Moldaves. 1855. + + Alexander, Francesca. Roadside Songs of Tuscany (in ten parts, + edited by John Ruskin, LL.D.). 1885. + + Arbaud, Damase. Chants Populaires de la Provence. 2 vols 1864. + + Armana Provençau. 1870. + + Avolio, Corrado. Canti Popolari di Noto. 1875. + + Bernoni, Dom. Giuseppe. Canti Populari Veneziani. 1873. + + ---- Preghiere Populari Veneziane. 1873. + + ---- Leggende Fantastiche Populari Veneziane. 1873. + + Bladé, J. Poésies Populaires de la Gascogne. 3 vols. + + Boullier, Auguste. Le Dialecte et les Chants Populaires de la + Sardaigne. 1864. + + Burton, Richard. Wit and Wisdom from West Arica. 1865. + + Cardona, Enrico. Dell' Antica Letteratura Catalana. 1878. + + Champfleury. Chansons Populaires des Provinces de France. + 1860. + + Comparetti, Prof. D. Saggi de' Dialetti Greci dell' Italia + Meridionale. 1866. + + Constantinescu, Dr B. Probe de Limba si Literatura Tiganilor + din Romania. 1878. + + Dalmedico, A. Canti del Popolo di Chioggia. 1872. + + ---- Ninne-Nanne e Giuochi Infantile Veneziani. 1871. + + Davies, William. The Pilgrimage of the Tiber. 1874. (Popular + Songs of the Tiberine District.) + + D'Ancona, Prof. A. Origini del Teatro in Italia. 2 vols. 1877. + + ---- La Poesia Popolare Italiana. 1878. + + Day, Rev. Lal Behari. Folk-Tales of Bengal. 1883. + + Dorsa, Prof. V. La Tradizione Greco-Latina negli usi e nelle + Credenze Popolari della Calabria Citeriore. 2d Ed. 1884. + + Dozon, Auguste. Poésies Populaires Serbes. 1859. ---- Chansons + Populaires Bulgares Inédites. 1875. + + Dumersan et Colet. Chants et Chansons Populaires de la France. + + Fauriel, C. Chansons Populaires de la Grèce. 2 vols. 1824. + + Ferraro, Dr G. Canti Popolari Monferrini. 1870. + + Fissore, G. Canti Popolari dell' Allemagna. 1857. + + Flugi, Alfons von. Die Volkslieder des Engadin. 1873. + + Gill, Rev. W.W. Myths and Songs from the South Pacific. 1876. + + Gonzenbach, Laura. Sicilianische Märchen. 1870. + + Gover, Charles E. The Folk-Songs of Southern India. 1872. + + Grimm, Jacob. Deutsche Mythologie. Vierte Ausgabe Besorgt von + Elard Hugo Meyer. 3 vols. 1875-7-8. + + Gubernatis, Conte A. de. Storia Comparata degli usi Natalizi + in Italia e presso gli altri Popoli Indo-Europei. 1878. + + Imbriani, V., and Casetti, A. Canti Popolari delle Provincie + Meridionali. 2 vols. 1871. + + Issaverdenz, Dr G. Armenian Popular Songs. 1867. + + Ive, Antonio. Canti Popolari Istriani. 1877. + + Kolberg, Oskar. Pièsni Luder Polskiego. 1857. + + Kuhff, Prof. P. Les Enfantines du "Bon Pays de France." 1878. + + Latham, R.G. The Nationalities of Europe (Estonian Poetry). + 1863. + + Leger, Louis. Chants Héroïques et Chansons Populaires des + Slaves de Bohême. 1866. + + Lizio-Bruno, Prof. Canti Popolari delle Isole Eolie. 1871. + + Mandalari, Mario. Canti del Popolo Reggino. 1881. + + Marcellus, C^te de. Chants Populaires de la Grèce Moderne. + 1860. + + Marcoaldi, Oreste. Canti Popolari inediti. 1855. + + Marmier, X. Chants Populaires du Nord. 1842. + + Moncaut, Cénac. Littérature Populaire de la Gascogne. 1868. + + Morosi, Dr Giuseppe. Studi sui Dialetti Greci della Terra + d'Otranto, 1870. + + ---- I Dialetti Romaici del Dialetto di Bova in Calabria. + 1874. + + Nerucci, G. Sessanta Novelle Popolari Montalesi. 1880. + + Nigra, Conte Constantino. Canzone Popolari del Piemonte. + Rivista Contemporanea: fascicoli lxxiv. and lxxxvi. 1860-1. + + Nino, A. de. Usi Abruzzesi. 3 vols. 1879, 1881-3. + + + Ortoli, Frédéric. Les Contes Populaires de l'île de Corse. + 1883. + + + Pellegrini, Prof. Astorre. Il Dialetto Greco-Calabro di Bova. + 1880. + + ---- La Poesia di Bova. 1881. + + Pitrè, Cav. Dr Giuseppe. Studi di Poesia Popolare. 1872. + + ---- Biblioteca delle Tradizioni Popolari Siciliane. 13 vols. + + Ralston, W. R. S. The Songs of the Russian People. 1872. + + Righi, Ettore-Scipione. Canti Popolari Veronesi. 1863. + + Rink, Dr R. Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo. 1875. + + Rosa, Gabriele. Dialetti, Costumi e Tradizioni nelle Provincie + di Bergamo e di Brescia. Jerza edizione. 1870. + + Salomone-Marino, S. Canti Popolari Siciliani. 1867. + + Stokes, Maive. Indian Fairy Tales. 1880. + + Symonds, T. Addington. Sketches in Italy and Greece. + + (Popular Songs of Tuscany.) 1874. + + Thorpe, B. Northern Mythology. 1851. + + Tigri, G. Canti Popolari Toscani. Terza ediz. 1869. + + Tommaseo, N. Canti Popolari Toscani, Corsi, Illirici, Greci. + 1841. + + +TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. + + + + * * * * * + + +Transcriber's Note: + +This book contains some dialect and/or older grammatical constructions, +some old French (and bits of other languages), which have all been +retained. + +For example: + +Footnote 2, Page l (from p. xvii): + "Sire cuens," + ... + "C'est vilanie;" ('T was villany:) + ... + "Ma feme ne me rit mie." + ... + "Vez com vostre male plie, + Ele est bien de vent farsie." + ... + Deux chapons por deporter + A la sause aillie; + etc. + + +Page 20: 'the girl leaning out of window to tell her piece of news' is +as printed. The transcriber does not know if 'a window' or 'the window' +or just 'window' was intended. + +Page 24: 'Nella' would be the genitive of 'Nello'. +In some European languages, the Proper nouns are also declined. +["... it is Count Nello, my father, he who fain would wed +me." "Who speaks of Count Nella...."] + +Page 145: "E te' ccà 'na timpulata!" occurs in another document as: +"E te 'ccà 'na timpulata!", and in another as "E te' 'ccà 'na timpulata!" + +Many French accents are missing from the English text, e.g. +Page 181: "Mistral ... paints the Provence of the valley of the Rhone, ..." + +Page 335: 'compact' is correct; = 'agreement'. +(Apparently she took the advice and kept the compact) + +Page 348: "nni" in "Lu mè rifugiu nni la sorti orrenna," is as printed. +It may not be an error. + + +This book also contains some Greek words, and passages of Greek. +which have been transliterated into Latin text, e.g. [Greek: nênitos] + + +Errata: + +Sundry damaged or missing punctuation has been repaired. + +Page 62: 'portait' corrected to 'portrait'. +(he might at least possess his portrait). + +Page 84: 'befel' corrected to 'befell'. +(the fate that befell a French professorship of Armenian) + +Page 172: 'hushand' corrected to 'husband'. +(and shortly after her husband had extricated her she became a mother). + +Page 226: 'daugher' corrected to 'daughter'. +("And a cup of poison, my daughter.") + +Page 335: 'compact' is correct. = 'agreement'. +(Apparently she took the advice and kept the compact,) + +Page 335: n[~i]na corrected to niña. +(A dormir va mi niña). + +Page 337: "wee Willie Winkile" corrected to "wee Willie Winkie" +("wee Willie Winkie" who runs upstairs and downstairs in his nightgown:) + +Page 341: 'cardle' corrected to 'cradle'. +(aunt has taken baby from his cradle) + +Page 343: 'The' corrected to 'They'. +(They are often called "certi signuri,") + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs +(1886), by Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS IN THE STUDY OF *** + +***** This file should be named 36222-8.txt or 36222-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/2/2/36222/ + +Produced by Lesley Halamek, Jonathan Ingram and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/36222-8.zip b/36222-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..cc9ecb6 --- /dev/null +++ b/36222-8.zip diff --git a/36222-h.zip b/36222-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..61a4a0f --- /dev/null +++ b/36222-h.zip diff --git a/36222-h/36222-h.htm b/36222-h/36222-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..298302e --- /dev/null +++ b/36222-h/36222-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,16772 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" /> + + <title>Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs (1886) by the Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco (1852-1931)</title> + + <style type="text/css"> + body {margin-left: 12%; margin-right: 12%;} + table {width: auto;} + table.tn {background-color: #ffffee; color: #000000; width: 80%;} + td.right {text-align: right; padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: normal;} + td.note {text-align: left;font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: normal; border: 1px dashed #dddddd; padding: 1em;} + ul.none {margin-left: 5%; list-style-type: none;} + ins {text-decoration:none; border-bottom: dashed 1px #dddddd;} + sup {font-size: 0.9em;font-weight: bold;} + p {text-align: justify;} + p.ind {text-align: left; margin-left: 2em;} + p.ind1 {text-align: left; margin-left: 8em; font-size: 0.9em;} + p.author1 {text-align: left; margin-top: -1em; margin-left: 4em;} + p.footnote {font-size: 0.9em; margin-left: 18% ;margin-right: 15%; margin-top: 3em;} + p.footnote1 {font-size: 0.9em; margin-left: 18% ;margin-right: 15%; margin-top: -0.5em; margin-bottom: 3em;} + .xl {font-size: 1.2em;} + .xxl {font-size: 1.7em;} + blockquote {text-align: justify; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; font-size: 0.95em;} + h1 {font-size: 300%; text-align: center; margin-top: 2em; line-height: 180%;} + h2 {font-size: 200%; text-align: center; margin-top: 2em;} + h3 {font-size: 150%; text-align: center; margin-top: 2em;} + h4 {font-size: 130%; text-align: center; margin-top: 2em;} + h5 {font-size: 115%; text-align: center; margin-top: 2em;} + h6 {font-size: 100%; text-align: left; margin-left: 8em; margin-top: 2em;} + pre {font-size: 0.7em;} + .center {text-align: center;} + .content {width: 65%; text-align: left; font-size: 0.95em;} + .sc {font-variant: small-caps;} + span.oes {font-family: "old english text", "script mt bold", serif; font-size: 1.2em; font-weight: bold;} + hr.full {width: 100%;} + html>body hr.full {margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 0%; width: 100%;} + hr.medium {width: 76%;} + html>body hr.medium {margin-right: 12%; margin-left: 12%; width: 76%;} + + span.pagenum {position: absolute; left: 1%; right: 91%; font-size: 8pt; text-indent: 0; color: #cccccc; background: inherit;} + + .poem {margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 30%; margin-right: 5%; text-align: left; font-size: 0.95em;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem p {padding-left: 3em; margin: 0px; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem p.i2 {margin-left: 1em;} + .poem p.i4 {margin-left: 2em;} + .poem p.i6 {margin-left: 3em;} + .poem p.i8 {margin-left: 4em;} + .poem p.i10 {margin-left: 5em;} + .poem p.i12 {margin-left: 6em;} + .poem p.i14 {margin-left: 7em;} + .poem p.i16 {margin-left: 8em;} + .poem p.i18 {margin-left: 9em;} + .poem p.i20 {margin-left: 10em;} + .poem p.i22 {margin-left: 11em;} + .poem p.i24 {margin-left: 12em;} + .poem p.i26 {margin-left: 13em;} + .poem p.i32 {margin-left: 16em;} + + .poem1 {margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 30%; margin-right: 5%; text-align: left; font-size: 1em;} + .poem1 .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem1 p {padding-left: 3em; margin: 0px; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem1 p.i16 {margin-left: 8em;} + + a:link {color: blue;background: inherit; font-size: 1.0em; font-weight: bold;text-decoration: none;} + a:visited {color: blue;background: inherit; font-size: 1.0em; font-weight: bold;text-decoration: none;} + a:hover {color: blue;background: inherit; font-size: 1.0em; text-decoration: none;} + a:active {color: blue;background: inherit; font-size: 1.0em; text-decoration: underline;} + a.ask:link {color: blue;background: inherit; font-size: 1.2em; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;} + a.ask:visited {color: blue;background: inherit; font-size: 1.2em; font-weight: bold;text-decoration: none;} + a.ask:hover {color: blue;background: inherit; font-size: 1.2em; text-decoration: none;} + a.ask:active {color: blue;background: inherit; font-size: 1.2em; text-decoration: underline;} + </style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs (1886), by +Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs (1886) + +Author: Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco + +Release Date: May 26, 2011 [EBook #36222] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS IN THE STUDY OF *** + + + + +Produced by Lesley Halamek, Jonathan Ingram and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<table class="tn" summary="tn" align="center" style="margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 5em;"> +<tr> + <td class="note"> + + <a name="top"></a> +<h5>Transcriber's Note</h5> + +<p>This book contains some dialect and/or older grammatical constructions, some old French (and bits of other languages), which have all been retained. +</p> + <p>For example:</p> + +<p>Footnote 2, Page L (from p. xvii):</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Sire cuens," </p> +<p class="i4">... </p> +<p class="i8">"C'est vilanie;" ('T was villany:)</p> +<p class="i4">... </p> +<p>"Ma feme ne me rit mie."</p> +<p class="i4">... </p> +<p>"Vez com vostre male plie,</p> +<p>Ele est bien de vent farsie."</p> +<p class="i4">... </p> +<p>Deux chapons por deporter</p> +<p class="i8"> A la sause aillie;</p> +<p>etc.</p> +</div></div> + +<p style="margin-top: 3em">Page 20: 'the girl leaning out of window to tell her piece of news' is +as printed. The transcriber does not know if 'a window' or 'the window' +or just 'window' was intended.</p> + +<p>Page 24: 'Nella' would be the genitive (<i>of</i>) case of 'Nello'. +In some European languages, the Proper nouns are also declined. +"... it is Count Nello, my father, he who fain would wed +me." "Who speaks of Count Nella...." +</p> + +<p>Page 145: "E te' ccà 'na timpulata!" occurs in another document as:<br /> +"E te 'ccà 'na timpulata!", and in another as "E te' 'ccà 'na timpulata!"</p> + +<p>Many French accents are missing from the English text, e.g. <br /> +Page 181: "Mistral ... paints the Provence of the valley of the Rhone, ..."</p> + +<p>Page 335: 'compact' is correct; = 'agreement'.<br /> +(Apparently she took the advice and kept the compact,)</p> + +<p>Page 348: "nni" in "Lu mè rifugiu nni la sorti orrenna," is as printed.<br /> +It may not be an error.</p> + +<p>The transliteration of Greek words is indicated, in the text, by a dotted line underneath the Greek word/s.</p> +<p style="margin-top:-1em;">Scroll the mouse over the Greek word and the Latin transliteration will appear: <ins title="nênitos"><i>νήνιτος</i></ins></p> + +<p class="center">The rest of the <a href="#transcriber_note">Transcriber's Note</a> is at the end of the book.</p> + +</td> +</tr> +</table> + +<div class="poem1"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Will no one tell me what she sings?</p> +<p>Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow</p> +<p>For old, unhappy, far-off things,</p> +<p>And battles long ago:</p> +<p>Or is it some more humble lay,</p> +<p>Familiar matter of to-day?</p> +<p>Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,</p> +<p>That has been, and may be again!</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i16"><span class="sc">W. Wordsworth.</span></p> + </div> </div> + +<h1>ESSAYS IN THE<br /> + +STUDY OF FOLK-SONGS.</h1> + +<h3 style="margin-top: 2em;">BY THE</h3> + +<h2>COUNTESS EVELYN MARTINENGO-CESARESCO.</h2> + +<h4 style="margin-top: 5em; line-height: 150%">LONDON:<br /> + +GEORGE REDWAY,</h4> + +<h5 style="margin-top: -0.8em; line-height: 180%">YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.<br /> + +MDCCCLXXXVI.</h5> + +<hr class="medium" /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table align="center" border="0" summary="contents" style="margin-bottom: 2em;"> +<tr> + <td> </td> + <td class="right"><b>PAGE</b></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><span class="sc">Introduction</span></td> + <td class="right"><a href="#pageix">ix</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><span class="sc">The Inspiration of Death in Folk-Poetry</span></td> + <td class="right"><a href="#page1">1</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><span class="sc">Nature in Folk-Songs</span></td> + <td class="right"><a href="#page30">30</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><span class="sc">Armenian Folk-Songs</span></td> + <td class="right"><a href="#page53">53</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><span class="sc">Venetian Folk-Songs</span></td> + <td class="right"><a href="#page89">89</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><span class="sc">Sicilian Folk-Songs</span></td> + <td class="right"><a href="#page122">122</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><span class="sc">Greek Songs of Calabria</span></td> + <td class="right"><a href="#page152">152</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><span class="sc">Folk-Songs of Provence</span></td> + <td class="right"><a href="#page177">177</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><span class="sc">The White Paternoster</span></td> + <td class="right"><a href="#page203">203</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><span class="sc">The Diffusion of Ballads</span></td> + <td class="right"><a href="#page214">214</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><span class="sc">Songs for the Rite of May</span></td> + <td class="right"><a href="#page249">249</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><span class="sc">The Idea of Fate in Southern Traditions</span></td> + <td class="right"><a href="#page270">270</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><span class="sc">Folk-Lullabies</span></td> + <td class="right"><a href="#page299">299</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><span class="sc">Folk-Dirges</span></td> + <td class="right"><a href="#page354">354</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<hr class="medium" /> + +<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;"> <div class="stanza"> +<p><span class="oes">Wo man singt da lass dich ruhig nieder,</span></p> +<p><span class="oes">Böse Menschen haben keine Lieder.</span></p> + </div> </div> + + <hr class="medium" /> +<a name="pageix" id="pageix"></a> +<h2>INTRODUCTION.</h2> + +<p>It is on record that Wilhelm Mannhardt, the eminent +writer on mythology and folk-lore, was once taken for +a gnome by a peasant he had been questioning. His +personal appearance may have helped the illusion; +he was small and irregularly made, and was then only +just emerging from a sickly childhood spent beside +the Baltic in dreaming over the creations of popular +fancy. Then, too, he wore a little red cap, which was +doubtless fraught with supernatural suggestions. But +above all, the story proves that Mannhardt had solved +the difficulty of dealing with primitive folk; that +instead of being looked upon as a profane and prying +layman, he was regarded as one who was more than +initiated into the mysteries—as one who was a mystery +himself. And for this reason I recall it here. It +exactly indicates the way to set about seeking after +old lore. We ought to shake off as much as possible +of our conventional civilization which frightens uneducated +peasants, and makes them think, at best, +that we wish to turn them into ridicule. If we must +not hope to pass for spirits of earth or air, we can aim +at inspiring such a measure of confidence as will persuade +the natural man to tell us what he still knows +of those vanishing beings, and to lend us the key to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexii" id="pagexii"></a>xii</span> +his general treasure-box before all that is inside be +reduced to dust.</p> + +<p>This, which applies directly to the collector at first +hand, has also its application for the student who +would profit by the materials when collected. He +should approach popular songs and traditions from +some other stand-point than that of mere criticism; +and divesting himself of preconcerted ideas, he should +try to live the life and think the thoughts of people +whose only literature is that which they carry in their +heads, and in whom Imagination takes the place of +acquired knowledge.</p> + +<h4>I.</h4> + +<p>Research into popular traditions has now reached +a stage at which the English Folk-Lore Society have +found it desirable to attempt a classification of its +different branches, and in future, students will perhaps +devote their labours to one or another of these branches +rather than to the subject as a whole. Certain of the +sections thus mapped out have plainly more special +attractions for a particular class of workers: beliefs +and superstitions chiefly concern those who study +comparative mythology; customs are of peculiar +importance to the sociologist, and so on. But tales +and songs, while offering points of interest to scientific +specialists, appeal also to a much wider class, namely, +to all who care at all for literature. For the Folk-tale +is the father of all fiction, and the Folk-song is +the mother of all poetry.</p> + +<p>Mankind may be divided into the half which listens +and the half which reads. For the first category in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexiii" id="pagexiii"></a>xiii</span> +its former completeness, we must go now to the East; +in Europe only the poor, and of them a rapidly decreasing +proportion, have the memory to recite, the +patience to hear, the faith to receive. It was not +always or primarily an affair of classes: down even to +a comparatively late day, the pure story-teller was a +popular member of society in provincial France and +Italy, and perhaps society was as well employed in +listening to wonder-tales as it is at present. But there +is no going back. The epitaph for the old order of +things was written by the great philosopher who +threw the last shovel of earth on its grave:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">O l'heureux temps que celui de ces fables</p> +<p>Des bons démons, des esprits familiers,</p> +<p>Des farfadets, aux mortels secourables!</p> +<p>On écoutait tous ces faits admirables</p> +<p>Dans son château, près d'un large foyer:</p> +<p>Le père et l'oncle, et la mère et la fille,</p> +<p>Et les voisins, et toute la famille,</p> +<p>Ouvraient l'oreille à Monsieur l'aumônier,</p> +<p>Qui leur fesait des contes de sorcier.</p> +<p class="i2">On a banni les démons et les fées;</p> +<p>Sous la raison les grâces etouffées,</p> +<p>Livrent nous cœurs à l'insipidité;</p> +<p>Le raisonner tristement s'accrédite;</p> +<p>On court, hélas! après la verité,</p> +<p>Ah! croyez-moi, l'erreur a son mérite.<a id="footnotetagI1" name="footnotetagI1"></a><a href="#footnoteI1"><sup>1</sup></a></p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Folk-songs differ from folk-tales by the fact of their +making a more emphatic claim to credibility. Prose +is allowed to be more fanciful, more frivolous than +poetry. It deals with the brighter side; the hero and +heroine in the folk-tale marry and live happily ever +after; in the popular ballad they are but rarely united +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexiv" id="pagexiv"></a>xiv</span> +save in death. To the blithe supernaturalism of elves +and fairies, the folk-poet prefers the solemn supernaturalism +of ghost-lore.</p> + +<p>The folk-song probably preceded the folk-tale. If +we are to judge either by early record or by the analogy +of backward peoples, it seems proved that in +infant communities anything that was thought worth +remembering was sung. It must have been soon ascertained +that words rhythmically arranged take, as a +rule, firmer root than prose. "As I do not know how +to read," says a modern Greek folk-singer, "I have +made this story into a song so as not to forget it."</p> + +<p>Popular poetry is the reflection of moments of +strong collective or individual emotion. The springs +of legend and poetry issue from the deepest wells of +national life; the very heart of a people is laid bare +in its sagas and songs. There have been times when +a profound feeling of race or patriotism has sufficed +to turn a whole nation into poets: this happened at +the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, the struggle +for the Stuarts in Scotland, for independence in +Greece. It seems likely that all popular epics were +born of some such concordant thrill of emotion. +The saying of "a very wise man" reported by Andrew +Fletcher of Saltoun, to the effect that if one were permitted +to make all the ballads, he need not care who +made the laws, must be taken with this reservation: +the ballad-maker only wields his power for as long as +he is the true interpreter of the popular will. Laws +may be imposed on the unwilling, but not songs.</p> + +<p>The Brothers Grimm said that they had not found +a single lie in folk-poetry. "The special value," +wrote Goethe, "of what we call national songs and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexv" id="pagexv"></a>xv</span> +ballads, is that their inspiration comes fresh from +nature: they are never got up, they flow from a sure +spring." He added, what must continually strike +anyone who is brought in contact with a primitive +peasantry, "The unsophisticated man is more the +master of direct, effective expression in few words +than he who has received a regular literary education."</p> + +<p>Bards chaunted the praises of head-men and heroes, +and it may be guessed that almost as soon and as +universally as tribes and races fell out, it grew to be +the custom for each fighting chief to have one or +more bards in his personal service. Robert Wace +describes how William the Conqueror was followed +by Taillefer, who</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Mounted on steed that was swift of foot,</p> +<p>Went forth before the armed train</p> +<p>Singing of Roland and Charlemain,</p> +<p>Of Olivere, and the brave vassals</p> +<p>Who died at the Pass of Roncesvals.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The northern skalds accompanied the armies to +the wars and were present at all the battles. "Ye +shall be here that ye may see with your own eyes +what is achieved this day," said King Olaf to his +skalds on the eve of the Battle of Stiklastad (1030), +"and have no occasion, when ye shall afterwards celebrate +these actions in song, to depend on the reports +of others." In the same fight, a skald named Jhormod +died an honourable death, shot with an arrow while +in the act of singing. The early Keltic poets were +forbidden to bear arms: a reminiscence of their sacerdotal +status, but they, too, looked on while others +fought, and encouraged the combatants with their +songs. All these bards served a higher purpose than +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexvi" id="pagexvi"></a>xvi</span> +the commemoration of individual leaders: they became +the historians of their epoch. The profession +was one of recognised eminence, and numbered kings +among its adepts. Then it declined with the rise of +written chronicles, till the last bard disappeared and +only the ballad-singer remained.</p> + +<h4>II.</h4> + +<p>This personage, though shorn of bardic dignity, yet +contrived to hold his own with considerable success. +In Provence and Germany, itinerant minstrels who +sang for pay brought up the rank and file of the +troubadours and minnesingers; in England and Italy +and Northern France they formed a class apart, +which, as times went, was neither ill-esteemed nor ill-paid. +When the minstrel found no better audience he +mounted a barrel in the nearest tavern, or</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>At country wakes sung ballads from a cart.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>But his favourite sphere was the baronial hall; and +to understand how welcome he was there made, it is +only needful to picture country life in days when +books were few and newspapers did not exist. He +sang before noble knights and gracious dames, who, +to us—could we be suddenly brought into their +presence—would seem rough in their manner, their +speech, their modes of life; but who were far from +being dead or insensible to intellectual pleasure when +they could get it. He sang the choicest songs that +had come down to him from an earlier age; songs of +the Round Table and of the great Charles; and then, +as he sat at meat, perhaps below the salt, but with his +plate well heaped up with the best that there was, he +heard strange Eastern tales from the newly-arrived pilgrim +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexvii" id="pagexvii"></a>xvii</span> +at his right hand, and many a wild story of noble +love or hate from the white-haired retainer at his left.</p> + +<p>I have always thought that the old ballad-singer's +world—the world in which he moved, and again the +ideal world of his songs—is nowhere to be so vividly +realised as in the Hofkirche at Innsbruck, among that +colossal company who watch the tomb of Kaiser +Max; huge men and women in richly wrought bronze +array, ugly indeed, most of them, but with two of +their number seeming to embody every beautiful +quality that was possessed or dreamt of through well +nigh a millennium: the pensive, graceful form of +Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, and the erect +figure whose very attitude suggests all manly worth, +all gentle valour, under which is read the quaint +device, "Arthur <i>von England</i>."</p> + +<p>If not rewarded with sufficient promptitude and +liberality, the ballad-singer was not slow to call attention +to the fact. Colin Muset, a jongleur who practised +his trade in Lorraine and Champagne in the +thirteenth century, has left a charming photograph of +contemporary manners in a song which sets forth his +wants and deserts.</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Lord Count, I have the viol played<a id="footnotetagI2" name="footnotetagI2"></a><a href="#footnoteI2"><sup>2</sup></a></p> +<p>Before yourself, within your hall,</p> +<p>And you my service never paid</p> +<p>Nor gave me any wage at all;</p> +<p class="i14"> 'T was villany:</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexviii" id="pagexviii"></a>xviii</span> +<p>By faith I to Saint Mary owe,</p> +<p>Upon such terms I serve you not,</p> +<p>My alms-bag sinks exceeding low,</p> +<p>My trunk ill-furnished is, I wot.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Lord Count, now let me understand,</p> +<p>What 'tis you mean to do for me,</p> +<p>If with free heart and open hand</p> +<p>Some ample guerdon you decree</p> +<p class="i14"> Through courtesy;</p> +<p>For much I wish, you need not doubt,</p> +<p>In my own household to return,</p> +<p>And if full purse I am without,</p> +<p>Small greeting from my wife I earn.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Sir Engelé," I hear her say,</p> +<p>"In what poor country have you been,</p> +<p>That through the city all the day</p> +<p>You nothing have contrived to glean!</p> +<p>See how your wallet folds and bends,</p> +<p>Well stuffed with wind and nought beside;</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexix" id="pagexix"></a>xix</span> +<p>Accursed is he who e'er intends</p> +<p>As your companion to abide."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>When reached the house wherein I dwell,</p> +<p>And that my wife can clearly spy</p> +<p>My bag behind me bulge and swell,</p> +<p>And I myself clad handsomely</p> +<p class="i14"> In a grey gown,</p> +<p>Know that she quickly throws away</p> +<p>Her distaff, nor of work doth reck,</p> +<p>She greets me laughing, kind and gay,</p> +<p>And twines both arms around my neck.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>My wife soon seizes on my bag,</p> +<p>And empties it without delay;</p> +<p>My boy begins to groom my nag,</p> +<p>And hastes to give him drink and hay;</p> +<p>My maid meanwhile runs off to kill</p> +<p>Two capons, dressing them with skill</p> +<p class="i14"> In garlic sauce;</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexx" id="pagexx"></a>xx</span> +<p>My daughter in her hand doth bear,</p> +<p>Kind girl, a comb to smooth my hair.</p> +<p>Then in my house I am a king,</p> +<p>Great joyance and no sorrowing,</p> +<p>Happier than you can say or sing.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Ballad-singing suffered by the invention of printing, +but it was in England that the professional minstrel +met with the cruellest blow of all—the statute passed +in the reign of Queen Elizabeth which forbade his +recitations, and classed him with "rogues, vagabonds, +and sturdy beggars."</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"Beggars they are with one consent,</p> +<p>And rogues by Act of Parliament."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>On the other hand, it was also in England that the +romantic ballad had its revival, and was introduced +to an entirely new phase of existence. The publication +of the <i>Percy Reliques</i> (1765) started the modern +period in which popular ballads were not only to +be accepted as literature, but were to exercise the +strongest influence on lettered poets from Goethe and +Scott, down to Dante Rossetti.</p> + +<p>Not that popular poetry had ever been without its +intelligent admirers, here and there, among men of +culture: Montaigne had said of it, "La poësie populere +et purement naturelle a des naïfvetez et graces par où +elle se compare à la principale beauté de la poësie +parfaicte selon l'art: comme il se voit es villanelles +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxi" id="pagexxi"></a>xxi</span> +de Gascouigne et aus chançons qu'on nous raporte +des nations qui n'ont conoissance d'acune science, ny +mesme d'escripture." There were even ardent collectors, +like Samuel Pepys, who is said to have +acquired copies of two thousand ballads.<a id="footnotetagI3" name="footnotetagI3"></a><a href="#footnoteI3"><sup>3</sup></a> Still, till +after the appearance of Bishop Percy's book (as his +own many faults of omission and commission attest), +the literary class at large did not take folk-songs quite +seriously. The <i>Percy Reliques</i> was followed by +Herder's <i>Volkslieder</i> (1782), Scott's <i>Minstrelsy of the +Scottish Border</i> (1802), Fauriel's <i>Chansons Populaires +de la Grêce</i> (1824), to mention only three of its more +immediate successors. The "return to Nature" in +poetry became an irresistible movement; the world, +tired of the classical forms of the eighteenth century, +listened as gladly to the fresh voice of the popular +muse, as in his father's dreary palace Giacomo +Leopardi listened to the voice of the peasant girl over +the way, who sang as she plied the shuttle:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i10">Sonavan le quiete</p> +<p>Stanze, e le vie dintorno.</p> +<p>Al tuo perpetuo canto,</p> +<p>Allor che all opre femminili intenta</p> +<p>Sedevi, assai contenta</p> +<p>Di quel vago avvenir che in mente avevi.</p> +<p>Era il Maggio odoroso: e tu solevi</p> +<p>Così menare il giorno.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>* * * * *</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Lingua mortal non dice</p> +<p>Quel ch' io sentiva in seno.</p> + </div> </div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxii" id="pagexxii"></a>xxii</span> + +<p>The hunt for ballads led the way to the search for +every sort of popular song, and with what zeal that +search has since been prosecuted, the splendid results +in the hands of the public now testify.</p> + +<h4>III.</h4> + +<p>A brief glance must be taken at what may be called +domestic folk-poetry. In a remote past, rural people +found delight or consolation in singing the events of +their obscure lives, or in deputing other persons of +their own station, but especially skilled in the art, to +sing them for them. Thus there were marriage-songs +and funeral-songs, labour-songs and songs for the +culminating points of the pastoral or agricultural year. +It is beyond my present purpose to speak of the vintage +festivals, and of the literary consequences of the +cult of Dionysus. I will, instead, pause for a moment +to consider the ancient harvest-songs. Among the +Greeks, particularly in Phrygia and in Sicily, all +harvest-songs bore the generic name of Lytierses, and +how they got it, gives an instructive instance of myth-facture. +Lytierses was the son of King Midas, and +a king himself, but also a mighty reaper, whose +habit it was to indulge in trials of strength with his +companions, and with strangers who were passing by. +He tied the vanquished up in sheaves and beat them. +One day he defied an unknown stranger, who proved +too strong for him, and by whom he was slain. So +died Lytierses, the reaper, and the first "Lytierses," +or harvest-song, was composed to console his father, +King Midas, for his loss.</p> + +<p>Now, if we regard Lytierses as the typical agriculturist, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxiii" id="pagexxiii"></a>xxiii</span> +and his antagonist as the growth or vegetation +genius, the fable seems to read thus: Between man +and Nature there is a continual struggle; man is often +victorious, but, if too presumptuous, a time comes +when he must yield. In harvest customs continued +to this day, a struggle with or for the last sheaf forms +a common feature. The reapers of Western France +tie the sheaf, adorned with flowers, to a post driven +strongly into the ground, then they fetch the farmer +and his wife and all the farm folk to help in dragging +it loose, and when the fastenings break, it is borne off +in triumph. So popular is this <i>Fête de la Gerbe</i>, that, +during the Chouan war, the leaders had to allow their +peasant soldiers to return to their villages to attend +it, or they would have deserted in a body. It may +not be irrelevant to add that in Brittany the great +wrestling matches take place at the <i>fête</i> of the "new +threshing floor," when all the neighbours are invited +to unite in preparing it for the corn. In North Germany, +where the peasants still believe that the last +sheaf contains the growth-genius, they set it in honour +on the festive board, and serve it double portions of +cake and ale.<a id="footnotetagI4" name="footnotetagI4"></a><a href="#footnoteI4"><sup>4</sup></a> Thus appeased, it becomes a friend to +the cultivator. The harvest "man" or "tree" which +used to be made by English reapers at the end of the +harvest, and presented to master and mistress, obviously +belonged to the same family.</p> + +<p>We have one or two of the ancient Lytierses in +what is most likely very nearly their original and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxiv" id="pagexxiv"></a>xxiv</span> +popular form. One, composed of distiches telling the +story of Midas' son, is preserved in a tragedy by +Sosibius, the Syracusian poet. The following, more +general in subject, I take from the tenth Idyl of +Theocritus:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Come now hearken awhile to the songs of the god Lytierses.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Demeter, granter of fruits, many sheaves vouchsafe to the cornfield,</p> +<p>Aye to be skilfully tilled, and reaped, and the harvest abundant.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Fasten the heaps, ye binders of sheaves, lest any one passing,</p> +<p>Call out, "worthless clowns, you earn no part of your wages."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Let every sheaf that the sickle has cut be turned to the north wind</p> +<p>Or to the west exposed, for so will the corn grow fatter.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Ye who of wheat are threshers, beware how ye slumber at mid-day,</p> +<p>Then is the chaff from the stalk of the wheat, most easily parted.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Reapers, to labour begin, as soon as the lark upriseth,</p> +<p>And when he sleeps, leave off, yet rest when the sun overpowers.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Blest, O youths, is the life of a frog, for he never is anxious</p> +<p>Who is to pour him his drink, for he always has plenty.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Better at once, O miserly steward, to boil our lentils;</p> +<p>Mind you don't cut your fingers in trying to chop them to atoms.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>These are the songs for the toilers to sing in the heat of the harvest.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Most modern harvest songs manage, like that of +Theocritus, to convey some hint of thirst or hunger. +"Be merry, O comrades!" sing the girl reapers of +Casteignano dei Greci, a Greek settlement in Terra +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxv" id="pagexxv"></a>xxv</span> +d'Otranto, "Be merry, and go not on your way so +downcast; I saw things you cannot see; I saw the +housewife kneading dough, or preparing macaroni; +and she does it for us to eat, so that we may work like +lions at the harvest, and rejoice the heart of the +husbandman." This may be a statement of fact or a +suggestion of what ought to be a fact. Other songs, +sung exclusively at the harvest, bear no outward sign +of connection with it; and the reason of their use on +that occasion is hopelessly lost.</p> + +<h4>IV.</h4> + +<p>I pass on to the old curiosity shop of popular +traditions—the nursery. Children, with their innate +conservatism, have stored a vast assemblage of odds +and ends which fascinate by their very incompleteness. +Religion, mythology, history, physical science, +or what stood for it; the East, the North—those great +banks of ideas—have been impartially drawn on by +the infant folk-lorists at their nurses' knees. Children +in the four quarters of the globe, repeat the same +magic formulæ; words which to every grown person +seem devoid of sense, have a universality denied to +any articles of faith. What, for example, is the +meaning of the play with the snail? Why is he so +persistently asked to put his horns out? Pages might +be filled with the variants of the well-known invocation +which has currency from Rome to Pekin.</p> + +<h6>English:</h6> + +<h5>I.</h5> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Snail, snail, put out your horn,</p> +<p>Or I'll kill your father and mother the morn.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxvi" id="pagexxvi"></a>xxvi</span> + </div> </div> +<h5>2.</h5> + <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Snail, snail, come out of your hole,</p> +<p>Or else I'll beat you as black as a coal.</p> + </div> </div> +<h5>3.</h5> + <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Snail, snail, put out your horn,</p> +<p>Tell me what's the day t'morn:</p> +<p>To-day's the morn to shear the corn,</p> +<p>Blaw bil buck thorn.</p> + </div> </div> +<h5>4.</h5> + <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Snail, snail, shoot out your horn,</p> +<p>Father and mother are dead;</p> +<p>Brother and sister are in the back-yard</p> +<p>Begging for barley bread.</p> + </div> </div> + +<h6>Scotch:</h6> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Snail, snail, shoot out your horn,</p> +<p>And tell us it will be a bonnie day, the morn.</p> + </div> </div> + +<h6>German:</h6> + +<h5>1.</h5> +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Schneckhûs, Peckhüs,</p> +<p>Stäk du dîn ver Horner rût,</p> +<p>Süst schmût ick dî in'n Graven,</p> +<p>Da freten dî de Raven.</p> + </div></div> +<h5>2.</h5> + <div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Tækeltuet,</p> +<p>Kruep uet dyn hues,</p> +<p>Dyn hues dat brennt,</p> +<p>Dyn Kinder de flennt:</p> +<p>Dyn Fru de ligt in Wäken:</p> +<p>Kann 'k dy nich mael spräken?</p> +<p>Tækeltuet, u. s. w.</p> + </div></div> +<h5>3.</h5> + <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Snaek, snaek, komm herduet,</p> +<p>Sunst tobräk ik dy dyn Hues.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxvii" id="pagexxvii"></a>xxvii</span> + </div></div> +<h5>4.</h5> + <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Slingemues,</p> +<p>Kruep uet dyn Hues,</p> +<p>Stick all dyn veer Höern uet,</p> +<p>Wullt du 's neck uetstäken,</p> +<p>Wik ik dyn Hues tobräken.</p> +<p>Slingemues, u. s. w.</p> + </div></div> +<h5>5.</h5> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Kuckuch, kuckuck Gerderut,</p> +<p>Stäk dîne vêr Horns herut.</p> + </div> </div> + +<h6>French:</h6> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4">Colimaçon borgne!</p> +<p class="i4">Montre-moi tes cornes;</p> +<p>Je te dirai où ta mère est morte,</p> +<p>Elle est morte à Paris, à Rouen,</p> +<p class="i4">Où l'on sonne les cloches.</p> +<p class="i8">Bi, bim, bom,</p> +<p class="i8">Bi, bim, bom,</p> +<p class="i8">Bi, bim, bom.</p> + </div> </div> + +<h6>Tuscan:</h6> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Chiocciola, chiocciola, vien da me,</p> +<p>Ti darò i' pan d' i' re;</p> +<p>E dell'ova affrittellate</p> +<p>Corni secchí e brucherate.</p> + </div> </div> + +<h6>Roumanian:</h6> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Culbecu, culbecu,</p> +<p>Scóte corne boeresci</p> +<p>Si te du la Dunare</p> +<p>Si bé apa tulbure.</p> + </div> </div> + +<h6>Russian:</h6> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Ulitka, ulitka,</p> +<p>Vypusti roga,</p> +<p>Ya tebé dam piroga.<a id="footnotetagI5" name="footnotetagI5"></a><a href="#footnoteI5"><sup>5</sup></a></p> + </div> </div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxviii" id="pagexxviii"></a>xxviii</span> + +<h6>Chinese:</h6> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Snail, snail, come here to be fed,</p> +<p>Put out your horns and lift up your head;</p> +<p>Father and mother will give you to eat,</p> +<p>Good boiled mutton shall be your meat.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Several lines in the second German version are +evidently borrowed from the Ladybird or Maychafer +rhyme which has been pronounced a relic of Freya +worship. Here the question arises, is not the snail +song also derived from some ancient myth? Count +Gubernatis, in his valuable work on <i>Zoological Mythology</i> +(vol. ii. p. 75), dismisses the matter with the +remark that "the snail of superstition is demoniacal." +This, however, is no proof that he always bore so +suspicious a character, since all the accessories to past +beliefs got into bad odour on the establishment of +Christianity, unless saved by dedication to the Virgin +or other saints. I ventured to suggest, in the <i>Archivio +per lo studio delle tradizioni popolari</i> (the Italian Folklore +Journal), that the snail who is so constantly urged +to come forth from his dark house, might in some +way prefigure the dawn. Horns have been from all +antiquity associated with rays of light. But to write +of "Nature Myths in Nursery Rhymes" is to enter +on such dangerous ground that I will pursue the +argument no further.</p> + +<h4>V.</h4> + +<p>Children of older years have preserved the very +important class of songs distinguished as singing-games. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxix" id="pagexxix"></a>xxix</span> +Everyone knows the famous <i>ronde</i> of the +Pont d'Avignon:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">Sur le Pont d'Avignon,</p> +<p>Tout le monde y danse, danse,</p> +<p class="i2">Sur le Pont d'Avignon</p> +<p>Tout le monde y danse en rond.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Les beaux messieurs font comme ça,</p> +<p class="i2">Sur le Pont d'Avignon,</p> +<p>Tout le monde y danse, danse,</p> +<p class="i2">Sur le Pont d'Avignon,</p> +<p>Tout le monde y danse en rond.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>After the "messieurs" who bow, come the "demoiselles" +who curtsey; the workwomen who sew, the +carpenters who saw wood, the washerwomen who +wash linen, and a host of other folks intent on their +different callings. The song is an apt demonstration +of what Paul de Saint-Victor called "cet instinct inné +de l'imitation qui fait similer à l'enfant les actions +viriles"<a id="footnotetagI6" name="footnotetagI6"></a><a href="#footnoteI6"><sup>6</sup></a>—in which instinct lies the germ of the +theatre. The origin of all spectacles was a performance +intended to amuse the performers, and it cannot +be doubted that the singing-game throws much light +on the beginnings of scenic representations.</p> + +<p><i>Rondes</i> frequently deal with love and marriage, and +these, from internal evidence, cannot have been composed +by or for the young people who now play them. +There are in fact some which would be better forgotten +by everybody, but the majority are innocent +little dramas, of which it may truly be said, <i>Honi soit +qui mal y pense</i>. It should be noticed that a distinctly +satirical vein runs through many of these games, as +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxx" id="pagexxx"></a>xxx</span> +in the "Gentleman from Spain,"—played in one form +or another all over Europe and the United States,—in +which the suitor would first give any money to get +his bride, and then any money to get rid of her. Or +the Swedish <i>Lek</i> (the name given in Sweden to the +singing-game), in which the companions of a young +girl put her sentiments to the test of telling her that +father, mother, sisters, brothers, are dead—all of which +she hears with perfect equanimity—but when they +add that her betrothed is also dead, she falls back +fainting. Then all her kindred are resuscitated without +the effect of reviving her, but when she hears that +her lover is alive and well, she springs up and gives +chase to her tormentors.</p> + +<p>To my mind there is no more remarkable specimen +of the singing game than <i>Jenny Jones</i>—through which +prosaic title we can discern the tender <i>Jeanne ma joie</i> +that formed the base of it. The Scotch still say +<i>Jenny Jo</i>, "Jo" being with them a term of endearment +(<i>e.g.</i>, "John Anderson, my Jo!"). The following +variant of the game I took down from word of mouth +at Bocking in Essex:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"We've come to see Jenny Jones, Jenny Jones, (<i>repeat</i>).</p> +<p>How is she now?</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Jenny is washing, washing, washing,</p> +<p>Jenny is washing, you can't see her now.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>We've come to see Jenny Jones.</p> +<p>How is she now?</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Jenny is folding, folding, folding,</p> +<p>You can't see her now.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>We've come to see Jenny Jones.</p> +<p>How is she now?</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxxi" id="pagexxxi"></a>xxxi</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Jenny is starching, starching, starching,</p> +<p>Jenny is starching, you can't see her now.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>We've come to see Jenny Jones.</p> +<p>How is she now?</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Jenny is ironing, ironing, ironing,</p> +<p>Jenny is ironing, you can't see her now.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>We've come to see Jenny Jones.</p> +<p>How is she now?</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Jenny is ill, ill, ill,</p> +<p>Jenny is ill, so you can't see her now.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>We've come to see Jenny Jones.</p> +<p>How is she now?</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">(<i>Mournfully.</i>)</p> +<p>Jenny is dead, dead, dead,</p> +<p>Jenny is dead, you can't see her now.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>May we come to the funeral?</p> +<p>Yes.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>May we come in red?</p> +<p>Red is for soldiers; you can't come in red.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>May we come in blue?</p> +<p>Blue is for sailors; you can't come in blue.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>May we come in white?</p> +<p>White is for weddings; you can't come in white.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>May we come in black?</p> +<p>Black is for funerals, so you can come in that.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Jenny is then carried and buried (<i>i.e.</i>, laid on the +grass) by two of the girls, while the rest follow as +mourners, uttering a low, prolonged wail.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the earliest acted tragedy—a tragedy acted +before Æschylus lived—was something like this. +Anyhow, it may remind us of how early a taste for +the tragic is developed, if not in the life of mankind +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxxii" id="pagexxxii"></a>xxxii</span> +at all events in the life of man. "What is the reason," +asks St Augustine, "that men wish to be moved by +the sight of tragic and painful things, which, nevertheless, +they do not wish to undergo themselves? For +the spectators (at a play) desire to feel grieved, and +this grief is their joy: whence comes it unless from +some strange spiritual malady?"<a id="footnotetagI7" name="footnotetagI7"></a><a href="#footnoteI7"><sup>7</sup></a></p> + +<p>Dr Pitrè describes this Sicilian game: A child lies +down, pretending to be dead. His companions stand +round and sing a dirge in the most dolorous tones. +Now and then, one of them runs up to him and lifts +an arm or a leg, afterwards letting it fall, to make +sure that he is quite dead. Satisfied on this point, +they prepare to bury him, but before doing so, they +nearly stifle him with parting kisses. Tired, at last, +of his painful position, the would-be dead boy jumps +up and gets on the back of the most aggressive of his +playmates, who is bound to carry him off the scene.</p> + +<p>To play at funerals was probably a very ancient +amusement. No doubt some such game as the above +is alluded to in the text, "...children sitting in the +markets and calling unto their fellows and saying, +We have piped unto you and ye have not danced, we +have mourned unto you and ye have not lamented."</p> + +<h4>VI.</h4> + +<p>Mysteries and Miracle Plays must not be forgotten, +though in their origin they were not a plant of strictly +popular growth. Some writers consider that they +were instituted by ecclesiastics as rivals to the lay or +pagan plays which were still in great favour in the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxxiii" id="pagexxxiii"></a>xxxiii</span> +first Christian centuries. Others think with Dr +Hermann Ulrici,<a id="footnotetagI8" name="footnotetagI8"></a><a href="#footnoteI8"><sup>8</sup></a> that they grew naturally out of the +increasingly pictorial celebration of the early Greek +liturgy,—painted scenes developing into <i>tableaux +vivants</i>, and these into acted and spoken interludes. It +is certain that they were started by the clergy, who at +first were the sole actors, assuming characters of both +sexes. As time wore on, something more lively was +desired, and clowns and buffoons were accordingly +introduced. They appeared in the Innsbruck Play of +the fourteenth century; and again in 1427, in the +performances given at Metz, while the serious parts +were acted by ecclesiastics, the lighter, or comic parts, +were represented by laymen. These performances +were held in a theatre constructed for the purpose, +but mysteries were often played in the churches +themselves, nor is the practice wholly abandoned. +A Nativity play is performed in the churches of +Upper Gascony on Christmas Eve, of which the subjoined +account will, perhaps, be read with interest:—</p> + +<blockquote><p> +In the middle of the Midnight Mass, just when the priest +has finished reading the gospel, Joseph and Mary enter the +nave, the former clad in the garb of a village carpenter with his +tools slung across his shoulder, the latter dressed in a robe of +spotless white. The people divide so as to let them pass up +the church, and they look about for a night's lodging. In one +part of the church the stable of Bethlehem is represented behind +a framework of greenery; here they take up their position, +and presently a cradle is placed beside them which contains +the image of a babe. The voice of an angel from on high now +proclaims the birth of the Infant Saviour, and calls on the +shepherds to draw near to the sound of glad music. The way +in which this bit of theatrical "business" is managed, is by a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxxiv" id="pagexxxiv"></a>xxxiv</span> +child in a surplice, with wings fastened to his shoulders, being +drawn up to the ceiling seated on a chair, which is supported +by ropes on a pulley. The shepherds, real shepherds in +white, homespun capes, with long crooks decked with ribbons, +are placed on a raised dais, which stands for the mountain. +They wake up when they hear the angel's song, and one of +them exclaims: +</p></blockquote> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Diou dou cèou, quino vèro vouts!</p> +<p>Un anjou mous parlo, pastous;</p> +<p>Biste quieten noste troupet!</p> +<p>Mes que dit l'anjou, si vous plaît?</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>(Heavens! with how sweet a voice</p> +<p>The angel calls us to rejoice;</p> +<p>Quick leave your flocks: but tell me, pray,</p> +<p>What doth the heavenly angel say?)</p> + </div> </div> + +<blockquote><p> +The angel replies in French: +</p></blockquote> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Rise, shepherd, nor delay,</p> +<p class="i2">'Tis God who summons thee,</p> +<p>Hasten with zeal away</p> +<p class="i2">Thy Saviour's self to see.</p> +<p>The Lord of Hosts hath shown</p> +<p class="i2">That since this glorious birth,</p> +<p>War shall be no more known,</p> +<p class="i2">But peace shall reign on earth.</p> + </div> </div> + +<blockquote><p> +The shepherds, however, are not very willing to be disturbed: +"Let me sleep! Let me sleep!" says one of them, +and another goes so far as to threaten to drive away the angel +if he does not let them alone. "Come and render homage to +the new-born babe," sings the angel, "and cease to complain +of your happy lot." They answer: +</p></blockquote> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">A happy lot</p> +<p>We never yet possest,</p> +<p class="i2">A happy lot</p> +<p>For us poor shepherd folk existeth not;</p> +<p>Then wherefore utter the strange jest</p> +<p>That by an infant's birth we shall be blest</p> +<p class="i2">With happy lot?</p> + </div> </div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxxv" id="pagexxxv"></a>xxxv</span> + +<blockquote><p> +The shepherds begin to bestir themselves. One says that he +feels overcome with fear at the sound of so much noise and +commotion. The angel responds, "Come without fear; do not +hesitate, but redouble your speed. It is in this village, in a poor +place, near yonder wood, that you may see the Infant Lord." +Another of the shepherds, who seems to have only just woke up, +inquires: +</p></blockquote> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">What do you say?</p> +<p>This to believe what soul is able;</p> +<p class="i2">What do you say?</p> +<p>Where do these shepherds speed away?</p> +<p>To see their God within a stable:</p> +<p>This surely seems an idle fable;</p> +<p class="i2">What do you say?</p> + </div> </div> + +<blockquote><p> +"To understand how it is, go and behold with your own eyes," +replies the angel; to which the shepherd answers, "Good +morrow, angel; pardon me if I have spoken lightly; I will go +and see what is going on." Another, still not quite easy in his +mind, observes that he cannot make out what the angel says, +because he speaks in such a strange tongue. The angel +immediately replies in excellent Gascon patois: +</p></blockquote> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">Come, shepherds, come</p> +<p>From your mountain home,</p> +<p>Come, see the Saviour in a stable born,</p> +<p class="i2">This happy morn.</p> +<p class="i2">Come, shepherds, come,</p> +<p>Let none remain behind,</p> +<p>Come see the wretched sinners' friend,</p> +<p class="i2">The Saviour of mankind.</p> + </div> </div> + +<blockquote><p> +When they hear the good news, sung to a quaint and inspiriting +air in their own language, the shepherds hesitate no longer, but +set off for Bethlehem in a body. One of them, it is true, expresses +some doubts as to what will become of the flocks in +their absence; but a veteran shepherd strikes his crook upon +the ground and sternly reproves him for being anxious about +the sheep when a heavenly messenger has declared that "God +has made Himself the Shepherd of mankind." They leave the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxxvi" id="pagexxxvi"></a>xxxvi</span> +dais, and march out of the church, the whole of which is now +considered as being the stable. After a while the shepherds +knock for admittance, and their voices are heard in the calm +crisp midnight air chaunting these words to sweet and solemn +strains: +</p></blockquote> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Master of this blest abode,</p> +<p>O guardian of the Infant God,</p> +<p>Open your honoured gate, that we</p> +<p>May at His worship bend the knee.</p> + </div> </div> + +<blockquote><p> +Joseph fears that the strangers may perchance be enemies, but +reassured by an angel, he opens the door, only naïvely regretting +that the lowly chamber "should be so badly lighted." They +prostrate themselves before the cradle, and the choir bursts +forth with: +</p></blockquote> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Gloria Deo in excelsis,</p> +<p>O Domine te laudamus,</p> +<p>O Deus Pater rex caelestis,</p> +<p>In terra pax hominibus.</p> + </div> </div> + +<blockquote><p> +The shepherdesses then render their homage, and deposit on +the altar steps a banner covered with flowers and greenery, +from which hang strings of small birds, apples, nuts, chestnuts, +and other fruits. It is their Christmas offering to the curé; +the shepherds have already placed a whole sheep before the +altar, in a like spirit.</p> + +<p>The next scene takes us into Herod's palace, where the magi +arrive, and are directed to proceed to Bethlehem. During their +adoration of the Infant Saviour, Mass is finished, and the Sacrament +is administered; after which the play is brought to a close +with the flight into Egypt and the massacre of the Innocents. +</p></blockquote> + +<p>This primitive drama gives a better idea of the +early mysteries than do the performances at Ober +Ammergau, which have been gradually pruned and +improved under the eye of a critical public. But +it is unusually free from the absurdities and levities +which abound in most miracle plays; such as the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxxvii" id="pagexxxvii"></a>xxxvii</span> +wrangle between Noah and his wife in the old Chester +Mysteries, in which the latter declares "by St John" +that the Flood is a false alarm, and that no power on +earth shall make her go into the Ark. Noah ends +with putting her on board by main force, and is +rewarded by a box on the ear.</p> + +<p>The best surviving sample of a non-scriptural rustic +play is probably <i>Saint Guillaume of Poitou</i>, a Breton +versified drama in seven acts. The history of the +Troubadour Count whose wicked manhood leads to a +preternaturally pious old age, corresponds to every +requirement of the peasant play-goer. Time and +space are set airily at defiance; saints and devils are +not only called, but come at the shortest notice; the +plot is exciting enough to satisfy the strongest craving +for sensation, and the dialogue is vigorous, and, in +parts, picturesque. One can well believe that the +fiery if narrow patriotism of a Breton audience would +be stirred by the scene where the reformed Count +William, who has withstood all other blandishments, +is almost lured out of his holy seclusion by the Evil +One coming to him in the shape of a fellow-townsman +who represents his city as hard pressed by overwhelming +foes, and in its extremest need, imploring +his aid; that the religious fervour of Breton peasants +would be moved by the recital of the vision in which +a very wicked man appears at the bar of judgment: +his sins out-number the hairs of his head, you would +call him an irredeemable wretch; yet it does so +happen that once upon a time he gave two pilgrims a +bed of straw in a pig-stye, and now St Francis throws +this straw into the balance, and it bends down the +scale!</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxxviii" id="pagexxxviii"></a>xxxviii</span> + +<p>So in the Song of the Sun, in Sæmund's <i>Edda</i>, a +fierce freebooter, who has despoiled mankind, and +who always ate alone, opens his door one evening to a +tired wayfarer, and gives him meat and drink. The +guest meditates evil; then in his sleep he murders his +host, but he is doomed to take on him all the sins of +the man he has slain, while the one-time evil-doer's +soul is borne by angels into a life of purity, where it +shall live for ever with God. This motive is repeatedly +introduced into folk-lore, and was made effective use +of by Victor Hugo in <i>Sultan Mourad</i>, the infamous +tyrant who goes to Heaven on the strength of having +felt momentary compassion for a pig.</p> + +<p>In plays of the <i>Saint Guillaume</i> class, the plain +language in which the vices and oppression of the +nobles is denounced shows signs of the slow surging +up of the democratic spirit whose traces through the +middle ages are nowhere to be more fruitfully sought +than in popular literature—though they lie less in +the rustic drama than in the great mediæval satires, +such as <i>Reynard the Fox</i> and <i>Marcolfo</i>, the latter of +which is still known to the Italian people under the +form of <i>Bertoldo</i>, in which it was recast in the sixteenth +century, by G. B. Croce, the rhyming blacksmith +of Bologna.</p> + +<h4>VII.</h4> + +<p>Epopees, <i>chansons de geste</i>, romantic ballads, occasional +or ceremonial songs, nursery rhymes, singing-games, +rustic dramas; to these must be added the +great order of purely personal and lyrical songs, of +which the unique and exclusive subject is love. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexxxix" id="pagexxxix"></a>xxxix</span> +Popular love songs have one quality in common: a +sincerity which is not perhaps reached in the entire +range of lettered amorous poetry. Love is to these +singers a thing so serious that however high they fly, +they do not outsoar what is to them the atmosphere +of truth. "La passion parle là toute pure," as Molière +said of the old song:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Si le roi m'avoit donné</p> +<p class="i2">Paris, sa grande ville,</p> +<p>Et qu'il me fallût quitter</p> +<p class="i2">L'amour de ma mie:</p> +<p>Je dirois au roi Henri</p> +<p>Reprenez votre Paris</p> +<p>J'aime mieux ma mie, oh gay!</p> +<p class="i2">J'aime mieux ma mie.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>An immense, almost incredible, number of popular +songs have been set down during the last twenty +years by collectors who, like Tigri in Tuscany, and +Pitrè in Sicily, have done honour to their birthlands, +and an enduring service to literature. It has been +seen that Italy, Portugal, and Spain have songs +which, though differing in shape, are yet materially +alike. Where was the original fount of this lyrical +river? Some would look for it in Arabia, and cite +the evident poetic fertility of those countries where +Arab influence once prevailed. Others regard the +existing passion-verse as a descendant of the mediæval +poetry associated with Provence. Others, again, while +admitting that there may have been modifications of +form, find it hard to believe that there was ever a +time, since the type was first established, when the +southern peasant was dumb, or when he did not sing +in substance very much as he does now.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexl" id="pagexl"></a>xl</span> + +<p>Whatever theory be ultimately accepted, it is certain +that the popular love-poetry of southern nations, +such as it has been received direct from peasant lips, +is not the least precious gift we owe to the untaught, +uncultured poet, who after having been for long ages +ignored or despised, is now raised to his rightful place +near the throne of his illustrious brother, the perfect +lettered poet. Pan sits unrebuked by the side of +Apollo.</p> + +<p style="margin-top: 2.5em;">These introductory remarks are meant to do no +more than to show the principal landmarks of folk-poetry. +The subject is a wide one, as they best know +who have given it the most careful attention. In the +following essays, I have dealt with a few of its less +familiar aspects. I would, in conclusion, express my +gratitude to the indefatigable excavators of popular +lore whose large labours have made my small work +possible, and to all who have helped, whether by furnishing +unedited specimens or by procuring copies of +rare books. My cordial thanks are also due to the +editors and publishers of the <i>Cornhill Magazine</i>, +<i>Fraser's Magazine</i>, the <i>National Review</i>, the <i>British +Quarterly Review</i>, the <i>Revue Internationale</i>, the <i>Antiquary</i>, +and the <i>Record</i> and <i>Journal</i> of the Folk-lore +Society, for leave to reprint such part of this book as +had appeared in those publications.</p> + +<p class="ind"><span class="sc">Salò, Lago di Garda</span>,</p> +<p class="author1"><i>January 15 1886</i>.</p> + +<p class="footnote"><a id="footnoteI1" name="footnoteI1"></a><a class="footnote" href="#footnotetagI1">Footnote 1:</a> Voltaire.</p> + +<p class="footnote" style="margin-bottom: -1.0em;"><a id="footnoteI2" name="footnoteI2"></a><a class="footnote" href="#footnotetagI2">Footnote 2:</a></p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Sire cuens, j'ai vielé</p> +<p>Devant vous, en vostre osté;</p> +<p>Si ne m'avez, riens doné,</p> +<p>Ne mes gages aquité</p> +<p class="i10">C'est vilanie;</p> +<p>Foi que doi Sainte Marie!</p> +<p>Ainc ne vos sievrai je mie,</p> +<p>M'aumosniere est mal garnie</p> +<p>Et ma malle mal farsie.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Sire cuens, quar comandez</p> +<p>De moi vostre volonté.</p> +<p>Sire, s'il vous vient à gré</p> +<p>Un beau don car me donez</p> +<p class="i10"> Par cortoisie.</p> +<p>Talent ai, n'en dotez mie,</p> +<p>De r'aler à ma mesnie.</p> +<p>Quant vois borse desgarnie,</p> +<p>Ma feme ne me rit mie.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Ains me dit: Sire Engelé</p> +<p>En quel terre avez esté,</p> +<p>Qui n'avez rien conquesté</p> +<p class="i10"> Aval la ville?</p> +<p>Vez com vostre male plie,</p> +<p>Ele est bien de vent farsie.</p> +<p>Honi soit qui a envie</p> +<p>D'estre en vostre compaignie.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Quant je vieng à mon hosté</p> +<p>Et ma feme a regardé</p> +<p>Derier moi le sac enflé,</p> +<p>Et ge qui sui bien paré</p> +<p class="i10"> De robe grise,</p> +<p>Sachiez qu'ele a tot jus mise</p> +<p>La quenoille, sans faintise.</p> +<p>Elle me rit par franchise,</p> +<p>Les deux bras au col me lie.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Ma feme va destrousser</p> +<p>Ma male, sanz demorer.</p> +<p>Mon garçon va abruver</p> +<p>Mon cheval et conreer.</p> +<p>Ma pucele va tuer</p> +<p>Deux chapons por deporter</p> +<p class="i10"> A la sause aillie;</p> +<p>Ma fille m'apporte un pigne.</p> +<p>En sa main par cortoisie</p> +<p>Lors sui de mon ostel sire,</p> +<p>A mult grant joie, sans ire,</p> +<p>Plus que nus ne porroit dire.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p class="footnote"><a id="footnoteI3" name="footnoteI3"></a><a class="footnote" href="#footnotetagI3">Footnote 3:</a> Not to speak of Charlemagne, +who ordered a collection to be made of German songs.</p> + +<p class="footnote"><a id="footnoteI4" name="footnoteI4"></a><a class="footnote" href="#footnotetagI4">Footnote 4:</a> A fuller description of German harvest customs, +with remarks on their presumed meaning, will be found in the Rev. J. Van den Gheyn's "Essais de Mythologie et de Philologie comparée," 1885.</p> + +<p class="footnote"><a id="footnoteI5" name="footnoteI5"></a><a class="footnote" href="#footnotetagI5">Footnote 5:</a> Mr W. R. S. Ralston has kindly communicated +to me this Russian version, which he translates: "Snail, snail, put forth thy horns, I will give to thee cakes."</p> + +<p class="footnote"><a id="footnoteI6" name="footnoteI6"></a><a class="footnote" href="#footnotetagI6">Footnote 6:</a> "Les deux Masques," tome i. p. 1.</p> + +<p class="footnote"><a id="footnoteI7" name="footnoteI7"></a><a class="footnote" href="#footnotetagI7">Footnote 7:</a> "Confessions," book iii. chap. 11.</p> + +<p class="footnote"><a id="footnoteI8" name="footnoteI8"></a><a class="footnote" href="#footnotetagI8">Footnote 8:</a> "Shakespeare's Dramatic Art," 1876.</p> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page1" id="page1"></a>1</span> + +<h2>THE INSPIRATION OF DEATH IN FOLK-POETRY.</h2> + +<p>The Roumanians call death "the betrothed of the +world:" that which awaits. The Neapolitans give it +the name of <i>la vedova</i>: that which survives. It would +be easy to go on multiplying the stock of contrasting +epithets. Inevitable yet a surprise, of daily incidence +yet a mystery, unvarying yet most various, a common +fact yet incapable of becoming common-place, death +may be looked at from innumerable points of view; +but, look at it how we will, it moves and excites our +spiritual consciousness as nothing else can do. The +first poet of human things was perhaps one who stood +in the presence of death. In the twilight that went +before civilization the loves of men were prosaic, and +intellectual unrest was remote, but there was already +Rachel weeping for her children and would not be +comforted because they are not. Death, high priest +of the ideal, led man in his infancy through a crisis of +awe passing into transcendent exaltation, kindred +with the state which De Quincey describes when +recalling the feelings wrought in his childish brain by +the loss of his sister. It set the child-man asking +why? first sign of a dawning intelligence; it told him +in familiar language that we lie on the borders of the +unknown; it opened before him the infinite spaces of +hope and fear; it shattered to pieces the dull round +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page2" id="page2"></a>2</span> +of the food-seeking present, and built up out of the +ruins the perception of a past and a future. It was +the symbol of a human oneness with the coming and +going of day and night, summer and winter, the rising +and receding tide. It caused even the rudest of men +to speak lower, to tread more softly, revealing to him +unawares the angel Reverence. And above all, it +wounded the heart of man. M. Renan says with +great truth, "Le grand agent de la marche du monde, +c'est la douleur." What poetry owes to the bread of +sorrow has never been better told than by the Greek +folk-singer, who condenses it into one brief sentence: +"Songs are the words spoken by those who suffer."</p> + +<p>The influence of death on the popular imagination +is shown in those ballads of the supernatural of +which folk-poetry offers so great an abundance as to +make choice difficult. One of the most powerful as +well as the most widely diffused of the people's ghost +stories is that which treats of the persecuted child +whose mother comes out of her grave to succour him. +There are two or three variants of this among the +Czech songs. A child aged eighteen months loses +his mother. As soon as he is old enough to understand +about such things, he asks his father what he +has done with her? "Thy mother sleeps a heavy +sleep, no one will wake her; she lies in the graveyard +hard by the gate." When the child hears that, +he runs to the graveyard. He loosens the earth with +a big pin and pushes it aside with his little finger. +Then he cries mournfully, "Ah! mother, little mother, +say one little word to me!" "My child, I cannot," +the mother replies, "my head is weighed down with +clay; on my heart is a stone which burns like fire; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page3" id="page3"></a>3</span> +go home little one, there you have another mother." +"Ah!" rejoins he, "she is not good like you were. +When she gives me bread she turns it thrice; when +you gave it me you spread it with butter. When she +combs my hair she makes my head bleed; when you +combed my hair, mother, you fondled it. When she +bathes my feet she bruises them against the side of +the basin; when you bathed them you kissed them. +When she washes my shirt she loads me with curses; +you used to sing whilst you washed." The mother +answers: "Go back to the house, my child, to-morrow +I will come for you." The child goes back to the +house and lies down in his bed. "Ah! father, my +little father, make ready my winding-sheet, my soul +now belongs to God, my body to the grave, to the +grave near my mother—how glad her heart will be!" +One day he was ill, the second he died, the third day +they buried him. The effect is heightened by the +interval placed between the mother's death and the +child's awakening to his own forlorn condition. +When the mother died he was too young to think or +to grieve. He did not know that she was gone until +he missed her. Only by degrees, after years of harsh +treatment, borne with the patience of a child or a +dumb animal, he began to feel intuitively rather than +to remember that it had not been always so—that he +had once been loved. Then, going straight to the +point with the terrible accusative power that lies in +children, he said to the father, "What have you done +with my mother?" He had been able to live and to +suffer until he was old enough to think; when he +thought, he died. Here we have an instance, one of +the many that exist, of a motive which, having recurred +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page4" id="page4"></a>4</span> +again and again in folk-poetry, gets handled +at last by a master-poet, who gives it enduring shape +and immortality. Victor Hugo may or may not have +known the popular legend. It is most likely that he +did not know it. Yet, stripped of the marvellous, and +modified in certain secondary points of construction, +the story is the story of "Petit Paul," little Paul, the +child of modern France, who takes company with +Dante's Anselmuccio and Shakespeare's Arthur, and +who with them will live in the pity of all time. The +Ruthenes affirm that it was Christ who bade the child +seek his mother's grave. The Provençal folk-poet +begins his tale: "You shall hear the complaint of +three very little children." The mother of these +children was dead, the father had married again. The +new wife brought a hard time for the children, and +the day came when they were like to starve. The +littlest begged for a bit of bread, and he got a kick +which threw him to the ground. Then the biggest of +the brothers said, "Get up and let us go to our mother +in the graveyard; she will give us bread." They set +out at once; on their way they met Jesus Christ.</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Et ount anetz, mes angis,</p> +<p>Mes angis tant petits?</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>"Where are you going, my angels, my so very small +angels?" "We go to the graveyard to find our +mother." Jesus Christ tells the mother to come forth +and give her children food. "How would you have +me come forth, when there is no strength left in me?" +He answers that her strength shall come back to her +for seven years. Now, as the end of the seven years +drew near, she was always sobbing and sighing, and +the children asked why it was. "I weep, my children, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page5" id="page5"></a>5</span> +because I have to go away from you." "Weep no +more, mother, we will all go together; one shall carry +the hyssop, another will take the taper, the last will +hold the book. We will go home singing." The +Provençal poet does not tell us what happened when +the resuscitated wife came back to her former abode; +we have to go to Scandinavia for an account of that. +Dyring the Dane went to an island and wed a fair +maiden. For seven years they dwelt together and +were blessed with children; but while the youngest +born was still a helpless babe, Death stalked through +the land and carried off the young wife in his clutches. +Dyring went to another island and married a girl who +was bad and spiteful. He brought her home to his +house, and when she reached the door the six little +children were there crying. She thrust them aside +with her foot, she gave them no ale and no bread; she +said, "You shall suffer thirst and hunger." She took +from them their blue cushions, and said, "You shall +sleep on straw." She took from them their wax +candles, and said, "You shall stay in the dark." In +the evening, very late, the children cried, and their +mother heard them under the ground. She listened +as she lay in her shroud, and thought to herself, "I +must go to my little children." She begged our +Lord so hard to let her go, that her prayer was +granted. "Only you must be back when the cock +crows." She lifted her weary limbs, the grave gaped, +she passed through the village, the dogs howled as +she passed, throwing up their noses in the air. When +she got to the house, she saw her eldest daughter on +the threshold. "Why are you standing there, my +dear daughter? Where are your brothers and +sisters?" The daughter knew her not. She said +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page6" id="page6"></a>6</span> +her mother was fair and blithe, her face was white +and pink. "How can I be fair and blithe? I am +dead, my face is pale. How can I be white and pink, +when I have been all this time in my winding-sheet?" +Answering thus, the mother hastened to her little +children's chamber. She found them with tears running +down their cheeks. She brushed the clothes of +one, she tidied the hair of the second, she lifted the +third from the floor, she comforted the fourth, the +fifth she set on her knee as though she were fain to +suckle it. To the eldest girl she said, "Go and tell +Dyring to come here." And when he came she cried +in wrath, "I left you ale and bread, and my little +ones hunger; I left you blue cushions, and my little +ones lie on straw; I left you waxen candles, and my +little ones are in the dark. Woe betide you, if there +be cause I should return again! Behold the red cock +crows, the dead fly underground. Behold the black cock +crows, heaven's doors are thrown wide. Behold the +white cock crows, I must begone." So saying she went, +and was seen no more. Ever after that night each time +Dyring and his wife heard the dogs bark they gave +the children ale and bread; each time they heard the +dogs bay they were seized with dread of the dead +woman; each time they heard the dogs howl they +trembled lest she should come back. Two universal +beliefs are introduced into this variant: the disappearance +of the dead at cock crow, and the connection of +the howling of dogs with death or the dead. The last +is a superstition which still obtains a wide acceptance +even among educated people. I was speaking of it +lately to an English officer, who stated that he had +twice heard the death howl, once while on duty in +Ireland, and once, if I remember right, in India. It +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page7" id="page7"></a>7</span> +was, he said, totally unlike any other noise produced +by a dog. I observed that all noises sound singular +when the nerves are strained by painful expectancy; +but he answered that in his own case his feelings were +not involved, as the death which occurred, in one +instance at least, was that of a perfect stranger.</p> + +<p>The interpretation of dreams as a direct intercourse +with the spiritual world is not usual in folk-lore; the +people hardly see the need of placing the veil of sleep +between mortal eyes and ghostly appearances. In a +Bulgarian song, however, a sleeping girl speaks with +her dead mother. Militza goes down into the little +garden where the white and red roses are in bloom. +She is weary, and she is soon asleep. A small fine +rain begins to fall, the wind rustles in the leaves; +Militza sighs, and having sighed, she awakes. Then +she upbraids the rain and the wind: "Whistle no +more, O wind; thou, O rain, descend no more; for in +my dreams I found my mother. Rain, may thy fount +be dried; mayst thou be for ever silent, O wind: ye +have taken me from the counsel my mother gave me." +The few lines thus baldly summarized make up, as it +seems to me, a little masterpiece of delicate conception +and light workmanship: one which would surprise us +from the lips of a letterless poet, were there not proof +that no touch is so light and so sure as that of the +artificer untaught in our own sense—the man or the +woman who produces the intricate filigree, the highly +wrought silver, the wood carving, the embroidery, the +lace, the knitted wool rivalling the spider's web, the +shawl with whose weft and woof a human life is interwoven.</p> + +<p>I have only once come upon the case of a father +who returns to take care of his offspring. Mr Chu, a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page8" id="page8"></a>8</span> +worthy Chinese gentleman, revisited this earth as a +disembodied spirit to guard and teach his little boy +Wei. When Wei reached the age of twenty-two, and +took his doctor's degree, his father, Mr Chu, finally +vanished. As a general rule, the Chinese consider +the sight of his former surroundings to be the worst +penalty that can befall a soul. Mr Herbert Giles, +in his fascinating work on the Liao-Chai of P'u Sing-Ling, +gives a full account of the terrible See-one's-home +terrace as represented in the fifth court of +Purgatory in the Taoist Temples. Good souls, or +even those who have done partly good and partly evil, +will never stand thereon. The souls of the wicked +only see their homes as if they were near them: they +see their last wishes disregarded, everything upside +down, their substance squandered, the husband prepares +to take a new wife, strangers possess the old +estate, in their misery the dead man's family curse +him, his children become corrupt, lands are gone, the +house is burnt, the wife sees her husband tortured, +the husband sees his wife stricken down with mortal +disease; friends forget: "some perhaps for the sake +of bygone times may stroke the coffin and let fall a +tear, departing with a cold smile." In the West, this +gloomy creed is perhaps hinted at in the French +proverb, "Les morts sont bien mort." But Western +thought at its best, at its highest, imagines differently. +It imagines that the most gracious privilege of immortal +spirits is that of beholding those beloved of +them in mortal life—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i12"> I am still near,</p> +<p>Watching the smiles I prized on earth,</p> +<p>Your converse mild, your blameless mirth.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Happy and serene optimism!</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page9" id="page9"></a>9</span> + +<p>The ghosts of folk-lore return not only to succour +the innocent, they come back also to convict the +guilty. The avenging ghost shows himself in all +kinds of strange and uncanny ways rather than in his +habit as he lived. He comes in animal or vegetable +shape; or perhaps he uses the agency of some inanimate +object. In the Faroe Isles there is a story +of a girl whose sister pushed her into the sea out of +jealousy. The blue waves cast ashore her body, which +was found by two pilgrims, who made the arms into +a harp, and the flaxen locks into strings. Then they +went and played the harp at the wedding feast of the +murderess and the dead girl's betrothed. The first +string said, "The bride is my sister." The second +string said, "The bride caused my death." The third +string said, "The bridegroom is my betrothed." The +harp's notes swelled louder and louder, and the guilty +bride fell sick unto death; before the pilgrims had +done playing, her heart broke. This is much the +same story as the "Twa Sisters of Binnorie." A +Slovack legend describes two musicians who, as they +were travelling together, noticed a fine plane tree; +and one said to the other, "Let us cut it down, it is +just the thing to make a violin of; the violin will be +equally yours and mine; we will play on it by turn." +At the first blow the tree sighed; at the second blow +blood spurted out; at the third blow the tree began +to talk. It said: "Musicians, fair youths, do not cut +me down; I am not a tree, I am made of flesh and +blood; I am a lovely girl of the neighbouring town; +my mother cursed me while I drew water—while I +drew water and chatted with my friend. 'Mayst +thou change into a plane tree with broad leaves,' said +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page10" id="page10"></a>10</span> +she. Go ye, musicians, and play before my mother." +So they betook themselves to the mother's door and +played a dirge over her child. "Play not, musicians, +fair youths," she entreated. "Rend not my heart by +your playing. I have enough of woe in having lost +my daughter. Hapless the mother who curses her +children!" The well-known German tale of the +juniper tree belongs to the same class. A beautiful +little boy is killed by his step-mother, who serves him +up as a dish of meat to his father. The father eats in +ignorance, and throws away the bones, which are +gathered up by the little half-sister, who puts them +into her best silk handkerchief and buries them under +a juniper tree. Presently a bird of gay plumage +perches on the tree, and whistles as it flits from branch +to branch—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Min moder de mi slach't,</p> +<p>Min fader de mi att,</p> +<p>Min swester de Marleenken</p> +<p>Söcht alle mine Beeniken,</p> +<p>Und bindt sie in een syden Dook</p> +<p>Legst unner den Machandelboom;</p> +<p>Ky witt! ky witt! Ach watt en schön vagel bin ich!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>—a rhyme which Goethe puts into the mouth of +Gretchen in prison. In the German story the step-mother's +brains are knocked out by the fall of a mill-stone, +and the bird-boy is restored to human form; +but in a Scotch variant the last event does not take +place. It may have been thrown in by some narrator +who had a weakness for a plot which ends well. All +these wonder-tales had probably an original connection +with a belief in the transmigration of souls. In +truth, the people's <i>Märchen</i> are rooted nearly always +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page11" id="page11"></a>11</span> +on some article of ancient faith: that is why they have +so long a life. Faith vitalizes poetry or legend or art; +and what once lived takes a great time to die. Now +that the beliefs which fostered them have gone into +the lumber-room of disused religions, the old wonder-tales +still have a freshness and a horror which cannot +be found even in the best of brand-new "made-up" +stories.</p> + +<p>Another reason why the dead come back is to fulfil +a promise. The Greek mother of the Kleft song has +nine sons and one only daughter. She bathes her in +the darkness, her hair she combs in the light, she +dresses her beneath the shining of the moon. A +stranger from Bagdad has asked her in marriage, and +Constantine, one of the sons, counsels his mother to +give her to the stranger. "Thou art wont to be prudent, +but in this thou art senseless," says the mother. +"Who will bring her back to me if there be joy or +sorrow?" Constantine gives her God as surety, and +all the saints and martyrs, that if there be sorrow or +joy he will bring her back. In two years all the nine +sons die, and when it is Constantine's turn, the mother +leans over his body and tears her hair. Fain would +she have back her daughter Arete, and behold Constantine +lies dead. At midnight Constantine gets up +and goes to where his sister dwells, and bids Arete to +follow him. She asks what has happened, but he tells +her nothing. While they journey along the birds +sing: "See you that lovely girl riding with the dead?" +Then Arete asks her brother if he heard what the +birds said. "They are only birds," he answers; "never +mind them." She says her brother has such an odour +of incense that it fills her with fear, "It is only," he +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page12" id="page12"></a>12</span> +says, "because we passed the evening in the chapel of +St John." When they reach their home, the mother +opens the portal and sees the dead and the living come +in together, and her soul leaves her body. The motive +of a ride with the dead, made familiar by the "Erl +König" and Burgher's "Lenore," can be traced through +endless variations in folk-poesy.</p> + +<p>In the Swedish ballad of "Little Christina," a lover +rises from his grave, not to carry off his beloved, but +simply to console her. One night Christina hears +light fingers tapping at her door; she opens it, and +her dead betrothed comes in. She washes his feet +with pure wine, and for a long while they speak together. +Then the cocks begin to crow, and the dead +get them underground. The young girl puts on her +shoes and follows her betrothed through the wide +forest. When they reach the graveyard, the fair hair +of the young man begins to disappear. "See, maiden," +he says, "how the moon has reddened all at once; +even so, in a moment, thy beloved will vanish." She +sits down on the tomb and says: "I shall remain here +till the Lord calls me." Then she hears the voice of +her betrothed saying to her: "Little Christina, go +back to thy dwelling-place. Every time a tear falls +from thine eyes my shroud is full of blood. Every +time thy heart is gay, my shroud is full of rose +leaves."</p> + +<p>If the display of excessive grief is thus shown to be +only grievous to the dead, yet they are held to be +keenly sensible of a lack of due and decorous respect. +Such respect they generally get from rough or savage +natures, unless it be denied out of intentional scorn or +enmity. There is a factory in England where common +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page13" id="page13"></a>13</span> +men are employed to manipulate large importations +of bones for agricultural uses. Each cargo contains +a certain quantity of bones which are very obviously +human. These the workmen sort out, and when they +have got a heap they bury it, and ask the manager to +read over it some passages from the Burial Service. +They do it of their own free will and initiative; were +they hindered, they would very likely leave the works. +Shall it be called foolish or sublime? Another curious +instance of respect to the dead comes to my mind. +On board ship two cannon balls are ordinarily sewed +up with a body to sink it. Once a negro died at sea, +and his fellows, negroes also, took him in a boat and +rowed a long way to a place where they were to commit +him to the deep. After a while the boat returned +to the ship, still with its burden. The explanation +was soon made. The negroes discovered that they +had only one cannon ball, they had rowed back for +the other. One would have been quite enough to +answer all purposes; but it seemed to them disrespectful +to their comrade to cheat him out of half +his due.</p> + +<p>The dead particularly object to people treading +carelessly on their graves. So we learn from one of +the songs of Greek outlawry.</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>All Saturday we held carouse, and far through Sunday night,</p> +<p>And on the Monday morn we found our wine expended quite.</p> +<p>To seek for more without delay the captain made me go;</p> +<p>I ne'er had seen nor known the way, nor had a guide to show.</p> +<p>And so through solitary roads and secret paths I sped,</p> +<p>Which to a little ivied church long time deserted led.</p> +<p>This church was full of tombs, and all by gallant men possest;</p> +<p>One sepulchre stood all alone, apart from all the rest.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page14" id="page14"></a>14</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>I did not see it, and I trod above the dead man's bones,</p> +<p>And as from out the nether world came up a sound of groans.</p> +<p>What ails thee, sepulchre? why thus so deeply groan and sigh?</p> +<p>Doth the earth press, or the black stone weigh on thee heavily?</p> +<p>"Neither the earth doth press me down, nor black stone do me scath,</p> +<p>But I with bitter grief am wrung, and full of shame and wrath,</p> +<p>That thou dost trample on my head, and I am scorned in death.</p> +<p>Perhaps I was not also young, nor brave and stout in fight,</p> +<p>Nor wont as thou, beneath the moon, to wander through the night."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Egil Skallagrimson, after his son was drowned, +resolved to let himself die of hunger. Thorgerd, his +daughter, came to him and prayed hard of him that +he would sing. Touched by her affection, he made +an effort, gathered up his ideas, dressed them in +images, expressed them in song; and as he sang, his +regrets softened, and in the end his soul became so +calm that he was satisfied to live. In this beautiful +saga lies the secret of folk-elegies. The people find +comfort in singing. A Czech maiden asks of the +dark woods how they can be as green in winter as in +summer; as for her, she cannot help vexing her +heart. "But who would not weep in my place? +Where is my father, my beloved father? The sandy +plain is his winding-sheet. Where is my mother, my +good mother? The grass grows over her. I have no +brother and no sister, and they have taken away my +friend." Of a certainty when she had sung, her vexed +heart was lighter. "Seul a un synonym: mort." +Yes, but he who sings is scarcely alone, even though +there be only the waving pine woods to answer with a +sigh. The most passionate laments of the Sclavonic +race are for father and mother. If a Little Russian +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page15" id="page15"></a>15</span> +loses both his parents his despair is such that it often +drives him forth a wanderer on the face of the earth. +One so bereft cries out, "Dear mother, why didst +thou suffer me to see the day? Why didst thou +bring me into the world without obtaining for me by +thy prayers a portion of its blessings? My father +and my mother are dead, and with them my country. +Why was I left a wretched orphan? Oh, could I +find a being miserable as myself that we might sympathize +one with the other!" The birth-ties of +kindred are reckoned the only strong ones. Some +Russian lines, translated by Mr Ralston, indicate the +degrees of mourning:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>There weeps his mother—as a river runs;</p> +<p>There weeps his sister—as a streamlet flows;</p> +<p>There weeps his youthful wife—as falls the dew;</p> +<p>The sun will rise and gather up the dew.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>A Servian <i>pesma</i> illustrates the same idea. Young +Tövo has the misfortune to break his arm. A doctor +is fetched—no other than a Vila of the mountain. +The wily sprite demands in guerdon for the cure the +right hand of the mother, the sister's long hair, with +the ribbons that bind it, the pearl necklace of the +wife. Quickly the mother sacrifices her right hand, +quickly the sister cuts off her much-prized braid, but +the wife says, "Give up my white pearls that my +father gave me? Not I!" The Vila waxes angry +and poisons Tövo's blood. When he is dead three +women fall "a-kookooing"—one groans without +ceasing; one sobs at dawn and dusk; one weeps just +now and then when it comes into her head so to do. +As the cuckoo is supposed to be a sister mourning +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page16" id="page16"></a>16</span> +for her brother, kookooing has come to mean +lamenting. The Servian girl who has lately lost +her brother cannot hear the cuckoo's note without +weeping. In popular poetry the love of sister for +brother takes precedence even of the love of mother +for child. Not only does Gudrun in the Elder Edda +esteem the murder of her first lord, the god-like +Sigurd, to be of less importance than that of her +brothers, but also to avenge their deaths, she has no +scruple in slaying both her second husband and her +own sons. A Bulgarian ballad shows in still more +striking light the relative value set on the lives of +child and brother. There was a certain man named +Negul, whose head was in danger. The folk-poet is +careful to express no sort of censure upon his hero, +but the boasts he is made to utter are sufficient guides +to his character. Great numbers of Turks has he put +to flight, and yet more women has he killed of those +who would not follow him meekly as his wives. +"And now," he adds plaintively, "a misfortune has +befallen me which I have done nothing at all to +deserve." His sister Milenka hears him bemoaning +his fate, and at once she says to him, "Brother Negul, +Negul, my brother, do not disturb yourself, do not +distress yourself; I have nine sons, nine sons and one +daughter; the youngest of all is Lalo; him will I +sacrifice to save you; I will sacrifice him so that you +may remain to me." This was the promise of Milenka. +Then she hastened to her own home and prepared +hot meats and set flasks of golden wine wherewith to +feast her sons. "Eat and drink together," she said, +"and kiss one another's hands, for Lalo is going away +to be groomsman to his Uncle Negul. Let your +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page17" id="page17"></a>17</span> +mother see you all assembled, and serve you each in +turn with ruddy wine and with smoking viands." +For the others she did not wholly fill the glass, but +Lalo's glass she filled to the brim. Meanwhile Elka, +Lalo's sister, made ready his clothes for the journey; +and as she busied about it, the little girl cried because +Lalo was going to be groomsman, and they had not +asked her to be bridesmaid. Lalo said to Elka, +"Elka, my little only sister, do not cry so, sister; do +not be so vexed; we are nine brothers, and one of +these days you will surely act as bridesmaid." The +words were hardly spoken when the headsmen reached +the door. They took Lalo, the groomsman, and they +chopped off his head in place of his Uncle Negul's.</p> + +<p>A new and different world is entered when we +follow the folk-poet upon the wrestling-ground of +Death and Love. If I have judged rightly, there +were songs of death before there were any other love +songs than those of the nightingale; but the folk-poet +was still young when he learnt to sing of love, and the +love poet found out early that his lyre was incomplete +without the string of death. In all folk-poetry can +be plainly heard that music of love and death which +may be said almost to have been the dominant note +that sounded through the literature of the ages of +romance. Sometimes the victory is given to death, +sometimes to love; in one song love, while yielding, +conquers. Folk-poetry has not anything more instinct +with the quality of intensity than is this "Last +Request" of a Greek robber-lover—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>When thou shalt hear that I am ill,</p> +<p class="i2">O my well-beloved! he said,</p> +<p>O come to me, and quickly come,</p> +<p class="i2">Or thou wilt find me dead.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page18" id="page18"></a>18</span> +<p>And when that thou hast reached the house,</p> +<p class="i2">And the great gates passed through,</p> +<p>Then, O my well-beloved, the braids</p> +<p class="i2">Of thy bright hair undo.</p> +<p>And to my mother say straightway,</p> +<p class="i2">Tell me, where is your son?</p> +<p>My son is lying on his bed</p> +<p class="i2">In his chamber all alone.</p> +<p>Then mount the stairs, O my well-beloved,</p> +<p class="i2">And come your lover anigh,</p> +<p>And smooth my pillow that I may</p> +<p class="i2">Raise me a little high,</p> +<p>And hold my head up in thy hands</p> +<p class="i2">Till flies away my soul.</p> +<p>And when thou seest the priest arrive,</p> +<p class="i2">And dress him in his stole,</p> +<p>Then place, my well-beloved, a kiss</p> +<p class="i2">On my lips pale and cold;</p> +<p>And when four youths shall lift me up,</p> +<p class="i2">And on their shoulders hold,</p> +<p>Then shalt thou, O my well-beloved,</p> +<p class="i2">Cast at them many a stone.</p> +<p>And when they reach thy neighbourhood</p> +<p class="i2">And by thy house pass on,</p> +<p>Then, O my well-beloved, thy hair,</p> +<p class="i2">Thy golden tresses cut;</p> +<p>And when they reach the church's gate,</p> +<p class="i2">And there my coffin put,</p> +<p>Then as the hen her feathers plucks,</p> +<p class="i2">So pluck thy hair for me.</p> +<p>And when my dirges all are done,</p> +<p class="i2">And lights extinguished be,</p> +<p>Then shall my heart, O well-beloved,</p> +<p class="i2">Still be possessed of thee.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>We hardly notice the adventitious part of it—the +ancient custom of tearing off the hair, the strange +stone-casting at the youths who represent Charon; +our attention is absorbed by what is the essence of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page19" id="page19"></a>19</span> +the song: passion which has burned itself into pure +fire. Greek folk-poetry shows a blending together of +southern emotions with an imaginative fervour, a +prophetic power that is rather of the East than of the +South. No Tuscan ploughman, for instance, could +seize the idea of the Greek folk-poet of possessing his +living love in death. If the Tuscan thinks of a union +in the grave, it can only be attained by the one who +remains joining the one who is gone—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>O friendly soil,</p> +<p>Soil that doth hold my love in thine embrace,</p> +<p>Soon as for me shall end life's war and toil</p> +<p>Beneath thy sod I too would have a place;</p> +<p>Where my love is, there do I long to be,</p> +<p>Where now my heart is buried far from me—</p> +<p>Yes, where my love is gone I long to go,</p> +<p>Robbed of my heart I bear too deep a woe.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>This stringer of pretty conceits fails to convince us +that he is very much in earnest in his wish to die. +Speaking in the sincerity of prose, the Tuscan says, +"Ogni cosa è meglio che la morte." He does not +believe in the nothingness of life. In his worst +troubles he still feels that all his faculties, all his +senses, are made for pleasure. Death is to him the +affair of a not cheerful religious ceremony—a cross +borne before a black draped bier, and bells tolling +dolefully.</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>I hear Death's step, I see him at my side,</p> +<p>I feel his bony fingers clasp me round;</p> +<p>I see the church's door is open wide,</p> +<p>And for the dead I hear the knell resound.</p> +<p>I see the cross and the black pall outspread;</p> +<p>Love, thou dost lead me whither lie the dead!</p> +<p>I see the cross, the winding-sheet I see;</p> +<p>Love, to the graveyard thou art leading me!</p> + </div> </div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page20" id="page20"></a>20</span> + +<p>Going further south, a stage further is reached in +crude externality of vision. People of the South are +the only born realists. To them that comes natural +which in others is either affectation or the fruits of +what the French call <i>l'amour du laid</i>—a morbid love +of the hideous, such as marred the fine genius of +Baudelaire. At Naples death is a matter of corruption +naked in the sunlight. When the Neapolitan +takes his mandoline amongst the tombs he unveils +their sorry secrets, not because he gloats over them, +but because the habit of a reserve of speech is entirely +undeveloped in him. He dares to sing thus of his +lost love—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Her lattice ever lit no light displays.</p> +<p>My Nella! can it be that you are ill?</p> +<p>Her sister from the window looks and says:</p> +<p>"Your Nella in the grave lies cold and still.</p> +<p>Ofttimes she wept to waste her life unwed,</p> +<p>And now, poor child, she sleeps beside the dead."</p> +<p>Go to the church and lift the winding-sheet,</p> +<p>Gaze on my Nella's face—how changed, alas!</p> +<p>See 'twixt those lips whence issued flowers so sweet</p> +<p>Now loathsome worms (ah! piteous sight!) do pass.</p> +<p>Priest, let it be your care, and promise me,</p> +<p>That evermore her lamp shall lighted be.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The song beats with the pulses of the people's life—the +life of a people swift in gesture, in action, in living, +in dying: always in a hurry, as if one must be quick +for the catastrophe is coming. They are all here: +the lover waiting in the street for some sign or word; +the girl leaning <ins title="Transcriber's Note: sic">out of window</ins> to tell her piece of +news; the "poor child" who had drunk of the lava +stream of love; the dead lying uncoffined in the +church to be gazed upon by who will; the priest to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page21" id="page21"></a>21</span> +whom are given those final instructions: pious, and +yet how uncomforting, how unilluminated by hope or +even aspiration! Here there is no thought of reunion. +A kind-hearted German woman once tried to console +a young Neapolitan whose lover was dead, by +saying that they might meet in Paradise. "In Paradise?" +she answered, opening her large black eyes; +"Ah! signora, in Paradise people do not marry."</p> + +<p>The coming back or reappearance of a lover, in +whose absence his beloved has died, is a subject that +has been made use of by the folk-poets of every +country, and nothing can be more characteristic of the +nationalities to which they belong than the divergences +which mark their treatment of it. Northern +singers turn the narrative of the event into half a fairy +tale. On the banks of the Moldau we are introduced +to a joyous youth, returning with glad steps to his +native village. "My pretty girls, my doves, is my +friend cutting oats with you?" he asks of a group of +girls working in the fields near his home. "Only +yesterday," they reply, "his friend was buried." He +begs them to tell him by which path they bore her +away. It is a road edged with rosemary; everybody +knows it—it leads to the new cemetery. Thither he +goes, thrice he wanders round the place, the third +time he hears a voice crying, "Who is it treads on +my grave and breaks the rest of the dead?" "It +is I, thy friend," he says, and he bids her rise up +and look on him. She says she cannot, she is too +weak, her heart is lifeless, her hands and feet are like +stones. But the gravedigger has left his spade hard +by; with it her friend can shovel away the earth +that holds her down. He does what she tells him; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page22" id="page22"></a>22</span> +when the earth is lifted he beholds her stretched out +at full length, a frozen maiden crowned with rosemary. +He asks to whom has she bequeathed his gifts. +She answers that her mother has them; he must +go and beg them of her. Then shall he throw the +little scarf upon a bush, and there will be an end to +his love. And the silver ring he shall cast into the +sea, and there will be an end to his grief. On the +shores of the Wener it is Lord Malmstein who wakes +before dawn from a dream that his beloved's heart is +breaking. "Up, up, my little page, saddle the grey; +I must know how it fares with my love." He mounts +the horse and gallops into the forests. Of a sudden +two little maids stand in his path; one wears a dress +of blue, and hails him with the words: "God keep +you, Lord Malmstein; what bale awaits you!" The +other is dight in red, and of her Lord Malmstein asks, +"Who is ill, and who is dead?" "No one is ill, no +one is dead, save only the betrothed of Malmstein." +He makes haste to reach the village; on the way he +meets the bier of his betrothed. Swiftly he leaps +from the saddle; he pulls from off his finger rings of +fine gold, and throws them to the gravedigger—"Delve +a grave deep and wide, for therein we will +walk together." His face turns red and white, and he +deals a mortal blow at his heart. This Swedish +Malmstein not only figures as the reappearing lover; +he is also one of that familiar pair whom death +unites. In an ancient Romansch ballad the story is +simply an episode of peasant life. A young Engadiner +girl is forced by her father to marry a man of the +village of Surselva, but all the while her troth is +plighted to a youth from the village of Schams. On +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page23" id="page23"></a>23</span> +the road to Surselva the lover joins the bride and +bridegroom unknown to the latter. When they reach +the place the people declare that they have never +seen so fair a woman as the youthful bride. Her +husband's father and mother greet her saying, +"Daughter, be thou welcome to our house!" But +she answers, "No, I have never been your daughter, +nor do I hope ever to be; for the time is near when +I must die." Then her brothers and sisters greet her +saying, "O sister, be thou welcome to our house!" +"No," she says, "I have never been your sister, nor +do I ever hope to be; for the time comes when I +must die. Only one kindness I ask of you, give me +a room where I may rest." They lead her to her +chamber, they try to comfort her with sweet words; +but the more they would befriend her, the more does +the young bride turn her mind away from this world. +Her lover is by her side, and to him she says, "O my +beloved, greet my father and my mother; tell them +that perhaps they have rejoiced their hearts, but sure +it is they have broken mine." She turns her face to +the wall and her soul returns to God. "O my +beloved," cries the lover, "as thou diest, and diest for +me, for thee will I gladly die." He throws himself +upon the bed, and his soul follows hers. As the clock +struck two they carried her to the grave, as the clock +struck three they came for him; the marriage bells +rang them to their rest; the chimes of Schams +answering back the chimes of Surselva. From the +grave mound of the girl grew a camomile plant, from +the grave mound of the youth a plant of musk; and +for the great love they bore one another even the +flowers twined together and embraced.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page24" id="page24"></a>24</span> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Uoi, i sül tömbel da quella bella</p> +<p>Craschiva sü üna flur da chiaminella;</p> +<p>Uoi, i sül tömbel da que bel mat</p> +<p>Craschiva sü üna flur nusch muschiat;</p> +<p>Per tant grond bain cha queus dus as leivan,</p> +<p>Parfin las fluors insemmel as brancleivan.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>It is a sign of a natural talent for democracy when +the people like better to tell stories about themselves +than to discuss the fortunes of prince or princess. +The devoted lovers are more often to be looked for +in the immediate neighbourhood of a court. So it is +in the ballad of Count Nello of Portugal. Count +Nello brings his horse to bathe; while the horse +drinks, the Count sings. It was already very dark—the +King could not recognise him. The poor Infanta +knew not whether to laugh or to cry. "Be quiet, my +daughter; listen and thou wilt hear a beautiful song. +It is an angel singing, or the siren in the sea." "No, +it is no angel in heaven, nor is it the siren of the sea; +it is Count Nello, my father, he who fain would wed +me." "Who speaks of Count <ins title="Transcriber's Note: 'Nella' is genitive of 'Nello'">Nella</ins> who dare name +him, the rebel vassal whom I have exiled?" "My +Lord, mine only is the fault; you should punish me +alone; I cannot live without him; it is I who have +made him come." "Hold thy peace, traitress; before +day dawns thou shalt see his head cut off." "The +headsman who slays him may prepare for me too; +there where you dig his grave dig mine also." For +whom are the bells tolling? Count Nello is dead; +the Infanta is like to die. The two graves are open; +behold! they lay the Count near the porch of the +church and the Infanta at the foot of the altar. On +one grave grows a cypress, on the other an orange +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page25" id="page25"></a>25</span> +tree; one grows, the other grows; their branches join +and kiss. The king, when he hears of it, orders them +both to be cut down. From the cypress flows noble +blood, from the orange tree blood royal; from one +flies forth a dove, from the other a wood-pigeon. +When the king sits at table the birds perch before +him. "Ill luck upon their fondness," he cries, "ill +luck upon their love! Neither in life nor in death +have I been able to divide them." The musk and +the camomile of Switzerland, the cypress and the +orange tree of Portugal, are the cypress and the reed +of the Greek folk-song, the thorn and olive of the +Norman <i>chanson</i>, the rose and the briar of the English +ballad, the vine and the rose of the Tristram and +Iseult story. Through the world they tell their +tale—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Amor condusse noi ad una morte.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The death of heroes has provided an inexhaustible +theme for folk-poets. The chief or partisan leader +had his complement in the skald or bard or roving +ballad-singer; if the one acted, turned tribes into +nations, cut out history, the other sang, published his +fame, gave his exploits to the future, preserved to his +people the remembrance of his dying words. The +poetry of hero-worship, beginning on Homeric heights, +descends to the "lytell gestes" of all sorts and conditions +of more or less respectable and patriotic outlaws +and <i>condottieri</i>, whose "passing" is often the +most honourable point in their career. On the principle +which has been followed—that of letting the +folk-poet speak for himself, and show what are his +ideas and his impressions after his own manner and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page26" id="page26"></a>26</span> +in his own language—I will take three death scenes +from amongst the less known of those recorded in +popular verse. The first is Scandinavian. What ails +Hjalmar the Icelander? Why is his face so pale? +The Norse Warrior answers: "Sixteen wounds +have I, and my armour is shattered. All things +grow black in my sight; I reel in walking; the +bloody sword of Agantyr has pierced my heart. Had +I five houses in the fields I could not dwell in one of +them; I must abide at Samsa, hopeless and mortally +wounded. At Upsal, in the halls of Josur, many Jarls +quaff joyously the foaming ale, many Jarls exchange +hot words; but as for me, I am here in this island, +struck down by the point of the sword. The white +daughter of Hilmer accompanied my steps to Aganfik +beyond the reefs; her words are come true, for she +said I should return no more. Draw off my finger +the ring of ruddy gold, bear it to my youthful Ingebrog, +it will remind her that she will see me never +more. In the east upsoars the raven; after him the +mightier eagle wings his way. I will be meat for the +eagle and my heart's blood his drink." One backward +look to all that was the joy of his life—the feast, +the fight, the woman he loved—and then a calm facing +of the end. This is how the Norseman died. The +Greek hero, who dies peaceably in the ripeness of +old age, meets his doom with even less trouble of +spirit—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>The sun sank down behind the hill,</p> +<p class="i2">And Dimos faintly said,</p> +<p>'Go, children, fetch your evening meal—</p> +<p class="i2">The water and the bread.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page27" id="page27"></a>27</span> +<p>Thou, Lamprakis, my brother's son,</p> +<p class="i2">Come hither, by me stand,</p> +<p>And arm me with my weapons,</p> +<p class="i2">And be captain of the band.</p> +<p>And, children, take my dear old sword</p> +<p class="i2">That I no more shall sway,</p> +<p>And cut the green boughs from the trees</p> +<p class="i2">And there my body lay;</p> +<p>And hither bring a priestly man</p> +<p class="i2">To whom I may confess,</p> +<p>That I may tell him all my sins,</p> +<p class="i2">And he forgive and bless.</p> +<p>For thirty years a soldier,</p> +<p class="i2">Twenty years a kleft was I;</p> +<p>Now death o'ertakes and seizes me,</p> +<p class="i2">'Tis finished, I must die.</p> +<p>And be ye sure ye make my grave</p> +<p class="i2">Of ample height and large,</p> +<p>That in it I may stand upright,</p> +<p class="i2">Or lie my gun to charge.</p> +<p>And to the right a lattice make,</p> +<p class="i2">A passage for the day,</p> +<p>Where the swallow, bringing springtide,</p> +<p class="i2">May dart about and play,</p> +<p>And the nightingale, sweet singer,</p> +<p class="i2">Tell the happy month of May.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The slight natural touches—the eagle soaring against +the sunrise, the nightingale singing through the May +nights—suggest an intuition of the will-of-the-wisp +affinity between nature and human chances which +seems for ever on the point of being seized, but which +for ever eludes the mental grasp. We think of the +"brown bird" in the noble "Funeral Song" of one +who would have been a magnificent folk-poet, had he +not learnt to write and read—Walt Whitman.</p> + +<p>My third specimen is a Piedmontese ballad composed +probably about a hundred and fifty years ago, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page28" id="page28"></a>28</span> +and still very popular. Count Nigra ascertained the +existence of eight or more variants. A German +soldier, known in Italy as the Baron Lodrone, took +arms under the house of Savoy, in whose service he +presently died. "In Turin," begins the ballad, +"counts and barons and noble dames mourn for the +death of the Baron Lodrone." The king went to +Cuneo to visit his dying soldier; drums and cannons +greeted his approach. He spoke kind words to the +sick man: "Courage, thou wilt not die, and I will +give thee the supreme command." "There is no +commander who can stand against death," answered +the baron. Now Lodrone was a Protestant, and +when the king was convinced that he must die, he +exhorted him to conversion, saying that he himself +would stand his sponsor. Lodrone replied that that +could not be. The king did not insist; he only +asked him where he would be buried, and promised +him a sepulchre of gold. He answered—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Mi lasserü për testament</p> +<p>Ch 'a mi sotero an val d' Lüserna,</p> +<p>An val d' Lüserna a m sotraran</p> +<p>Dova l me cör s'arposa tan!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>He does not care for a golden sepulchre, but he +"leaves for testament" that his body may lie in Val +Luserna, "where my heart rests so well!" The valley +of Luserna was the seat of the Vaudois faith in the +"alpine mountains cold," watered with martyr blood +only a little while before Lodrone lived. To read +these four simple lines after the fantasia of wild or +whimsical guesses, passionate longing, unresisted +despair, insatiable curiosity, that death has been seen +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page29" id="page29"></a>29</span> +to create or inspire, is like going out of a public place +with its multiform and voluble presentment of men +and things into the aisles of a small church which +would lie silent but that unseen hands pass over the +organ keys.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page30" id="page30"></a>30</span> + +<h2>NATURE IN FOLK-SONGS.</h2> + +<p>Nature, like music, does not initially make us think, +it makes us feel. A midnight scene in the Alps, a +sunrise on the Mediterranean, suspends at the moment +of contemplating it all thought in pure emotion. +Afterwards, however, thought comes back and asks +for a reason for the emotion that has been felt. Man +at an early age began to try and explain, or give a +tangible shape, to the feelings wrought in him by +Nature. In the first place he called the things that +he saw gods, "because the things are beautiful that +are seen." Later on, seers and myth-makers resigned +their birthright into the hands of poets, who became +henceforth the interpreters between nature and man. +A small piece of this succession fell away from the +great masters of the world's song, and was picked up +almost unconsciously by the obscure and nameless +folk-singer. Comparative folk-lore has shown that +men have everywhere the same customs, the same +superstitions, the same games. The study of folk-songs +will go far to show that if they have not likewise +a complete community of taste and sentiment, +yet even in these, the finer fibres of their being, there +is less of difference and more of analogy than has +been hitherto supposed. Folk-songs prove, for instance, +that the modern unschooled man is not so +utterly ignorant of natural beauty as many of us have +imagined him to be. Only we must not go from the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page31" id="page31"></a>31</span> +extreme of expecting nothing to the extreme of expecting +too much; it has to be borne in mind that at +best folk-poesy is rather the stammering speech of +children than a mature eloquence.</p> + +<p>It is a common idea that, until the other day, +mountains were looked upon with positive aversion. +Still we know that there were always men who felt +the power of the hills: the men who lived in the hills. +When they were kept too long in the plain without +hope of return they sickened and died; when a vivid +picture of their mountains was of a sudden brought +up before them, they lost control over their actions. +By force of association the sound of the <i>Kuhreihen</i> +could doubtless give the Switzer a vision of the white +peak, the milky torrent, the chalet with slanting roof, +the cows tripping down the green Alp to their night +quarters. It is disappointing to find that the words +accompanying the famous cow-call are as a rule mere +nonsense. The first observation which the genuine +folk-poet makes about mountains is the sufficiently +self-evident one, that they form a wall between himself +and the people on the further side. The old +Pyrenean balladist seized the political significance of +this: "When God created those mountains," he said, +"He did not mean that men should cross them." +Very often the mountain wall is spoken of as a barrier +which separates lovers. The Gascon peasants have +an adaptation of Gaston Phoebus' romance:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Aqueros mountines</p> +<p class="i2">Qui ta haoutes soun,</p> +<p>M'empechen de bede</p> +<p class="i2">Mas arnous oun soun.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>In Bohemia the simple countryman poetises after +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page32" id="page32"></a>32</span> +much the same fashion as the Gascon cavalier: +"Mountain, mountain, thou art very high! My +friend, thou art far off, far beyond the mountains. +Our love will fade yet more and yet more; there is +nothing left for me; in this world no pleasantness +remains." Another Czech singer laments that he is +not where his thought is; if only the mountains did +not stand between them, he would see his beloved +walking in the garden and plucking blue flowers. He +tries what a prayer will do: "Mountains, black +mountains, step aside, so I may get my good friend +for wife." In similar terms the native of Friuli begs +the dividing range to stoop so he may look upon his +love. Among Italian folk-poets the Friulian is foremost +as a lover of the greater heights; he turns to +them habitually in his moments of poetic inspiration, +and, as he says, their echoes repeat his sighs. It +must be admitted that the Tuscan, on the contrary, +feels small sympathy with high mountains; if he +speaks of one he is careful to call it <i>aspra</i>, or rough +and bitter. But he yields to no man in his delight +in the lesser hills, the <i>be' poggioli</i> of his fair birthland. +Even if an intervening hillock divides him from his +beloved he speaks of the barrier tenderly rather than +sadly: "O sun, thou that goest over the hill-top, do +me a kindness if thou canst—greet my love whom I +have not seen to-day. O sun, thou that goest over +the pear-trees, greet those black eyes. O sun, thou +that goest over the small ash-trees, greet those beautiful +eyes!" A maiden sings to herself, "I see what I +see and I see not what I would; I see the leaves +flying in the air and I do not see my love turn back +from the hill-top. I do not see him turn back.... +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page33" id="page33"></a>33</span> +that beautiful face has gone over the hill." A youth +tells all his story in these few words: "As I passed +over the mountain-crest thy beautiful name came +into my mind; I fell upon my knees and I joined my +hands, and to have left thee seemed a sin. I fell +upon my knees on the hard stones; may our love +come back as of yore!" These are pure love-songs; +not by any means descriptions of scenery, and yet +how much of the Tuscan landscape lives in them!</p> + +<p>Almost the only folk-song which is avowedly descriptive +of a mountain, comes from South Greenland:—</p> + +<blockquote><p> +The great Koonak Mount yonder south I do behold it. The +great Koonak Mount yonder south I regard it. The shining +brightness yonder south I contemplate. Outside of Koonak it +is expanding; the same that Koonak towards the sea-side doth +encompass. Behold how yonder south they tend to beautify +each other; while from the sea-side it is enveloped in sheets +still changing; from the sea-side it is enveloped to mutual +embellishment. +</p></blockquote> + +<p>At the first reading all this may seem incoherent; +at the second or third we begin to see the scene +gradually rising before us; the masses of sea-born +cloud sweeping on and up at dawn or sunset, till, +finding their passage barred, they enwrap the obstacle +in folds of golden vapour. It is singular that the +Eskimo is incessantly gazing southwards; can it be +that he, too, is dimly sensible of what a great writer +has called "<i>la fatigue du Nord</i>"?</p> + +<p>Incidental mention of the varying aspects of peak +and upland is common enough in popular songs. +The Bavarian peasant notices the clearness of the +heights while mist hangs over the valley:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Im Thal ist der Nebel</p> +<p>Auf der Alm is schon klar ...</p> + </div> </div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page34" id="page34"></a>34</span> + +<p>The Basque observes the "misty summits;" the +Greek sees the cloud hurrying to the heights "like +winged messengers." There is the closest intimacy +between the Greek and his mountains. When he has +won a victory for freedom, they cry aloud, "God is +great!" When he is in sorrow he pines for them as +for the society of friends: "Why am I not near the +hills? Why have I not the mountains to keep me +company?" A sick Kleft cries to the birds, "Birds, +shall I ever be cured? Birds, shall I recover my +strength?" To which the birds reply just as might +a fashionable physician who recommends his patient +to try Pontresina: "If thou wouldst be cured, if thou +wouldst have thy wounds close up, go thou to the +heights of Olympus, to the beautiful uplands where +the strong man never suffers, where the suffering +regain their strength." This fine figure of speech +also occurs in a Kleft song: "The plains thirst for +water, the mountains thirst for snow."</p> + +<p>The effect of light on his native ice-fields has not +escaped the Switzer: "The sun shines on the glacier, +and in the heavens shine the stars; O thou, my +chiefest joy, how I love thee!" A Czech balladist +describes two chieftains travelling towards the sunrise, +with mountains to the right and to the left, on +whose summit stands the dawn. Again, he represents +a band of warriors halting on the spurs of the +forest, while before them lies Prague, silent and +asleep, with the Veltava shrouded in morning mist; +beyond, the mountains turn blue; beyond the mountains +the east is illuminated. In Bohemia mountains +are spoken of as blue or grey or shadowy; in Servia +they are invariably called green. Servians and Bulgarians +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page35" id="page35"></a>35</span> +cannot conceive a mountain that is not a +wood or a wood that is not a mountain; with them +the two words mean one and the same thing. The +charm and beauty of the combination of hill and +forest are often dwelt upon in the Balkan brigand +songs; outlaws and their poets have been among the +keenest appreciators of nature. Who thinks of Robin +Hood apart from the greenwood tree? Who but has +smelt the very fragrance of the woods as he said over +the lines?—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"In somer when the shawes be sheyn</p> +<p class="i2">And leves be large and long,</p> +<p>Hit is full merry in feyre foreste</p> +<p class="i2">To here the foulys song."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The Sclav or semi-Sclav bandit has not got the +high moral qualities of our "most gentle theefe," but, +like him, he has suffered the heat, the cold, the +hunger, the fatigue of a life in the good greenwood, +and, like him, he has tasted its joys. Take the ballad +called the "Wintering of the Heidukes." Three +friends sit drinking together in the mountains under +the trees; they sip the ruddy wine, and discuss what +they shall do in the coming winter, when the leaves +have fallen and only the naked forest is left. Each +decides where he will go, and the last one says: "So +soon as the sad winter is passed, when the forest is +clad again in leaves and the earth in grass and flowers, +when the birds sing in the bushes on the banks of the +Save and the wolves are heard in the hills—then shall +we meet as to-day." Spring returns, the forest is +decked again with leaves, the black earth with flowers +and grass, the bird sings in the bush, the wolves howl +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page36" id="page36"></a>36</span> +on the rocky heights; two of the friends meet at the +trysting place—the third comes not; he has been +slain. This is only one <i>Pesma</i> out of a hundred in +which the mountain background is faithfully sketched. +Sometimes the forest figures as a personage. The +Balkan mountaineer more than half believes that as +he loves it, so does it love him. The instinct which +insists that "love exempteth nothing loved from love" +has been a great myth-germinator, and when myths +die out, it still finds some niche in the mind of man +wherein to abide. It may seem foolish when applied +to inanimate objects; it must seem false in its human +application: but reasoning will not kill it. Is there +some truth unperceived behind the apparent fallacy? +The Balkan brigand cares little for such speculations; +all that he tells us is that when he speaks to the +greenwood, it most surely answers him in a soft low +voice. The Bulgarian "Farewell of Liben the brave" +is a good specimen of the dialogues between the +forest and its wild denizens. Standing on the top of +the Hodja Balkan, Liben cries aloud, "Forest, O +green forest, and ye cool waters! dost thou remember, +O forest, how often I have roamed about thee with +my following of young comrades bearing aloft my red +banner?" Many are the mothers, the wives, and the +little orphans whom Liben has made desolate so that +they curse him. Now must he bid farewell to the +mountain, for he is going home to his mother who +will affiance him to the daughter of the Pope Nicholas. +"The forest speaks to no one, yet to Liben she +replies." Enough has he roamed with his braves; +enough has he borne his red banner along the summit +of the old mountain, and under fresh and tufted shade, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page37" id="page37"></a>37</span> +and over moist green moss. Many are the mothers, +the wives, and the little orphans, who curse the forest +for his sake. Till now he has had the old mountain +for mother; for love, the greenwood clothed in tufted +foliage and freshened by the cool breeze. The grass +was his bed, the leaves of the trees his coverlet; his +drink came from the pure brook, for him the wood-birds +sang. "Rejoice," sang the wood-birds, "for +thee the wood is gay; the mountain and the cool +brook!" But now Liben bids farewell to the forest; +he is going home that his mother may affiance and +wed him to the daughter of the Pope Nicholas.</p> + +<p>Sea-views of the sea, rare in poetry of any sort, can +scarcely be said to exist in folk-poesy. Sailors' songs +have generally not much to do with the wonders of +the deep; the larger part of them are known to be +picked up on land, and the few exceptions to the rule +are mostly kept from the ken of the outer and profane +public. The Basque sailors have certain songs +of their own, but only a solitary fragment of one of +them has ever been set on record. Once when a +Basque was asked to repeat a song he had been heard +singing, he quietly said that he only taught it to those +who sailed with him. The fragment just mentioned +speaks of the silver trumpet (the master's whistle?) +sounding over the waters at break of day, while the +coast of Holland trembles in the distance. The first +glimpse of a level reach of land in the morning haze +could hardly be better described.</p> + +<p>The sea impresses the dwellers on its shores chiefly +by its depth and vastness. In folk-songs there is a +frequent recurrence of phrases such as "the waters +of the sea are vast, you cannot discern the bottom" +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page38" id="page38"></a>38</span> +(Basque); "High is the starry sky, profound the +abyss of ocean" (Russian). The Greek calls the +sea wicked, and watches the whitening waves which +roll over drowned sailors. For the Southern Sclav it +is simply a grey expanse. The Norseman calls it +old, and blue—nature having for him one sole chord +of colour—blue sea, white sands and snows, green +pines. With Italian folk-singers it is a pretty point +of dispute whether the blue sea-and-sky colour is to +be preferred to the colour of the leaves and the grass. +"Can you wear a lovelier hue than azure?" asks one; +"the waves of the sea are clothed therein and the +heavens when they are clear." The answer is that if +the sky is clad in a blue garment, green is the vesture +of the earth, "E foro del verde nasse ogni bel frutto." +The arguments of the rival partisans remind one of +an amusing scene in a play of Calderon's; one character +is made to say, "Green is the earth's primal hue, +the many-coloured flowers are born out of a green +cradle." "In short," says another, "it is a mere earth-tint, +while heaven is dressed in blue." "As to that," +comes the retort, "it is all an azure fiction; far to be +preferred is the veracious verdancy of the earth."</p> + +<p>The Italian folk-poets' "castle in the air" is a castle +in the sea. From Alp to Ætna the love-sick rhymers +are fain to go and dwell with their heart's adoration +"in mezzo al mar." But though agreed on the locality +where they intend setting up in life, they differ considerably +as to the manner of "castle" to be inhabited. +The Sicilian, who makes a point of wishing for something +worth having while he is about it, will only be +satisfied with a palace built of peacock's plumes, a +stair of gold, and a balcony inlaid with gems. A +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page39" id="page39"></a>39</span> +more modest minstrel, from the hither side of the +straits of Messina, gives no thought at all to housekeeping; +a little wave-lapped garden, full of pretty +flowers, is all his desire. The Italian folk-poet sets +afloat an astonishing number of things for no particular +reason; one has planted a pear-tree, a second has +heard a little wood-lark, a third has seen a green +laurel, a fourth has found a small altar "in the sea-midst," +a fifth discovers his own name "scritto all +'onne de lu mar."</p> + +<p>The Greek lover has no wish to leave the mainland, +but he is fond of picturing his beloved wandering by +the shore at dawn to breathe the morning air, or +reclining on a little stone bench at the foot of a hill, +in the silence of solitude and the calm of the sea. +For the rest, he knows too well "the wicked sea" for +it to suggest to him none but pleasant images. If he +is in despair, he likens himself to the waves, which +follow one another to their inevitable grave. If he +grows weary of waiting, he exclaims: "The sea +darkens, the waves beat back on the beach; ah! how +long have I loved thee!" One or two specimens +have been already given of this particular kind of +song; the recollection of a passing moment in nature +is placed text-wise to a cry of human pain or love. +A happy lover remembers in his transport the glacier +glistening in the sunshine; he who languishes from +the sickness of hope deferred, sees an affinity to his +own mood in the lowering storm.</p> + +<p>In the South, light is loved for its own sake. "Il +lume è mezza compagnia," runs a Tuscan proverb: +"Light is half company." In a memorable passage, +St Augustine unfolds and elaborates the same idea of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page40" id="page40"></a>40</span> +the companionship of light. A Tuscan countryman +vows that if his love to fly from him becomes the +light, he, to be near her, will become a butterfly. +Perhaps so radiant an hyperbole would only have +occurred to one who had grown up in the air of the +Tuscan hills; the air to whose purity Michael Angelo +ascribed all that his mind was worth. Anyway, a +keen poetic sensibility is argued by the mere fact of +thus joining, in a symbol of the indivisible, the least +earth-clogged of sentient things with the most impersonal +of natural phenomena. It is the more +remarkable because, generally speaking, butterflies do +not attract the notice of the unlettered people, even +as they did not attract the notice of the objective and +practical Greeks. It may be that were spirits to be +seen flitting noiselessly about the haunts of men, they +would, in time, be equally disregarded. To so few +has it happened to know a butterfly, to watch closely +its living beauty, to feel day by day the light feet or +fluttering wings upon the hands which minister to its +unsubstantial wants. Butterflies, to most of us, are +but ethereal strangers; so by the masses they are not +valued—at least, not in Europe. A tribe of West +African negroes have this beautiful saying: "The +Butterfly praises God within and without."</p> + +<p>The folk-poet lives out of doors; he is acquainted +with the home life of the sun and stars, and day-break +is his daily luxury. The Eskimo tell a story of a +stay-at-home man who dwelt in an island near the +coast of East Greenland. It was his chief joy to see +the sun rising in the morning, out of the sea, and with +that he was content. But when his son had come to +years of discretion, he persuaded his father to set out +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page41" id="page41"></a>41</span> +in a boat, so that he might see a little of the world. +The man started from the island; no sooner, however, +had he passed Cape Farewell than he saw the sun +beginning to rise behind the land. It was more than +he could bear; and he set off at once for his home. +Next morning very early he went out of his tent; he +did not come back. When he was sought after, he +was found quite dead. The joy of seeing the sun +rising again out of the sea had killed him. Most +likely the story is based on a real incident. The +Aztec goes out upon his roof to see the sunrise; it is +his one religious observance. But of the cult of the +sun I must not begin to speak. It belongs to an +immense subject that cannot be touched here: the +wide range of the unconscious appreciation of nature +which was worship.</p> + +<p>There is nothing more graceful in all folk-poesy +than a little Czech star-poem:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Star, pale star,</p> +<p>Didst thou know love,</p> +<p>Hadst thou a heart, my golden star,</p> +<p>Thou wouldst weep sparks.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Further north men do not willingly stay out abroad +at night, but those whose calling obliges them to do +so are looked upon as wise in strange lore. The first +tidings of war coming reached the Esthonian shepherd +boy, the keeper of the lambs, "who knew the +sun, and knew the moon, and knew the stars in the +sky." In Neo-Sanskrit speaking Lithuania there +abound star-legends which differ from the southern +tales of the same order, by reason of the pagan good +faith that clings to them, The Italian is aware that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page42" id="page42"></a>42</span> +he is romancing when he speaks of the moon travelling +through the night to meet the morning star, or +when he describes her anger at the loss of one of her +stars; the Lithuanian has a suspicion that there may +be a good deal of truth in his poets' account of the +sun's domestic arrangements—how the morning star +lights the fire for him to get up by, and the evening +star makes his bed. He will tell you that once +there was a time when sun and moon journeyed together, +but the moon fell in love with the morning +star, which brought about sad mischief. "The moon +went with the sun in the early spring; the sun got up +early; the moon went away from him. The moon +walked alone, fell in love with the morning star. +Perkun, greatly angered, stabbed her with a sword. +'Why wentest thou away from the sun? Why +walk alone in the night? Why fall in love with the +morning star? Your heart is full of sorrow.'" The +Lithuanians have not wholly left that stage in man's +development when what is imagined seems <i>primâ +facie</i> quite as likely to be real as what is seen. The +supernatural does not strike them as either mysterious +or terrifying. It is otherwise with the Teuton. His +night phantasms treat of what is, to man, of all things +the most genuinely alarming—his own shadow. +Ghosts, wild huntsmen, erl-kings take the place of an +innocuous un-mortal race. No starry radiance can +rob the night of its terrors. "The stars shine in the +sky, bright shine the rays of the moon, fast ride the +dead." Such is the wailing burden to the ballad +which Burgher imitated in his <i>Lenore</i>. There is a +wide gulf between this and the tender star-idylls of +Lithuania, and a gulf still wider divides it from the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page43" id="page43"></a>43</span> +neighbourly familiarity with which the southerner +addresses the heavenly bodies. We go from one +world to another when we turn back to Italy and +hear the country lads singing, "La buona sera, O +stella mattutina!" "Good evening to you, O matutinal +star."</p> + +<p>The West African negroes call the sky the king of +sheds, and the sun the king of torches; the twinkling +stars are the little chickens, and the meteor is the +thief-star. "When day dawns, you rejoice," say the +Yorubas; "do you not know that the day of death is +so much the nearer?" The same tribe give this vivid +description of a day-break scene: "The trader betakes +himself to his trade, the spinner takes his distaff, the +warrior takes his shield, the weaver bends over his +sley, the farmer awakes, he and his hoe-handle, the +hunter awakes, with his quiver and bow." Thoughtless +of toil, the Tuscan joyfully cries, "Dawn is about +to appear, bells chime, windows open, heaven and +earth sing." The Greek holds that he who has not +journeyed with the moon by night, or at dawn with +the dew, has not tasted the world. Folk-poets have +widely recognised the mysterious confusion between +summer nights and days. The dispute at Juliet's +window is recalled by the Venetian's chiding of the +"Rondinella Traditora;" by the Berry peasants' +vexation at the "vilaine alouette;" by the reproach +of the Navarrese lover, "You say it is day, it is not +yet midnight;" and most of all by the Servian +dialogue: "Dawn whitens, the cock crows: It is not +the dawn, but the moon. The cows low round the +house: It is not the cows, it is the call to prayer. +The Turks call to the mosque: It is not the Turks, it +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page44" id="page44"></a>44</span> +is the wolves." The observation of the swallow's +morning song is another point at which the master +poet and the obscure folk-singer meet. This time +both are natives of sunny lands; there is a clear +reason why it should be so—in the north the swallow +passes almost for a dumb bird. Very rarely in England +do we hear her notes, soft yet penetrating, like +the high-pitched whisper of the Æolian harp. Some +of us may, indeed, have first got acquainted with +them in Dante's beautiful lines:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Nell' ora che comincia i tristi lai</p> +<p class="i2">La Rondinella presso alia mattina ...</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Little suspecting that he is committing the sin of +plagiarism, the Greek begins one of his songs, "In +the hour when the swallows, twittering, awake the +dawn."</p> + +<p>The ancient swallow myth does not seem to have +anywhere crept into folk-lore; nor is there much +trace of the old Scandinavian delusion that swallows +spent the winter under the ice on lakes, or hanging +up in caves like bunches of grapes. The swallow is +taken simply as the typical bird of passage, the +spring-bringer, the messenger, the traveller <i>outre mer</i>. +She is the picked bird of countries, the African +explorer, the Indian pioneer. A Servian story +reports of her in the latter capacity. The small-leafed +Sweet Basil complains, "Silent dew, why fallest +thou not on me?" "For two mornings," answers +the dew, "I fell on thee; this morning I amused myself +by watching a great marvel. A vila (a mountain +spirit) quarrelled with an eagle over yonder mountain. +Said the vila, 'The mountain is mine.' 'No,' said the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page45" id="page45"></a>45</span> +eagle, 'it is mine.' The vila broke the eagle's wing, +and the young eaglets moaned bitterly, for great was +their peril. Then a swallow comforted them: 'Make +no moan, young eaglets, I will carry you to the land +of Ind, where the amaranth grows up to the horses' +knees, where the clover reaches their shoulders, where +the sun never sets.'" How, it may be asked, did the +poet come by that notion of an Asiatic Eden? The +folk-singer seldom paints foreign scenery in these +glowing tints. There may be something of a south-ward +longing in the boast—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>I'll show ye how the lilies grow</p> +<p class="i2">On the banks o' Italie.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>But this is cold and colourless beside the empire of +the unsetting sun.</p> + +<p>Next to the swallow, the grey gull has the reputation +of being the greatest traveller. Till lately the +women of Croisic met on Assumption Day and sang +a song to the gulls, imploring them to bring back +their husbands and their lovers who were out at sea. +Larks are often chosen as letter-carriers for short distances. +The Greek knows that it is spring when pair +by pair the turtle-doves swoop down to the brooks. +He is an accurate observer; in April or May any +retired English pool will be found flecked over with +the down of the wood-pigeons that come to drink and +bathe in it. The cooing of doves is by general consent +associated with constancy and requited love. It +is not always, however, that nations are agreed as to +the sense of a bird's song. The "merrie cuckoo" is +supposed by the Sclavs to be rehearsing an endless +dirge for a murdered brother. A Czech poet lays +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page46" id="page46"></a>46</span> +down yet another cause for its conjectured melancholy: +"Perched upon an oak tree, a cuckoo weeps +because it is not always spring. How could the rye +ripen in the fields if it were always spring? How +could the apples ripen in the orchard if it were always +summer? How could the corn harden in the rick if +it were always autumn?" In spite of the sagacious +content shown by these inquiries, it is probable that +the sadness which the Sclav attributes to the cuckoo-cry +is but an echo of the sadness, deep and wide, of +his own race.</p> + +<p>Of the nightingale the Tuscan sings, in the spirit of +one greater than he,—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Vedete là quel rusignol che canta</p> +<p>Col suo bel canto lamentar si vuole,—</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>which is not, by the by, his only Miltonic inspiration; +there is a rustling of Vallombrosian leaves through +the couplet, composed perhaps in Vallombrosia:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>E quante primavera foglie adorna</p> +<p>Che sì vaga e gentile a noi ritorna.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The Bulgarian sees a mountain <i>trembling</i> to the +song of three nightingales. Like his Servian neighbours, +he must always have a story, and here is his +nightingale story. Marika went into the garden; she +passed the pomegranate-tree and the apple-tree, and +sat her down under the red rose-tree to embroider a +white handkerchief. In the rose-tree was a nightingale, +and the nightingale said: "Let us sing, Marika; if +you sing better than I, you shall cut off my wings at +the shoulders and my feet at the knee; if I sing +better than you, I will cut off your hair at the roots." +They sang for two days, for three days; Marika sang +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page47" id="page47"></a>47</span> +the best. Then the nightingale pleaded, "Marika, +fair young girl, do not cut off my feet, let me keep +my wings, for I have three little nightingales to +rear, and of one of them I will make you a gift." +"Nightingale, sweet singer," said Marika, "I will give +thee grace of thy wings, and even of thy feet; go, +tend thy little ones, make me a gift of one to lull me +to sleep, and of one to awake me."</p> + +<p>We may take leave of bird-lays with the pretty old +Bourbonnaise <i>chanson</i>:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Derrier' chez nous, il y a-t-un vert bocage,</p> +<p class="i2">Le rossignol y chant' tous les jours;</p> +<p>Là il y dit en son charmant langage:</p> +<p class="i2">Les amoreux sont malheureux toujours!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Flowers, the green leaves and the grass, are suggestive +of two kinds of pathos. The individual flower, +the grass or leaf of any one day or spring-tide, +becomes the type of the transitoriness of beauty and +youth and life. "Sing whilst ye are young and fair, +soon you will be slighted, as are sere lilies," is the +song even of happy Tuscany. To the Sclav it seems +a question whether it be worth while that there should +be any flowers or morning gladness, since they must +be gone so soon. "O my garden," sings the Ruthenian, +"O my little garden, my garden and my green +vine, why bloomest thou in the morning? Hardly +bloomed, thou art withered, and the earth is strewn +with thy leaves." The other kind of pathos springs +from a deeper well. Man passes by, each one hurries +to his tragedy; Nature smiles tranquilly on. This +moving force of contrast was known to Lywarch Hen, +and to those Keltic bards who dived so deep into +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page48" id="page48"></a>48</span> +Nature's secrets that scarcely a greater depth has +been fathomed by any after-comers. It was perceived +involuntarily by the English ballad-singers, who +strung a burden of "Fine flowers" upon a tale of +infanticide, and bade blackbird and mavis sing their +sweetest between a murder and an execution. And +it is this that gives its key-note to an Armenian +popular song of singular power. A bishop tells how +he has made himself a vineyard; he has brought +stones from the valleys and raised a wall around it; +he has planted young vines and plentifully has he +watered their roots. Every morning the nightingale +sings sweetly to the rose. Every morning Gabriel +says to his soul: "Rise and come forth from this +vineyard, from this newly-built vineyard." He has +not eaten the fruit of the vine; he has built a wine-vat, +but the wine he has not tasted; he has brought +cool streams from the hills, but he has not drunk the +water thereof; he has planted red and white roses, +but he has not smelt their fragrance. The turtle-dove +sings to the birds, and the spring is come. Gabriel +calls to his soul, the light of his eyes grows dim; +"It is time I leave my vineyard, my beautiful vineyard." +There is hardly another poem treating of +death which is so un-illuminated by one ray from a +future dawn.</p> + +<p>In the great mass of folk-songs flowers are dealt +with simply as the accessories to all beautiful things. +The folk-poet learns from them his alphabet of beauty. +Go into any English cornfield after harvest; whilst +the elder children glean wheat ears, the children of +two and three years glean small yellow hearts-eases, +vervaine, and blue scabious. They are as surely +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page49" id="page49"></a>49</span> +learning to distinguish the Beautiful as the student in +the courts of the Vatican. Through life, when these +children think of a beautiful thing, the thought of a +flower will not be far off. Religion and love, after all +the two chief embellishments of the life of the poor, +have been hung about with flowers from the past of +Persephone and Freya till to-day. Even in England +the common people are glad if they can find a lily of +the valley to carry to church at Whitsuntide, and the +first sign that a country girl has got a sweetheart is +often to be read in the transformation of the garden-plot +before her door. In Italy you will not walk far +among the vineyards and maize-fields without coming +upon a shrine which bears traces of floral decoration. +Some Italian villages and country towns have their +special flower festival, or <i>Infiorata</i>; Genzano, for +instance, where, on the eighth day after Corpus +Domini, innumerable flowers are stripped of their +petals, which are sorted out according to colour and +then arranged in patterns on the way to the church, +the magnificence of the effect going far to make one +condone the heartlessness of immolating so many +victims to achieve an hour's triumph. A charge of +stupid indifference to beauty has been brought against +the Italian peasant—it would seem partly on the score +that he has been known to root up his anemones in +order to put a stop to the inroads of foreign marauders. +There are certain persons, law-abiding in the land +which gave them birth, who when abroad, adopt the +ethics of our tribal ancestors. A piece of ground, a +tree, or a plant not enclosed by a wall, is turned by this +strange public to its own uses. A walnut tree by the +wayside has a stick thrown among its branches to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page50" id="page50"></a>50</span> +fetch down the walnuts. The peasant does what he +can to protect himself. He observes that flowers +attract trespassers, and so he roots up the flowers. +There are Italian folk-songs which show a delight in +flowers not to be surpassed anywhere. Flower-loving +beyond all the rest are the Tuscan poets, whose love-lyrics +have been truly described as "tutti seminati di +fiori"—all sown with lilies, clove pinks, and jessamine. +The fact fits in pleasantly with the legend of the first +Florentines, who are said to have called their city +after "the great basket of flowers" in which it was +built. It fits in, too, with the sentiment attached +even now to the very name of Florence. The old +<i>Floraja</i> in the overgrown straw hat at the railway +station can reckon on something more abiding than +her long-lost charms to find her patrons; and it is +curious to note how few of the passengers reject the +proffered emblems of the flower town, or fail to earn +the parting wish "Felice ritorno!"</p> + +<p>One point may be granted; in Italy and elsewhere +the common people do not highly or permanently +value scentless flowers. A flower without fragrance +is to them almost a dead flower. I put the question +to a troop of English children coming from a wood +laden with spoils, "What makes you like primroses?" +"The scent of them," was the answer. A little +further along the lane came another troop, and the +question was repeated. This time the answer was, +"Because they smell so nice." No flower has been +more widely reverenced than the unassuming sweet +basil, the <i>Basilica odorato</i> of Sicilian songs, the Tulasi +plant of India, where it is well-nigh worshipped in +the house of every pious Hindu. The scale is graduated +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page51" id="page51"></a>51</span> +thus: the flower which has no smell is plucked +in play, but left remorselessly to wither as children +leave their daisy chains; the flower which has a purely +sweet and fresh perfume is arranged in nosegays, set +in water, praised and enjoyed for the day; the flower +which has a scent of spice and incense and aromatic +gums bears off honours scarcely less than divine.</p> + +<p>The folk-poet sings because heaven has given him +a sweet voice and a fair mistress; because the earth +brings forth her increase and the sun shines, and the +spring comes back, and rest at noontide and at evening +is lovely, and work in the oil-mill and in the vineyard +is lovely too: he sings to embellish his labour +and to enhance his repose. He lives on the shield of +Achilles, singing, accompanied by a viol, to the grape-pickers; +he is crowned with flowers in the golden +age of Lucretius as he raises his sweet song at the +<i>festa</i>. We have seen a little of what he says about +Nature, but, in truth, he is still her interpreter when +he says nothing. All folk-poesy is sung and folk-songs +are as much one of Nature's voices as the song +of the birds, the song of the brooks, the song of the +wind in the pine-tops. So it is likewise with the rude +musical instruments which the exigencies of his life +have taught the peasant how to make; they utter +tones more closely in harmony with nature than those +of the finest Stradivarius. The Greeks were right +when they made Pan with his reed-pipe rather than +Apollo with his lyre the typical Nature-god. Anyone +to whom it has chanced to hear a folk-song sung in +its own home will understand what is meant. You +may travel a good deal and not have that chance. +The songs, the customs, the traditions of the people +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page52" id="page52"></a>52</span> +form an arcanum of which they are not always ready +to lift the veil. To those, of course, whose lives are +cast among a people that still sings, the opportunity +comes oftener. But if the song be sung consciously +for your pleasure its soul will hardly remain in it. I +shall always vividly remember two occasions of hearing +a folk-song sung. Once, long ago, on the Bidassoa. +The day was closing in; the bell was tolling in the +little chapel on the heathery mountain-side, where +mass is said for the peace of the brave men who fell +there. Fontarabia stood bathed in orange light. It +was low water, and the boat got almost stranded; then +the boatmen, an older and a younger man, both built +like athletes, began to sing in low, wild snatches for +the tide. Once, not very long since, at the marble +quarry of Sant' Ambrogio. Here also it was towards +evening and in the autumn. The vintage was half +over; all day the sweet "Prenda! Prenda!" of the +grape-gatherers had invited the stranger to share in +its purple magnificence. The blue of the more distant +Veronese hills deepened against a coralline sky; not +a dark thing was in sight except here or there the silhouette +of a cypress. Only a few workmen were employed +in the quarry; one, a tall, slight lad, sang in +the intervals from labour an air full of passion and +tenderness. The marble amphitheatre gave sonority +to his high voice. Each time Nature would have +seemed incomplete had it lacked the human song.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page53" id="page53"></a>53</span> + +<h2>ARMENIAN FOLK-SONGS.</h2> + +<p>Obscure in their origin, and for the most part having +at first had no such auxiliary as written record to aid +their preservation, the single fact of the existence of +folk-songs may in general suffice to proclaim them +the true articulate voice of some sentiment or feeling, +common to the large bulk of the people whence they +emanate. It is plain that the fittest only can survive—only +such as are truly germane to those who say or +sing them. A herdsman or tiller of the soil strings +together a few verses embodying some simple thought +which came into his head whilst he looked at the +green fields or the blue skies, or it may be as he acted +in a humble way as village poet-laureate. One or +two friends get them by heart, and possibly sing them +at the fair in the next hamlet: if they hit, others catch +them up, and so the song travels for miles and miles, +and may live out generations. If not, the effusion of +our poetical cowherd dies away quite silently—not +much to his distress, for had its fate been more propitious +its author would probably have been very little +the wiser. One celebrated poet, and I think but one, +has in our own times begun his career in like manner +with the unknown folk-singer. The songs of Sandor +Petöfi were popular over the breadth of the Hungarian +Puszta before ever they appeared in print; and +those who know him, know how faithfully he breathes +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page54" id="page54"></a>54</span> +forth the soul of the Magyar race. In a certain sense +it is true that every real poet is the spokesman of his +people. No two works, for instance, are so characteristic +of their respective countries as the <i>Divina +Commedia</i> and <i>Faust</i>. Still, the hands of genius +idealise what they touch; the great poet personifies +rather than reflects his people, and if he serves them +as representative, it is in an august, imperial fashion +within the Senate House of Fame, outside whose +doors the multitude hustles and seethes. When we +want to see this multitude as in a mirror, to judge its +common instincts and impulses that go very far to +cast the nation in the type which makes it what it is, +it is a safer and surer plan to search out its own spontaneous +and untutored songs than to consult the +master work attached to immortal names.</p> + +<p>How far the individuality of a race is decided or +modified by the natural phenomena in which it is +placed is a nice point for discussion, and one not to +be disposed of by off-hand generalities. In what consists +the sympathetic link, sometimes weak and +scarcely perceptible, at others visibly strong, between +man and nature? Why does the emigrated mountaineer, +settled in comfort, ease, and prosperity in +some great metropolis, wake up one day with the +knowledge that he must begone to the wooden chalet +with the threat of the avalanche above and the +menace of the flood below—or he must die? Is it +force of early association, habit, or fancy? Why is +the wearied town-tied brain-worker sensible of a nostalgia +hardly less poignant when he calls to mind how +the fires of day kindled across some scene of snow or +sea with which his eyes were once familiar? Is it +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page55" id="page55"></a>55</span> +nothing more than the return of a long ago experienced +admiration? I think that neither physicist +nor psychologist—and both have a right to be heard +in the matter—would answer that the cause of these +sensations was to be thus shortly defined. Again +ask the artist what the Athenian owed to the purity +and proportion of the lines of Grecian landscape, +what the Italian stole from the glow and glory of +meridional light and colour—what the Teuton learnt +from the ascending spires of Alpine ice? Was it that +they saw and copied? Or rather, that Nature's spirit, +vibrating through the pulses of their being, moulded +into form the half-divine visions of master-sculptor, +painter, architect?</p> + +<p>It does not, however, require to go deeper than the +surface of things in order to understand that a +peoples' songs must be largely influenced by the +accidents of natural phenomena, and especially where +climate and physical conformation are such as must +perforce stir and stimulate the imaginative faculties of +the masses. We have an instance to the point in the +ballads of the "mountainous island" bounded by +seas and plains, which the natives call Hayasdan and +we Armenia. The wondering emotion aroused by a +first descent from the Alps into Italy is well known; +to not a few of the mightiest of northern poets this journey +has acted like a charm, a revelation, an awakening +to fuller consciousness. In Armenia, the incantation +of a like natural antithesis is worked by the advent of +its every returning spring: a sluggard of a season that +sleeps on soundly till near midsummer, but comes +forth at last fully clothed in the gorgeous raiment of +a king. In days gone by the Armenian spring was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page56" id="page56"></a>56</span> +dedicated to the goddess Anahid, and as it broke +over the land the whole people joined in joyful celebration +of the feast of Varthavar or "Rose-blossoms," +which since Christian times has been transformed +into the three days' festival of the Transfiguration. +Beautiful is the face of the country when the tardy +sun begins to make up for lost time, as though his +very life depended on it; shooting down his beams +with fiery force through the rarefied ether, melting +away the snows, and ripening all at once the grain +and grapes, the wild fig, apricot and olive, mulberry +and pomegranate. What wonder that the Armenian +loves the revivifying lamp of day, that he turns the +dying man towards it, and will not willingly commit +his dead to the earth if some bright rays do not fall +into the open grave! At the sun's reveille there is +a general resurrection of all the buried winter population—women +and children, cows and sheep, pink-eyed +lemmings, black-eyed caraguz, and little kangaroo-shaped +jerboas. Out, too, from their winter +lairs come wolf and bear, hyena and tiger, leopard and +wild boar. The stork returns to his nest on the +broad chimney-pot, and this is what the peasant tells +him of all that has happened in his absence:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Welcome, Stork!</p> +<p class="i2">Thou Stork, welcome;</p> +<p class="i2">Thou hast brought us the sign of spring,</p> +<p class="i2">Thou hast made our heart gay.</p> +<p>Descend, O Stork!</p> +<p class="i2">Descend, O Stork, upon our roof,</p> +<p class="i2">Make thy nest upon our ash-tree.</p> +<p class="i2">I will tell thee my thousand sorrows,</p> +<p class="i2">The sorrows of my heart, the thousand sorrows,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page57" id="page57"></a>57</span> +<p>Stork, when thou didst go away,</p> +<p class="i2">When thou didst go away from our tree,</p> +<p class="i2">Withering winds did blow,</p> +<p class="i2">They dried up our smiling flowers.</p> +<p>The brilliant sky was obscured,</p> +<p class="i2">That brilliant sky was cloudy:</p> +<p class="i2">From above they were breaking the snow in pieces:</p> +<p class="i2">Winter approached, the destroyer of flowers.</p> +<p>Beginning from the rock of Varac,</p> +<p>Beginning from that rock of Varac,</p> +<p class="i2">The snow descended and covered all;</p> +<p class="i2">In our green meadow it was cold.</p> +<p>Stork, our little garden,</p> +<p class="i2">Our little garden was surrounded with snow;</p> +<p class="i2">Our green rose trees</p> +<p class="i2">Withered with the snow and the cold.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>But now the rose trees in the garden are green +again, and out abroad wild flowers enamel the earth. +Down pour the torrents of melted snow off Mount +Ararat, down crash the avalanches of ice and stones +let loose by the sun's might; wherever an inch of +soil or rock is uncovered it becomes a carpet of +blossom. High up, even to 13,000 feet above the sea-level, +the deep violet aster, the saxifrage, and crocus, +and ranunculus, and all our old Alpine acquaintances, +form a dainty morsel for the teeth, or a carpet for +the foot, of swift capricorn or not less agile wild +sheep. A little lower, amidst patches of yet frozen +snow, hyacinths scent the air, yellow squills and blue +anemones peep out, clumps of golden iris cluster +between the rocks. There, too, is the "Fountain's +Blood," or "Blood of the Seven Brothers," as the +Turk would say, with its crimson, leafless stalk and +lily-like bloom, the reddest of all red flowers. Upon +the trees comes the sweet white <i>kasbé</i>, a kind of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page58" id="page58"></a>58</span> +manna much relished by the inhabitants. Amongst +the grass grow the Stars of Bethlehem, to remind us, +as tradition has it, that hard by on Ararat—beyond +question the great centre of Chaldean Star-worship—the +wise men were appointed to watch for the appearance +of a sign in the heavens, and that thence they +started in quest of the place "where the young child +lay." Tulips also abound; if we may credit the +legend, they had their origin in the Armenian town +of Erzeroom, springing from the life-blood of Ferdad +when he threw himself from the rocks in despair at a +false alarm of the death of his beloved Shireen.</p> + +<p>Erzeroom is by common consent in these parts the +very site of the Garden of Eden. For many centuries, +affirms the Moslem, the flowers of Paradise might yet +be seen blossoming round the source of the Euphrates +not far from the town. But, alas! when the great +Persian King Khosref Purveez, the rival of the above-mentioned +Ferdad, was encamped in that neighbourhood, +he was rash enough to spurn a message from +the young Prophet Mohammed, offering him protection +if he would embrace the faith of Islâm. What +booted the protection of an insignificant sectary to +him? thought the Shah-in-Shah, and tossed the letter +into the Euphrates. But Nature, horrified at the sacrilegious +deed, dried up her flowers and fruits, and +even parched the sources of the river itself; the last +relic of Eden became a waste. There is a plaintive +Armenian elegy composed in the person of Adam +sitting at the gate of Paradise, and beholding Cherubim +and Seraphim entering the Garden of which he +once was king, "yea, like unto a powerful king!" +The poet puts into Adam's mouth a new line of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page59" id="page59"></a>59</span> +defence; he did not eat of the fruit, he says, until after +he had witnessed its fatal effects upon Eve, when, +seeing her despoiled of all her glory, he was touched +with pity, and tasted the immortal fruit in the hope +that the Creator contemplating them both in the same +wretched plight might with paternal love take compassion +on both. But vain was the hope; "the Lord +cursed the serpent and Eve, and I was enslaved between +them." "O Seraphim!" cries the exiled father +of mankind:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>When ye enter Eden, shut not the gate of Paradise; place me</p> + <p class="i4">standing at the gate; I will look in a moment, and then</p> + <p class="i4">bring me back.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Ah! I remember ye, O flowers and sweet-swelling fountains.</p> + <p class="i4">Ah! I remember ye O birds, sweet-singing—and ye, O</p> + <p class="i4">beasts:</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Ye who enjoy Paradise, come and weep over your king; ye who</p> + <p class="i4">are in Paradise planted by God, elected from the earth of</p> + <p class="i4">every kind and sort.</p> +</div></div> + +<p>High above the hardiest saxifrage tower the three +thousand feet of everlasting snows that crown Mount +Ararat. The Armenians call it Massis or "Mother of +the World," and old geographers held that it was the +centre of the earth, an hypothesis supported by various +ingenious calculations. The Persians have their own +set of legends about it; they say that Ararat was +the cradle of the human race, and that at one time it +afforded pasture up to the apex of its dome; but upon +man's expulsion from Eden, Ahriman the serpent +doomed the whole country to a ten months' winter. +As to the semi-scriptural traditions gathered round +the mountain, there is no end to them. "And the +ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page60" id="page60"></a>60</span> +day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat," +so says the Bible, and it is an article of faith with the +Armenian peasant that it is still somewhere up at the +top, only not visible. He is extremely loth to believe +that anybody has actually attained the summit. Parrot's +famous ascent was long regarded as the merest +fable. At the foot of Ararat was a village named +Argoory, or "he planted the vine," where Noah's +vineyard is pointed out to this day, though the village +itself was destroyed in 1840, when the mountain woke +up from its long slumbers and rolled down its side a +stream of boiling lava; but we are told that, owing +to the sins of the world, the vines no longer bear fruit. +Close at hand is Manard, "the mother lies here," +alluding to the burial-place of Noah's wife, and yonder +is Eravan or "Visible," the first dry land which Noah +perceived as the waters receded. Armenian choniclers +relate that when after leaving the ark the descendants +of Noah dispersed to different quarters, one amongst +them, by name Haig, the great-grandson of Japhet, +settled with his family in Mesopotamia, where he probably +took part in the building of the Tower of Babel. +Later, however, upon Belus acquiring dominion over +the land, Haig found his rule so irksome to himself +and his clan that they migrated back in a body of 300 +persons to Armenia, much to the displeasure of Belus, +who summoned them to return, and when they refused, +despatched a large army to coerce them into obedience. +Haig collected his men on the shores of Van, and thus +sagaciously addressed them:</p> + +<blockquote><p> +When we meet with the army of Belus, let us attempt to draw +near where he lies surrounded by his warriors; either we shall +be killed, and our camp equipments and baggage will fall into +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page61" id="page61"></a>61</span> +his hands, or, making a show of the strength of our arm, we +shall defeat his army, and victory will be ours. +</p></blockquote> + +<p>These tactics proved completely successful, and +Belus fell mortally wounded by an arrow from Haig's +bow. Having in this way disposed of his enemies, +the patriarch was able before he died to consolidate +Hayasdan into a goodly kingdom, which he left to +the authority of his son Armenag.</p> + +<p>After the reign of Haig the thread of Armenian +annals continues without break or hitch; it must be +admitted that no people, not even the Jews, boast a +history which "begins with the beginning" in a more +thorough way, nor does the work of any chronicler +proceed in a more methodical and circumstantial +manner than that of Moses of Khoren, the Herodotus +of Armenia. As is well known, Moses, writing in +the fifth century, founded his chronicle upon a work +undertaken about five hundred years before by one +Marabas Cattina, a Syrian, at the request of the great +Armenian monarch Vagshaishag. Marabas stated +that his record was based upon a manuscript he had +discovered in the archives of Nineveh which bore the +indorsement, "This book, containing the annals of +ancient history, was translated from the Chaldean +into Greek, by order of Alexander the Great." +Whatever may be the precise amount of credence +to which the Chronicle of Moses is entitled, all will +agree that it narrates the story of a high-spirited and +intelligent people whom the alternating domination +of Greek and Persian could not cower into relinquishing +the substance of their liberties, and whose efforts, +in the main successful, on behalf of their cherished +independence, were never more vigorous than at times +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page62" id="page62"></a>62</span> +when their triumph seemed farthest off. For nearly +a thousand years after the date of Moses of Khoren, +his people maintained their autonomy, and whether +we look before or after the flight of the last Armenian +king before the soldiers of the Crescent, we +must acknowledge that few nations have fought more +valiantly for their political rights, whilst yet fewer +have suffered more severely for their fidelity to their +faith. It is the pride of the Armenians that theirs +was the first country which adopted the Christian +religion; it may well be their pride also, that they +kept their Christianity in the teeth of persecutions +which can only find a parallel in those undergone by +the Hebrew race.</p> + +<p>Armenia is naturally rich in early Christian legends, +of which the most curious is perhaps that of the correspondence +alleged to have occurred between Our +Lord and Abgar, king of Hayasdan. The latter, it is +said, having sent messengers to transact some business +with the Roman generals quartered in Palestine, received +on their return such accounts of the miracles +performed by Jesus of Nazareth as convinced him +either that Christ was God come down upon the +earth, or that he was the son of God. Suffering from +a grave malady, and hearing, moreover, that the Jews +had set their hearts on doing despite to the Prophet +who had risen in their midst, Abgar wrote a letter +beseeching Christ to come to his capital and cure him +of his sickness. "My city is indeed small," this letter +naïvely concludes, "but it is sufficient to contain us +both." The king also sent a painter to Jerusalem, so +that if Our Lord could not come to Edessa he might +at least possess his <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'portait'">portrait</ins>. The painter was one day +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page63" id="page63"></a>63</span> +endeavouring to fulfil his mission when he was observed +by Christ, who passing a handkerchief over +his face, gave it to the Armenian impressed with the +likeness of his features. The response to Abgar's +letter was written by St Thomas, who said, on behalf +of his Divine Master, that his work lay elsewhere +than in Armenia, but that after his Ascension he +would send an Apostle to enlighten the people of +that country. This correspondence, though now not +accepted as authentic out of Armenia, was mentioned +by some of the earliest Church historians, and it is +asserted that one of the letters has been found written +on papyrus in an Egyptian tomb.</p> + +<p>Christianity seems to have made some way in +Armenia in the second century, but to what extent +is unknown. What is certain is, that in the third +century, St Gregory the Illuminator, after having +been tortured in twelve different ways by King +Tiridates for refusing to worship the goddess Anahid, +and kept at the bottom of a well for fourteen years, +was taken out of it in consequence of a vision of the +king's sister, and converted that monarch and all his +subjects along with him. St Gregory is held in +boundless reverence by the Armenians; he is almost +looked upon as a divine viceroy, as will be seen from +the following canzonette which Armenian children +are taught to sing:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>The light appears, the light appears!</p> +<p class="i4">The light is good:</p> +<p class="i4">The sparrow is on the tree,</p> +<p class="i4">The hen is on the perch,</p> +<p class="i4">The sleep of lazy men is a year,</p> +<p class="i4">Workman, rise and begin thy work!</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page64" id="page64"></a>64</span> +<p class="i4">The gates of heaven are opened,</p> +<p class="i4">The throne of gold is erected,</p> +<p class="i4">Christ is sitting on it;</p> +<p class="i4">The Illuminator is standing,</p> +<p class="i4">He has taken the golden pen,</p> +<p class="i4">He has written great and small.</p> +<p class="i4">Sinners are weeping,</p> +<p class="i4">The just are rejoicing.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The poet of the people nowhere occupies himself +with casting about for a fine subject; he writes of +what he feels and of what he sees. The Armenian +peasant sees the snow in winter; in summer he sees +the flowers and the birds—only birds and flowers are +to him the pleasanter sight, so he sings more about +them. He rarely composes any verse without a +flower or a bird being mentioned in it; all his similes +are ornithological or botanical, and by them he expresses +the tenderest emotions of his heart. There +is a pathos, a simplicity really exquisite in the +conception of some of these little bird-and-flower +pieces, as, for example, in the subjoined "Lament of +a Mother" over her dead babe:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>I gaze and weep, mother of my boy,</p> +<p class="i2">I say alas and woe is me wretched!</p> +<p class="i2">What will become of wretched me,</p> +<p class="i2">I have seen my golden son dead!</p> +<p>They seized that fragrant rose</p> +<p class="i2">Of my breast, and my soul fainted away;</p> +<p class="i2">They let my beautiful golden dove</p> +<p class="i2">Fly away, and my heart was wounded.</p> +<p>That falcon Death seized</p> +<p class="i2">My dear and sweet-voiced turtle dove and wounded me.</p> +<p class="i2">They took my sweet-toned little lark</p> +<p class="i2">And flew away through the skies!</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page65" id="page65"></a>65</span> +<p>Before my eyes they sent the hail</p> +<p class="i2">On my flowering green pomegranate,</p> +<p class="i2">My rosy apple on the tree,</p> +<p class="i2">Which gave fragrance among the leaves.</p> +<p>They shook my flourishing beautiful almond tree,</p> +<p class="i2">And left me without fruit;</p> +<p class="i2">Beating it they threw it on the ground</p> +<p class="i2">And trod it under foot into the earth of the grave.</p> +<p>What will become of wretched me!</p> +<p class="i2">Many sorrows surrounded me.</p> +<p class="i2">O, my God, receive the soul of my little one</p> +<p class="i2">And place him at rest in the bright heaven!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The birds of Armenia are countless in their number +and variety, from vulture to wren; there are so many +of them that a man (it is said poetically) may ride for +miles and miles and never see the ground, which they +entirely cover, except over the small space from +which they fly up with a deafening whizz to make a +passage for his horse. At times the plains have the +appearance of being dyed rose-colour through the +swarms of the gorgeous red goose which congregate +upon them, whilst here and there a whitish spot is +formed by a troop of his grey-coated relatives. It +seems that the Armenian has found out why it was +the wild goose and the tame one separated from each +other. Once upon a time, when all were wild and +free, one goose said to another on the eve of a journey, +"Mind you are ready, my friend, for, Inshallah (please +God), I set out to-morrow morning." "And so will +I," he profanely replied, "whether it pleases God or +not." Sure enough next morning both geese were +up betimes, and the religious one spread out his wings +and sailed off lightly towards the distant land. But, +lo! when the impious goose tried to do likewise, he +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page66" id="page66"></a>66</span> +flapped and flapped and could not stir from the +ground. So a countryman caught him, and he and +his children for ever fell into slavery.</p> + +<p>The partridge is a great favourite of the Armenian, +who does not tire of inventing lyrics in its honour. +Here is a specimen:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>The sun beats from the mountain's top,</p> +<p class="i2">Pretty, pretty:</p> +<p class="i2">The partridge comes from her nest;</p> +<p class="i2">She was saluted by the flowers,</p> +<p class="i2">She flew and came from the mountain's top.</p> +<p class="i4">Ah! pretty, pretty,</p> +<p class="i4">Ah! dear little partridge!</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>When I hear the voice of the partridge</p> +<p class="i2">I break my fast on the house-top:</p> +<p class="i2">The partridge comes chirping</p> +<p class="i2">And swinging from the mountain's side.</p> +<p class="i4">Ah! pretty, pretty,</p> +<p class="i4">Ah! dear little partridge!</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Thy nest is enamelled with flowers,</p> +<p class="i2">With basilico, narcissus, and water-lily:</p> +<p class="i2">Thy place is full of dew,</p> +<p class="i2">Thou delightest in the fragrant odour.</p> +<p class="i4">Ah! pretty, pretty,</p> +<p class="i4">Ah! dear little partridge!</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Thy feathers are soft,</p> +<p class="i2">Thy neck is long, thy beak little,</p> +<p class="i2">The colour of thy wing is variegated:</p> +<p class="i2">Thou art sweeter than the dove.</p> +<p class="i4">Ah! pretty, pretty,</p> +<p class="i4">Ah! dear little partridge!</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>When the little partridge descends from the tree,</p> +<p class="i2">And with his sweet voice chirps,</p> +<p class="i2">He cheers all the world,</p> +<p class="i2">He draws the heart from the sea of blood.</p> +<p class="i4">Ah! pretty, pretty,</p> +<p class="i4">Ah! dear little partridge.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page67" id="page67"></a>67</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>All the birds call thee blessed,</p> +<p class="i2">They come with thee in flocks,</p> +<p class="i2">They come around thee chirping:</p> +<p class="i2">In truth there is not one like thee.</p> +<p class="i4">Ah! pretty, pretty,</p> +<p class="i4">Ah! beautiful little partridge!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Another song gives the piteous plaint of an unhappy +partridge who was snared and eaten. "Like St +Gregory, they let me down into a deep well; then +they took me up and sat round a table, and they cut +me into little pieces, like St James the Intercised." +The crane, who, with the stork, brings the promise of +summer on his wing, receives a warm welcome, and +when the Armenian sees a crane in some foreign +country he will say to him:—</p> + +<blockquote><p> +Crane, whence dost thou come? I am the servant of thy +voice. Crane, hast thou not news from our country? Hasten +not to thy flock; thou wilt arrive soon enough! Crane, hast +thou not news from our country?</p> + +<p>I have left my possessions and vineyard and come hither. +How often do I sigh; it seems that my soul is taken from me. +Crane, stay a little, thy voice is in my soul. Crane, hast thou +not news from our country? My God, I ask of thee grace and +favour, the heart of the pilgrim is wounded, his lungs are consumed; +the bread he eats is bitter, the water he drinks is tasteless. +Crane, hast thou not news from our country?</p> + +<p>Thou comest from Bagdad, and goest to the frontiers. I will +write a little letter and give it to thee. God will be the witness +over thee; thou wilt carry it and give it to my dear ones.</p> + +<p>I have put in my letter that I am here, that I have never +even for a single day been happy. O, my dear ones, I am +always anxious for you! Crane, hast thou not news from our +country?</p> + +<p>The autumn is near, and thou art ready to go: thou hast +joined a large flock: thou hast not answered me, and thou art +flown! Crane, go from our country and fly far away! +</p></blockquote> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page68" id="page68"></a>68</span> + +<p>The nameless author of these lines has had Dante's +thought:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Tu proverai sì come sa di sale</p> +<p class="i2">Lo pane altrui<span class="xl"> . . . </span></p> + </div> </div> + +<p>It is strange that the Armenians should be at once +one of the most scattered peoples on the face of the +earth, and one of the most passionately devoted to +their fatherland.</p> + +<p>It should not be forgotten, when reading these +Armenian bird-lays, that an old belief yet survives +in that country that the souls of the blessed dead fly +down from heaven, in the shape of beautiful birds, +and perching in the branches of the trees, look fondly +at their dear ones on earth as they pass beneath. +When the peasant sees the birds fluttering above +overhead in the wood he will on no account molest +them, but says to his boy, "That is your dear mother, +your little brother, your sister—be a good child, or it +will fly away and never look at you again with its +sweet little eyes."</p> + +<p>The clear cool streams and vast treacherous salt +lakes of Armenia are not without their laureates. +Thus sings the bard of a mountain rivulet:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"Down from yon distant mountain</p> +<p class="i2">The water flows through the village, Ha!</p> +<p class="i2">A dark boy comes forth,</p> +<p class="i2">And washing his hands and face,</p> +<p class="i2">Washing, yes washing,</p> +<p class="i2">And turning to the water, asked, Ha!</p> +<p class="i2">Water, from what mountain dost thou come?</p> +<p class="i2">O my cool and sweet water! Ha!</p> +<p class="i2">I came from that mountain,</p> +<p class="i2">Where the old and new snow lie one on the other.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page69" id="page69"></a>69</span> +<p>Water, to what river dost thou go?</p> +<p class="i2">O my cool and sweet water! Ha!</p> +<p>I go to that river</p> +<p class="i2">Where the bunches of violets abound. Ha!</p> +<p>Water, to what vineyard dost thou go?</p> +<p class="i2">O my cool and sweet water! Ha!</p> +<p>I go to that vineyard</p> +<p class="i2">Where the vine-dresser is within! Ha!</p> +<p>Water, what plant dost thou water?</p> +<p class="i2">O my cool and sweet water! Ha!</p> +<p>I water that plant</p> +<p class="i2">Whose roots give food to the lamb,</p> +<p class="i2">The roots give food to the lamb,</p> +<p class="i2">Where there are the apple tree and the anemone.</p> +<p>Water, to what garden dost thou go?</p> +<p class="i2">O my cool and sweet water! Ha!</p> +<p>I go into that garden</p> +<p class="i2">Where there is the sweet song of the nightingale! Ha!</p> +<p>Water, into what fountain dost thou go?</p> +<p class="i2">O my cool and sweet little water!</p> +<p>I go to that fountain</p> +<p class="i2">Where thy love comes and drinks.</p> +<p class="i2">I go to meet her and kiss her chin,</p> +<p class="i2">And satiate myself with her love.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The dwellers on the shores of Van—the largest +lake in Armenia, which is situated between 5000 and +6000 feet above the sea, and covers more than 400 +square miles—are celebrated for possessing the poetic +gift in a pre-eminent degree. Their district is fertile +and picturesque, so picturesque that when Semiramis +passed that way she employed 12,000 workmen and +600 architects to build her a city on the banks of the +lake, which was named Aghthamar, and which she +thereafter made her summer residence. The business +that brought Semiramis into Armenia was a strange +romance. Ara, eighth patriarch of Hayasdan, was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page70" id="page70"></a>70</span> +famed through all the East for his surpassing beauty, +and the Assyrian queen hearing that he was the fairest +to look upon of all mortal men, sent him a proposal of +marriage; but he, staunch to the faith in the one true +God, which he believed had been transmitted to him +from Noah, would have nothing to say to the offer of +the idolatrous ruler. Semiramis, greatly incensed, +advanced with her army into the heart of Armenia, +and defeated the forces of the Patriarch; but bitter +were the fruits of the victory, for Ara, instead of being +taken alive, as she had commanded, was struck down +at the head of his men, and his beautiful form, stiffened +by death, was laid at the queen's feet. Semiramis +was plunged in the wildest despair; she endeavoured +to bring him to life by magic; that failing, +she had his body embalmed and placed in a golden +coffin, which was set in her chamber; no one was +allowed to call him dead, and she spoke of him as +her beloved consort. A spot is pointed out to the +traveller bearing the name of Ara Seni, "Ara is +sacrificed."</p> + +<p>The favourite theme of the men of Van is, of course, +the treacherous element on which the lot of most of +them is cast. One of their songs gives the legend of +the "Old Man and the Ship." Our Lord, as an old +man with a white beard, cried sweetly to the sailors +to take him into the ship. The sailors answer that +the ship is freighted by a merchant, and the passage-money +is great. "Go away, white-bearded old man," +they say. But our Lord pays the money and comes +into the ship. Presently a gale blows up and the +sailors are exceeding wroth, for they imagine the +strange passenger has brought them ill-luck. They +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page71" id="page71"></a>71</span> +ask, "Whence didst them come, O sinful man? Thou +art lost, and thou hast lost us!" "I a sinner!" +replies the Lord, "give me the ship, and go you to +sweet sleep." He made the sign of the cross with his +right hand, with his left he steered the helm. It was +not yet mid-day when the ship safely reached the +shore.</p> + +<p class="ind1"> +Brothers, arise from your sweet sleep, from your sweet sleep<br /> +and your sad dreams. Fall at the feet of Jesus; here is our<br /> +Lord, here is our ship. +</p> + +<p>"Sweet sleep and sad dreams"—he must have +been a true poet who thus crystallised the sense of +poor humanity's unrest, even in its profoundest repose. +The whole little story strikes one as full of delicate +suggestiveness.</p> + +<p>One more sample of the style of the Armenian +"Lake-school."</p> + +<h5><span class="sc">On One Who Was Shipwrecked on the Lake of Van.</span></h5> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>We sailed in the ship from Aghthamar,</p> +<p class="i2">We directed our ship towards Avan;</p> +<p class="i2">When we arrived before Vosdan</p> +<p class="i2">We saw the dark sun of the dark day.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Dull clouds covered the sky,</p> +<p class="i2">Obscuring at once stars and moon;</p> +<p class="i2">The winds blew fiercely,</p> +<p class="i2">And took from my eyes land and shore.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Thundered the heaven, thundered the earth,</p> +<p class="i2">The waters of the blue sea arose;</p> +<p class="i2">On every side the heavens shot forth fire;</p> +<p class="i2">Black terror invaded my heart.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>There is the sky, but the earth is not seen,</p> +<p class="i2">There is the earth, but the sun is not seen;</p> +<p class="i2">The waves come like mountains</p> +<p class="i2">And open before me a deep abyss.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page72" id="page72"></a>72</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>O sea, if thou lovest thy God,</p> +<p class="i2">Have pity on me, forlorn and wretched;</p> +<p class="i2">Take not from me my sweet sun,</p> +<p class="i2">And betray me not to flinty-hearted Death.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Pity, O sea, O terrible sea!</p> +<p class="i2">Give me not up to the cold winds;</p> +<p class="i2">My tears implore thee</p> +<p class="i2">And the thousand sorrows of my heart....</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>The savage sea has no pity!</p> +<p class="i2">It hears not the plaintive voice of my broken heart;</p> +<p class="i2">The blood freezes in my veins,</p> +<p class="i2">Black night descends upon my eyes....</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Go tell to my mother</p> +<p class="i2">To sit and weep for her darkened son;</p> +<p class="i2">That John was the prey of the sea,</p> +<p class="i2">The sun of the young man is set!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Summer, with its flowers, and warmth, and wealth, +never stays long enough in Armenia for it to become +a common ordinary thing. It is a beautiful wonder-time, +a brief, splendid nature-fair, which vanishes like +a dream before the first astonishment and delight +are worn into indifference. The season when "the +nightingale sings to the rose at dewy dawn" departs +swiftly, and envious winter strangles autumn in its +birth.</p> + +<p>What a winter, too! a winter which despotically +governs the complete economy of the people's system +of life. Let us take a peep into an Armenian interior +on a December evening. Three months the snow has +been in possession of mountain and valley; for more +than four months more it will remain. Abroad it is +light enough, though night has fallen; for the moon +shines down in wonderful brightness upon the ice-bound +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page73" id="page73"></a>73</span> +earth. On the hill-slope various little unevennesses +are discernible, jutting out from the snow like +mushrooms. In one part the ground is cut away +perpendicularly for a few feet; this is the front of the +homestead, the body of which lies burrowed in the +slope of the hill. When the house was made the +floor was dug out some five feet underground, while +the ceiling beams rose three or four feet above it; but +all the dug-out soil was thrown about the roof and +back and side walls, and thus the whole is now +embedded in the hillock. The roof was neatly turfed +over when the house was finished, so that in summer +the lambs and children play upon it, and not unfrequently, +in the great heats, the family sleep there—"at +the moon's inn." What look like mushrooms are +in reality the broad-topped chimneys, on which the +summer storks build their nests. The homestead has +but one entrance; a large front door which leads +through a long dark passage to a second door that +swings-to after you, and is hung with a rough red-dyed +sheepskin. This door opens upon the entrance-hall, +whence you mount half-a-dozen steps to a raised +platform, under which the house dogs are located. +On two sides the platform is bounded by solid stone +walls, from which are suspended saddles, guns, pistols, +and one or two pictures representing the deeds of +some Persian hero, and bought of Persian hawkers. +On the other two sides an open woodwork fence +divides it from a vast stable. Nearest the grating +are fastened the horses of the clan-chief; next are the +donkeys, then the cows; sheep and chickens find +places where they can. The breath of these animals +materially contributes to the warmth of the house, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page74" id="page74"></a>74</span> +which is at times almost like an oven, even in the +coldest weather. A clear hot fire burns on the +hearth; the fuel used is tezek, a preparation of cow-dung +pressed into a substance resembling peat turf. +By day the habitation is obscurely lighted through a +small aperture in the roof glazed with oiled silk, and +supplemented by a sort of funnel, the wide opening +downwards. Now, in the evening, the oil burning in +a simple iron lamp over the hearth, affords a dim +illumination.</p> + +<p>The platform above described is the salemlik, or +hall of reception. It contains no chairs, but divans +richly draped with Koordish stuffs; the floor is +carpeted with tekeke, a kind of grey felt. To the +right of the hearth sits the head of the family, a +venerable old man, whose word is incontrovertible +law to every member of his house. He is also Al +Sakal, or "white beard" of the village, a dignity +conferred on him by the unanimous voice of his +neighbours, and constituting him intermediary in all +transactions with government. When important +matters are at stake, he meets the elders of the +surrounding hamlets, who, resolved into committee, +form the Commune. This ancient usage bears +witness to the essentially patriarchal and democratic +basis of Armenian society.</p> + +<p>Our family party consists of three dozen persons, +the representatives of four generations. The young +married women come in and out from directing the +preparations of the supper. Nothing is to be seen of +their faces except their lustrous eyes (Armenian eyes +are famous for their brilliancy), a tightly-fitting veil +enclosing the rest of their features. Without this +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page75" id="page75"></a>75</span> +covering they do not by any chance appear even in +the house; it is said they wear it also at night. One +of them is a bride; her dress is rich and striking—a +close-fitting bodice, fastening at the neck with silver +clasps, full trousers of rose-coloured silk gathered in +at the ankles by a fillet of silver, the feet bare, a silver +girdle of curious workmanship loosely encircling the +waist, and a long padded garment open down the +front which hangs from the shoulders. Poor little +bride! She has not uttered a single word save when +alone with her husband since she pronounced the +marriage vow. She may not hope to do so till after +the birth of her first-born child; then she will talk to +her nursling, after a while to her mother-in-law, sometime +later she may converse with her own mother, +and by-and-by, in a subdued whisper, with the young +girls of the house. During the first year of her +married life she may not go out of the house except +twice to church. Her disciplinary education will +not be complete for six years, after which she will +enjoy comparative liberty, but never in her life must +she open her lips to a person of the stronger sex not +related to her. Turn from the silent little bride to +that bevy of young girls, merry and playful as the +kittens they are fondling—silky-haired snowballs, of +a breed peculiar to the neighbourhood of Van, their +tails dyed pink with henna like the tail of the Shah's +steed. The girls are laughing and chatting together +without restraint—most probably about their love +affairs, for they are free to dispose of their hands as +they choose. And they may walk about unveiled, +and show off their pretty faces and long raven plaits +to the fullest advantage.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page76" id="page76"></a>76</span> + +<p>Suddenly a knocking is heard outside; the dogs +yell from under the platform; the Whitebeard says +whoever be the wanderer he shall have bed and board, +and he orders fresh tezek to be thrown on the fire; +for to-night it is bitter cold out abroad—were a man +to stand still five minutes, he would freeze in his +shoes. One of the sons descends the steps, pushes +aside the sheep-skin, and leads the traveller in. This +one says he is the minstrel. What joy in the family! +The blind minstrel, who will sing the most exciting +ballads and tell the most marvellous tales. He is +welcomed by all; only the young bride steals out of +the room—she may not remain in a stranger's presence. +The lively girls want to hear a story at once; +but the Whitebeard says the guest must first have +rest and refreshment. But while they are waiting for +the meal to be laid out, the blind minstrel relates +something of his recent travels, which in itself is +almost as good as a fairy tale. He has just arrived +from Persia, whither he will soon return; for he has +only come back to the snows of Armenia to breathe +the air of home for a little. Did he go to Teheran? +No; to say the truth, he deemed it wiser to keep at a +discreet distance from that capital. Such a thing had +been heard of ere now as the Shah putting under +requisition any skilful musicians who came in his way +to teach their art to the fair ones of the harem; so +that occasionally it was unpleasantly difficult to get +out of Teheran when once you were in it. Still he +was by no means without interesting news. In a +certain part of Persia he had met another blind +master-singer, with whom he strove for the prize of +minstrelsy. Both were entertained by a great Persian +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page77" id="page77"></a>77</span> +prince. When the day came they were led out upon +an open grass-plot and seated one facing the other. +The prince took up his position, and five thousand +people made a circle round the competitors. Then +the grand brain-fight began; the rivals contended in +song and verse, riddle and repartee. Now one starts +an acrostic on the prince's name, in which each side +takes alternate letters; then the other versifies some +sacred passage, which his opponent must catch up +when he breaks off. The ball is kept flying to and +fro with unflagging zeal; the crowd is rapturous in +its plaudits. But at length our minstrel's adversary +pauses, hesitates, fails to seize the drift of his rival's +latest sally, and answers at random. A shout proclaims +him beaten. The triumphant bard is led to +where he stands, and taking his lyre from him breaks +it into atoms. The vanquished retires discomfited to +the obscurity of his native village, where haply his +humble talents will not be despised. The victor is +robed in the prince's mantle, and taken to the highest +seat in the banqueting-hall.</p> + +<p>This is what the minstrel has to tell as he warms +his hands over the fire while the young married women +serve the supper. A rush-mat is placed upon the low +round board, over that the table-cloth; then a large +tray is set in the middle, with the viands arranged on +it in metal dishes: onion soup, salted salmon-trout +from the blue Gokschai, hard-boiled eggs shelled and +sliced, oil made from Kunjut seeds, which does instead +of butter; pilau, a dish resembling porridge; mutton +stewed with quinces, leeks, and various raw and preserved +roots, cream cheese, sour milk, dried apricots, +and stoned raisins, form the bill of fair. A can of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page78" id="page78"></a>78</span> +golden wine is set out: there is plenty more in the +goatskins should it be wanted. The provisions are +completed by an item more important in Armenia +than with us—bread. The flour-cake or <i>losh</i>, a yard +long and thin as paper, which is placed before each +guest, answers for plate, knives, forks, napkin, all of +which are absent. The Whitebeard says grace and +the Lord's Prayer, everyone crossing himself. The +company wipe their mouths with a <i>losh</i>, and proceed +to help themselves with it to anything that tempts +their fancy on the middle tray. Some make a promiscuous +sandwich of fish, mutton, and leeks wrapped +up in a piece of <i>losh</i>; others twist the <i>losh</i> into the +shape of a spoon and ladle out the sour milk, swallowing +both together. The members of the family +watch the minstrel's least gesture, so as to anticipate +his wishes; one after the other they claim the privilege +of waiting on him. When the meal is done, a young +housewife gently washes the guest's head and feet, +and the whole party adjourn to the chimney-corner. +The evening flies mirthfully away, listening to the +minstrel's tales and ballads, these latter being mostly +in Tartar, the Provençal of the eastern troubadour. +Finally, the honoured visitor is conducted to his room, +the "minstrel's chamber," which, in every well-ordered +Armenian household, is always kept ready.</p> + +<p>Our little picture may be taken as the faithful +reproduction of no very extraordinary scene. Of +ballad-singers such as the one here introduced +there are numbers in Armenia, where that "sixth +sense," music, is the recognised vocation of the blind. +Those who are proficient travel within a very wide +area, and are everywhere received with the highest +consideration.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page79" id="page79"></a>79</span> + +<p>In the East, the ballad-singer and the story-teller +are just where they were centuries ago. At Constantinople, +the story-teller sits down on his mat in +the public place or at the <i>café</i>; listeners gather round; +he begins his story in a conversational tone, varying +his voice according to the characters; and soon both +himself and his hearers are as far away in the +wondrous mazes of the "Arabian Nights" as if Europe +were still trembling before the sword of the Caliph.</p> + +<p>With regard to the unique marriage customs of +Armenia, I ought to say that they are asserted to +result in the happiest unions. The general idea upon +which they rest seems to be derived from a series of +conclusions logical enough if you grant the premisses—indeed, +curiously more like some pen and paper +scheme evolved out of the inner consciousness of a +German professor than a working system of actual +life. The prevailing custom in the East, as in some +European countries, is for the young girl to know +nothing whatever of her intended husband; only in +the one case this is followed by total seclusion after +marriage, and in the other by complete emancipation. +In Armenia, on the contrary, the young girl makes +her own choice, and love-matches are not uncommon; +but the choice once made and ratified by the priest, +the order of things is so arranged as to cause her +husband to become the woman's absorbing thought, +his society her sole solace, his pleasure the whole +business of her life. For the rest she is treated with +much solicitude; even the peasant will not let his +wife do out-door work.</p> + +<p>Moses of Khoren gives the history of a wedding +that took place about one hundred years after Christ. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page80" id="page80"></a>80</span> +In those days the tribes of the Alans, in league with +the mountaineers of the Caucasus and a part of the +people of Georgia, descended upon Armenia in considerable +numbers. Ardashes, the Armenian king, +assembled his troops and advanced against them. In +a battle fought upon the confines of the two nations, +the Alans gave way, and having crossed the Cyrus, +encamped on the northern bank, the river dividing +the contending forces. The son of the King of the +Alans had been taken prisoner and was conducted to +Ardashes. His father offered to conclude a peace on +such conditions as Ardashes might exact and under +promise, guaranteed by a solemn oath, that the Alans +would attempt no further incursions on Armenian +territory. As Ardashes refused to surrender the +young prince, the sister of the youth ran to the edge +of the river and climbing upon a lofty hillock, caused +these words to be addressed to the enemy's camp by +the mouth of interpreters: "Hear me, valorous +Ardashes, conqueror of the brave Alans; grant unto +me the surrender of this young man—unto me, the +maiden with beautiful eyes. It is not worthy of a hero +in order to satisfy a desire for vengeance, to take the +life of the sons of heroes or to hold them in bondage +and keep up an endless feud between two nations." +Ardashes, having heard these words, approached +the river. He saw the beautiful Sathinig, listened to +her wise counsels, and fell in love with her. Then, +having called Sumpad, an aged warrior who had +watched over his childhood, he laid bare the wish of +his heart to marry the princess, make a treaty of +amity with her nation and send back the prince in +peace. Sumpad, having approved of these projects, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page81" id="page81"></a>81</span> +sent to ask the King of the Alans for the hand of +Sathinig. "What!" replied her father, "will the +valorous King Ardashes have ever treasure enough +to offer me in return for the noble damsel of the +Alans?"</p> + +<p>A popular song, carefully preserved by Moses, +celebrates the marriage of Ardashes and Sathinig:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>The valiant King Ardashes, astride of a sable charger,</p> +<p>Drew forth a thong of leather, garnished with golden rings:</p> +<p>And quick as fast-flying eagle he crossed the flowing river</p> +<p>And the crimson leather thong, garnished with rings of gold,</p> +<p>Cast he about the body of the Virgin of the Alans,</p> +<p>Clasping in painful embrace the maiden's tender form:</p> +<p>Even so he drew her swiftly to his encampment.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Once again Ardashes appears in the people's +poetry. He is no longer the triumphant victor in +love and war; the hour of his death draws near. +"Oh!" says the dying king, "who will give me back +the smoke of my hearth, and the joyous New Year's +morning, and the spring of the deer, and the lightness +of the roe?" Then his mind wanders away to +the ruling passion: "We sounded the trumpets; +after the manner of kings we beat the drums."</p> + +<p>The Armenian princes were in the habit, when +they married, of throwing pieces of money from the +threshold of their palace, whilst the royal brides +scattered pearls about the nuptial chamber. To this +custom allusion is made in two lines which used to be +sung as a sort of marriage chaunt:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>A rain of gold fell at the wedding of Ardashes,</p> +<p>A rain of pearls fell on the nuptials of Sathinig.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Armenian nuptial songs, like all other folk-epithalamiums, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page82" id="page82"></a>82</span> +so far as I am aware, seem to point +to an early state of society when the girl was simply +carried off by her marauding lover by fraud or force. +Exulting in what relates to the bridegroom, the +favourite song on this subject is profoundly melancholy +as concerns the bride. The mother was +cajoled with a pack of linen, the father with a cup of +wine, the brother with a pair of boots, the little +sister with a finger of antimony—so complains the +dismal ditty of a new bride. There is great +pathos in the words in which she begs her mother +not to sweep the sand off the little plank, so that +the slight trace of her girl's footsteps may not be +effaced.</p> + +<p>Marriage is called in Armenian, "The Imposition +of the Crown," from the practice of crowning bride +and bridegroom with fresh, white flowers. I remember +how, in one of the last marriages celebrated in +the little Armenian church in the Rue Monsieur +(which was closed a few years ago, when the Mekhitarist +property in Paris was sold), this ceremony +was omitted by particular request of the bridegroom, +a rising French Diplomatist, who did not wish to +wear a wreath of roses. The Armenian marriage +formulæ are extremely explicit. The priest, taking +the right hand of the bride, and placing it in that of +the bridegroom, says: "According to the Divine +order God gave to our ancestors, I give thee now this +wife in subjection. Wilt thou be her master?" To +which the answer is, "Through the help of God, I +will." The priest then asks the woman: "Wilt thou +be obedient to him?" She answers: "I am obedient +according to the order of God." The interrogations +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page83" id="page83"></a>83</span> +are repeated three times, and three times +responded to.</p> + +<p>An Armenian author, M. Ermine, published at +Moscow in 1850 a treatise on the historical and +popular songs of ancient Armenia.</p> + +<p>Of popular songs current in more recent times +there was not, till lately, a single specimen within +reach of the public, though it was confidently surmised +that such must exist. The Mekhitarist monks +have taken the lead in this as in every other branch +of Armenian research, and my examples are quoted +from a small collection issued by their press at +Venice. I am not sure that I have chosen those +that are intrinsically the best, but think that those +which figure in these pages are amongst the most +characteristic of their authors and origin. The larger +portion of these songs are printed from manuscripts +in the library of San Lazzaro; the date of their +composition is thought to vary from the end of the +thirteenth to the end of the eighteenth century. The +language in which they are written is the vulgar +tongue of Armenia, but in several instances it attains +a very close approximation to the classical +Armenian.</p> + +<p>It may not be amiss if I conclude this sketch with +a brief account of the remarkable order of the Mekhitarists, +which is so intimately related with all that +bears on the subject of Armenian literature. Those +who are well acquainted with it will not object to +hear the history of this order recapitulated; while I +believe that many who have visited the Convent of +San Lazzaro have yet but vague notions regarding +the work and aims of its inmates. It is to be conjectured +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page84" id="page84"></a>84</span> +that, as a matter of fact, the majority of +Englishmen go to San Lazzaro rather in the spirit of +a Byron-pilgrimage than from any definite interest in +the convent; and without doubt were its only attraction +its association with the English poet it would +still be worth a visit. Byron's connection with San +Lazzaro was not one of the least interesting episodes +of his life; and it is pleasant to remember the tranquil +hours he spent in the society of the learned +monks, and the fascination exercised over him by +their sterling and unpretentious merit. "The neatness, +the comfort, the gentleness, the unaffected +devotion of the brethren of the order," he wrote, +"are well fitted to strike the man of the world with +the conviction that there is 'Another and a better +even in this life.'" The desire to present himself +with an excuse for frequent intercourse with the +brothers was probably at the bottom of Byron's +sudden discovery that his mind "wanted something +craggy to break upon, and that Armenian was just +the thing to torture it into attention." He says it +was the most difficult thing to be found in Venice by +way of an amusement, and describes the Armenian +character as a very "Waterloo of an alphabet." The +origin of this character is exceedingly curious, it +being the only alphabet known to have been the +work of a single man, with the exception of the +Georgian, and now obsolete Caucasian Albanian. +St Mesrop, an Armenian, invented all the three about +A.D. 406. Byron informs Moore, with some elation, +of the fate that <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'befel'">befell</ins> a French professorship of Armenian, +which had then been recently instituted: +"Twenty pupils presented themselves on Monday +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page85" id="page85"></a>85</span> +morning, full of noble ardour, ingenuous youth, and +impregnable industry. They persevered with a +courage worthy of the nation, and of universal conquest +till Thursday, then <i>fifteen</i> out of the <i>twenty</i> +succumbed to the six-and-twentieth letter of the +alphabet." The poet himself mastered all thirty-three +letters, and a good deal more besides, under +the superintendence of the librarian, Padre Paschal +Aucher, a man who combined great learning with +much knowledge of the world. As the result of these +studies we have a translation into Scriptural English +of two apocryphal epistles of St Paul, and an Anglo-Armenian +grammar, of which, with characteristic +liberality, Byron defrayed the cost of publication.</p> + +<p>The order was founded by Varthabed Mekhitar, +who was born at Sebaste, in Asia Minor, in 1676. +Mekhitar was one of those men to whom it comes +quite naturally to go forth with David's sling and +stone against the Philistine and his host. He could +have been scarcely more than twenty years of age +when fearlessly and steadfastly he set himself to the +gigantic task of raising his country out of the +stagnant slough of ignorance in which he saw it +sunk. He was then a candidate for holy orders, +studying in an Armenian convent.</p> + +<p>The monks he found no less ignorant than the rest +of the population; those to whom he broached his +ideas greeted them with derision, and this did not fail +to turn to cruel persecution when he began to preach +against certain prejudices which appeared to him to +keep the Armenians from conforming with the Latin +Church—a union he earnestly desired. Mekhitar +now went to Constantinople, where he set on foot a +small monastic society; presently he moved to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page86" id="page86"></a>86</span> +Modon, in the Morea, then under the rule of Venice, +but before he had been there long, the place was +seized by the Turks. A few of the monks, with their +head, managed to escape to Venice; the others were +taken prisoners, and sold into a temporary slavery. +At Venice, in 1717, the Signory made over to the +fugitives in perpetuity a small barren island in the +Lagune, once tenanted by the Benedictines, who had +there established a hospital for lepers, but which, +since the disappearance of that disease, had been +entirely uninhabited. Mekhitar immediately organised +a printing press, and began making translations of +standard works, which were disseminated wherever +Armenians were to be found, that is to say, all over +the East. When he died in 1747, the work of the +society was already placed on a solid foundation; but +it received considerable development and extension +from the hands of the third abbot-general, Count +Stephen Aconzkover, Archbishop of Sinnia, by birth +a member of an Armenian colony in Hungary, who +sought admittance into the order, and lived in the +retirement of San Lazzaro for sixty-seven years. He +was a poet, a scholar of no mean attainments, and the +author of a universal geography in twelve volumes. +The Society is now self-supporting, large numbers of +its publications being sold in Persia, and India, and +at Constantinople. These publications consist of +numerous translations and of reproductions of the +great part of Armenian literature. Many works have +been printed from MSS. which are collected by emissaries +sent out from San Lazzaro to travel over the +plains and valleys of Armenia for the purpose of +rescuing the literary relics which are widely scattered, +and are in constant danger of loss or destruction, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page87" id="page87"></a>87</span> +at the same time to distribute Armenian versions of +the Bible. Another of the undertakings of the convent +is a school exclusively for the education of +Armenian boys. About one hundred boys receive +free instruction in the two colleges at Venice. What +this order have effected, both towards the enlightenment +of their country and in keeping alive the sentiment +of Armenian nationality, is simply incalculable. +In their self-imposed exile they have nobly carried out +the precept of an Armenian folk-poet:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Forget not our Armenian nation,</p> +<p>And always assist and protect it.</p> +<p>Always keep in thy mind</p> +<p>To be useful to thy fatherland.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>On my first visit I passed a long summer morning in +examining all the points of interest about the monastery—the +house and printing presses, the library with +its beautiful Pali papyrus of the Buddhist ordination +service, and its illuminated manuscripts, the minaretted +chapel, and the silent little Campo Santo, under +the direction of the most courteous and accomplished +of cicerones, Padre Giacomo, Dr Issaverdenz: a name +signifying "Jesus-given." I saw the bright, intelligent +band of scholars: "of these," said my conductor, +"five or six will remain with us." I was shown the +page of the visitor's book inscribed with Byron's signature +in English and in Armenian. Later entries +form a long roll of royal and notable names. The +little museum contains Daniel Manin's tricolor scarf +of office, given to the monks by the son of that +devoted patriot. Queen Margherita does not fail to +pay San Lazzaro a yearly visit, and has lately +accepted the dedication of a book of Armenian church +music.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page88" id="page88"></a>88</span> + +<p>During this tour of inspection, various topics were +discussed: the tendencies of modern thought, the +future of the church, with other matters of a more +personal nature—and upon each my guide's observations +displayed a singularly intellectual and tolerant +attitude of mind, together with a way of looking at +things and speaking of people in which "sweetness +and light" were felicitously apparent. It was difficult +to tear oneself away from the open window in Byron's +little study. The day was one of those matchless +Venetian days, when the heat is tempered by a breeze +just fresh enough to agitate the awning of your gondola; +and the Molo and Riva, and Fortune's golden +ball on the Dogana, the white San Giorgio Maggiore, +the ships eastward bound, the billowy line of the +mountains of Vicenza against the horizon, lie steeped +in a bath of sunshine. But the outlook from the convent +window is not upon these. Beneath are the +green berceaux of a small vineyard, a little garden +gay in its tangle of purple convolvulus, a pomegranate +lifting its laden boughs towards us—to remind the +Armenians of the "flowering pomegranates" of their +beloved country. Beyond the vineyard stretches the +aquamarine surface of the lagune—then the interminable +reach of Lido—after that the ethereal blue of the +Adriatic melting away into the sky. Such is the +scene which till they die the good monks will have +under their eyes. Perhaps they are rather to be +envied than compassionated; for it is manifest that +for them, duty—to use the eloquent expression of an +English divine—has become transfigured into happiness. +"I shall stay here whilst I live," Dr Issaverdenz +said, "and I am happy—quite happy!"</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page89" id="page89"></a>89</span> + +<h2>VENETIAN FOLK-SONGS.</h2> + +<p>To the idealised vision that goes along with hereditary +culture a large town may seem an impressive +spectacle. For Wordsworth, worshipper of nature +though he was, earth had not anything to show more +fair than London from Westminster Bridge, and +Victor Hugo found endless inspiration on the top of +a Parisian omnibus. As shrines of art, as foci of +historic memories, even simply as vast aggregates of +human beings working out the tragi-comedy of life, +great cities have furnished the key-note to much fine +poetry. But it is different with the letterless masses. +The student of literature, who turns to folk-songs in +search of a new enjoyment, will meet with little to +attract him in urban rhymes; if there are many that +present points of antiquarian interest, there are few +that have any kind of poetic worth. The people's +poetry grows not out of an ideal world of association +and aspiration, but from the springs of their life. +They cannot see with their minds as well as with +their eyes. What they do see in most great towns is +the monotonous ugliness which surrounds their homes +and their labour. Then again, it is a well-known fact +that with the people loss of individuality means loss +of the power of song; and where there is density of +population there is generally a uniformity as featureless +as that of pebbles on the sea beach. Still to the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page90" id="page90"></a>90</span> +rule that folk-poesy is not a thing of town growth one +exception has to be made. Venice, unique under +every aspect, has songs which, if not of the highest, +are unquestionably of a high order. The generalising +influences at play in great political centres have hardly +affected the inhabitants of the city which for a thousand +years of independence was a body politic complete in +itself. Nor has Venetian common life lacked those +elements of beauty without whose presence the +popular muse is dumb. The very industries of the +Venetians were arts, and when they were young and +spiritually teachable, their chief bread-winning work +of every day was Venice—her ducal chapel, her campanile, +her palaces of marble and porphyry. In the +process of making her the delight of after ages, they +attended an excellent school of poetry.</p> + +<p>The gondolier contemporary with Byron was correctly +described as songless. At a date closely coinciding +with the overthrow of Venetian freedom, the +boatmen left off waking the echoes of the Grand +Canal, except by those cries of warning which, no +one can quite say why, so thrill and move the hearer. +It was no rare thing to find among the Italians of the +Lombardo-Venetian provinces the old pathetic instinct +of keeping silence before the stranger. I recollect a +story told me by one of them. When he was a boy, +Antonio—that was his name—had to make a journey +with two young Austrian officers. They took notice +of the lad, who was sprightly and good-looking, and +by and by they asked him to sing. "Canta, canta, il +piccolo," said they; "sing us the songs of Italy." He +refused. They insisted, and, coming to a tavern, they +gave him wine, which sent the blood to his head. So +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page91" id="page91"></a>91</span> +at last he said, "Very well, I will sing you the songs +of Italy." What he sang was one of the most furiously +anti-Austrian songs of '48. "Ah! taci, taci il +piccolo!" cried the officers, but the "piccolo" would +not be quiet until he had sung the whole revolutionary +repertory. The Austrians knew how to appreciate +the boy's spirit, for they pressed on him a ten franc +piece at parting.</p> + +<p>To return to Venice. In the year 1819 an English +traveller asked for a song of a man who was reported +to have once chanted Tasso <i>alla barcaruolo</i>; the old +gondolier shook his head. "In times like these," he +said, "he had no heart to sing." Foreign visitors had +to fall back on the beautiful German music, at the +sound of which Venetians ran out of the Piazza, lest +they might be seduced by its hated sweetness. +Meanwhile the people went on singing in their own +quarters, and away from the chance of ministering to +their masters' amusement. It is even probable that +the moral casemate to which they fled favoured the +preservation of their old ways, that of poetising included. +Instead of aiming at something novel and +modern, the Venetian wished to be like what his +fathers were when the flags on St Mark's staffs were +not yellow and black. So, like his fathers, he made +songs and sang songs, of which a good collection has +been formed, partly in past years, and partly since +the black-and-yellow standard has given place, not, +indeed, to the conquered emblems of the Greek isles, +but to the colours of Italy, reconquered for herself.</p> + +<p>Venetian folk-poesy begins at the cradle. The +baby Venetian, like most other babies, is assured that +he is the most perfect of created beings. Here and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page92" id="page92"></a>92</span> +there, underlying the baby nonsense, is a dash of +pathos. "Would you weep if I were dead?" a +mother asks, and the child is made to answer, "How +could I help weeping for my own mamma, who loves +me so in her heart?" A child is told that if he asks +his mother, who is standing by the door, "What are +you doing there?" she will reply, "I am waiting for +thy father; I wait and wait, and do not see him +coming; I think I shall die thus waiting." The +little Venetian has the failings of baby-kind all the +world over; he cries and he laughs when he ought to +be fast asleep. His mother tells him that he was +born to live in Paradise; she is sure that the angels +would rejoice in her darling's beauty. "Sleep well, +for thy mother sits near thee," she sings, "and if by +chance I go away, God will watch thee when I am +gone."</p> + +<p>A christening is regarded in Venice as an event of +much social as well as religious importance. By canon +law the bonds of relationship established by godfatherhood +count for the same as those of blood, for +which reason the Venetian nobles used to choose a +person of inferior rank to stand sponsor for their +children, thus escaping the creation of ties prohibitive +of marriage between persons of their own class. In +this case the material responsibilities of the sponsor +were slight—it was his part to take presents, and not +to make them. By way of acknowledging the new +connection, the child's father sent the godfather a +marchpane, that cake of mystic origin which is still +honoured and eaten from Nuremberg to Malaga. +With the poor, another order of things is in force. +The <i>compare de l'anelo</i>—the person who acted as +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page93" id="page93"></a>93</span> +groomsman at the marriage—is chosen as sponsor to +the first-born child. His duties begin even before the +christening. When he hears of the child's birth, he +gets a piece of meat, a fowl, and two new-laid eggs, +packs them in a basket, and despatches them to the +young mother. Eight days after the birth comes the +baptism. On returning from the church, the sponsor, +now called <i>compare de San Zuane</i>, visits the mother, +before whom he displays his presents—twelve or fifteen +lire for herself; for the baby a pair of earrings, +if it be a girl; and if a boy, a pair of boy's earrings, +or a single ornament to be worn in the right ear. +Henceforth the godfather is the child's natural guardian +next to its parents; and should they die, he is +expected to provide for it. Should the child die, he +must buy the <i>zogia</i> (the "joy"), a wreath of flowers +now set on the coffins of dead infants, but formerly +placed on their heads when they were carried to the +grave-isle in full sight of the people. This last custom +led to even more care being given to the toilet of +dead children than what might seem required by +decency and affection. To dress a dead child badly +was considered shameful. Tradition tells of what +happened to a woman who was so miserly that she +made her little girl a winding-sheet of rags and tatters. +When the night of the dead came round and all the +ghosts went in procession, the injured babe, instead +of going with the rest, tapped at its mother's door +and cried, "Mamma, do you see me? I cannot go in +procession because I am all ragged." Every year on +the night of the dead the baby girl returned to make +the same reproach.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page94" id="page94"></a>94</span> + +<p>Venetian children say before they go to bed:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Bona sera ai vivi,</p> +<p class="i4"> E riposo ai poveri morti;</p> +<p>Bon viagio ai naveganti</p> +<p class="i4"> E bona note ai tuti quanti.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>There is a sort of touching simplicity in this; and +somehow the wish of peace to the "poor dead" recalls +a line of Baudelaire's—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Les morts, les pauvres morts, ont de grandes douleurs.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>But as a whole, the rhymes of the Venetian nursery +are not interesting, save from their extreme resemblance +to the nursery rhymes of England, France, or +any other European country. They need not, therefore, +detain us.</p> + +<p>Twilight is of an Eastern brevity on the Adriatic +shore, both in nature and in life. The child of +yesterday is the man of to-day, and as soon as the +young Venetian discovers that he has a heart, he +takes pains to lose it to a <i>Tosa</i> proportionately +youthful. The Venetian and Provençal word <i>Tosa</i> +signifies maiden, though whether the famous Cima +Tosa is thus a sister to the Jungfrau is not sure, some +authorities believing it to bear the more prosaic +designation of baldheaded ("Tonsurata"). Our young +Venetian may perhaps be unacquainted with the girl he +has marked out for preference. In any case he walks +up and down or rows up and down assiduously under +her window. One night he will sing to a slow, languorous +air—possibly an operatic air, but so altered +as to be not easy of recognition—"I wish all good to +all in this house, to father and to mother and as many +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page95" id="page95"></a>95</span> +as there be; and to Marieta who is my beloved, she +whom you have in your house." The name of the +singer is most likely Nane, for Nane and Marieta are +the commonest names in Venice, which is explained +by the impression that persons so called cannot be +bewitched, a serious advantage in a place where the +Black Art is by no means extinct. The maiden long +remembers the night when first her rest was disturbed +by some such greeting as the above. She has rendered +account of her feelings:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Ah! how mine eyes are weighed in slumber deep!</p> +<p>Now all my life it seems has gone to sleep;</p> +<p>But if a lover passes by the door,</p> +<p>Then seems it this my life will sleep no more.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>It does not do to appropriate a serenade with too +much precipitation. Don Quixote gave it as his +experience that no woman would believe that a poem +was written expressly for her unless it made an +acrostic on her name spelt out in full. Venetian +damsels proceed with less caution: hence now and +then a sad disappointment. A girl who starts up all +pit-a-pat at the twanging of a guitar may be doomed +to hear the cruel sentence pronounced in Lord +Houghton's pretty lyric:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"I am passing—Premé—but I stay not for you!</p> +<p class="i22"> Premé—not for you!"</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Even more unkind are the literal words of the +Venetian: "If I pass this way and sing as I pass, +think not, fair one, that it is for you—it is for another +love, whose beauty surpasses yours!"</p> + +<p>A brother or a friend occasionally undertakes the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page96" id="page96"></a>96</span> +serenading. He is not paid like the professional +Trovador whom the Valencian lover engages to act as +his interpreter. He has no reward in view but empty +thanks, and it is scarcely surprising if on damp nights +he is inclined to fall into a rather querulous vein. +"My song is meant for the <i>Morosa</i> of my companion," +says one of these accommodating minstrels. "If +only I knew where she was! But he told me that +she was somewhere in here. The rain is wetting me +to the skin!" Another exclaims more cheerfully, +"Beautiful angel, if it pleases God, you will become +my sister-in-law!"</p> + +<p>After the singing of the preliminary songs, Nane +seeks a hint of the effect produced on the beloved +Marieta. As she comes out of church, he makes her +a most respectful bow, and if it be returned ever so +slightly, he musters up courage, and asks in so many +words whether she will have him. Marieta reflects +for about three days; then she communicates her +answer by sign or song. If she does not want him, +she shuts herself up in the house and will not look +out for a moment. Nane begs her to show her face +at the window: "Come, oh! come! If thou comest +not 'tis a sign that thou lovest me not; draw my +heart out of all these pangs." Marieta, if she is quite +decided, sings back from behind the half-closed +shutters, "You pass this way, and you pass in vain: +in vain you wear out shoes and soles; expect no fair +words from me." It may be that she confesses to +not knowing her own mind: "I should like to be +married, but I know not to whom: when Nane passes, +I long to say 'Yes;' when Toni passes, I am fain to +look kindly at him; when Bepi passes, I wish to cry, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page97" id="page97"></a>97</span> +God bless you!" Or again, it may be that her heart +is not hers to give:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Wouldst thou my love? For love I have no heart;</p> +<p class="i4"> I had it once, and gave it once away;</p> +<p class="i4"> To my first love I gave it on a day ...</p> +<p>Wouldst thou my love? For love I have no heart.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>In the event of the girl intimating that she is disposed +to listen to her <i>Moroso</i> if all goes well, he turns to +her parents and formally asks permission to pay his +addresses to their daughter. That permission is, of +course, not always granted. If the parents have +thoughts of a wealthier match, the poor serenader +finds himself unceremoniously sent about his business. +A sad state of things ensues. Marieta steals many a +sorrowful glance at the despised Nane, who, on his +side, vents his indignation on the authors of her being +in terms much wanting in respect. "When I behold +thee so impassioned," he cries, "I curse those who +have caused this grief; I curse thy papa and thy +mamma, who will not let us make love." No idea is +here implied of dispensing with the parental fiat; the +same cannot be said of the following observations: +"When I pass this house, my heart aches. The girl +wills me well, her people will me ill; her people will +not hear of it, nor, indeed, will mine. So we have to +make love secretly. But that cannot really be done. +He who wishes for a girl, goes and asks for her—out +of politeness. He who wants to have her, carries her +off." It would seem that the maiden has been known +to be the first to incite rebellion:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Do, my beloved, as other lovers do,</p> +<p>Go to my father, and ask leave to woo;</p> +<p>And if my father to reply is loth,</p> +<p>Come back to me, for thou hast got my troth.</p> + </div> </div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page98" id="page98"></a>98</span> +<p>When the parents have no <i>primâ facie</i> objection to +the youth, they set about inquiring whether he bears +a good character, and whether the girl has a real +liking for him. These two points cleared up satisfactorily, +they still defer their final answer for some +weeks or months, to make a trial of the suitor and to +let the young people get better acquainted. The +lover, borne up by hope, but not yet sure of his prize, +calls to his aid the most effective songs in his repertory. +The last thing at night Marieta hears:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Sleep thou, most fair, in all security,</p> +<p class="i2">For I have made me guardian of thy gate,</p> +<p class="i2">Safe shalt thou be, for I will watch and wait;</p> +<p>Sleep thou, most fair, in all security.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The first thing in the morning she is greeted thus:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Art thou awake, O fairest, dearest, best?</p> +<p class="i2">Raise thy blond head and bid thy slumbers fly;</p> +<p class="i2">This is the hour thy lover passes by,</p> +<p>Throw him a kiss, and then return to rest.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>If she has any lurking doubts of Nane's constancy +she receives the assurance, "One of these days I will +surely make thee my bride—be not so pensive, fairest +angel!" If, on the other hand, Nane lacks complete +confidence in her affection, he appeals to her in words +resembling I know not what Eastern love-song: +"Oh, how many steps I have taken to have thee, and +how many more I would take to gain thee! I have +taken so many, many steps that I think thou wilt not +forsake me."</p> + +<p>The time of probation over, the girl's parents give +a feast, to which the youth and his parents are invited. +He brings with him, as a first offering, a small ring +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page99" id="page99"></a>99</span> +ornamented with a turquoise or a cornelian. Being +now the acknowledged lover, he may come and openly +pay his court every Sunday. On Saturday Marieta +says to herself, "<i>Ancuo xe sabo, doman xe festa</i>—to-morrow +is fête day, and to-morrow I expect +Nane!" Then she pictures how he will come +"dressed for the <i>festa</i> with a little flower in his +hand;" and her heart beats with impatience. If, +after all, by some chance—who knows? by some +faithlessness perhaps—he fails to appear, what grief, +what tears! Marieta's first thought when she rises +on Sunday morning is this: "No one works to-day +for it is <i>festa</i>; I pray you come betimes, dearest +love!" Then comes the second thought: "If he +does not come betimes, it is a sign that he is near to +death; if later I do not see him, it is a sign that he is +dead." The day passes, evening is here—no Nane! +"Vespers sound and my love comes not; either he is +dead, or" (the third and bitterest thought of all) "a +love-thief has stolen him from me!"</p> + +<p>Some little while after the lover has been formally +accepted, he presents the maiden with a plain gold +ring called <i>el segno</i>, and a second dinner or supper +takes place at her parent's house, answering to the +German betrothal feast; henceforth he is the <i>sposo</i> +and she the <i>novizza</i>, and, as in Germany, people look +on the pair as very little less than wedded. The new +bride gives the bridegroom a silk handkerchief, to +which allusion is made in a verse running, "What is +that handkerchief you are wearing? Did you steal +it or borrow it? I neither stole it nor borrowed it; +my <i>Morosa</i> tied it round my neck." At Easter the +<i>sposo</i> gives a cake and a couple of bottles of Cyprus or +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page100" id="page100"></a>100</span> +Malaga; at Christmas a box of almond sweetmeats +and a little jug of <i>mostarda</i> (a Venetian <i>spécialité</i> +composed of quinces dressed in honey and mustard); +at the feast of St Martin, sweet chestnuts; at the +feast of St Mark, <i>el bocolo</i>—that is, a rosebud, emblematical +of the opening year. The lover may also +employ his generosity on New Year's day, on the +girl's name-day, and on other days not specified, +taking in the whole 365. Some maidens show a +decided taste for homage in kind. "My lover bids +me sing, and to please him I will do it," observes one +girl, thus far displaying only the most disinterested +amiability. But presently she reveals her motives: +"He has a ring with a white stone; when I have +sung he will give it to me." A less sordid damsel +asks only for a bunch of flowers; it shall be paid for +with a kiss, she says. Certain things there are which +may be neither given nor taken by lovers who would +not recklessly tempt fate. Combs are placed under +the ban, for they may be made to serve the purposes +of witchcraft; saintly images and church-books, for +they have to do with trouble and repentance; scissors, +for scissors stand for evil speaking; and needles, for +it is the nature of needles to prick.</p> + +<p>Whether through the unwise exchange of these +prohibited articles, or from other causes, it does sometimes +happen that the betrothed lovers who have +been hailed by everybody as <i>novizza</i> and <i>sposo</i> yet +manage to fall out beyond any hopes of falling in +again. If it is the youth's fault that the match is +broken off, all his presents remain in the girl's undisputed +possession; if the girl is to blame, she must +send back the <i>segno</i> and all else that she has received. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page101" id="page101"></a>101</span> +It is said that in some districts of Venetia the young +man keeps an accurate account of whatever he spends +on behalf of his betrothed, and in the case of her +growing tired of him, she has to pay double the sum +total, besides defraying the loss incurred by the hours +he has sacrificed to her, and the boots he has worn +out in the course of his visits.</p> + +<p>It is more usual, as well as more satisfactory, for +the betrothal to be followed in due time by marriage. +After the <i>segno</i> has been "passed," the <i>sposo</i> sings a +new song. "When," asks he, "will be the day +whereon to thy mamma I shall say 'Madona;' to thy +papa 'Missier;' and to thee, darling, 'Wife'?" +"Madona" is still the ordinary term for mother-in-law +at Venice; in Tuscan songs the word is also used +in that sense, though it has fallen out of common +parlance. Wherever it is to be found, it points to +the days when the house-mother exercised an unchallenged +authority over all members of the family. +Even now the mother-in-law of Italian folk-songs is a +formidable personage; to say the truth, there is no +scant measure of self-congratulation when she happens +not to exist. "Oh! Dio del siel, mandeme un +ziovenin senza madona!" is the heartfelt prayer of +the Venetian girl.</p> + +<p>If the youth thinks of the wedding day as the +occasion of forming new ties—above all that dearest +tie which will give him his <i>anzola bela</i> for his own—the +maiden dreams of it as the <i>zornada santa</i>; the +day when she will kneel at the altar and receive the +solemn benediction of the church upon entering into +a new station of life. "Ah! when shall come to pass +that holy day, when the priest will say to me, 'Are +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page102" id="page102"></a>102</span> +you content?' when he shall bless me with the holy +water—ah! when shall it come to pass?"</p> + +<p>It has been noticed that the institution of marriage +is not regarded in a very favourable light by the +majority of folk-poets, but Venetian rhymers as a +rule take an encouraging view of it. "He who has a +wife," sings a poet of Chioggia, "lives right merrily +<i>co la sua cara sposa in compagnia</i>." Warning voices +are not, however, wanting to tell the maiden that +wedded life is not all roses: "You would never want +to be married, my dear, if you knew what it was like," +says one such; while another mutters, "Reflect, girls, +reflect, before ye wed these gallants; on the Ponte di +Rialto bird cages are sold."</p> + +<p>The marriage generally comes off on a Sunday. +Who weds on Monday goes mad; Tuesday will bring +a bad end; Wednesday is a day good for nothing; +Thursday all manner of witches are abroad; Friday +leads to early death; and, as to Saturday, you must +not choose that, <i>parchè de sabo piove</i>, "because on +Saturday it rains!"</p> + +<p>The bride has two toilets—one for the church, one +for the wedding dinner. At the church she wears a +black veil, at the feast she appears crowned with +flowers. After she is dressed and before the bridegroom +arrives, the young girl goes to her father's room +and kneeling down before him, she prays with tears +in her eyes to be forgiven whatever grief she may +have caused him. He grants her his pardon and +gives her his blessing. In the early dawn the wedding +party go to church either on foot or in gondolas, for +it is customary for the marriage knot to be tied at +the conclusion of the first mass. When the right +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page103" id="page103"></a>103</span> +moment comes the priest puts the <i>vera</i>, or wedding +ring, on the tip of the bride's finger, and the bridegroom +pushes it down into its proper place. If the +<i>vera</i> hitches, it is a frightfully bad omen. When once +it is safely adjusted, the best man steps forward and +restores to the bride's middle finger the little ring +which formed the lover's earliest gift; for this reason +he is called <i>compare de l'anelo</i>, a style and title he +will one day exchange for that of <i>compare de San +Zuane</i>.</p> + +<p>At the end of the service the bride returns to her +father's house, where she remains quietly till it is time +to get ready for dinner. As the clock strikes four, +the entire wedding party, with the parents of bride +and bridegroom and a host of friends and relations, +start in gondolas for the inn at which the repast is to +take place. The whole population of the <i>calle</i> or +<i>campo</i> is there to see their departure, and to admire +or criticise, as the case may be. After dinner, when +everyone has tasted the good wine and enjoyed the +good fare, the feast breaks up with cries of <i>Viva +la novizza!</i> followed by songs, stories, laughter, and +much flirtation between the girls and boys, who make +the most of the freedom of intercourse conceded to +them in honour of the day. Then the music begins, +the table is whisked away, and the assembled guests +join lustily in the dance; the women perhaps, singing +at intervals, "Enôta, enôta, enìo!" a burden borne +over to Venice from the Grecian shore. The romance +is finished; Marieta and Nane are married, the +<i>zornada santa</i> wanes to its close, the tired dancers +accompany the bride to the threshold of her new +home, and so adieu!</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page104" id="page104"></a>104</span> + +<p>Before leaving the subject of Venetian love-songs it +may be as well to glance at a few points characteristic +of the popular mind which it has not been +convenient to touch upon in following the Venetian +youth and maiden from the <i>prima radice</i> of their love +to its consecration at the altar. What, for instance, +does the Venetian singer say of poverty and riches?—for +there is no surer test of character than the way +of regarding money and the lack of it. It is taken +pretty well for granted at Venice as elsewhere, that +inequality of fortune is a bar to matrimony. The +poor girl says to her better-to-do lover, "Thou passest +this way sad and grieving, thou thinkest to speak to +my father, and on thy finger thou dost carry a little +ring. But thy thought does not fall in with my +thought, and thy thought is not worth a gazette. +Thou art rich and I am a poor little one!" Here the +girl puts all faith in the good intentions of her suitor: +it is not his fault if her poverty divides them; it is the +nature of things, against which there is no appeal. +But there is more than one song that betrays the +suspicion that if a girl grows poor her lover will be +only too eager and ready to desert her. "My lady +mother has always told me that she who falls into +poverty loses her lover; loses friend and loses hope. +The purse does not sing when there is no coin in it." +Still, on the whole, a more high-minded view prevails. +"Do not look to my being a poor man," says one lover,</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Che povatà no guasta gentilissa,</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>—"for poverty does not spoil or prevent gentle +manners." A girl sings, "All tell me that I am poor, +the world's honour is my riches; I am poor, I am of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page105" id="page105"></a>105</span> +fair fame; poor both of us, let us make love." One +is reminded of "how the good wife taught her +daughter" in the old English poem of the fifteenth +century:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>I pray the, my dere childe, loke thou bere the so well</p> +<p>That alle men may seyen thou art so trewe as stele;</p> +<p>Gode name is golde worth, my leve childe!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>A brave little Venetian maiden cries: "How many +there are who desire fortune! and I, poor little thing, +desire it not. This is the fortune I desire, to wed a +youth of twenty-one years." One lover pines for +riches, but only that he may offer them to his beloved: +"Fair Marieta, I wish to make my fortune, to go +where the Turk has his cradle, and work myself +nearly to death, so that afterwards I may come back +to thee, my fair one, and marry thee." Finally, a +town youth says that if his country love has but a +milk-pail for her dowry, what matters?</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>De dota la me dà quel viso belo!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The Venetian displays no marked enthusiasm for +fair hair, notwithstanding the fame of Giorgione's +sunset heads and the traditional expedients by which +Venetian ladies of past times sought to bring their +dark locks into conformity with that painter's favourite +hue. In Venetian songs there is nothing about the +"golden spun silk" of Sicily; if a Venetian folk-poet +does speak of fair hair, he calls it by the common-place +generic term of blond. The available evidence +goes rather to show that in his own heart he prefers a +brunette. "My lady mother always told me that I +should never be enamoured of white roses," says a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page106" id="page106"></a>106</span> +sententious young man; "she told me that I should +love the little mulberries, which are sweeter than +honey." "Cara mora," <i>mora</i>, or mulberry, meaning +brunette, is an ordinary caressing term. Two frank +young people carry on this dialogue: "Will you come +to me, fair maid?" "No; I will not come, for I am +fair." "If you are fair, I am no less so; if you are +the rose, I am the spotless lily." Beauty, therefore, +is valued, especially by the possessors of it. But the +Venetian admits the possibility of that which Keats +found so hard to comprehend—the love of the plain. +A girl says, and it is a pretty saying, "Se no so bela, +ghe piaso al mio amore" ("If I am not fair, I please +my beloved"). A soldier, whose <i>morosa</i> dies, does not +weep for her beauty, for she was not beautiful; nor +for her riches, for she was not rich; he weeps for her +sweet manners and conversation—it was that that +made him love her. The universal weakness for a +little flattery from the hand of the portrait-painter is +expressed in a sprightly little song:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>What does it matter if I am not fair,</p> +<p class="i2">Who have a lover, who a painter is?</p> +<p class="i2">He will portray me like a star, I wis;</p> +<p>What does it matter if I am not fair?</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>We hear a good deal of lovers' quarrels, and of the +transitoriness of love. "Oh! God! how the sky is +overcast! It seems about to rain, and then it passes; +so is it with a man in love; he loves a fair woman, +and then he leaves her." That is her version of the +affair. He has not anything complimentary to say: "If +I get out of this squall alive, never more shall woman +in the world befool me. I have been befooled upon +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page107" id="page107"></a>107</span> +a pledge of sacred faith: mad is the man who believes +in women." Another man says, with more serious +bitterness: "What time have I not lost in loving you! +Had I lost it in saying so many prayers, I should have +found favour before God, and my mother would have +blessed me." A matter-of-fact girl remarks, "No one +will grow thin on your account, nor will any one die +on mine." When her lover says that he has sent her +his heart in a basket, she replies that she sends back +both basket and heart, being in want of neither; and +if he should really happen to die, she unfeelingly +meditates, "My love is dead, and I have not wept; I +had thought to suffer more torment. A Pope dies, +another is made; not otherwise do I weep for my +love."</p> + +<p>Certain vocations are looked upon with suspicion:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Sailor's trade—at sea to die!</p> +<p>Merchant's trade—that's bankruptcy;</p> +<p>Gambler's trade in cursing ends,</p> +<p>Thief's trade to the gallows sends.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>But in spite of the second line about "l'arte del +mercante," a girl does not much mind marrying a +merchant or shopkeeper; nay, it is sometimes her +avowed ambition:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>I want no fisher with a fishy smell,</p> +<p>A market gardener would not suit me well;</p> +<p>Nor yet a mariner who sails the sea:</p> +<p>A fine flour-merchant is the man for me.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>A miller seems to think that he stands a good chance: +"Come to the window, Columbine! I am that miller +who brought thee, the other evening, the pure white +flour." Shoemakers are in very bad odour: "I calegheri +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page108" id="page108"></a>108</span> +ga na trista fama." Fishermen are considered +poor penniless folk, and she who weds a sailor, does +so at her peril:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>L'amor del mariner no dura un 'ora,</p> +<p>La dove che lu el và, lu s' inamora.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>And even if the sailor's troth can be trusted, is it not +his trade "at sea to die"? But the young girl will +not be persuaded. "All say to me, 'Beauty, do not +take the mariner, for he will make thee die;' if he make +me die, so must it be; I will wed him, for he is +my soul." And when he is gone, she sings: "My +soul, as thou art beyond the port, send me word if +thou art alive or dead, if the waters of the sea have +taken thee?" She returns sadly to her work, the +work of all Venetian maidens:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>My love is far and far away from me,</p> +<p>I am at home, and he has gone to sea;</p> +<p>He is at sea, and he has sails to spread,</p> +<p>I am at home, and I have beads to thread.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The boatman's love can afford to sing in a lighter +strain; there is not the shadow of interminable +voyages upon her. "I go out on the balcony, I see +Venice, and I see my joy, who starts; I go out on +the balcony, I see the sea, and I see my love, who +rows." Another song is perhaps a statement of fact, +though it sounds like a poetic fancy:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>To-night their boats must seek the sea,</p> +<p class="i2">One night his boat will linger yet;</p> +<p>They bear a freight of wood, and he</p> +<p class="i2">A freight of rose and violet.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Who forgets the coming into Venice in the early +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page109" id="page109"></a>109</span> +morning light of the boats laden with fresh flowers +and fruit?</p> + +<p>Isaac d'Israeli states that the fishermen's wives of +the Lido, particularly those of the districts of Malamocca +and Pelestrina (its extreme end), sat along the +shore in the evenings while the men were out fishing, +and sang stanzas from Tasso and other songs at the +pitch of their voices, going on till each one could +distinguish the responses of her own husband in the +distance.</p> + +<p>At first sight the songs of the various Italian provinces +appear to be greatly alike, but at first sight +only. Under further examination they display +essential differences, and even the songs which travel +all over Italy almost always receive some distinctive +touch of local colour in the districts where they +obtain naturalisation. The Venetian poet has as +strongly marked an identity as any of his fellows. +Not to speak of his having invented the four-lined +song known as the "Vilota," the quality of his work +unmistakably reflects his peculiar idiosyncracies. An +Italian writer has said, "nella parola e nello scritto +ognuno imita sè stesso;" and the Venetian "imitates +himself" faithfully enough in his verses. He has a +well-developed sense of humour, and his finer wit +discerns less objectionable paths than those of parody +and burlesque, for which the Sicilian shows so fatal a +leaning. He is often in a mood of half-playful cynicism; +if his paramount theme is love, he is yet fully +inclined to have a laugh at the expense of the whole +race of lovers:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>A feast I will prepare for love to eat,</p> +<p class="i2">Non-suited suitors I will ask to dine;</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page110" id="page110"></a>110</span> +<p>They shall have pain and sorrow for their meat,</p> +<p class="i2">They shall have tears and sobs to drink for wine;</p> +<p>And sighs shall be the servitors most fit</p> +<p>To wait at table where the lovers sit.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>As compared with the Tuscan, the Venetian is a confirmed +egotist. While the former well-nigh effaces +his individual personality out of his hymns of adoration, +the latter is apt to talk so much of his private +feelings, his wishes, his disappointments, that the +idol stands in danger of being forgotten. There is, +indeed, a single song—the song of one of the despised +mariners—which combines the sweet humility +of Tuscan lyrics with a glow and fervour truly +Venetian—possibly its author was in reality some +Istriot seaman, for the <i>canti popolari</i> of Istria are +known to partake of both styles. Anyhow, it may +figure here, justified by what seems to me its own +excellence of conception:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Fair art thou born, but love is not for me;</p> +<p>A sailor's calling sends me forth to sea.</p> +<p>I do desire to paint thee on my sail,</p> +<p>And o'er the briny deep I'd carry thee.</p> +<p>They ask, What ensign? when the boat they hail—</p> +<p>For woman's love I bear this effigy;</p> +<p>For woman's love, for love of maiden fair;</p> +<p>If her I may not love, I love forswear!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>When he is most in earnest and most excited, the +Venetian is still homely—he has none of the Sicilian's +luxuriant imagination. I may call to mind a +remark of Edgar Poe's to the effect that passion +demands a homeliness of expression. Passionate the +Venetian poet certainly is. Never a man was readier +to "dare e'en death" at the behest of his mistress—</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page111" id="page111"></a>111</span> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Wouldst have me die? Then I'll no longer live.</p> +<p class="i4"> Grant unto me for sepulchre thy bed,</p> +<p class="i4"> Make me straightway a pillow of thy head,</p> +<p>And with thy mouth one kiss, beloved one, give.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>At Chioggia, where still in the summer evenings +<i>Orlando Furioso</i> is read in the public places, and +where artists go in quest of the old Venetian type, +they sing a yet more impassioned little song.</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh, Morning Star, I ask of thee this grace,</p> +<p class="i2">This only grace I ask of thee, and pray:</p> +<p>The water where thou hast washed thy breast and face,</p> +<p class="i2">In kindly pity throw it not away.</p> +<p>Give it to me for medicine; I will take</p> +<p>A draught before I sleep and when I wake;</p> +<p>And if this medicine shall not make me whole,</p> +<p>To earth my body, and to hell my soul!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>It must be added that Venetian folk-poesy lacks the +innate sympathy with all beautiful natural things +which pervades the poesy of the Apennines. This +is in part the result of outward conditions: nature, +though splendid, is unvaried at Venice. The +temperament of the Venetian poet explains the rest. +If he alludes to the <i>bel seren con tante stelle</i>, it is only +to say that "it would be just the night to run away +with somebody"—to which assertion he tacks the +disreputable rider, "he who carries off girls is not +called a thief, he is called an enamoured young man."</p> + +<p>Even in the most lovely and the most poetic of +cities you cannot breathe the pure air of the hills. +The Venetian is without the intense refinement of the +Tuscan mountaineer, as he is without his love of +natural beauty. The Tuscan but rarely mentions the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page112" id="page112"></a>112</span> +beloved one's name—he respects it as the Eastern +mystic respects the name of the Deity; the Venetian +sings it out for the edification of all the boatmen of +the canal. The Tuscan has come to regard a kiss as +a thing too sacred to talk about; the Venetian has as +few scruples on the subject as the poet of Sirmio. +Nevertheless, it should be recognised that a not very +blameable unreservedness of speech is the most +serious charge to be brought against all save a small +minority of Venetian singers. I believe that the able +and conscientious collector, Signor Bernoni, has exercised +but slight censorship over the mass of songs +he has placed on record, notwithstanding which the +number of those that can be accused of an immoral +tendency is extremely limited. Whence it is to be +inferred that the looseness of manners prevailing +amongst the higher classes at Venice in the decadence +of the Republic at no time became general in the +lower and sounder strata of society.</p> + +<p>At the beginning of this century, songs that were +called Venetian ballads were very popular in London +drawing-rooms. That they were sung with more +effect before those who had never heard them in their +own country than before those who had, will be easily +believed. A charming letter-writer of that time described +the contrast made by the gay or impassioned +strain of the poetry to "the stucco face of the statue +who doles it forth;" whilst in Venice, he added, it is +seconded by all the nice inflections of voice, grace of +gesture, play of features, that distinguish Venetian +women. One of the Venetian songs which gained +most popularity abroad was the story of the damsel +who drops her ring into the sea, and of the fisherman +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page113" id="page113"></a>113</span> +who fishes it up, refusing all other reward than a +kiss:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh! pescator dell 'onda,</p> +<p class="i6">Findelin,</p> +<p>Vieni pescar in qua!</p> +<p>Colla bella sua barca</p> +<p>Colla bella se ne va</p> +<p class="i6">Findelin! lin, la!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>But this song is not peculiarly Venetian; it is sung +everywhere on the Adriatic and Mediterranean +coasts. And the version used was in pure Italian. +Judged as poetry, the existing Venetian ballads take +a lower place than the <i>Vilote</i>. They are often not +much removed from doggerel, as may be shown by +a lamentable history which confusedly suggests +Enoch Arden with the moral of "Tue-la:"</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"Who is that knocking at my gates?</p> +<p class="i2">Who is that knocking at my door?"</p> +<p>"A London captain 'tis who waits,</p> +<p class="i2">Your very humble servitor."</p> +<p>In deshabille the fair one ran,</p> +<p class="i2">Straightway the door she opened wide:</p> +<p>"Tell me, my fair one, if you can,</p> +<p class="i2">Where does your husband now abide?"</p> +<p>"My husband he has gone to France,</p> +<p class="i2">Pray heaven that back he may not come;"</p> +<p>—Just then the fair one gave a glance,</p> +<p class="i2">It was her spouse arrived at home!</p> +<p>"Forgive, forgive," the fair one cried,</p> +<p class="i2">"Forgive if I have done amiss;"</p> +<p>"There is no pardon," he replied,</p> +<p class="i2">For women who have sinned like this."</p> +<p>Her head fell off at the first blow,</p> +<p class="i2">The first blow wielded by his sword;</p> +<p>So does just Heaven its anger show</p> +<p class="i2">Against the wife who wrongs her lord.</p> + </div> </div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page114" id="page114"></a>114</span> + +<p>Venetian songs will serve as a guide to the character, +but scarcely to the opinions, of the Venetians. +The long struggle with Austria has left no other trace +than a handful of rough verses dating from the Siege—mere +strings of <i>Evvivas</i> to the dictator and the +army. It may be argued that the fact is not exceptional, +that like the <i>Fratelli d'ltalia</i> of Goffredo +Mameli, the war-songs of the Italian movement were +all composed for the people and not by them. Still +there have been genuine folk-poets who have discoursed +after their fashion of <i>Italia libera</i>. The +Tuscan peasants sang as they stored the olives of +1859—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>L'amore l'ho in Piamonte,</p> +<p>Bandiera tricolor!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>There is not in Venetian songs an allusion to the +national cause so naïvely, so caressingly expressive as +this. It cannot be that the Venetian <i>popolano</i> did not +care; whenever his love of country was put to the +test, it was found in no way wanting. Was it that to +his positive turn of mind there appeared to be an +absence of connection between politics and poetry? +Looking back to the songs of an earlier period, we +find the same habit of ignoring public events. A +rhyme, answering the purpose of our "Ride a cock +horse," contains the sole reference to the wars of +Venice with the Porte—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Andemo a la guera</p> +<p>Per mare e per tera,</p> +<p>E cataremo i Turchi,</p> +<p>Li mazzaremo tuti, &c.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>In the proverbs, if not in the songs, a somewhat +stronger impress remains of the independent attitude +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page115" id="page115"></a>115</span> +assumed by the Republic in its dealings with the +Vatican. The Venetians denied Papal infallibility by +anticipation in the saying, "The Pope and the countryman +know more than the Pope alone;" and in one +line of a nursery ditty, "El Papa no xè Rè," they +quietly abolished the temporal power. When Paul V. +laid the city under an interdict, the citizens made +answer, "Prima Veneziani e poi cristiani," a proverb +that survives to this day. "Venetians first" was the +first article of faith of these men, or rather it was to +them a vital instinct. Their patriotism was a kind of +magnificent <i>amour propre</i>. No modern nation has felt +a pride of state so absorbing, so convinced, so transcendent: +a pride which lives incarnate in the forms +and faces of the Venetian senators who look serenely +down on us from the walls of the Art Gallery out of +the company of kings, of saints, of angels, and of such +as are higher than the angels.</p> + +<p>A chance word or phrase now and then accidentally +carries us back to Republican times and institutions. +The expression, "Thy thought is not worth a <i>gazeta</i>," +occurring in a love-song cited above, reminds us that +the term gazette is derived from a Venetian coin of +that name, value three-quarters of a farthing, which +was the fee charged for the privilege of hearing read +aloud the earliest venture in journalism, a manuscript +news-sheet issued once a month at Venice in the sixteenth +century. The figure of speech, "We must +have fifty-seven," meaning, "we are entering on a +serious business," has its origin in the fifty-seven votes +necessary to the passing of any weighty measure in +the Venetian Senate. The Venetian adapter of +Molière's favourite ditty, in lieu of preferring his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page116" id="page116"></a>116</span> +sweetheart to the "bonne ville de Paris," prefers her +to "the Mint, the Arsenal, and the Bucentaur." +Every one is familiar with the quaint description of +the outward glories of St Mark's Square:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>In St Mark's Place three standards you descry,</p> +<p>And chargers four that seem about to fly;</p> +<p>There is a time-piece which appears a tower,</p> +<p>And there are twelve black men who strike the hour.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Social prejudices creep in where politics are almost +excluded. A group of <i>Vilote</i> relates to the feud—old +as Venice—between the islanders of San Nicolo +and the islanders of Castello, the two sections of the +town east of the Grand Canal, in the first of which +stands St Mark's, in the last the arsenal. The best +account of the two factions is embodied in an ancient +poem celebrating the fight that rendered memorable +St Simon's Day, 1521. The anonymous writer tells +his tale with an impartiality that might be envied by +greater historians, and he ends by putting a canto of +peaceable advice into the mouth of a dying champion, +who urges his countrymen to dwell in harmony and +love one another as brothers. Are they not made of +the same flesh and bone, children alike of St Mark +and his State?</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Tuti a la fin no semio patrioti,</p> +<p>Cresciu in sti campi, ste cale e cantoni?</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The counsel was not taken, and the old rivalry continued +unabated, fostered up to a certain point by the +Republic, which saw in it, amongst other things, a +check on the power of the patricians. The two sides +represented the aristocratic and democratic elements +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page117" id="page117"></a>117</span> +of the population: the Castellani had wealth and +birth and fine palaces, their upper classes monopolised +the high offices of State, their lower classes worked in +the arsenal, served as pilots to the men-of-war, and +acted as rowers in the Bucentaur. The better-to-do +Nicoloti came off with a share of the secondary +employs, whilst the larger portion of the San Nicolo +folk were poor fishermen. But their sense of personal +dignity was intense. They had a doge of their own, +usually an old sailor, who on high days and holidays +sat beside the "renowned prince, the Duke of Venice." +This doge, or <i>Gastaldo dei Nicoloti</i>, was answerable +for the conduct of his people, of whom he was at once +superior and equal. "Ti voghi el dose et mi vogo col +dose" ("You row the doge, I row with the doge"), a +Nicoloto would say to his rival. It is easy to see how +the party spirit engendered by the old feud produced +a sentiment of independence in even the poorest +members of the community, and how it thus became +of great service to the Republic. Its principal drawback +was that of leading to hard blows, the last occasion +of its doing so being St Simon's Day, 1817, when +a fierce local outbreak was severely suppressed by the +Austrians. Since then the contending forces have +agreed to dwell in harmony; whether they love one +another as brothers is not so clear. There are songs +still sung in which mutual recrimination takes the +form of too strong language for ears polite. "If a +Nicoloto is born, a Count is born; if a Castellan is +born—set up the gallows," is the mildest dictum of a +son of San Nicolo, to which his neighbour replies, +"When a Castellan is born, a god is born; when a +Nicoloto is born, a brigand is born." The feud lingers +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page118" id="page118"></a>118</span> +on even in the matter of love. "Who is that youth +who passes so often?" inquires a girl; "if it be a +Castellan, bid him be off; if it be a Nicoloto, bid him +come in."</p> + +<p>On the night of the Redeemer (in July) still takes +place what was perhaps one of the most ancient of +Venetian customs. A fantastic illumination, a bridge +of boats, a people's ball, a prize-giving to the best +gondolas, a promiscuous wandering about the public +gardens, these form some of the features of the festival. +But its most remarkable point is the expedition +to the Lido at three o'clock in the morning to see the +dawn. As the sun rises from his cradle of eastern +gold, he is greeted by the shout of thousands. Many +of the youths leap into the water and disport themselves +like wild creatures of the sea.</p> + +<p>A word in conclusion as to the dialect in which +Venetian songs are composed. The earliest specimen +extant consists in the distich—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Lom po far e die in pensar</p> +<p>E vega quelo che li po inchiontrar,</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>which is to be read on the façade of St Mark's, opposite +the ducal palace. The meaning is, Look before +you leap—an adage well suited to the people who +had the reputation of being the most prudent in the +world. This inscription belongs to the twelfth century. +There used to be a song sung at Ascension-tide +on the occasion of the marriage of the doge with the +Adriatic, of which the signification of the words was +lost and only the sound preserved. It is a pity that +it was never written out phonetically; for modern +scholars would probably have proved equal to the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page119" id="page119"></a>119</span> +task of interpreting it, even as they have given us the +secret of the runes on the neck of the Greek lion at +the arsenal. We owe to Dante a line of early Venetian—one +of those tantalising fragments of dialect +poems in his posthumous work, <i>De Vulgari Eloquentia</i>—fragments +perhaps jotted down with the intention +of copying the full stanzas had he lived to finish the +treatise. Students have long been puzzled by Dante's +judgment on the Venetian dialect, which he said was +so harsh that it made the conversation of a woman +resemble that of a man. The greatest master of the +Italian tongue was ruthless in his condemnation of its +less perfect forms, to the knowledge of which he was +all the same indebted in no slight degree. But it +must not be overlooked that the question in Dante's +day was whether Italy should have a language or +whether the nation should go on oscillating between +Latin and <i>patois</i>. For reasons patriotic and political +quite as much as literary, Dante's heart was set on +the adoption of one "illustrious, cardinal, aulic and +polite" speech by the country at large, and to that +end he contributed incalculably, though less by his +treatise than by his poem. The involuntary hatred +of <i>patois</i> as an outward sign of disunion has reappeared +again in some of those who in our own time +have done and suffered most for united Italy. Thus I +once heard Signor Benedetto Cairoli say: "When we +were children, our mother would on no account let us +speak anything but good Italian." It is possible that +Dante's strong feeling on the subject made him unjust. +It is also possible that the Venetian and the +other dialects have undergone a radical change, though +this is not so likely as may at first be supposed. A +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page120" id="page120"></a>120</span> +piece of nonsense written in the seventeenth century +gives an admirable idea of what the popular idiom +was then and is now:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Mi son tanto inamorao</p> +<p class="i2">In dona Nina mia vesina</p> +<p class="i2">Che me dà gran disciplina,</p> +<p class="i2">Che me vedo desparao.</p> +<p class="i10"> Gnao bao, bao gnao,</p> +<p class="i10"> Mi son tanto inamorao!</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Mi me sento tanti afani</p> +<p class="i2">(Tuti i porto per so amore!)</p> +<p class="i2">Che par proprio che sia cani</p> +<p class="i2">Ch'al mi cor fazza brusore;</p> +<p class="i2">Che da tute quante l'ore</p> +<p class="i2">Mi me sento passionao.</p> +<p class="i10"> Gnao bao, bao gnao,</p> +<p class="i10"> Mi son tanto inamorao!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>In most respects Venetian would approach closely +to standard Italian were it not for the pronunciation; +yet to the uneducated Venetian, Italian sounds very +strange. A maid-servant who had picked up a few +purely Italian words, was found to be under the +delusion that she had been learning English. The +Venetian is unable to detect a foreigner by his accent. +An English traveller had been talking for some +while to a woman of Burano, when she asked in +all seriousness, "Are you a Roman?" A deficiency +of grammar, a richness in expressive colloquialisms, +and the possession of certain terms of Greek origin, +constitute the main features of the Venetian dialect +as it is known to us. It was used by the Republic +in the affairs of state, and it was generally understood +throughout Italy, because, as Evelyn records, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page121" id="page121"></a>121</span> +all the world repaired to Venice "to see the folly +and madnesse of the Carnevall." With the exception +of Dante, every one seems to have been struck by +its merits, of which the chief, to modern ears, are +vivacity and an exceeding softness. It can boast of +much elegant lettered poetry, as well as of Goldoni's +best comedies. To the reading of the latter when a +child, Alfieri traced his particular partiality for "the +jargon of the lagunes." Byron declared that its +<i>naïveté</i> was always pleasant in the mouth of a woman, +and George Sand mentions it approvingly as "ce +gentil parler Vénitien, fait à ce qu'il me semble pour +la bouche des enfants."</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page122" id="page122"></a>122</span> + +<h2>SICILIAN FOLK-SONG.</h2> + +<p>L'Isola del Fuoco—the Isle of Fire, as Dante +named it—is singularly rich in poetic associations. +Acis, the sweet wood-born stream, Galatea, the calm +of the summer sea, and how many more flower-children +of a world which had not learned to "look +before and after," of a people who deified nature and +naturalised deity, and felt at one with both, send us +thence across the ages the fragrance of their immortal +youth. Our mind's magic lantern shows us +Sappho and Alcæus welcomed in Sicily as guests, +Pindar writing his Sicilian Odes, the mighty Æschylus, +burdened always perhaps with a sorrow—untainted +by fretful anger—because of that slight, sprung from +the enthusiasm for the younger poet, the heat of +politics, we know not what, which drove him forth +from Athens: yet withal solaced by the homage paid +to his grey hairs, and not ill-content to die</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>On the bank of Gela productive of corn.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>To Sicily we trace the germs of Greek comedy, and +the addition of the epode to the strophe and anti-strophe. +We remember the story of how, when the +greatness of Athens had gone to wreck off Syracuse, +a few of the starving slaves in the <i>latomiæ</i> were told +they were free men, thanks to their ability to recite +passages from Euripides; we remember also that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page123" id="page123"></a>123</span> +new story, narrated in English verse, of the adventure +which befell the Rhodian maid Balaustion, on these +Sicilian shores, and of the good stead stood her by +the knowledge of <i>Alcestis</i>. We think of Sicily as +the birth-place of the Idyllists, the soil which bore +through them an aftermath of Grecian song thick +with blossom as the last autumn yield of Alpine +meads. Then by a strange transformation scene we +get a glimpse of Arabian Kasîdes hymning the +beauties of the Conca d'Oro, and as these disappear, +arise the forms of the poets of whom Petrarch says—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p><span class="xl">. . .</span> i Sicilian!</p> +<p>Che fur già primi</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>—those wonderful poet discoverers, more wonderful +as discoverers than as poets, who found out that a +new music was to be made in a tongue, not Latin, +nor yet Provençal—a tongue which had grown into +life under the double foster-fathership of Arabian +culture and Norman rule, the <i>lingua cortigiana</i> of the +palaces of Palermo, the "common speech" of Dante. +When we recollect how the earliest written essays +in Italian were composed in what once was styled +Sicilian, it seems a trifle unfair for the practical +adaptator—in this case as often happens in the case +of individuals—to have so completely borne away the +glory from the original inventor as to cause the latter +to be all but forgotten. We now hear only of the +"sweet Tuscan tongue," and even the pure pronunciation +of educated Sicilians is not admitted without a +comment of surprise. But whilst the people of +Tuscany quickly assimilated the <i>lingua cortigiana</i> +and made it their own, the people of Sicily stuck fast +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page124" id="page124"></a>124</span> +to their old wild-flower language, and left ungathered +the gigantic lily nurtured in Palermitan hot-houses +and carried by the great Florentine into heaven and +hell. They continued speaking, not the Sicilian we +call Italian, but the Sicilian we call patois—the +Sicilian of the folk-songs. The study of Italic dialects +is one by no means ill-calculated to repay the trouble +bestowed upon it, and that from a point of view not +connected with their philological aspect. How far, +or it may be I should say, how soon they will die out, +in presence of the political unity of the country, and +of the general modern tendency towards the adoption +of standard forms of language, it is not quite easy +to decide. Were we not aware of the astonishing +rapidity with which dialects, like some other things, +may give way when once the least breach is opened, +we might suppose that those of Italy were good for +many hundred years. Even the upper classes have +not yet abandoned them: it is said that there are +deputies at Monte Citorio who find the flow of their +ideas sadly baulked by the parliamentary etiquette +which expects them to be delivered in Italian. And +the country-people are still so strongly attached to +their respective idioms as to incline them to believe +that they are the "real right thing," to the disadvantage +of all competitors. Not long ago, a Lombard +peasant-woman employed as nurse to a neuralgic +Sicilian gentleman who spoke as correctly as any +Tuscan, assured a third person with whom she chatted +in her own dialect—it was at a bath establishment—that +her patient did not know a single word of Italian! +But it is reported that in some parts of Italy the +peasants are beginning to forget their songs; and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page125" id="page125"></a>125</span> +when a generation or two has lived through the æra +of facile inter-communication that makes Reggio but +two or three days' journey from Turin, when every +full-grown man has served his term of military service +in districts far removed from his home, the vitality +of the various dialects will be put to a severe test. +Come when it may, the change will have in it much +that is desirable for Italy: of this there can be no +question; nor can it be disputed that as a whole +standard Italian offers a more complete and plastic +medium of expression than Venetian, or Neapolitan, +or Sicilian. Nevertheless, in the mouth of the people +the local dialects have a charm which standard Italian +has not—a charm that consists in clothing their +thought after a fashion which, like the national +peasant costumes, has an essential suitability to the +purpose it is used for, and while wanting neither grace +nor richness, suggests no comparisons that can reflect +upon it unfavourably. The naïve ditty of a poet of +Termini or Partinico is too much a thing <i>sui generis</i> +for it to suffer by contrast with the faultless finish of +a sonnet in <i>Vita di Madonna Laura</i>.</p> + +<p>Sicily is notoriously richer in songs than any +province of the mainland; Vigo collected 5000, and +the number of those since written down seems almost +incredible. It has even been conjectured that Sicily +was the original fountain-head of Italian popular +poetry, and that it is still the source of the greater +part of the songs which circulate through Italy.<a id="footnotetagA" name="footnotetagA"></a><a class="ask" href="#footnoteA">*</a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page126" id="page126"></a>126</span> +Songs that rhyme imperfectly in the Tuscan version +have been found correct when put into Sicilian, a fact +which points to the island as their first home. Dr +Pitrè, however, deprecates such speculations as premature, +and when so distinguished and so conscientious +an investigator bids us suspend our judgment, +we can do no better than to obey. What can be +stated with confidence is, that popular songs are +inveterate travellers, and fly from place to place, no +one knows how, at much the same electrical rate as +news spreads amongst the people—a phenomenon +of which the more we convince ourselves that the +only explanation is the commonplace one that lies on +the surface, the more amazing and even mysterious +does it appear.</p> + +<p class="footnote1"><a id="footnoteA" name="footnoteA"></a><a class="ask" href="#footnotetagA">*</a> "Noi crediamo .... che il Canto popolare italiano sia +nativo di Sicilia. Nè con questo intendiamo asserire che le +plebi delle altre provincie sieno prive di poetica facoltà, e che +non vi sieno poesie popolari sorte in altre regioni italiane, ed +ivi cresciute e di là diramate attorno. Ma crediamo che, nella +maggior parte des casi, il Canto abbia per patria di origine +l'Isola, e per patria di adozione la Toscana: che, nato con veste +di dialetto in Sicilia, in Toscana abbia assunto forma illustre e +comune, e con siffatta veste novella sia migrato nelle altre +provincie."—<i>La Poesia Popolare Italiana: Studj di Alessandro +d'Ancona</i>, p. 285.</p> + +<p>As regards the date of the origin of folk-songs in +Sicily, the boldest guess possibly comes nearest the +truth, and this takes us back to a time before Theocritus. +Cautious students rest satisfied with adducing +undoubted evidence of their existence as early as the +twelfth century, in the reign of William II., whose +court was famed for "good speakers in rhyme of +<i>every condition</i>." Moreover, it is certain that Sicilian +songs had begun to travel orally and in writing +to the Continent considerably before the invention +of printing; and it is not unlikely that many +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page127" id="page127"></a>127</span> +<i>canzuni</i> now current in the island could lay claim +to an antiquity of at least six or seven hundred +years. Folk-songs change much less than might +at first sight be expected in the course of their +transmission from father to son, from century to +century; and some among the songs still popular +in Sicily have been discovered written down in +old manuscripts in a form almost identical to that +in which they are sung to-day. Although the +methodical collection of folk-songs is a thing but +recently undertaken, the fact of there being such +songs in Sicily was long ago perfectly well known. +An English traveller writing in the last century +remarks, that "the whole nation are poets, even the +peasants, and a man stands a poor chance for a +mistress that is not capable of celebrating her." He +goes on to say, that happily in the matter of serenades +the obligations of a chivalrous lover are not so onerous +as they were in the days of the Spaniards, when a fair +dame would frown upon the most devoted swain who +had not a cold in his head—the presumed proof of his +having dutifully spent the night "with the heavens for +his house, the stars for his shelter, the damp earth for +his mattress, and for pillow a harsh thistle"—to +borrow the exact words of a folk-poet.</p> + +<p>One class of folk-songs may be fairly trusted to +speak for themselves as to the date of their composition, +namely, that which deals with historical facts +and personages. Until lately the songs of Italy were +believed, with the exception of Piedmont, to be of an +exclusively lyrical character; but fresh researches, +and, above all, the unremitting and enthusiastic efforts +of Signor Salvatore Salomone-Marino, have brought +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page128" id="page128"></a>128</span> +to light a goodly quantity of Sicilian songs in which +the Greek, Arabian, Norman, and Angevin denominations +all come in for their share of commemoration. +And that the authors of these songs spoke of the +present, not of the past, is a natural inference, when +actual observation certifies that such is the invariable +custom of living folk-poets. For the people events +soon pass into a misty perspective, and the folk-poet is +a sort of people's journalist; he makes his song as +the contributor to a newspaper writes his leading +article, about the matter uppermost for the moment in +men's minds, whether it be important or trivial. In +1860 he sang of "the bringers of the tricolor," the +"milli famusi guirreri," and "Aribaldi lu libiraturi." +In 1868 he joked over the grand innovation by which +"the poor folk of the piazza were sent to Paradise in +a fine coach," <i>i.e.</i>, the substitution, by order of the +municipality of Palermo, of first, second, and third +class funeral cars in lieu of the old system of bearers. +In 1870 he was very curious about the eclipse which +had been predicted. "We shall see if God confirms +this news that the learned tell us, of the war there is +going to be between the moon and the sun," says he, +discreetly careful not to tie himself down to too much +faith or too much distrust. Then, when the eclipse +has duly taken place, his admiration knows no bounds. +"What heads—what beautiful minds God gives these +learned men!" he cries; "what grace is granted to +man that he can read even the thoughts of God!" +The Franco-German war inspired a great many poets, +who displayed, at all events in the first stages of the +struggle, a strong predilection for the German side. +All these songs long survive the period of the events +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page129" id="page129"></a>129</span> +they allude to, and help materially to keep their +memory alive; but for a new song to be composed on +an incident ten years old, would simply argue that its +author was not a folk-poet at all, in the strict sense of +the word. The great majority of the historical songs +are short, detached pieces, bearing no relation to each +other; but now and then we come upon a group of +stanzas which suggest the idea of their having once +formed part of a consecutive whole; and in one +instance, that of the historical legend of the Baronessa +di Carini, the assembled fragments approach the +proportions of a popular epic. But it is doubtful +whether this poem—for so we may call it—is +thoroughly popular in origin, though the people have +completely adopted it, and account it "the most +beautiful and most dolorous of all the histories and +songs," thinking all the more of it in consequence of +the profound secrecy with which it has been preserved +out of fear of provoking the wrath of a powerful +Sicilian family, very roughly handled by its author.</p> + +<p>Of religious songs there are a vast number in Sicily, +and the stock is perpetually fed by the pious rhyme +tournaments held in celebration of notable saints' +days at the village fairs. On such occasions the +image or relics of the saints are exhibited in the +public square, and the competitors, the assembled +poetic talent of the neighbourhood, proceed, one after +the other, to improvise verses in his honour. If they +succeed in gaining the suffrage of their audience, +which may amount to five or six thousand persons, +they go home liberally rewarded. Along with these +saintly eulogiums may be mentioned a style of composition +more ancient than edifying—the Sicilian +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page130" id="page130"></a>130</span> +parodies. A pious or complimentary song is travestied +into a piece of coarse abuse, or a sample of that +unblushing, astounding irreverence which sometimes +startles the most hardened sceptic, travelling in countries +where the empire of Catholicism has been least +shaken—in Tyrol, for instance, and in Spain. We +cannot be sure whether the Sicilian parodist deliberately +intends to be profane, or is only indifferent as +to what weapons he uses in his eagerness to cast ridicule +upon a rival versifier—the last hypothesis seems +to me to be the most plausible; but it takes nothing +from the significance of his profanity as it stands. It +is pleasant to turn from these several sections of +Sicilian verse, which, though valuable in helping us to +know the people from whom they spring, for the most +part have but small merits when judged as poetry, to +the stream of genuine song which flows side by side +with them: a stream, fresh, clear, pure: a poesy +always true in its artless art, generally bright and +ingenious in its imagery, sometimes tersely felicitous +in its expression. In his love lyrics, and but +rarely save in them, the Sicilian <i>popolano</i> rises from +the rhymester to the poet.</p> + +<p>The most characteristic forms of the love-songs of +Sicily are those of the <i>ciuri</i>, called in Tuscany <i>stornelli</i>, +and the <i>canzuni</i>, called in Tuscany <i>rispetti</i>. +The <i>ciuri</i> (flowers) are couplets or triplets beginning +with the name of a flower, with which the other line +or lines should rhyme. They abound throughout the +island, and notwithstanding the poor estimation in +which the peasants hold them, and the difficulty of +persuading them that they are worth putting on +record, a very dainty compliment—just the thing to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page131" id="page131"></a>131</span> +figure on a valentine—may often be found compressed +into their diminutive compass. To turn such airy +nothings into a language foreign and uncongenial to +them, is like manipulating a soap-bubble: the bubble +vanishes, and we have only a little soapy water left +in the hollow of our hand: a simile which unhappily +is not far from holding good of attempts at translating +any species of Italian popular poetry. It is +true that in <i>Fra Lippo Lippi</i> there are two or three +charming imitations of the <i>stornello</i>; but, then, Mr +Browning is the poet who, of all others, has got most +inside of the Italian mind. Here is an <i>aubade</i>, which +will give a notion of the unsubstantial stuff the <i>ciuri</i> +are made of:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Rosa marina,</p> +<p>Lucinu l'alba e la stidda Diana:</p> +<p>Lu cantu è fattu, addui, duci Rusina.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>"Rose of the sea, the dawn and the star Diana are +shining: the song is done, farewell sweet Rosina."</p> + +<p>One of these flower-poets, invoking the Violet by +way of heading, tells his love that "all men who +look on her forget their sorrows;" another takes his +oath that she outrivals sun, and moon, and stars. +"Jasmine of Araby," cries a third, "when thou art +not near, I am consumed by rage." A fourth says, +"White floweret, before thy door I make a great +weeping." A fifth, night and day, bewails his evil +fate. A sixth observes that he has been singing for +five hours, but that he might just as well sing to the +wind. A seventh feels the thorns of jealousy. An +eighth asks, "Who knows if Rosa will not listen to +another lover?" A ninth exclaims,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page132" id="page132"></a>132</span> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Flower of the night,</p> +<p>Whoever wills me ill shall die to-night!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>With which ominous sentiment I will leave the <i>ciuri</i>, +and pass on to the yet more interesting <i>canzuni</i>: +little poems, usually in eight lines, of which there are +so many thousand graceful specimens that it is embarrassing +to have to make a selection.</p> + +<p>Despite the wide gulf which separates lettered from +illiterate poetry, it is curious to note the not unfrequent +coincidence between the thought of the ignorant +peasant bard and that of cultured poets. In particular, +we are now and then reminded of the pretty +conceits of Herrick, and also of the blithe paganism, +the happy unconsciousness that "Pan is dead," which +lay in the nature of that most incongruous of country +parsons. Thus we find a parallel to "Gather ye +Rosebuds:"</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Sweet, let us pick the fresh and opening rose,</p> +<p class="i2">Which doth each charm of form and hue display:</p> +<p>Hard by the margent of yon font it blows,</p> +<p class="i2">Mid guarding thorns and many a tufted spray;</p> +<p>And in yourself while springtide freshly glows,</p> +<p class="i2">Dear heart, with some sweet bloom my love repay:</p> +<p>Soon winter comes, all flowers to nip and close,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor love itself can hinder time's decay.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>No poet is more determined to deal out his compliments +in a liberal, open-handed way than is the +Sicilian. While the Venetians and the Tuscans are +content with claiming seven distinctive beauties for +the object of their affection, the Sicilian boldly asserts +that his <i>bedda</i> possesses no less than thirty-three +<i>biddizzi</i>. In the same manner, when he is about +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page133" id="page133"></a>133</span> +sending his salutations, he sends them without +stint:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Many the stars that sparkle in the sky,</p> +<p class="i2">Many the grains of sand and pebbles small;</p> +<p>And in the ocean's plains the finny fry</p> +<p class="i2">And leaves that flourish in the woods and fall,</p> +<p>Countless earth's human hordes that live and die,</p> +<p class="i2">The flowers that wake to life at April's call,</p> +<p>And all the fruits the summer heats supply—</p> +<p class="i2">My greetings sent to thee out-number all.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>On some rare occasions the incident which suggested +the song may be gathered from the lips of the person +who recites it. In one case we are told that a certain +sailor, on his return from a long voyage, hastened to +the house of his betrothed, to bid her prepare for the +wedding. But he was met by the mother-in-law elect, +who told him to go his way, for his love was dead—the +truth being that she had meanwhile married a +shoemaker. One fine day the disconsolate sailor had +the not unmixed gratification of seeing her alive and +well, looking out of her husband's house, and that +night he sang her a reproachful serenade, inquiring +wherefore she had hidden from him, that though dead +to him she lived for another? This deceived mariner +must have been a rather exceptional individual, for +although there are baker-poets, carpenter-poets, waggoner-poets, +poets in short of almost every branch of +labour and humble trade, a sailor-poet is not often to +be heard of. Dr Pitrè remarks that sailors pick up +foreign songs in their voyages, mostly English and +American, and come home inclined to look down +upon the folk-songs and singers of their native land.</p> + +<p>The serenades and aubades are among the most +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page134" id="page134"></a>134</span> +delicate and elegant of all the <i>canzuni d'amuri</i>; this +is one, which contains a favourite fancy of peasant +lovers:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Life of my life, who art my spirit and soul,</p> +<p class="i2">By no suspicions be nor doubts oppressed,</p> +<p>Love me, and scorn false jealousy's control—</p> +<p class="i2">I not a thousand hearts have in my breast,</p> +<p>I had but one, and gave to thee the whole.</p> +<p class="i2">Come then and see, if thou the truth wouldst test,</p> +<p>Instead of my own heart, my love, my soul,</p> +<p class="i2">Thou wilt thine image find within my breast!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Another poet treats somewhat the same idea in a +drolly realistic way—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Last night I dreamt we both were dead,</p> +<p>And, love! beside each other laid.</p> +<p>Doctors and Surgeons filled the place</p> +<p>To make autopsy of the case—</p> +<p>Knives, scissors, saws, with eager zest</p> +<p>Of each laid open wide the breast:—</p> +<p>Dumfounded then was every one,</p> +<p>Yours held two hearts, but mine had none!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The <i>canzuni</i> differ very much as to adherence to the +strict laws of rhyme and metre; more often than not +assonants are readily accepted in place of rhymes, +and their entire absence has been thought to cast a +suspicion of education on the author of a song. One +truly illiterate living folk-poet was, however, heard +severely to criticise some of the printed <i>canzuni</i> which +were read aloud to him, on just this ground of irregularity +of metre and rhyme. His name is Salvatore +Calafiore, and he was employed a few years ago in a +foundry at Palermo, where he was known among the +workmen as "the poet." Being very poor, and having +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page135" id="page135"></a>135</span> +a young wife and family to support, he bethought +himself of appealing to the proprietor of the foundry +for a rise of wages, but the expedient was hazardous: +those who made complaints ran a great chance of getting +nothing by it save dismissal. So he offered up +his petition in a little poem to this effect: "As the +poor little hungry serpent comes out of its hole in +search of food, heeding not the risk of being crushed, +thus Calafiore, timorous and hard-pressed, O most +just sir, asks of you help!" Calafiore was once asked +what he knew about the classical characters whose +names he introduced into his poems: he answered +that some one had told him of them who knew little +more of them than he did. He added that "Jove +was God of heaven, Apollo god of music, Venus the +planet of love, Cicero a good orator." On the whole, +the folk-poets are not very lavish in mythological +allusion; when they do make it, it is ordinarily fairly +appropriate. "Wherever thou dost place thy feet," +runs a Borgetto <i>canzuna</i>, "carnations and roses, and +a thousand divers flowers, are born. My beautiful +one, the goddess Venus has promised thee seven +and twenty things—new gardens, new heavens, new +songs of birds in the spot where thou dost take +thy rest." The Siren is one of the ancient myths +most in favour: at Partinico they sing:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Within her sea-girt home the Siren dwells</p> +<p class="i2">And lures the spell-bound sailor with her lay,</p> +<p>Amid the shoals the fated bark compels</p> +<p class="i2">Or holds upon the reef a willing prey,</p> +<p>None ever 'scape her toils, while sinks and swells</p> +<p class="i2">Her rhythmic chant at close and break of day—</p> +<p>Thou, Maiden, art the Siren of the sea,</p> +<p>Who with thy songs dost hold and fetter me.</p> + </div> </div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page136" id="page136"></a>136</span> + +<p>It is rarely indeed that we can trace a couple of +these lyrics to the same brain—we may not say "to +the same hand," for the folk-poet's hand is taken up +with striking the anvil or guiding the plough; to +more intellectual uses he does not put it—yet expressing +as they do emotions which are not only the +same at bottom, but are here felt and regarded in +precisely the same way, there results so much unity +of design and execution, that, as we read, unawares +the songs weave themselves into slight pastoral idylls—typical +peasant romances in which real <i>contadini</i> +speak to us of the new life wrought in them by love. +Even the repeated mention of the Sicilian diminutives +of the names of Salvatore and Rosina helps the illusion +that a thread of personal identity connects +together many of the fugitive <i>canzuni</i>. Thus we are +tempted to imagine Turiddu and Rusidda as a pair of +lovers dwelling in the sunny Conca d'Oro—he "so +sweet and beautiful a youth, that God himself must +surely have fashioned him"—a youth with "black +and laughing eyes, and a little mouth from whence +drops honey:" she a maiden of</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> <span class="xl"> . . .</span> quattordicianni,</p> +<p>L'occhi cilestri e li capiddi biunni—</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>"fourteen years, celestial eyes, blonde hair;" to see +her long tresses "shining like gold spun by the +angels," one would think "that she had just fallen +out of Paradise." "She is fairer than the foam of the +sea"—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"My little Rose in January born,</p> +<p class="i2">Born in the month of cold and drifted snow,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page137" id="page137"></a>137</span> +<p>Its whiteness stays thy beauty to adorn,</p> +<p class="i2">Nought than thy velvet skin more white can show.</p> +<p>Thou art the star that shines, tho' bright the morn,</p> +<p class="i2">And casts on all around a silver glow."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>But Rusidda's mother will have nothing to say to +poor Turiddu; he complains, "Ah! God, what grief +to have a tongue and not to be able to speak; to see +her and dare not make any sign! Ah, God in heaven, +and Virgin Mary, tell me what I am to do? I look +at her, she looks at me, neither I nor she can say a +word!" Then an idea strikes him; he gets a friend +to take her a message: "When we pass each other in +the street, we must not let the folk see that we are in +love, but you will lower your eyes and I will lower +my head; this shall be our way of saluting one +another. Every saint has his day, we must await +ours." Encouraged by this stratagem, Turiddu grows +bold, and one dark night, when none can see who it +is, he serenades his "little Rose:"</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"Sleep, sleep, my hope, yea sleep, nor be afraid,</p> +<p class="i2">Sleep, sleep, my hope, in confidence serene,</p> +<p>For if we both in the same scales be weighed,</p> +<p class="i2">But little difference will be found between.</p> +<p>Have you for me unfeignèd love displayed,</p> +<p class="i2">My love for you shall greater still be seen.</p> +<p>If we could both in the same scales be weighed,</p> +<p class="i2">But small the difference would be found between."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>He does not think the song nearly good enough for +her: "I know not what song I can sing that is worthy +of you," he says: he wishes he were "a goldfinch or a +nightingale, and had no equal for singing;" or, better +still, he would fain "have an angel come and sing +her a song that had never before been heard of out +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page138" id="page138"></a>138</span> +Paradise," for in Paradise alone can a song be found +appropriate to her. One day (it is Rusidda's fête-day), +Turiddu makes a little poem, and says in it: +"All in roses would I be clad, for I am in love with +roses; I would have palaces and little houses of roses, +and a ship with roses decked, and a little staircase all +of roses, which I the fortunate one would ascend; but +ere I go up it, I wish to say to you, my darling, that +for you I languish." He watches her go to church: +"how beautiful she is! Her air is that of a noble +lady!" The mother lingers behind with her gossips, +and Turiddu whispers to Rusidda, "All but the crown +you look like a queen." She answers: "If there rode +hither a king with his crown who said, 'I should like +to place it on your head,' I should say this little word, +'I want Turiddu, I want no crown.'" Turiddu tells +her he is sick from melancholy: "it is a sickness +which the doctors cannot cure, and you and I both +suffer from it. It will only go away the day we go to +church together."</p> + +<p>But there seems no prospect of their getting married; +Turiddu sends his love four sighs, "e tutti +quattru suspiri d'amuri:"</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"Four sighs I breathe and send thee,</p> +<p class="i2">Which from my heart love forces;</p> +<p>Health with the first attend thee,</p> +<p class="i2">The next our love discourses;</p> +<p>The third a kiss comes stealing;</p> +<p class="i2">The fourth before thee kneeling;</p> +<p>And all hard fate accusing</p> +<p>Thee to my sight refusing."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>And now he has to go upon a long journey; but +before he starts he contrives one meeting with Rusidda. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page139" id="page139"></a>139</span> +"Though I shall no longer see you, we yet may hope, +for death is the only real parting," he says. "I would +have you constant, firm, and faithful; I would have +you faithful even unto death." She answers, "If I +should die, still would my spirit stay with you." A +year passes; on Rusidda's <i>festa</i> a letter arrives from +Turiddu: "Go, letter mine, written in my blood, go +to my dear delight; happy paper! you will touch the +white hand of my love. I am far away, and cannot +speak to her; paper, do you speak for me."</p> + +<p>At last Turiddu returns—but where is Rusidda? +"Ye stars that are in the infinite heavens, give me +news of my love!"</p> + +<p>Through the night "he wanders like the moon," he +wanders seeking his love. In his path he encounters +Brown Death. "Seek her no more," says this one; +"I have her under the sod. If you do not believe me, +my fine fellow, go to San Francesco, and take up the +stone of the sepulchre: there you will find her." ... +Alas! "love begins with sweetness and ends in +bitterness."</p> + +<p>The Sicilian's "Beautiful ideal" would seem to be +the white rose rather than the red, in accordance, +perhaps, with the rule that makes the uncommon +always the most prized; or it may be, from a perception +of that touch of the unearthly, that pale radiance +which gives the fair Southerner a look of closer kinship +with the pensive Madonna gazing out of her +aureole in the wayside shrine, than with the dark +damsels of the more predominant type. Some such +angelical association attached to golden heads has +possibly disposed the Sicilian folk-poet towards +thinking too little of the national black eyes and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page140" id="page140"></a>140</span> +olive-carnation colouring. Not that brunettes are +wholly without their singers; one of these has even +the courage to say that since his <i>bedda</i> is brown and +the moon is white, it is plain that the moon must +leave the field vanquished. One dark beauty of Termini +shows that she is quite equal to standing up for +herself. "You say that I am black?" she cries, "and +what of that? Black writing looks well on white +paper, black spices are worth more than white curds, +and while dusky wine is drunk in a glass goblet, the +snow melts away unregarded in the ditch."<a id="footnotetagS1" name="footnotetagS1"></a><a href="#footnoteS1"><sup>1</sup></a> But the +apologetic, albeit spirited tone of this protest, indicates +pretty clearly that the popular voice gives the palm +to milk-white and snowy faced maidens; the possessors +of <i>capiddi biunni</i> and <i>capidduzzi d'oru</i> have no +need to defend their charms, a hundred canzuni proclaim +them irresistible. "Before everything I am enamoured +of thy blonde tresses," says one lyrist. The +luxuriant hair of the Sicilian women is proverbial. +A story is told how, when once Palermo was about to +surrender to the Saracens because there were no more +bowstrings in the town, an abundant supply was suddenly +produced by the patriotic dames cutting off +their long locks and turning them to this purpose. +The deed so inspired the Palermitan warriors that +they speedily drove the enemy back, and the siege +was raised. A gallant poet adds: "The hair of our +ladies is still employed in the same office, but now it +discharges no other shafts but those of Cupid, and the +only cords it forms are cords of love."</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page141" id="page141"></a>141</span> + +<p>In the early morning, almost all the year round +the women may be seen sitting before their doors +undoing and doing up again this long abundant hair. +The chief part of their domestic work they perform +out in the sunshine; one thing only, but that the +most important of all, has to be done in the house—the +never finished task of weaving the clothes of the +family. From earliest girlhood to past middle age +the Sicilian women spend many hours every day at +the loom. A woman of eighty, Rosa Cataldi of +Borgetto, made the noble boast to Salomone-Marino: +"I have clothed with stuff woven by my hands from +fourteen to fifty years, myself, my brothers, my +children, and their children." A girl who cannot, or +will not, weave is not likely to find a husband. As +they ply the shuttle, the women hardly cease from +singing, and many, and excellent also, are the songs +composed in praise of the active workers. The girl, +not yet affianced, who is weaving perhaps her modest +marriage clothes, may hear, coming up from the +street, the first avowal of love:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i6">Ciuri d'aranci.</p> +<p>Bedda, tu tessi e tessennu mi vinci;</p> +<p>Bedda, tu canti, e lu me' cori chianci.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>It has been said that love begins with sweetness and +ends in bitterness. What a fine world it would be +were Brown Death the only agent in the bitter end +of love! It is not so. Rusidda, who dies, is possibly +more fortunate than Rusidda who is married. When +bride and bridegroom return from the marriage rite, +the husband sometimes solemnly strikes his wife in +presence of the assembled guests as a sign of his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page142" id="page142"></a>142</span> +henceforth unlimited authority. The symbol has but +too great appropriateness. Even in what may be +called a happy marriage, there is a formality akin +to estrangement, once the knot is tied. Husband and +wife say "voi" to each other, talking to a third +person, they speak of one another as "he" and "she," +as "mio cristiano," and "mia cristiana," never as +"my husband" and "my wife." The wife sits down +to table with the husband, but she scrupulously waits +for him to begin first, and takes tiny mouthfuls as if +she were ashamed of eating before him. Then, if the +husband be out of humour, or if he thinks that the +wife does not work hard enough (an "enough" which +can never be reached), the nuptial blow is repeated in +sad and miserable earnest. The woman will not even +weep; she bears all in silence, saying meekly afterwards, +"We women are always in the wrong, the +husband is the husband, he has a right even to kill +us since we live by him." These things have been +recorded by one who loves the Sicilian peasant, and +who has defended him against many unfounded +charges. A hard case it would be for wedded +Rusidda if she had not her songs and the sun to +console her.</p> + +<p>All the <i>canzuni</i> that have been quoted are, so far +as can be judged, of strictly popular origin, nor is +there any sign of continental derivation in their +wording or shape. Several, however, are the common +property of most of the Italian provinces. There is +a charming Vicentine version of "The Siren," and +the "Four Sighs" makes its appearance in Tuscany +under a dress of pure Italian. Has Sicily, then, a +right to the honour of their invention? There is a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page143" id="page143"></a>143</span> +strong presumption that it has. On the other hand, +there are some Sicilianized songs of plainly foreign +birth, which shows that if the island gave much to +the peninsula, it has had at least something back in +return. There is a third category, comprising the +songs of the Lombard colonies of Piazza and San +Fratello, which have a purely accidental connection +with Sicily. The founders of this community were +Lombards or Longobards, who were attracted to +Sicily somewhere in the eleventh century, either by +the fine climate and the demand for soldiers of +fortune, or by the marriage of Adelaide of Monferrato +with Count Roger of Hauteville. But what is far more +curious than how or why they came, is the circumstance +of the extraordinary isolation in which they +seem to have lived, and their preservation to this +day of a dialect analogous with that spoken at Monferrato. +In this dialect there exist a good many +songs, but a full collection of them has yet to be +made.</p> + +<p>Besides the <i>ciuri</i> and <i>canzuni</i>, there is another +style of love-song, very highly esteemed by the +Sicilian peasantry, and that is the <i>aria</i>. When a +peasant youth serenades his <i>'nnamurata</i> with an <i>aria</i>, +he pays her by common consent the most consummate +compliment that lies in his power. The <i>arii</i> are +songs of four or more stanzas—a form which is not +so germane to the Sicilian folk-poet as that of the +<i>canzuna</i>; and, although he does use it occasionally, it +may be suspected that he more often adapts a lettered +or foreign <i>aria</i> than composes a new one. An aria is +nothing unless sung to a guitar accompaniment, and +is heard to great advantage when performed by the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page144" id="page144"></a>144</span> +barbers, who are in the habit of whiling away their idle +hours with that instrument. The Sicilian (lettered) +poet, Giovanni Meli, has written some admirable <i>arii</i>, +many of which have become popular songs.</p> + +<p>Meli's name is as oddly yoked with the title of +<i>abate</i> as Herrick's with the designation of clergyman. +He does not seem, as a matter of fact, to have ever +been an <i>abate</i> at all. Once, when dining with a person +influential at court, his host inquired why he did not +ask to be appointed to a rich benefice then vacant. +"Because," he replied, "I am not a priest." And it +appeared that when a young man he had adopted the +clerical habit for no other reason than that he intended +to practise medicine, and wished to gain access to +convents, and to make himself acceptable to the +nuns. It was not an uncommon thing to do. The +public generally dubbed him with the ecclesiastical +title. Not long before his death, in 1815, he actually +assumed the lesser orders, and in true Sicilian fashion, +wrote some verses to his powerful friend to beg him +to get him preferment, but he died too soon after to +profit by the result. The Sicilians are very proud of +Meli. It is for them alone probably to find much +pleasure in his occasional odes—to others their noble +sentiments will be rather suggestive of the <i>sinfonia +eroica</i> played on a flute; but the charm and lightness +of his Anacreontic poems must be recognised by +all who care for poetry. He had a nice feeling for +nature too, as is shown in a sonnet of rare beauty:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Ye gentle hills, with intercepting vales,</p> +<p class="i4">Ye rocks with musk and clinging ivy dight;</p> +<p>Ye sparkling falls of water, silvery pale,</p> +<p class="i4">Still meres, and brooks that babble in the light;</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page145" id="page145"></a>145</span> +<p>Deep chasms, wooded steeps that heaven assail,</p> +<p class="i4">Unfruitful rushes, broom with blossoms bright,</p> +<p>And ancient trunks, encased in gnarled mail,</p> +<p class="i4">And caves adorned with crystal stalactite;</p> +<p>Thou solitary bird of plaintive song,</p> +<p class="i4">Echo that all dost hear, and then repeat,</p> +<p>Frail vines upheld by stately elms and strong,</p> +<p class="i4">And silent mist, and shade, and dim retreat;</p> +<p>Welcome me! tranquil scenes for which I long—</p> +<p class="i4">The friend of haunts where peace and quiet meet.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>I must not omit to say a word about a class of +songs which, in Sicily as elsewhere, affords the most +curious illustration of the universality of certain +branches of folk-lore—I mean the nursery rhymes. +One instance of this will serve for all. Sicilian nurses +play a sort of game on the babies' features, which +consists in lightly touching nose, mouth, eyes, &c., +giving a caressing slap to the chin, and repeating at +the same time—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Varvaruttedu,</p> +<p>Vucca d'aneddu,</p> +<p>Nasu affilatu,</p> +<p>Occhi di stiddi,</p> +<p>Frunti quatrata,</p> +<p><ins title="Transcriber's Note: Sic. See TN at top.">E te' ccà 'na timpulata!</ins></p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Now this rhyme has not only its counterpart in the +local dialect of every Italian province, but also in +most European languages. In France they have it:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Beau front,</p> +<p>Petits yeux,</p> +<p>Nez cancan,</p> +<p>Bouche d'argent,</p> +<p>Menton fleuri,</p> +<p>Chichirichi.</p> + </div> </div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page146" id="page146"></a>146</span> + +<p>We find a similar doggerel in Germany, and in +England, as most people know, there are at least two +versions, one being—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Eye winker,</p> +<p>Tom Tinker,</p> +<p class="i2">Nose dropper.</p> +<p>Mouth eater,</p> +<p class="i2">Chinchopper,</p> +<p class="i2">Chinchopper.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Of more intrinsic interest than this ubiquitous old +nurse's nonsense are the Sicilian cradle songs, in some +of which there may also be traced a family likeness +with the corresponding songs of other nations. As +soon as the little Sicilian gets up in the morning he +is made to say—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>While I lay in my bed five saints stood by;</p> +<p>Three at the head, two at the foot—in the midst was Jesus Christ.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The Greek-speaking peasants of Terra d'Otranto have +a song somewhat after the same plan:</p> + +<blockquote><p> +I lay me down to sleep in my little bed; I lay me down to +sleep with my Mamma Mary: the Mamma Mary goes hence +and leaves me Christ to keep me company. +</p></blockquote> + +<p>Very tender is the four-line Sicilian hushaby, in which +the proud mother says—</p> + +<blockquote><p> +How beautiful my son is in his swaddling clothes; just think +what he will be when he is big! Sleep, my babe, for the angel +passes: he takes from thee heaviness, and he leaves thee +slumber. +</p></blockquote> + +<p>There is in Vigo's collection a lullaby so exquisite in +its blended echoes from the cradle and the grave that +it makes one wish for two great masters in the pathos +of childish things, such as Blake and Schumann, to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page147" id="page147"></a>147</span> +translate and set it to music. It is called "The +Widow."</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Sweet, my child, in slumber lie,</p> +<p class="i2">Father's dead, is dead and gone.</p> +<p class="i2">Sleep then, sleep, my little son,</p> +<p>Sleep, my son, and lullaby.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Thou for kisses dost not cry,</p> +<p class="i2">Which thy cheeks he heaped upon.</p> +<p class="i2">Sleep then, sleep, my pretty one,</p> +<p>Sleep, my child, and lullaby.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>We are lonely, thou and I,</p> +<p class="i2">And with grief and fear I faint.</p> +<p class="i2">Sleep then, sleep, my little saint,</p> +<p>Sleep, my child, and lullaby.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Why dost weep? No father nigh.</p> +<p class="i2">Ah, my God! tears break his rest.</p> +<p class="i2">Darling, nestle to my breast,</p> +<p>Sleep, my child, and lullaby.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Very scant information is to be had regarding the +Sicilian folk-poets of the past; with one exception +their names and personalities have almost wholly +slipped out of the memory of the people, and that +exception is full three parts a myth. If you ask a +Sicilian popolano who was the chief and master of all +rustic poets, he will promptly answer, "Pietro Fullone;" +and he will tell you a string of stories about the poetic +quarry-workman, dissolute in youth, devout in old +age, whose fame was as great as his fortune was small, +and who addressed a troop of admiring strangers who +had travelled to Palermo to visit him, and were surprised +to find him in rags, in the following dignified +strain:</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page148" id="page148"></a>148</span> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Beneath these pilgrim weeds so coarse and worn</p> +<p class="i2">A heart may still be found of priceless worth.</p> +<p>The rose is ever coupled to the thorn.</p> +<p class="i2">The spotless lily springs from blackest earth.</p> +<p>Rubies and precious stones are only born</p> +<p class="i2">Amidst the rugged rocks, uncouth and swarth.</p> +<p>Then wonder not though till the end I wear</p> +<p>Nought but this pilgrim raiment poor and bare.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Unfortunately nothing is more sure than that the +real Pietro Fullone, who lived in the 17th century, and +published some volumes of poetry, mostly religious, +had as little to do with this legendary Fullone as can +well be imagined. It is credible that he may have +begun life as a quarry workman and ignorant poet, +as tradition reports; but it is neither credible that a +tithe of the <i>canzuna</i> attributed to him are by the +same author as the writer of the printed and distinctly +lettered poems which bear his name, nor that +the bulk of the anecdotes which profess to relate to +him have any other foundation than that of popular +fiction. But though we hear but little, and cannot +trust the little we hear, of the folk-poet of times gone +by, for us to become intimately acquainted with him, +we have only to go to his representative, who lives +and poetizes at the present moment. In this or that +Sicilian hamlet there is a man known by the name of +"the Poet," or perhaps "the Goldfinch." He is completely +illiterate and belongs to the poorest class; +he is a blacksmith, a fisherman, or a tiller of the soil. +If he has the gift of improvisation, his fellow-villagers +have the satisfaction of hearing him applauded by +the Great Public—the dwellers in all the surrounding +hamlets assembled at the fair on St John's Eve. Or +it may be he is of a meditative turn of mind, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page149" id="page149"></a>149</span> +makes his poetry leisurely as he lies full length under +the lemon-trees taking his noontide rest. Should +you pass by, it is unlikely he will give himself the +trouble of lifting his eyes: He could not say the +alphabet to save his life; but the beautiful earth and +skies and sea which he has looked on every day since +he was born have taught him some things not learnt +in school. The little poem he has made in his head +is indeed a humble sort of poetry, but it is not unworthy +of the praise it gets from the neighbours who +come dropping into his cottage door, uninvited, but +sure of a friendly welcome next Sunday after mass, +their errand being to find out if the rumour is true +that "the Goldfinch" has invented a fresh <i>canzuna</i>?</p> + +<p>Such is the peasant poet of to-day; such he was +five hundred or a thousand years ago. He presents +a not unlovely picture of a stage in civilisation which +is not ours. To-morrow it will not be his either; he +will learn to read and write; he will taste the fruit of +the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as it +grows in our great centres of intellectual activity; he +will begin to "look before and after." Still, he will +do all this in his own way, not in our way, and so +much of his childhood having clung to him in youth, +it follows that his youth will not wholly depart from +him in manhood. Through all the wonderfully mixed +vicissitudes of his country the Sicilian has preserved +an unique continuity of spiritual life; Christianity +itself brought him to the brink of no moral cataclysm +like that which engulfed the Norseman when he forsook +Odin and Thor for the White Christ. It may +therefore be anticipated that the new epoch he is +entering upon will modify, not change his character. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page150" id="page150"></a>150</span> +That he has remained outside of it so long, is due +rather to the conditions under which he has lived +than to the man; for the Sicilian grasps new ideas +with an almost alarming rapidity when once he gets +hold of them; of all quick Italians he is the quickest +of apprehension. This very intelligence of his, called +into action by the lawlessness of his rulers and by +ages of political tyranny and social oppression, has +enabled him to accomplish that systemization of +crime which at one time bred the Society of the +Blessed Pauls, and now is manifested in the Mafia. +You cannot do any business harmless or harmful, +you cannot buy or sell, beg or steal, without feeling +the hand of an unacknowledged but ever present +power which decides for you what you are to do, and +levies a tax on whatever profit you may get out of +the transaction. If a costermonger sells a melon for +less than the established price, his fellows consider +that they are only executing the laws of their real +masters when they make him pay for his temerity +with his life. The wife of an English naval officer +went with her maid to the market at Palermo, and +asked the price of a fish which, it was stated, cost two +francs. She passed on to another stall where a fish +of the same sort was offered her for 1.50. She said +she would buy it, and took out of her purse a note +for five <i>lire</i>, which she gave the vendor to change. +Meanwhile, unobserved, the first man had come up +behind them, and no sooner was the bargain concluded, +than he whipped a knife out of his pocket, +and in a moment more would have plunged it in the +second man's breast, had not the lady pushed back +his arm, and cried by some sudden inspiration, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page151" id="page151"></a>151</span> +"Wait, he has not given me my change!" No +imaginable words would have served their purpose +so well; the man dropped the knife, burst out laughing, +and exclaimed: "Che coraggio!" The brave +Englishwoman nearly fainted when she returned +home. Her husband asked what was the matter, to +which she answered: "I have saved a man's life, and +I have no idea how I did it."</p> + +<p>Something has been done to lessen the hereditary +evil, but the cure has yet to come. It behoves the +Sicilians of a near future to stamp out this plague +spot on the face of their beautiful island, and thus +allow it to garner the full harvest of prosperity lying +in its mineral wealth and in the incomparable fertility +of its soil. That it is only too probable that +the people will lose their lyre in proportion as they +learn their letters is a poor reason for us to bid them +stand still while the world moves on; human progress +is rarely achieved without some sacrifices—the +one sacrifice we may not make, whatever be the +apparent gain, is that of truth and the pursuit of it.</p> + +<p class="footnote"><a id="footnoteS1" name="footnoteS1"></a><a class="footnote" href="#footnotetagS1">Footnote 1:</a> So Virgil:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"Alba ligustra cadunt, vaccinia nigra leguntur."</p> + </div> </div> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page152" id="page152"></a>152</span> + +<h2>GREEK SONGS OF CALABRIA.</h2> + +<p>That the connecting link between Calabria and +Greece was at one time completely cut in two, is an +assumption which is commonly made, but it is +scarcely a proved fact. What happened to the +Italian Greeks on their surrender to Rome? In a +few instances they certainly disappeared with extreme +rapidity. Aristoxenus, the peripatetic musician, +relates of the Poseidonians—"whose fate it was, +having been originally Greek, to be barbarised, +becoming Tuscans or Romans," that they still met to +keep one annual festival, at which, after commemorating +their ancient customs, they wept together over +their lost nationality. This is the pathetic record of +men who could not hope. In a little while, Poseidonia +was an obscure Roman town famous only for +its beautiful roses. But the process of "barbarisation" +was not everywhere so swift. Along the coast-line +from Rhegium to Tarentum, Magna Græcia, in the +strict use of the term, the people are known to have +clung so long to their old language and their old +conditions of life that it is at least open to doubt if +they were not clinging to them still when it came to +be again a habit with Greeks to seek an Italian home. +In the ninth and tenth centuries the tide of Byzantine +supremacy swept into Calabria from Constantinople, +only, however, to subside almost as suddenly as it +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page153" id="page153"></a>153</span> +advanced. Once more history well-nigh loses sight +of the Greeks of Italy. Yet at a moment of critical +importance to modern learning their existence was +honourably felt. Petrarch's friend and master, Barlaam, +who carried the forgotten knowledge of Homer +across the Alps, was by birth a Calabrian. In Barlaam's +day there were large communities of Greeks +both in Calabria and in Terra d'Otranto. A steady +decrease from then till now has brought their numbers +down to about 22,800 souls in all. These few +survivors speak a language which is substantially the +same as modern Greek, with the exceptions that it is +naturally affected by the surrounding Italic dialects +and that it contains hardly a Turkish or a Sclavonic +word. Their precise origin is still a subject of conjecture. +Soon after Niebuhr had hailed them as Magna +Græcians pure and simple, they were pronounced +offhand to be quite recent immigrants; then the +date of their arrival was assigned to the reign of the +first or second Basil; and lastly there is a growing +tendency to push it back still further and even to +admit that some strain of the blood of the original +colonists may have entered into the elements of their +descent. On the whole, it seems easier to believe +that though their idiom was divided from the Romaic, +it yet underwent much the same series of modifications, +than to suppose them to have been in Greece +when the language of that country was saturated +with Sclavonic phrases, which have only been partly +weeded out within the last thirty years.</p> + +<p>Henry Swinburne visited the Greek settlements in +1780 or thereabouts, but like most of his contemporaries +he mixes up the Greek with the Albanians, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page154" id="page154"></a>154</span> +of whom there are considerable colonies in Calabria, +dating from the death of Skanderbeg. Even in this +century a German savant was assured at Naples that +the so-called Greeks were one and all Albanians. +The confusion is not taken as a compliment. No one +has stayed in the Hellenic kingdom without noticing +the pride that goes along with the name of Greek—a +pride which it is excusable to smile at, but which +yet has both its touching and its practical aspect, for +it has remade a nation. The Greeks of Southern +Italy have always had their share of a like feeling. +"We are not ashamed of our race, Greeks we are, +and we glory in it," wrote De Ferraris, a Greek born +at Galatone in 1444, and the words would be warmly +endorsed by the enlightened citizens of Bova and +Ammendolea, who quarrel as to which of the two +places gave birth to Praxiteles. The letterless +classes do not understand the grounds of the Magna +Græcian pretensions, but they too have a vague +pleasure in calling themselves Greek and a vague +idea of superiority over their "Latin" fellow-countrymen. +"Wake up," sings the peasant of Martignano +in Terra d'Otranto, "wake up early to hear a Grecian +lay, so that the Latins may not learn it."</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Fsunna, fsunna, na cusi ena sonetto</p> +<p>Grico, na mi to matun i Latini.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Bova is the chief place in Calabria where Greek survives. +The inhabitants call it "Vua," or simply +"Hora." The word "hora," <i>the city</i>, is applied by the +Greeks of Terra d'Otranto to that part of their hamlets +which an Englishman would call "the old village." +It is not generally known that "city" is used in an +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page155" id="page155"></a>155</span> +identical sense by old country-folks in the English +Eastern counties. The Bovesi make a third of the +whole Greek-speaking population of Calabria, and +Bova has the dignity of being an episcopal seat, +though its bishop has moved his residence to the +Marina, a sort of seaside suburb, five miles distant +from the town. Thirty years ago the ecclesiastical +authorities were already agitating for the transfer, but +the people opposed it till the completion of the railway +to Reggio and the opening of a station at the +Marina di Bova settled the case against them. The +cathedral, the four or five lesser churches, the citadel, +even the Ghetto, all tell of the unwritten age of +Bova's prosperity. Old street-names perpetuate the +memory of the familiar spirits of the place; the +Lamiæ who lived in a particular quarter, the <i>Fullitto</i> +who frequented the lane under the cathedral wall. +Ignoring Praxiteles, the poorer Bovesi set faith in a +tradition that their ancestors dwelt on the coast, and +that it was in consequence of Saracenic incursions +that they abandoned their homes and built a town on +the crags of Aspromonte near the lofty pastures to +which herds of cattle (<i>bovi</i>) were driven in the summer. +The name of Bova would thus be accounted +for, and its site bears out the idea that it was chosen +as a refuge. The little Greek city hangs in air. To +more than one traveller toiling up to it by the old +Reggio route it has seemed suggestive of an optical +delusion. There is refreshment to be had on the +way: a feast for the sight in pink and white flowers +of gigantic oleanders; a feast for the taste in the +sweet and perfumed fruit of the wild vine. Still it is +disturbing to see your destination suspended above +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page156" id="page156"></a>156</span> +your head at a distance that seems to get longer +instead of shorter. Some comfort may be got from +hearing Greek spoken at Ammendolea, itself an +eyrie, and again at Condufuri. A last, long, resolute +effort brings you, in spite of your forebodings, to +Bova, real as far as stones and fountains, men and +women, and lightly-clothed children can make it; yet +still half a dream, you think, when you sit on the +terrace at sunset and look across the blue Ionian to +the outline, unbroken from base to crown, of "Snowy +Ætna, nurse of endless frost, the prop of heaven."</p> + +<p>There is plenty of activity among the Greeks of +Calabria Ultra. Many of them contrive to get a livelihood +out of the chase; game of every sort abounds, +and wolves are not extinct. In the mountaineers' +cottages, which shelter a remarkable range of animals, +an infant wolf sometimes lies down with a tame sheep; +whilst on the table hops a domesticated eagle, taken +when young from its nest in defiance of the stones +dropped upon the robber by the outraged parent-birds. +The peasants till the soil, sow corn, plant vegetables, +harvest the olives and grapes, gather the prickly pears, +make cheese, tend cattle, and are wise in the care of +hives. It is a kind of wisdom of which their race has +ever had the secret. The Greek Calabrians love bees +as they were loved by the idyllic poets. "Ehi tin +cardia to melissa" ("he has the heart of a bee"), is +said of a kindly and helpful man. Sicilian Hybla +cannot have yielded more excellent honey than Bova +and Ammendolea. It is sad to think of, but it is +stated on good authority that the people of those lofty +cities quarrel over their honey as much as about +Praxiteles. Somehow envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page157" id="page157"></a>157</span> +find a way into the best of real idylls. You +may live at the top of a mountain and cordially detest +your neighbour. The folk of Condufuri greet the folk +of Bova as Vutáni dogs, which is answered by the +epithet of Spesi-spásu, all the more disagreeable +because nobody knows what it means. In Terra +d'Otranto the dwellers in the various Greek hamlets +call each other thieves, asses, simpletons, and necromancers. +The Italian peasants are inclined to class +Greeks and Albanians alike in the category of +"Turchi," and though the word Turk, as used by +Italians, in some cases simply means foreign, it is a +questionable term to apply to individuals. The +Greeks, with curious scorn, are content to fling back +the charge of Latin blood.</p> + +<p>When the day's work is done, comes the frugal +evening meal; a dish of <i>ricotta</i>, a glass of wine and +snow. Wine is cheap in Calabria, where the finest +variety is of a white sweet kind called <i>Greco</i>; and +the heights of Aspromonte provide a supply of frozen +snow, which is a necessary rather than a luxury in +this climate. About the hour of Avemmaria the bagpipers +approach. In the mountains the flocks follow +the wild notes of the "Zampogna" or "Ceramedda," +unerringly distinguishing the music of their own shepherd. +A visit from the Zampognari to hill-town, or +village sets all the world on the alert. There is gossiping, +and dancing, and the singing of songs, in +which expression takes the place of air. Two young +men sing together, without accompaniment, or one +sings alone, accompanied by bagpipe, violin, and +guitar. So the evening passes by, till the moon rises +and turns the brief, early darkness into a more glorified +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page158" id="page158"></a>158</span> +day. The little hum of human sound dies in the +silence of the hills; only perhaps a single clear, sweet +voice prolongs the monotone of love.</p> + +<p>The Italian complimentary alphabet is unknown to +the Greek poets. The person whom they address is +not apostrophised as Beauty or Beloved, or star, or +angel, or <i>Fior eterno</i>, or <i>Delicatella mia</i>. They do not +carry about ready for use a pocketful of poetic-sugared +rose-leaves, nor have they the art of making +each word serve as an act of homage or a caress. It +is true that "caxedda," a word that occurs frequently +in their songs, has been resolved by etymologists into +"pupil of my eye;" but for the people it means simply +"maiden." The Greek Calabrian gives one the impression +of rarely saying a thing because it is a pretty +thing to say. If he treats a fanciful idea, he presents +it, as it were, in the rough. Take for instance the +following:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh! were I earth, and thou didst tread on me,</p> +<p class="i2">Or of thy shoe the sole, this too were sweet!</p> +<p>Or were I just the dress that covers thee,</p> +<p class="i2">So might I fall entangling round thy feet.</p> +<p>Were I the crock, and thou didst strike on me,</p> +<p class="i2">And we two stooped to catch the waters fleet;</p> +<p>Or were I just the dress that covers thee,</p> +<p class="i2">So without me thou couldst not cross the street.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Here the fancy is the mere servant of the thought +behind it. The lover does not figure himself as the +fly on the cheek of his mistress, or the flower on her +breast. There is no intrinsic prettiness in the common +earth or the common water-vessel, in the sole of a +worn shoe, or in a workaday gown.</p> + +<p>It cannot be pretended that the Greek is so advanced +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page159" id="page159"></a>159</span> +in untaught culture as some of his Italian +brothers; in fact there are specimens of the <i>Sonetto +Grico</i> which are so bald and prosaic that the "Latins" +might not be at much pains to learn them even were +they sung at noonday. The Titianesque glow which +illuminates the plain materials of Venetian song must +not be looked for. What will be found in Græco-Calabrian +poesy is a strong appearance of sincerity, +supplemented at times by an almost startling revelation +of tender and chivalrous feeling. To these Greek +poets of Calabria love is another name for self-sacrifice. +"I marvel how so fair a face can have a heart +so tyrannous, in that thou bearest thyself so haughtily +towards me, while for thee I take no rest; and thou dost +as thou wilt, because I love thee—if needs be that I +should pour out my blood with all my heart for thee, +I will do it." This is love which discerns in its own +depths the cause of its defeat. A reproach suggestive +of Heine in its mocking bitterness changes in less +than a moment to a cry of despairing entreaty—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>I know you love me not, say what you may,</p> +<p class="i2">I'll not believe, no, no, my faithless one;</p> +<p>With all the rest I see you laugh and play,</p> +<p class="i2">'Tis only I, I only whom you shun.</p> +<p>Ah, could I follow where you lead the way:</p> +<p class="i2">The obstinate thoughts upon your traces run</p> +<p class="i2">Make me a feint of love, though you have none,</p> +<p>For I must think upon you night and day.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The scene is easily pictured: the bravery of words +at meeting, all the just displeasure of many a day +bursting forth; then the cessation of anger in the +beloved presence and the final unconditional surrender. +A lighter mood succeeds, but love's royal clemency is +still the text:</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page160" id="page160"></a>160</span> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Say, little girl, what have I done to thee,</p> +<p class="i2">What have I done to thee that thou art dumb?</p> +<p>Oft wouldst thou seek me once, such friends were we,</p> +<p class="i2">But now thou goest away whene'er I come.</p> +<p>If thou hast missed in aught, why quick, confess it,</p> +<p class="i2">For thee this heart will all, yes all, forgive;</p> +<p>If miss be mine, contrive that I should guess it;</p> +<p class="i2">And soon the thing shall finish, as I live!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The dutiful lover rings all the changes on humble +remonstrance:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>I go where I may see thee all alone,</p> +<p class="i2">So I may kneel before thee on the ground,</p> +<p>And ask of thee how is it that unknown</p> +<p class="i2">Unto thy heart is every prick and wound?</p> +<p>Canst thou not see that e'en my breath is flown,</p> +<p class="i2">Thinking of thee while still the days go round?</p> +<p>If thou wouldst not that I should quickly die,</p> +<p>Love only me and bid the rest good-bye.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>He might as well speak to the winds or to the stones, +and he admits as much. "Whensoever I pass I sing +to make thee glad; if I do not come for a few hours +I send thee a greeting with my eyes. But thou dost +act the deaf and likewise the dumb: pity thou hast +none for my tears." If he fails to fulfil his prophecy +of dying outright, at any rate he falls into the old age +of youth, which arrives as soon as the bank of hope +breaks:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Come night, come day, one only thought have I,</p> +<p class="i2">Which graven on my heart must ever stay;</p> +<p>Grey grows my hair and dismal age draws nigh,</p> +<p class="i2">Wilt thou not cease the tyrant's part to play?</p> +<p>Thou seem'st a very Turk for cruelty,</p> +<p class="i2">Of Barbary a very Turk I say;</p> +<p>I know not why thy love thou dost deny,</p> +<p class="i2">Or why with hate my love thou dost repay.</p> + </div> </div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page161" id="page161"></a>161</span> + +<p>This may be compared with a song taken down +from the mouth of a peasant near Reggio, an amusing +illustration of the kind of thing in favour with Calabrian +herdsmen:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Angelical thou art and not terrene,</p> +<p class="i2">Who dost kings' wives excel in loveliness!</p> +<p>Thou art a pearl, or Grecian Helen, I ween,</p> +<p class="i2">For whom Troy town was brought to sore distress;</p> +<p>Thine are the locks which graced the Magdalene,</p> +<p class="i2">Lucrece of Rome did scarce thy worth possess:</p> +<p>If thou art pitiless to me, oh, my Queen,</p> +<p class="i2">No Christian thou, a Turk, and nothing less!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>A glance at the daughter of Greek Calabria will +throw some light on the plaints of her devoted suitors. +The name she bears = <i>Dihatera</i>, brings directly to +mind the Sanskrit <i>Duhita</i>; and the vocation of the +Græco-Calabrian girl is often as purely pastoral as +that of the Aryan milkmaid who stood sponsor for so +large a part of maidenhood in Asia and in Europe. +She is sent out into the hills to keep sheep; a circumstance +not ignored by the shepherd lad who sits +in the shade and trills on his treble reed. Ewe's milk +is as much esteemed as in the days of Theocritus; it +forms the staple of the inevitable <i>ricotta</i>. In the +house the Greek damsel never has her hands idle. +She knows how to make the mysterious cakes and +comfits, for which the stranger is bound to have as +large an appetite in Calabria as in the isles of Greece. +A light heart lightens her work, whatever it be. +"You sit on the doorstep and laugh as you wind the +reels, then you go to the loom, <i>e ecínda magna travudia +travudia</i>" ("and sing those beautiful songs"). +So says the ill-starred poet, who discovers to his cost +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page162" id="page162"></a>162</span> +that it is just this inexhaustible merriment that lends +a sharp edge to maiden cruelty. "I have loved you +since you were a little thing, never can you leave my +heart; you bound me with a light chain; my mind +and your mind were one. Now,"—such is the melancholy +outcome of it all—"now you are a perfect little +fox to me, while you will join in any frolic with the +others." The fair tyrant develops an originality of +thought which surprises her best friends: "Ever since +you were beloved, you have always an idea and an +opinion!" It is beyond human power to account for +her caprices: "You are like a fay in the rainbow, +showing not one colour, but a thousand." When +trouble comes to her as it comes to all—when she has +a slight experience of the pain she is so ready to +inflict—she does not meekly bow her head and suffer. +"Manamu," cries a girl who seems to have been +neglected for some one of higher stature. "Mother +mine, I have got a little letter, and all sorts of despair. +<i>She</i> is tall, and <i>I</i> am little, and I have not the power +to tear her in pieces!"—as she has probably torn the +sheet of paper which brought the unwelcome intelligence. +She goes on to say that she will put up a +vow in a chapel, so as to be enabled to do some +personal, but not clearly explained damage to the +cause of her misfortunes. There is nothing new +under the sun; the word "anathema" originally +meant a votive offering: one of those execratory +tablets, deposited in the sacred places, by means of +which the ancient Greeks committed their enemies to +the wrath of the Infernal Goddesses. Mr Newton has +shown that it was the gentler sex which availed itself, +by far the most earnestly, of the privilege. Most +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page163" id="page163"></a>163</span> +likely our Lady of Hate in Brittany would have the +same tale to tell. Impotence seeks strange ways to +compass its revenge.</p> + +<p>In some extremities the lover has recourse, not +indeed to anathemas, but to irony. "I am not a +reed," he protests, "that where you bend me I should +go; nor am I a leaf, that you should move me with a +breath." Then, after observing that poison has been +poured on his fevered vitals, he exclaims, "Give your +love to others, and just see if they will love you +as I do!" One poet has arrived at the conclusion +that all the women of a particular street in Bova are +hopelessly false: "Did you ever see a shepherd wolf, +or a fox minding chickens, or a pig planting lettuces, +or an ox, as sacristan, snuffing out tapers with his +horns? As soon will you find a woman of Cuveddi +who keeps her faith." Another begins his song with +sympathy, but ends by uttering a somewhat severe +warning:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Alas, alas! my heart it bleeds to see</p> +<p class="i2">How now thou goest along disconsolate;</p> +<p>And in thy sorrow I no help can be—</p> +<p class="i2">My own poor heart is in a piteous state.</p> +<p>Come with sweet words—ah! come and doctor me,</p> +<p class="i2">And lift from off my heart this dolorous weight.</p> +<p>If thou come not, then none can pardon thee:</p> +<p class="i2">Go not to Rome for shrift; it is too late.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The Calabrian Greek has more than his share of +the pangs of unrequited love; that it is so he assures +us with an iteration that must prove convincing. +Still, some balm is left in Gilead. Even at Bova +there are maidens who do not think it essential to +their dignity to act the <i>rôle</i> of Eunica. The poorest +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page164" id="page164"></a>164</span> +herdsman, the humblest shepherd, has a chance of +getting listened to; a poor, bare chance perhaps, but +one which unlocks the door to as much of happiness +as there is in the world. At least the accepted lover +in the mountains of Calabria would be unwilling to +admit that there exists a greater felicity than his. If +he goes without shoes, still "love is enough:"</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Little I murmur against my load of woe—</p> +<p class="i2">Our love will never fail, nor yet decline;</p> +<p>For to behold thy form contents me so,</p> +<p class="i2">To see thee laugh with those red lips of thine.</p> +<p>Dost thou say not a word when past I go?</p> +<p class="i2">This of thy love for me is most sure sign;</p> +<p>Our love will no decline or failing know</p> +<p class="i2">Till in the sky the sun shall cease to shine.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Karro, the day-labourer (to whom we will give the +credit of inventing this song), would not, if he could, +put one jot of his burden on Filomena of the Red +Lips. Provided she laughs, he is sufficiently blest. +It so happens that Filomena is his master's granddaughter; +hence, alas! the need of silence as the sign +of love. The wealthy old peasant has sworn that the +child of his dead son shall never wed a penniless lad, +who might have starved last winter if he had not +given him work to do, out of sheer charity. Karro +comes to a desperate resolution: he will go down to +Reggio and make his fortune. When he thinks it +over, he feels quite confident of success: other folks +have brought back lots of money to Bova out of the +great world, and why should not he? In the early +morning he calls Filomena to bid her a cheerful +farewell:</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page165" id="page165"></a>165</span> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Come hither! run! thy friend must go away;</p> +<p class="i2">Come with a kiss—the time is flying fast.</p> +<p>Sure am I thou thy word wilt not betray,</p> +<p class="i2">And for remembrance' sake my heart thou hast.</p> +<p>Weep not because I leave thee for a day—</p> +<p class="i2">Nay, do not weep, for it will soon be past;</p> +<p>And, I advise thee, heed not if they say,</p> +<p class="i2">"Journeys like this long years are wont to last."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Down at Reggio, Karro makes much poetry, and, +were it not for his defective education, one might +think that he had been studying Byron:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>If I am forced far from thine eyes to go,</p> +<p class="i2">Doubt not, ah! never doubt my constancy;</p> +<p>The very truth I tell, if thou wouldst know—</p> +<p class="i2">Distance makes stronger my fidelity.</p> +<p>On my sure faith how shouldst thou not rely?</p> +<p class="i2">How think through distance I can faithless grow?</p> +<p>Remember how I loved thee, and reply</p> +<p class="i2">If distance love like mine can overthrow.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The fact is that he has not found fortune-making +quite so quick a business as he had hoped. To the +sun he says, when it rises, "O Sun! thou that +travellest from east to west, if thou shouldst see her +whom I love, greet her from me, and see if she shall +laugh. If she asks how I fare, tell her that many are +my ills; if she asks not this of thee, never can I be +consoled." One day, in the market place, he meets a +friend of his, Toto Sgrò, who has come from Bova +with wine to sell. Here is an opportunity of safely +sending a <i>sonetto</i> to the red-lipped Filomena. The +public letter-writer is resorted to. This functionary +gets out the stock of deep pink paper which is kept +expressly in the intention of enamoured clients, and +says gravely "Proceed." "An ímme lárga an' du +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page166" id="page166"></a>166</span> +lúcchiu tu dicússu," begins Karro. "Pray use a +tongue known to Christians," interposes the scribe. +Toto Sgrò, who is present, remarks in Greek that +such insolence should be punished; but Karro +counsels peace, and racks his brains for a poem in +the Calabrese dialect. Most of the men of Bova can +poetize in two languages. The poem, which is produced +after a moderate amount of labour, turns +chiefly on the idle talk of mischief-makers, who are +sure to insinuate that the absent are in the wrong. +"The tongue of people is evil speaking; it murmurs +more than the water of the stream; it babbles more +than the water of the sea. But what ill can folks say +of us if we love each other? I love thee eternally. +Love me, Filomena, and think nothing about it."</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Amame, Filomena, e nu' pensare!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Towards spring-time, Karro goes to Scilla to help +in the sword-fish taking; it is a bad year, and the +venture does not succeed. He nearly loses courage—fate +seems so thoroughly against him. Just then he +hears a piece of news: at the <i>osteria</i> there is an <i>Inglese</i> +who has set his mind on the possession of a live wolf +cub. "Mad, quite mad, like all <i>Inglesi</i>," is the +comment of the inhabitants of Scilla. "Who ever +heard of taking a live wolf?" Karro, as a mountaineer, +sees matters in a different light. Forthwith +he has an interview with the Englishman; then he +vanishes from the scene for two months. "Poveru +giuvinetto," says the host at the inn, "he has been +caught by an old wolf instead of catching a young +one!" At the end of the time, however, Karro limps +up to the door with an injured leg, and hardly a rag +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page167" id="page167"></a>167</span> +left to cover him; but carrying on his back a sack +holding two wolf cubs, unhurt and tame as kittens. +The gratified <i>Inglese</i> gives a bountiful reward; he is +not the first of his race who has acted as the <i>deus ex +machina</i> of a love-play on an Italian stage. Nothing +remains to be done but for Karro to hasten back to +Bova. Yet a kind of uneasiness mixes with his joy. +What has Filomena been doing and thinking all this +while! He holds his heart in suspense at the sight +of her beauty:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>In all the world fair women met my gaze,</p> +<p class="i2">But none I saw who could with thee compare;</p> +<p>I saw the dames whom most the Rhegians praise,</p> +<p class="i2">And by the thought of thee they seemed not fair.</p> +<p class="i2">When thou art dressed to take the morning air</p> +<p>The sun stands still in wonder and amaze;</p> +<p>If thou shouldst scorn thy love of other days,</p> +<p class="i2">I go a wanderer, I know not where.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The story ends well. Filomena proves as faithful +as she is fair; Karro's leg is quickly cured, and the +old man gives his consent to the marriage—nay more, +feeble as he is now, he is glad to hand over the whole +management of the farm to his son-in-law. Thus the +young couple start in life with the three inestimable +blessings which a Greek poet reckons as representing +the sum total of human prosperity: a full granary, a +dairy-house to make cheese in, and a fine pig.</p> + +<p>In collections of Tuscan and Sicilian songs it is +common to find a goodly number placed under the +heading "Delle loro bellezze." The Greek songs of +Calabria that exactly answer to this description are +few. A new Zeuxis might successfully paint an +unseen Tuscan or Sicilian girl—local Anacreons by +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page168" id="page168"></a>168</span> +the score would give him the needful details: the +colour of the hair and eyes, the height, complexion, +breadth of shoulders, smallness of waist; nor would +they forget to mention the nobility of pose and +carriage, <i>il leggiadro portamento altero</i>, which is the +crowning gift of women south of the Alps. It can +be recognized at once that the poets of Sicily and +Tuscany have not merely a vague admiration for +beauty in general; they have an innate artistic perception +of what goes to constitute the particular form +of beauty before their eyes. Poorer in words and +ideas, the Greek Calabrian hardly knows what to say +of his beloved, except that she is <i>dulce ridentem</i>, +"sweetly-laughing," and that she has small red lips, +between which he is sure that she must carry honey—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>To meli ferri s' ettunda hilúcia ...</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>He seems scarcely to notice whether she is fair or +dark. Fortunately it is not impossible to fill in the +blank spaces in the picture. The old Greek stamp +has left a deep impression at home and abroad. +Where there were Greeks there are still men and +women whose features are cut, not moulded, and who +have a peculiar symmetry of form, which is not less +characteristic though it has been less discussed. A +friend of mine, who accompanied the Expedition of +the Thousand, was struck by the conformity of the +standard of proportion to be observed in the women +of certain country districts in Sicily with the rule +followed in Greek sculpture; it is a pity that the +subject is not taken in hand by some one who has +more time to give to it than a volunteer on the march. +I have said "men <i>or</i> women," for it is a strange fact +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page169" id="page169"></a>169</span> +that the heritage of Greek beauty seems to fall to +only one sex at a time. At Athens and in Cyprus +young men may be seen who would have done credit +to the gymnasia, but never a handsome girl; whilst +at Arles, in Sicily, and in Greek Calabria the women +are easily first in the race. The typical Græco-Calabrian +maiden has soft light hair, a fairness of skin +which no summer heats can stain, and the straight +outline of a statue. There is another pattern of beauty +in Calabria: low forehead, straight, strongly-marked +eyebrows, dark, blue, serious eyes, lithe figure, elastic +step. Place beside the women of the last type a +man dyed copper-colour, with black, lank locks, and +the startled look of a wild animal. The Greeks have +many dark faces, and many ugly faces, too; for that +matter, uncompromising plainness was always amongst +the possibilities of an Hellenic physiognomy. But +the beautiful dark girl and her lank-locked companion +do not belong to them. Whom they do belong to is +an open question; perhaps to those early Brettians +who dwelt in the forest of the Syla, despised by the +Greeks as savages, and docketed by the Romans, +without rhyme or reason, as the descendants of +escaped criminals. Calabria offers an inviting field +to the ethnologist. It is probable that the juxtaposition +of various races has not led in any commensurate +degree to a mixture of blood. Each commune is a +unit perpetually reformed out of the same constituents. +Till lately intermarriage was carried to such a pitch +that it was rare to meet with a man in a village who +was not closely related to every other inhabitant +of it.</p> + +<p>The Greeks of Terra d'Otranto bear a strong physical +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page170" id="page170"></a>170</span> +resemblance to the Greeks of Calabria Ultra. +It is fifty or sixty years since the Hon. R. Keppel +Craven remarked a "striking regularity of feature and +beauty of complexion" in the women of Martano and +Calimera. At Martano they have a pretty song in +praise of some incomparable maid:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>My Sun, where art thou going? Stay to see</p> +<p>How passing beautiful is she I love.</p> +<p>My Sun, that round and round the world dost move,</p> +<p>Hast thou seen any beautiful as she?</p> +<p>My Sun, that hast the whole world travelled round,</p> +<p>One beautiful as she thou hast not found!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Next to his lady's laughter, the South Italian Greek +worships the sun. It is the only feature in nature to +which he pays much heed. In common with other +forms of modern Greek the Calabrian possesses the +beautiful periphrase for sunset, <i>o íglio vasiléggui</i> (<ins title="ho hêlios basilehyei"> +<i><span style="font-size: 0.9em;">ὁ ἥ</span>λιος βασιλεύει</i></ins>). +Language, which is altogether a +kind of poetry, has not anything more profoundly +poetic. There is a brisk, lively ring in the "Sun up!" +of the American Far West; but an intellectual +Atlantic flows between it and the Greek ascription of +kingship, of heroship, to the Day-giver at the end of +his course—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Wie herrlich die Sonne dort untergeht,</p> +<p>So stirbt ein Held! Anbetungswürdig!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>When we were young, were not our hearts stirred to +their inmost depths by this?</p> + +<p>The love-songs of Bova include one composed by a +young man who had the ill-luck to get into prison. +"Remember," he says, "the words I spoke to thee +when we were seated on the grass; for the love of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page171" id="page171"></a>171</span> +Christ, remember them, so as not to make my life a +torment. Think not that I shall stay in here for +ever; already I have completed one day. But if it +should happen that thou art forgetful of my words, +beyond a doubt this prison awaits me!" The singer +seems to wish it to be inferred that his line of conduct +in the given case will be such as to entitle him to +board and lodging at the expense of the state for the +rest of his days. In times still recent, prisoners at +Bova could see and be seen, and hear and be heard, +through the bars. Thus the incarcerated lover had +not to wait long for an answer, which must have +greatly relieved his mind: "The words that thou +didst say to me on the tender grass, I remember them—I +forget them not. I would not have thee say them +over again; but be sure I love thee. Night and day +I go to church, and of Christ I ask this grace: 'My +Christ, make short the hours—bring to me him whom +I love!'"</p> + +<p>The Greeks have a crafty proverb, "If they see me +I laugh; but if not, I rob and run." A Græco-Italic +word<a id="footnotetagG1" name="footnotetagG1"></a><a href="#footnoteG1"><sup>1</sup></a>, <i>maheri</i>, or "poignard," has been suggested as +the origin of <i>Mafia</i>, the name of one of the two great +organisations for crime which poison the social atmosphere +of southern Italy. The way of looking upon +an experience of the penalties of the law, not as a +retribution or a disgrace, but as a simple mischance, +still prevails in the provinces of the ex-kingdom of +Naples. "The prisons," says a Calabrian poet, "are +made for honest men." Yet the people of Calabria +are rather to be charged with a confusion of moral +sense than with a completely debased morality. What +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page172" id="page172"></a>172</span> +has been said of the modern Greek could with equal +truth be said of them, whether Greeks or otherwise: +put them upon their point of honour and they may be +highly trusted. At a date when, in Sicily, no one +went unarmed, it was the habit in Calabria to leave +doors and windows unfastened during an absence of +weeks or months; and it is still remembered how, +after the great earthquake of 1783, five Calabrians +who happened to be at Naples brought back to the +treasury 200 ducats (received by them out of the +royal bounty) on learning, through private sources, +that their homesteads were safe. The sort of honesty +here involved is not so common as it might be, even +under the best of social conditions.</p> + +<p>In that year of catastrophe—1783—it is more than +possible that some of the Greek-speaking communities +were swallowed up, leaving no trace behind. Calabria +was the theatre of a series of awful transformation +scenes; heroism and depravity took strange forms, +and men intent on pillage were as ready to rush into +the tottering buildings as men intent on rescue. A +horrid rejoicing kept pace with terror and despair. In +contrast to all this was the surprising calmness with +which in some cases the ordeal was faced. At Oppido, +a place originally Greek, a pretty young woman, aged +nineteen years, was immured for thirty hours, and +shortly after her <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'hushand'">husband</ins> had extricated her she became +a mother. Dolomieu asked what had been her +thoughts in her living tomb; to which she simply +answered, "I waited." The Prince of Scilla and four +thousand people were swept into the sea by a single +volcanic wave. Only the mountains stood firm. +Bova, piled against the rock like a child's card-city, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page173" id="page173"></a>173</span> +suffered no harm, whilst the most solid structures on +the shore and in the plain were pitched about as ships +in a storm. Still, in the popular belief the whole mischief +was brewed deep down in the innermost heart +of Aspromonte. It may be that the theory grew out +of the immemorial dread inspired by the Bitter Mount—a +dread which seems in a way prophetic of the dark +shadow it was fated to cast across the fair page of +Italian redemption.</p> + +<p>A thousand years ago every nook and cranny in +the Calabrian mountains had its Greek hermit. Now +and then one of these anchorites descended to the +towns, and preached to flocks of penitents in the +Greek idiom, which was understood by all. Under +Byzantine rule the people generally adhered to the +Greek rite; nor was it without the imposition of the +heavy hand of Rome that they were finally brought +to renounce it. As late as the sixteenth century the +liturgies were performed in Greek at Rossano, and +perhaps much later in the hill-towns, where there are +women who still treasure up scraps of Greek prayers. +Greek, in an older sense than any attached to the +ritual of the Eastern Church, is the train of thought +marked out in this line from a folk-song of Bova: "O +Juro pu en chi jerusia" ("The Lord who hath not +age"). The Italian imagines the Creator as an old +man; witness, to take only one example, the frescoes +on the walls of the Pisan Campo Santo. A Tuscan +proverb, which means no evil, though it would not +very well bear translating—"Lascia fare a Dio che è +Santo Vecchio"—shows how in this, as in other +respects, Italian art is but the concrete presentation +of Italian popular sentiment. The grander idea of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page174" id="page174"></a>174</span> +"a Divine power which grows not old" seems very +like an exotic in Italy. Without yielding too much +to the weakness of seeking analogies, one other coincidence +may be mentioned in passing. The Greek +mother soothes her crying child by telling him that +"the wild doves drink at the <i>holy sea</i>." This "ago +Thalassia" recalls the <ins title="hals dia"><span style="font-size: 0.9em;">ἅ</span>λς δὶα</ins> +of the greatest folk-poet +who ever lived. <i>Thalassia</i> is now replaced in ordinary +conversation by the Italian <i>mare</i>; indeed, in +Terra d'Otranto it is currently supposed to be the +proper name of a saint. The next step would naturally +lead to the establishment of a cult of St Thalassia; +and this may have been the kind of way in +which were established a good many of those cults +that pass for evidences of nature-worship.</p> + +<p>The language of the Græco-Calabrian songs, mixed +though it is with numberless Calabrese corruptions, +is still far more Greek than the actual spoken +tongue. So it always happens; poetry, whether the +highest or the lowest, is the shrine in which the purer +forms of speech are preserved. The Greeks of Calabria +are at present bi-lingual, reminding one of Horace's +"Canusini more bilinguis." It is a comparatively +new state of things. Henry Swinburne says that the +women he saw knew only Greek or "Albanese," as he +calls it, which, he adds, "they pronounce with great +sweetness of accent." The advance of Calabrese is +attended by the decline of Greek, and a systematic +examination of the latter has not been undertaken +a moment too soon. The good work, begun by +Domenico Comparetti and Giuseppe Morosi, is being +completed by professor Astorre Pellegrini, who has +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page175" id="page175"></a>175</span> +published one volume of <i>Studi sui dialetti Greco-Calabro +di Bova</i>, which will be followed in due course +by a second instalment. I am glad to be able to +record my own debt to this excellent and most +courteous scholar. He informs me that he hopes +to finish his researches by a thorough inspection of +the stones and mural tablets in Calabrian graveyards. +The dead have elsewhere told so much about the +living that the best results are to be anticipated.</p> + +<p>It need scarcely be said that the leavings of the +past in the southern extremity of Italy are not confined +to the narrow space where a Greek idiom is +spoken. There is not even warrant for supposing +them to lie chiefly within that area. The talisman +which the hunter or brigand wears next to his heart, +believing that it renders him invulnerable; the bagpipe +which calls the sheep in the hills, and which the +wild herds of swine follow docilely over the marshes; +the faggot which the youth throws upon his mother's +threshold before he crosses it after the day's toil; the +kick, aimed against the house door, which signifies +the last summons of the debtor; the shout of "Barca!" +raised by boys who lie in wait to get the first glimpse +of the returning fishing fleet, expecting largess for the +publication of the good news; the chaff showered +down by vine-dressers upon bashful maids and country +lads going home from market; the abuse of +strangers who venture into the vineyards at the +vintage season—these are among the things of the +young world that may be sought in Calabria.</p> + +<p>Other things there are to take the mind back to the +time when the coins the peasant turns up with his hoe +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page176" id="page176"></a>176</span> +were fresh from the mint at Locri, and when the +mildest of philosophies was first—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p><span class="xl"> . . . . </span> dimly taught</p> +<p>In old Crotona;</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>wild flowers as sweet as those that made Persephone +forsake the plain of Enna; maidens as fair as the five +beautiful virgins after whom Zeuxis painted his <i>Helen</i>; +grasshoppers as loudly chirping as the "cricket" that +saved the prize to Eunomus; and, high in the transparent +air, the stars at which Pythagoras gazed +straining his ears to catch their eternal harmonies.</p> + +<p class="footnote"><a id="footnoteG1" name="footnoteG1"></a><a class="footnote" href="#footnotetagG1">Footnote 1:</a> +In classical Greek, <ins title="machaira"><i>μάχαιρα</i></ins>.</p> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page177" id="page177"></a>177</span> + +<h2>FOLK SONGS OF PROVENCE.</h2> + +<p>On a day in the late autumn it happened to me to +be standing at a window looking down into an untidy +back street at Avignon. It was a way of getting +through the hours between a busy morning and a +busy evening—hours which did not seem inclined to +go. If ever man be tempted to upbraid the slowness +of the flight of time, it is surely in the vacant intervals +of travel. The prospect at the window could hardly +be called enlivening; by-and-by, however, the dulness +of the outlook was lessened a little. The sounds of +a powerful and not unmusical voice came along the +street; people hastened to their doors, and in a +minute or so a young lame man made his appearance. +He was singing Provençal songs. Here was the last +of the troubadours!</p> + +<p>If it needed some imagination to see in this humble +minstrel the representative of the courtly adepts in +the gay science, still his relationship to them was not +purely fanciful. The itinerant singer used to be the +troubadour of the poor. No doubt his more illustrious +brother grudged him the name. "I am astonished," +said Giraud Riquier to Alfonso of Aragon, "that folks +confound the troubadours with those ignorant and +uncouth persons who, as soon as they can play some +screeching instrument, go through the streets asking +alms and singing before a vile rabble;" and Alfonso +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page178" id="page178"></a>178</span> +answered that in future the noble appellation of +"joglaria" should be granted no longer to mountebanks +who went about with dancing dogs, goats, +monkeys, or puppets, imitating the song of birds, or +for a meagre pittance singing before people of base +extraction, but that they should be called "bufos," as +in Lombardy. Giraud Riquier was not benevolently +inclined when he embodied in verse his protest and +the King's endorsement of it; yet his words now lend +an ancient dignity to the class they were meant to +bring into contempt. The lame young man at +Avignon had no dancing dogs, nor did he mimic the +song of birds—an art still practised with wonderful +skill in Italy.<a id="footnotetag1" name="footnotetag1"></a><a href="#footnote1"><sup>1</sup></a> He helped out his entertainment +by another device, one suitable to an age which reads; +he sold printed songs, and he presented "letters." If +you bought two sous' worth of songs you were entitled +to a "letter." It has to be explained that "letters" +form a kind of fortune-telling, very popular in Provence. +A number of small scraps of paper are attached to a +ring; you pull off one at hazard, and on it you find a +full account of the fate reserved to you. Nothing +more simple. As to the songs, loose sheets containing +four or five of them are to be had for fifteen +centimes. I have seen on the quay at Marseilles an +open bookstall, where four thousand of these songs +are advertised for sale. Some are in Provençal, some +in French; many are interlarded with prose sentences, +in which case they are called "cansounetto émé parla." +Formerly the same style of composition bore the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page179" id="page179"></a>179</span> +name of <i>cantefable</i>. The subjects chosen are comic, +or sentimental, or patriotic, or, again, simply local. +There is, for example, a dialogue between a proprietor +and a lodger. "Workman, why are you always +grumbling?" asks the "moussu," who speaks French, +as do angels and upper-class people generally in +Provençal songs. "If your old quarters are to be +pulled down, a fine new one will be built instead. +Ere long the town of Marseilles will become a paradise, +and the universe will exclaim, 'What a marvel! Fine +palaces replace miserable hovels!'" For all that, +replies the workman in Provençal patois, the abandonment +of his old quarter costs a pang to a child <i>deis +Carmes</i> (an old part of Marseilles, standing where the +Greek town stood). It was full of attraction to him. +There his father lived before him; there his friends +had grown with him to manhood; there he had +brought up his children, and lived content. The +proprietor argues that it was far less clean than could +be wished—there was too much insectivorous activity +in it. He tells the workman that he can find a lodging, +after all not very expensive, in some brand-new +building outside the town; the railway will bring +him to his work. Unconvinced, the workman returns +to his refrain, "Regreterai toujour moun vieil Marsïo." +If the rhymes are bad, if the subject is prosaic, we +have here at least the force of a fact pregnant with +social danger. Is it only at Marseilles that the +grand improvements of modern days mean, for the +man who lives by his labour, the break-up of his +home, the destruction of his household gods, the dispersion +of all that sweetened and hallowed his poverty? +The songs usually bear an author's name; but the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page180" id="page180"></a>180</span> +authors of the original pieces, though they may enjoy +a solid popularity in Provence, are rarely known to a +wider fame. One of them, M. Marius Féraud, whose +address I hold in my hands, will be happy to compose +songs or romances for marriages, baptisms, and +other such events, either in Provençal or in French, +introducing any surname and Christian name indicated, +and arranging the metre so as to suit the +favourite tune of the person who orders the poem.</p> + +<p>Street ditties occupy an intermediate place between +literate and illiterate poesy. Once the repertory of +the itinerant <i>bufo</i> was drawn from a source which +might be called popular without qualifying the term. +With the pilgrim and the roving apprentice he was a +chief agent in the diffusion of ballads. Even now he +has a right to be remembered in any account of the +songs of Provence; but, having given him mention, +we must leave the streets to go to the well-heads of +popular inspiration—the straggling village, the isolated +farm, the cottage alone on the byeway.</p> + +<p>When in the present century there was a revival of +Provençal literature, after a suspension of some five +hundred years, the poets who devoted their not mean +gifts to this labour of love discerned, with true insight, +that the only Provençal who was still thoroughly +alive was the peasant. Through the long lapse of +time in the progress of which Provence had lost its +very name—becoming a thing of French departments—the +peasant, it was discovered, had not changed +much; acting on which discovery, the new Provençal +school produced two works of a value that could not +have been reached had it been attempted either to +give an archaic dress to the ideas and interests of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page181" id="page181"></a>181</span> +modern world, or to galvanise the dry bones of +mediæval romance into a dubious animation. These +works are <i>Mirèio</i> and <i>Margarido</i>. Mistral, with the +idealising touch of the imaginative artist, paints the +Provence of the valley of the Rhone, whilst Marius +Trussy photographs the ruder and wilder Provence of +mountain and torrent. Taken together, the two +poems perfectly illustrate the <i>Wahrheit und Dichtung</i> +of the life of the people whose songs we have to +study.</p> + +<p>Since there is record of them the Provençals have +danced and sung. They may be said to have furnished +songs and dances to all France, and even to +lands far beyond the border of France. A French +critic relates how, when he was young, he went night +after night to a certain theatre in Paris to see a dance +performed by a company of English pantomimists. +The dancers gradually stripped a staff, or may-pole, +of its many-coloured ribbons, which became in their +hands a sort of moving kaleidoscope. This, that he +thought at the time to be an exclusively English +invention, was the old Provençal dance of the <i>olivette</i>. +In the Carnival season dances of an analogous kind +are still performed, here and there; by bands of young +men, who march in appropriate costume from place +to place, led by their harlequin and by a player on the +<i>galooubé</i>, the little pipe which should be considered +the national instrument of Provence. Harlequin improvises +couplets in a sarcastic vein, and the crowd +of spectators is not slow to apply each sally to some +well-known person; whence it comes that Ash Wednesday +carries a sense of relief to many worthy individuals. +May brings with it more dances and milder +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page182" id="page182"></a>182</span> +songs. Young men plant a tree, with a nosegay +atop, before their sweethearts' doors, and then go +singing—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Lou premier jour de mai,</p> +<p class="i8">O Diou d'eime!</p> +<p>Quand tout se renouvelo</p> +<p class="i8">Rossignolet!</p> +<p>Quand tout se renouvelo.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The great business of the month is sheep-shearing, +a labour celebrated in a special song. "When the +month of May comes, the shearers come: they shear +by night, they shear by day; for a month, and a +fortnight, and three weeks they shear the wool of +these white sheep." When the shearers go, the +washers come; when the washers go, the carders +come; then come the spinners, the weavers, the +buyers, and the ragmen who gather up the bits. +Across the nonsense of which it is composed the +ditty reflects the old excitement caused in the lonely +homesteads by the annual visit of the plyers of these +several trades, who turned everything upside down +and brought strange news of the world. At harvest +there was, and there is yet, a great gathering at the +larger farms. Troops of labourers assemble to do the +needful work. Sometimes, after the evening meal, a +curious song called the "Reapers' Grace" is sung +before the men go to rest. It has two parts: the +first is a variation on the first chapter of Genesis. +Adam and <i>nouestro maire Evo</i> are put into the Garden +of Eden. Adam is forbidden to eat of the fruit of +life; he eats thereof, and the day of his death is foretold +him. He will be buried under a palm, a cypress, +and an olive, and out of the wood of the olive the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page183" id="page183"></a>183</span> +Cross will be made. The second part, sung to a +quick, lively air, is an expression of goodwill to the +master and the mistress of the farm, every verse +ending, "Adorem devotoment Jesù eme Mario." A +few years ago the harvest led on naturally to the +vintage. It is not so now. The vines of Provence, +excellent in themselves, though never turned to the +same account as those of Burgundy or Bordeaux, +have been almost completely ruined by the phylloxera. +The Provençal was satisfied if his wine was good +enough to suit his own taste and that of his neighbours; +thus he had not laid by wealth to support +him in the evil day that has come. "Is there no +help?" I asked of a man of the poorer class. "Only +rain, much rain, can do good," he answered, "and," +he added, "we have not had a drop for four months." +The national disaster has been borne with the finest +fortitude, but in Provence at least there seems to be +small faith in any method of grappling with it. The +vines, they say, are spoilt by the attempt to submit +them to an artificial deluge; so one after the other, +the peasant roots them up, and tries to plant cabbages +or what not. Three hundred years back the Provençals +would have known what measures to take: +the offending insect would have been prosecuted. +Between 1545 and 1596 there was a run of these +remarkable trials at Arles. In 1565 the Arlesiens +asked for the expulsion of the grasshoppers. The +case came before the Tribunal de l'Officialité, and +Maître Marin was assigned to the insects as counsel. +He defended his clients with much zeal. Since the +accused had been created, he argued that they were +justified in eating what was necessary to them. The +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page184" id="page184"></a>184</span> +opposite counsel cited the serpent in the Garden of +Eden, and sundry other animals mentioned in Scripture, +as having incurred severe penalties. The grasshoppers +got the worst of it, and were ordered to quit +the territory, with a threat of anathematizatiom from +the altar, to be repeated till the last of them had +obeyed the sentence of the honourable court.</p> + +<p>One night in the winter of 1819 there was a frost +which, had it been a few times repeated, would have +done as final mischief to the olives as the phylloxera +has done to the vines. The terror of that night is +remembered still. Corn, vine, and olive—these were +the gifts of the Greek to Provence, and the third is +the most precious of all. The olive has here an +Eastern importance; the Provençals would see a +living truth in the story of how the trees said unto it, +"Reign thou over us." In the flowering season the +slightest sharpness in the air sends half the rural +population bare-foot upon a pilgrimage to the nearest +St Briggitte or St Rossoline. The olive harvest is +the supreme event of the year. It has its song too. +In the warm days of St Martin's summer, says the +late Damase Arbaud, some worker in the olive woods +will begin to sing of a sudden—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Ai rescountrat ma mio—diluns.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>It is a mere nonsense song respecting the meeting of +a lover and his lass on every day of the week, she +being each day on her way to buy provisions, and he +giving her the invariable advice that she had better +come back, because it is raining. Were it the rarest +poetry the effect could be hardly more beautiful than +it is. When the first voice has sung, "I met my +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page185" id="page185"></a>185</span> +love ..." ascending slowly from a low note, the +whole group of olive-gatherers take it up, then the +next, and again the next, till the country-side is +made all musical by the swell and fall of sound sent +forth from every grey coppice; and even long after +the nearer singers have ceased, others unseen in the +distance still raise the high-pitched call, "Come back, +my love, come back! ... come back!"</p> + +<p>On the first of November it is customary in Provence +for families to meet and dine. The fruits of the earth +are garnered, the year's business is over and done. +The year has brought perhaps new faces into the +family; very likely it has taken old faces away. +Towards evening the bells begin to toll for the vigil +of the feast of All Souls. Tears come into the eyes +of the older guests, and the children are hurried off +to bed. Why should they be present at this letting +loose of grief? To induce them to retire with good +grace, they are allowed to take with them what is left +of the dessert—chestnuts, or grapes, or figs. The +child puts a portion of his spoils at the bottom of his +bed for the <i>armettes</i>: so are called the spirits of the +dead who are still in a state of relation with the +living, not being yet finally translated into their future +abode. Children are told that if they are good the +<i>armettes</i> will kiss them this night; if they are naughty, +they will scratch their little feet.</p> + +<p>The Provençal religious songs, poor though they +are from a literary point of view, yet possess more +points of interest than can be commonly looked for +in folk-songs which treat of religion. They contain +frequent allusions to beliefs that have to be sought +either in the earliest apocryphal writings of the Christian +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page186" id="page186"></a>186</span> +æra, or in the lately unearthed records of rabbinical +tradition. Various of them have regard to +what is still, as M. Lenthéric says, "one of the great +popular emotions of the South of France"—the +reputed presence there of Mary Magdalene. M. +Lenthéric is convinced that certain Jewish Christians, +flying from persecution at home, did come to Provence +(between the ports of which and the East there +was constant communication) a short time after the +Crucifixion. He is further inclined to give credit to +the impression that Mary Magdalene and her companions +were among these fugitives. I will not go +into the reasons that have been urged against the +story by English and German scholars; it is enough +for us that it is a popular credence of very ancient +origin. One side issue of it is particularly worth +noting. A little servant girl named Sara is supposed +to have accompanied the Jewish emigrants, and her +the gypsies of Provence have adopted as their patroness. +Once a year they pay their respects to her +tomb at Saintes Maries de la Mer. This is almost +the only case in which the gypsy race has shown any +disposition to identify itself with a religious cultus. +The fairy legend of Tarascon is another offshoot from +the main tradition. "Have you seen the Tarasque?" +I was asked in the course of a saunter through that +town one cold morning between the hours of seven +and eight. It seemed that the original animal was +kept in a stall. To stimulate my anxiety to make +its acquaintance I was handed the portrait of a beast, +half hedgehog, half hippopotamus, out of whose somewhat +human jaw dangled the legs of a small boy. +Later I heard the story from the lips of the sister of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page187" id="page187"></a>187</span> +the landlord at the primitive little inn; much did it +gain from the vivacious grace of the narrator, in whom +there is as surely proof positive of a Greek descent +as can be seen in any of the more famous daughters +of Arles. "When the friends of our Lord landed in +Provence, St Mary Magdalene went to Sainte Baume, +St Lazarus to Marseilles, and St Martha came here to +Tarascon. Now there was a terrible monster called +the Tarasque, which was desolating all the country +round and carrying off all the young children to eat. +When St Martha was told of the straits the folks +were in, she went out to meet the monster with a +piece of red ribbon in her hand. Soon it came, snorting +fire out of its nostrils; but the saint threw the red +ribbon over its neck, and lo! it grew quite still and +quiet, and followed her back into the town as if it +had been a good dog. To keep the memory of this +marvel, we at Tarascon have a wooden Tarasque, +which we take round the town at Whitsuntide with +much rejoicing. About once in twenty years there is +a very grand <i>fête</i> indeed, and people come from far, +far off. I have—naturally—seen this grand celebration +only once." A gleam of coquetry lit up the long +eyes: our friend clearly did not wish to be supposed +to have an experience ranging over too long a period. +Then she went on, "You must know that at Beaucaire, +just there across the Rhone, the folks have been always +ready to die of jealousy of our Tarasque. Once upon +a time they thought they would have one as well as +we; so they made the biggest Tarasque that ever had +been dreamt of. How proud they were! But, alas! +when the day came to take it round the town, it was +found that it would not come out of the door of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page188" id="page188"></a>188</span> +workshop! Ah! those dear Beaucairos!" This I +believe to be a pure fable, like the rest; to the good +people of Tarascon it appears the most pleasing part +of the whole story. My informant added, with a +merry laugh, "There came this way an Englishman—a +very sceptical Englishman. When he heard about +the difficulty of the Beaucairos he asked, 'Why did +they not have recourse to St Martha?'"</p> + +<p>As I have strayed into personal reminiscence, the +record of one other item of conversation will perhaps +be allowed. That same morning I went to breakfast +at the house of a Provençal friend to meet the +ablest exponent of political positivism, the Radical +deputy for Montmartre. Over our host's strawberries +(strawberries never end at Tarascon) I imparted my +newly acquired knowledge. When it came to the +point of saying that certain elderly persons were +credibly stated to have preserved a lively faith in the +authenticity of the legend, M. Clémenceau listened +with a look of such unmistakable concern that I said, +half amused, "You do not believe much in poetry?" +The answer was characteristic. "Yes, I believe in it +much; but is it necessary to poetry that the people +should credit such absurdities?" Is it necessary? +Possibly Marius Trussy, who inveighs so passionately +against "lou progrê," would say that it is. Anyhow +the Tarasques of the world are doomed; whether +they will be without successors is a different question. +Some one has said that mankind has always lived +upon illusions, and always will, the essential thing +being to change the nature of these illusions from +time to time, so as to bring them into harmony with +the spirit of the age.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page189" id="page189"></a>189</span> + +<p>Provençal folk-songs have but few analogies +with the literature which heedlessly, though beyond +recall, has been named Provençal. The poetry +of the Miejour was a literary orchid of the +fabulous sort that has neither root nor fruit. A +chance stanza, addressed to some high-born Blancoflour, +finds its way occasionally into the popular verse +of Provence with the marks of lettered authorship still +clinging to it; but further than this the resemblance +does not go. The love poets of the people make use +of a flower language, which is supposed to be a legacy +of the Moors. Thyme accompanies a declaration; +the violet means doubt or uneasiness; rosemary +signifies complaint; nettles announce a quarrel. The +course of true love nowhere flows less smoothly than +in old Provence. As soon as a country girl is suspected +of having a liking for some youth, she is set +upon by her family as if she were guilty of a monstrous +crime. A microscopic distinction of rank, a +divergence in politics, or a deficiency of money will +be snatched as the excuse for putting the lover under +the ban of absolute proscription. From the inexplicable +obstacles placed in the way of lovers it follows +that a large proportion of Provençal marriages are +the result of an elopement. The expedient never +fails; Provençal parents do not lock up their runaway +daughters in convents where no one can get at them. +The delinquents are married as fast as possible. +What is more, no evil is thought or spoken of them. +To make assurance doubly sure, a curious formality +is observed. The girl calls upon two persons, secretly +convened for the purpose, to bear witness that she +carries off her lover, who afterwards protests that his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page190" id="page190"></a>190</span> +part in the comedy was purely passive. In less than +twenty years the same drama is enacted with Margarido, +the daughter, in the <i>rôle</i> of Mario the mother.</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>L'herbo que grio</p> +<p>Toujours reverdilho;</p> +<p>L'herbo d'amour</p> +<p>Reverdilho toujours.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The plant of love grows where there are young +hearts; but how comes it that middle-aged hearts +turn inevitably to cast iron? There is one song +which has the right to be accepted as the typical +love-song of Provence. Mistral adapted it to his own +use, and it figures in his poem as the "Chanson de +Majali." My translation follows as closely as may be +after the popular version which is sung from the +Comtat Venaissin to the Var:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">Margaret! my first love,</p> +<p class="i6"> Do not say me nay!</p> +<p class="i2">A morning music thou must have,</p> +<p class="i6"> A waking roundelay.</p> +<p>—Your waking music irks me,</p> +<p class="i6"> And irk me all who play;</p> +<p class="i2">If this goes on much longer</p> +<p class="i6"> I'll drown myself one day.</p> +<p>—If this goes on much longer,</p> +<p class="i6"> And thou wilt drown one day,</p> +<p class="i2">Why, then a swimmer I will be,</p> +<p class="i6"> And save thee sans delay.</p> +<p>—If then a swimmer thou wilt be,</p> +<p class="i6">And save me sans delay,</p> +<p class="i2">Then I will be an eel, and slip</p> +<p class="i6">From 'twixt thy hands away.</p> +<p>—If thou wilt be an eel, and slip</p> +<p class="i6">From 'twixt my hands away,</p> +<p class="i2">Why, I will be the fisherman</p> +<p class="i6">Whom all the fish obey.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page191" id="page191"></a>191</span> +<p>—If thou wilt be the fisherman</p> +<p class="i6">Whom all the fish obey,</p> +<p class="i2">Then I will be the tender grass</p> +<p class="i6">That yonder turns to hay.</p> +<p>—If thou wilt be the tender grass</p> +<p class="i6">That yonder turns to hay,</p> +<p class="i2">Why, then a mower I will be,</p> +<p class="i6">And mow thee in the may.</p> +<p>—If thou a mower then wilt be,</p> +<p class="i6">And mow me in the may,</p> +<p class="i2">I, as a little hare, will go</p> +<p class="i6">In yonder wood to stray.</p> +<p>—If thou a little hare wilt go</p> +<p class="i6">In yonder wood to stray,</p> +<p class="i2">Then will I come, a hunter bold,</p> +<p class="i6">And have thee as my prey.</p> +<p>—If thou wilt come a hunter bold</p> +<p class="i6">To have me as thy prey,</p> +<p class="i2">Then I will be the endive small</p> +<p class="i6">In yonder garden gay.</p> +<p>—If thou wilt be the endive small</p> +<p class="i6">In yonder garden gay,</p> +<p class="i2">Then I will be the falling dew,</p> +<p class="i6">And fall on thee alway.</p> +<p>—If thou wilt be the falling dew,</p> +<p class="i6">And fall on me alway,</p> +<p class="i2">Then I will be the white, white rose</p> +<p class="i6">On yonder thorny spray.</p> +<p>—If thou wilt be the white, white rose</p> +<p class="i6">On yonder thorny spray,</p> +<p class="i2">Then I will be the honey bee,</p> +<p class="i6">And kiss thee all the day.</p> +<p>—If thou wilt be the honey bee,</p> +<p class="i6">And kiss me all the day,</p> +<p class="i2">Then I will be in yonder heaven</p> +<p class="i6">The star of brightest ray.</p> +<p>—If thou wilt be in yonder heaven</p> +<p class="i6">The star of brighest ray,</p> +<p class="i2">Then I will be the dawn, and we</p> +<p class="i6">Shall meet at break of day.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page192" id="page192"></a>192</span> +<p>—If thou wilt be the dawn, so we</p> +<p class="i6">May meet at break of day,</p> +<p class="i2">Then I will be a nun professed,</p> +<p class="i6">A nun of orders grey.</p> +<p>—If thou wilt be a nun professed,</p> +<p class="i6">A nun of orders grey,</p> +<p class="i2">Then I will be the prior, and thou</p> +<p class="i6">To me thy sins must say.</p> +<p>—If thou wilt be the prior, and I</p> +<p class="i6">To thee my sins must say,</p> +<p class="i2">Then will I sleep among the dead,</p> +<p class="i6">While the sisters weep and pray.</p> +<p>—If thou wilt sleep among the dead,</p> +<p class="i6">While the sisters weep and pray,</p> +<p class="i2">Then I will be the holy earth</p> +<p class="i6">That on thee they shall lay.</p> +<p>—If thou wilt be the holy earth</p> +<p class="i6">That on me they shall lay—</p> +<p class="i2">Well—since some gallant I must have,</p> +<p class="i6">I will not say thee nay.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>A distinguished French scholar thought that he +heard in this an echo of Anacreon's ode +<ins title="k' eus korên"><i>κ' <span style="font-size: 0.9em;">ἐῢ</span>ς κόρην</i></ins>. +The inference suggested is too hazardous for acceptance; +yet that in some sort the song may date from +Greek Provence would seem to be the opinion even +of cautious critics. Thus we are led to look back +to those associations which, without giving a personal +or political splendour such as that attached +to Magna Græcia, lend nevertheless to Provençal +memories the exquisite charm, the "<i>bouquet</i>" (if the +word does not sound absurd) of all things Greek. +The legend of Greek beginnings in Provence will bear +being once more told. Four hundred and ninety +years before Christ a little fleet of Greek fortune-seekers +left Phocæa, in Asia Minor, and put into a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page193" id="page193"></a>193</span> +small creek on the Provençal coast, the port of the +future Marseilles. As soon as they had disembarked, +deeming it to be of importance to them to stand well +with the people of the land, they sent to the king of +the tribes inhabiting those shores an ambassador +bearing gifts and overtures of friendly intercourse. +When the ambassador reached Arles, Nann, the king, +was giving a great feast to his warriors, from among +whom his daughter Gyptis was that day to choose a +husband. The young Greek entered the banqueting-hall +and sat down at the king's board. When the +feasting was over, fair-haired Gyptis, the royal maiden, +rose from her seat and went straightway to the strange +guest; then, lifting in her hands the cup of espousal, +she offered it to his lips. He drank, and Provence +became the bride of Greece.</p> + +<p>The children of that marriage left behind them a +graveyard to tell their history. Desecrated and +despoiled though it is, still the great Arlesian cemetery +bears unique witness as well to the civilised +prosperity of the Provençal Greeks as to their decline +under the influences which formed the modern Provence. +Irreverence towards the dead—a comparatively +new human characteristic—can nowhere be +more fully observed than in the <i>Elysii Campi</i> of +Arles. The love of destruction has been doing its +worst there for some centuries. To any king coming to +the town the townsfolk would make a gift of a priceless +treasure stolen from their dead ancestors, while +the peasant who wanted a cattle trough, or the mason +in need of a door lintel, went unrebuked and carried +off what thing suited him. Not even the halo of +Christian romance could save the Alyscamps. The +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page194" id="page194"></a>194</span> +legend is well known. St Trefume, man or myth, +summoned the bishops of Gaul and Provence to the +consecration of this burial-ground. When they were +assembled and the rite was to be performed, each one +shrank from taking on himself so high an office; then +Christ appeared in their midst and made the sign of +the cross over the sleeping-place of the pagan dead. +Out of the countless stories of the meeting of the new +faith and the old—stories too often of a nascent or an +expiring fanaticism, there is not one which breathes a +gentler spirit. It was long believed, that the devil +had little power with the dead that lay in Arles. +Hence the multitude of sepulchres which Dante saw +<i>ove 'l Rodano stagna</i>. Princes and archbishops and +an innumerable host of minor folks left instructions +that they might be buried in the Alyscamps. A +simple mode of transport was adopted by the population +of the higher Rhone valley. The body, bound +to a raft or bier, was committed to the current of the +river, with a sum of money called the "drue de +mourtalage" attached to it. These silent travellers +always reached their destination in safety, persons +appointed to the task being in readiness to receive +them. The sea water washed the limits of the +cemetery in the days of the Greeks, who looked +across the dark, calm surface of the immense lagune +and thought of dying as of embarkation upon a +voyage—not the last voyage of the body down the +river of life, but the first voyage of the soul over the +sea of death—and they wished their dead <ins title="euploi"><i>ε<span style="font-size: 0.9em;">ὐ</span>πλο<span style="font-size: 0.9em;">ῖ</span></i></ins>.</p> + +<p>The Greek traces that exist in the living people of +Provence are few, but distinct. There is, in the first +place, the type of beauty particularly associated with +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page195" id="page195"></a>195</span> +the women of Arles. As a rule, the Provençal woman +is not beautiful; nor is she very willing to admit that +her Arlesian sisters are one whit more beautiful than +she. The secret of their fame is interpreted by her in +the stereotyped remark, "C'est la coiffe!" But the +coif of Arles, picturesque though it is in its stern +simplicity, could not change an ugly face into a +pretty one, and the wearers of it are well entitled to +the honour they claim as their birthright. Scarcely +due attention has been paid to the good looks of the +older and even of the aged women; I have not seen +their equals save among a face of quite another type, +the Teutonic amazons of the Val Mastalone. In +countries where the sun is fire, if youth does not +always mean beauty, beauty means almost always +youth. M. Lenthéric thinks that he detects a second +clear trace of the Greeks in the horn wrestling practised +all over the dried-up lagune which the fork of +the Rhone below Arles forms into an island. Astride +of their wild white steeds, the horsemen drive one of +the superb black bulls of the Camargue towards a +group of young men on foot, who, catching him by +his horns, wrestle with him till he is forced to bend +the knee and bite the dust. The amusement is dangerous, +but it is not brutal. The horses escape unhurt, +so does the bull; the risk is for the men alone, and it +is a risk voluntarily and eagerly run. So popular is +the sport that it is difficult to prevent children from +joining in it. In Thessaly it was called <ins title="keratisis"><i>κεράτισις</i></ins>, and +the bull in the act of submission is represented on a +large number of Massaliote and other coins.</p> + +<p>Marseilles, which has lost the art and the type of +Greece, has kept the Greek temperament. It is no +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page196" id="page196"></a>196</span> +more French than Naples is Italian: both are Greek +towns, though the characteristics that prove them +such have been somewhat differentiated by unlike +external conditions. Still they have points in common +which are many and strong. Marsalia can match +in <i>émeutes</i> the proverbial <i>quattordici rebellioni</i> of "loyal" +Parthenope; and quickness of intelligence, love of display, +mobility of feeling, together with an astounding +vitality, belong as much to Marseillais as to Neapolitan. +The people of Marseilles, the most thriftless in +France, have thriven three thousand years, and are +thriving now, in spite of the readiness of each small +middle-class family to lay out a half-year's savings on +a breakfast at Roubion's; in spite of the alacrity with +which each working man sacrifices a week's wages in +order to "demonstrate" in favour of, or still better +against, no matter whom or what. Nowhere is there +a more overweening local pride. "Paris," say the +Marseillais, "would be a fine town if it had our <i>Cannebière</i>." +Nowhere, as has been made lamentably +plain, are the hatreds of race and caste and politics +more fierce or more ruthless. Even with her own +citizens Marseilles is stern; only after protest does +she grant a monument to Adolphe Thiers—himself +just a Greek Massaliote thrown into the French political +arena. There is reason to think that Greek was +a spoken tongue at Marseilles at least as late as the +sixth century A.D. The Sanjanen, the fisherman of +St John's Quarter, has still a whole vocabulary of +purely Greek terms incidental to his calling. The +Greek character of the speech of the Marseillais sailors +was noticed by the Abbé Papon, who attributed to +the same source the peculiar prosody and intonation +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page197" id="page197"></a>197</span> +of the street cries of Marseilles. The Provençal historian +remarks, with an acuteness rare in the age in +which he wrote (the early part of the last century), +"I draw my examples from the people, because it is +with them that we must seek the precious remains of +ancient manners and usages. Amongst the great, +amongst people of the world, one sees only the imprint +of fashion, and fashion never stands still."</p> + +<p>The Sanjanens are credited with the authorship of +this cynical little song:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Fisher, fishing in the sea,</p> +<p>Fish my mistress up for me.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Fish her up before she drowns,</p> +<p>Thou shalt have four hundred crowns.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Fish her for me dead and cold,</p> +<p>Thou shalt have my all in gold.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The romantic ballads of Provence are of an importance +which demands, properly speaking, a separate +study. Provence was, beyond a doubt, one of the +main sources of the ballad literature of France, Spain, +and Italy. That certain still existing Provençal ballads +passed over into Piedmont as early as the thirteenth +century is the opinion of Count Nigra, the +Italian diplomatist, not the least of whose distinguished +services to his country has been the support +he was one of the first to give to the cause of popular +research. In all these songs the plot goes for everything, +the poetry for little or nothing; I shall therefore +best economise my space by giving a rough +outline of the stories of two or three of them. +"Fluranço" is a characteristic specimen. Fluranço, +"la flour d'aquest pays," was married when she +was a little thing, and her husband at once +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page198" id="page198"></a>198</span> +went away to the wars. Monday they were wed, +Tuesday he was gone. At the end of seven years +the knight comes back, knocks at the door, and asks +for Fluranço. His mother says that she is no longer +here; they sent her to fetch water, and the Moors, +the Saracen Moors, carried her off. "Where did they +take her to?" "They took her a hundred leagues +away." The knight makes a ship of gold and silver; +he sails and sails without seeing aught but the washer-women +washing fine linen. At last he asks of them: +"Tell me whose tower is that, and to whom that castle +belongs." "It is the castle of the Saracen Moor." +"How can I get into it?" "Dress yourself as a poor +pilgrim, and ask alms in Christ's name." In this way +he gains admittance, and Fluranço (she it is) bids the +servant set the table for the "poor pilgrim." When +the knight is seated at table, Fluranço begins to laugh. +"What are you laughing at, Madamo?" She confesses +that she knows who he is. They collect a +quantity of fine gold; then they go the stable, and +she mounts the russet horse and he mounts the grey. +Just as they are crossing the bridge the Moor sees them. +"Seven years," he cries, "I have clothed thee in fine +damask, seven years I have given thee morocco shoes, +seven years I have laid thee in fine linen, seven years +I have kept thee—for one of my sons!" The carelessness +or cruelty of a stepmother (the head-wife of +Asiatic tales) is a prolific central idea in Provençal +romance. While the husband was engaged in distant +adventures—tournaments, feudal wars, or crusading +expeditions—the wife, who was often little more than +a child, remained at the mercy of the occasionally +unamiable dowager who ruled the masterless <i>château</i>. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page199" id="page199"></a>199</span> +The case of cruelty is exemplified in the story of +Guilhem de Beauvoire, who has to leave his child-wife +five weeks after marriage. "I counsel you, mother," +he says as he sets out, "to put her to do no kind of +work: neither to fetch water, nor to spin, nor yet to +knead bread. Send her to mass, and give her good +dinners, and let her go out walking with other ladies." +At the end of five weeks the mother put the young wife +to keep swine. The swine girl went up to the mountain +top and sang and sang. Guilhem de Beauvoire, +who was beyond the sea, said to his page, "Does it +not seem as though my wife were singing?" He +travels at all speed over mountain and sea till he +comes to his home, where no man knows him. On +the way he meets the swine girl, and from her he +hears that she has to eat only that which is rejected +of the swine. At the house he is welcomed as an +honoured guest; supper is laid for him, and he asks +that the swine girl whom he has seen may come and +sup with him. When she sits down beside him the +swine girl bursts into tears. "Why do you weep, +swine girl?" "For seven years I have not supped +at table!" Then in the bitterness of yet another outrage +to which the vile woman subjects her, she cries +aloud, "Oh! Guilhem de Beauvoire, who art beyond +the sea, God help thee! Verily thy cruel mother has +abandoned me!" Secretly Guilhem tells her who he +is, and in proof of it shows her the ring she gave him. +In the morning the mother calls the swine girl to go +after her pigs. "If you were not my mother," says +Guilhem, "I would have you hung; as you are my +mother, I will wall you up between two walls."</p> + +<p>The antiquity of the ballads of <i>Fluranco</i> and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page200" id="page200"></a>200</span> +<i>Guilhem de Beauvoire</i> is shown by the fact that they +plainly belong to a time when such work as fetching +water or making bread was regarded as amongst the +likely employments of noble ladies—though, from +excess of indulgence, Guilhem did not wish his wife +to be set even to these light tasks. A ballad, probably +of about the same date, treats the case of a man +who, through the weakness which is the cause of half +the crimes, becomes the agent of his mother's guilt. +The tragedy is unfolded with almost the sublime +laconicism of the <i>Divina Commedia</i>. Françoiso was +married when she was so young that she did not +know how to do the service, and the cruel mother +was always saying to her son that Françoiso must +die. One day, after the young wife had laid the +table, and had set thereon the wine and the bread, +and the fresh water, her husband said to her, "My +Françoiso, is there not anyone, no friend, who shall +protect thy life?" "I have my mother and my +father, and you, who are my husband, very well will +you protect my life." Then, as they sit at meat, he +takes a knife and kills her; and he lifts her in his +arms and kisses her, and lays her under the flower of +the jessamine, and he goes to his mother and says, +"My mother, your greatest wish is fulfilled: I have +killed Françoiso."</p> + +<p>The genuine Provençal does not shrink from +violence. Old inhabitants still tell tales of the +savage brigandage of the Estérel, of the horrors of +the <i>Terreur blanche</i>. Mild manners and social +amenities have never been characteristic of fair +Provence. Even now the peasant cannot disentangle +his thoughts without a volley of oaths—harmless +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page201" id="page201"></a>201</span> +indeed, for the most part (except those which are +borrowed from the <i>franciots</i>), but in sound terrific. +Yet if it be true that the character of a nation is +asserted in its songs, it must be owned that the songs +of Provence speak favourably for the Provençal people. +They say that they are a people who have a steady +and abiding sympathy with honest men and virtuous +women. They say further that rough and ruthless +though they may be when their blood is stirred, yet +have they a pitiful heart. The Provençal singer is +slow to utterly condemn; he grasps the saving inconsistencies +of human nature; he makes the murderer +lay his victim "souto lou flour dou jaussemin:" +under the white jessamine flower, cherished beyond +all flowers in Provence, which has a strange passion +for white things—white horses, white dogs, white +sheep, white doves, and the fair white hand of +woman. Many songs deal directly with almsgivings, +the ritual of pity. To no part of the Bible is there +more frequent reference than to the parable of the +rich man and Lazarus; no neocatholic legend has +been more gladly accepted than the story in which +some tattered beggar proves to be Christ—a story, +by the by, that holds in it the essence of the Christian +faith. If a Greek saw a beautiful unknown youth +playing his pipe beside some babbling stream, he believed +him to be a god; the Christian of the early +ages recognised Christ in each mendicant in loathsome +rags, in each leper succoured at the risk of +mortal infection.</p> + +<p>The Provençal tongue is not a mixture (as is too +often said) of Italian and French; nor is physical +Provence a less fair Italy or a fairer France. A land +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page202" id="page202"></a>202</span> +wildly convulsed in its storms, mysteriously breathless +in its calms; a garden here, a desert there; a +land of translucent inlets and red porphyry hills; +before all, a land of the illimitable grey of olive +and limestone—this is Provence. Anyone finding +himself of a sudden where the Provençal olives +raise their dwarf heads with a weary look of eternity +to the rainless heaven, would say that the dominant +feature in the landscape was its exceeding seriousness. +Sometimes on the coast the prevailing note +changes from grey to blue; the blanched rocks catch +the colour of the sea, and not the sky only, but dry +fine air close around seems of a blueness so intense +as to make the senses swim. Better suited to a +Nature thus made up of crude discords and subtle +harmonies is the old Provençal speech, howsoever +corrupt, than the exquisite French of Parisian <i>salons</i>. +But the language goes and the songs go too. Damase +Arbaud relates how, when he went on a long journey +to speak with a man reported to have cognisance of +much traditional matter, he met, issuing from the +house door, not the man, but his coffin. The fact is +typical; the old order of things passes away: <i>nouastei +diou se'n van</i>.</p> + +<p class="footnote"><a id="footnote1" name="footnote1"></a><a class="footnote" href="#footnotetag1">Footnote 1:</a> I am told that the peasants of the country round Moscow +have a natural gift for imitating birds, and that they intersperse +the singing of their own sad songs with this sweet carolling.</p> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page203" id="page203"></a>203</span> + +<h2>THE WHITE PATERNOSTER.</h2> + +<p>In a paper published under the head of "Chaucer's +Night Spell" in the Folk-lore Record (part i. p. 145), +Mr Thoms drew attention to four lines spoken by the +carpenter in Chaucer's <i>Miller's Tale</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Lord Jhesu Crist, and seynte Benedyht</p> +<p>Blesse this hous from every wikked wight,</p> +<p>Fro nyghtes verray, the White Paternostre</p> +<p>When wonestow now, seynte Petres soster.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>("Verray" is commonly supposed to mean night-mare, +but Mr Thoms referred it to "Werra," a Sclavonic +deity.)</p> + +<p>Mention of the White Paternoster occurs again in +White's <i>Way to the True Church</i> (1624):</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>White Paternoster, Saint Peter's brother,</p> +<p>What hast i' th t'one hand? white booke leaves,</p> +<p>What hast i' th t'other hand? heaven gate keyes.</p> +<p>Open heaven gates, and streike (shut) hell gates:</p> +<p>And let every crysome child creepe to its own mother.</p> +<p class="i24"> White Paternoster, Amen.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>A reading of the formula is preserved in the +<i>Enchiridion Papæ Leonis</i>, a book translated into +French soon after its first appearance in Latin at +Rome in 1502:</p> + +<blockquote><p> +Au soir, m'allant coucher, je trouvis trois anges à mon lit +couchés, un aux pieds, deux au chevet, la bonne Vierge Marie +du milieu, qui me dit que je me couchis, que rien ne doutis. Le +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page204" id="page204"></a>204</span> +bon Dieu est mon Père, la bonne Vierge est ma mère, les trois +vierges sont mes sœurs. La chemise où Dieu fut né, mon corps +en est enveloppé; la croix Sainte Marguerite à ma poitrine est +écrite; madame d'en va sur les champs à Dieu pleurant, rencontrit +Monsieur Saint Jean. Monsieur Saint Jean, d'où venez +vous? Je viens d' <i>Ave Salus</i>. Vous n'avez pas vu le bon +Dieu; si est, il est dans l'arbre de la croix, les pieds pendans, +les mains clouans, un petit chapeau d'épine blanche sur la tête.</p> + +<p>Qui la dira trois fois au soir, trois fois au matin, gagnera le +Paradis à la fin. +</p></blockquote> + +<p>Curious as are the above citations, they only go a +little way towards filling up the blanks in the history +of this waif from the fabric of early Christian popular +lore. A search of some years has yielded evidence +that the White Paternoster is still a part of the living +traditional matter of at least five European countries. +Most persons are familiar with the English version +which runs thus:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Four corners to my bed,</p> +<p>Four angels round my head,</p> +<p>One to watch, one to pray,</p> +<p>And two to bear my soul away.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>A second English variant was set on record by +Aubrey, and may also be read in Ady's "Candle in +the Dark" (1655):</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Matthew, Mark, Luke, John,</p> +<p>Bless the bed that I lye on;</p> +<p>And blessed guardian angel keep</p> +<p>Me safe from danger while I sleep.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Halliwell suggests that the two last lines were imitated +from the following in Bishop Ken's Evening Hymn:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Let my blest guardian, while I sleep,</p> +<p>His watchful station near me keep.</p> + </div> </div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page205" id="page205"></a>205</span> +<p>But if there was any imitation in the case, it was the +bishop who copied from the folk-rhymer, not the +folk-rhymer from the bishop.</p> + +<p>The thought of the coming of death in sleep, is +expressed in a prayer that may be sometimes seen +inscribed at the head and foot of the bed in Norwegian +homesteads:</p> + +<h5>HEAD.</h5> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Here is my bed and sleeping place;</p> +<p>God, let me sleep in peace</p> +<p>And blithe open my eyes</p> +<p>And go to work.</p> + </div> </div> + +<h5>FOOT.</h5> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Go into thy bed, take thee a slumber,</p> +<p>Reflect now on the last hour;</p> +<p>Reflect now,</p> +<p>That thou mayest take thy last slumber.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Analogous in spirit is a quatrain that has been known +to me since childhood, but which I do not remember +to have seen in print:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>I lay me down to rest me,</p> +<p>And pray the Lord to bless me.</p> +<p>If I should sleep no more to wake</p> +<p>I pray the Lord my soul to take.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The <i>Petite Patenôtre Blanche</i> lingers in France in a +variety of shapes. One version was written down as +late as 1872 from the mouth of an old woman named +Cathérine Bastien, an inhabitant of the department +of the Loire. It was afterwards communicated to +<i>Mélusine</i>.</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i12"> Jésu m'endort,</p> +<p>Si je trépasse, mande mon corps,</p> +<p>Si je trépasse, mande mon âme,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page206" id="page206"></a>206</span> +<p>Si je vis, mande mon esprit.</p> +<p>(Je) prends les anges pour mes amis,</p> +<p class="i6"> Le bon Dieu pour mon père,</p> +<p class="i6"> La Sainte Vierge pour ma mère,</p> +<p class="i6"> Saint Louis de Gonzague,</p> +<p class="i6"> Aux quatre coins de ma chambre,</p> +<p class="i6"> Aux quatre coins be mon lit;</p> +<p class="i6"> Preservez moi de l'ennemi,</p> +<p class="i6"> Seigneur, à l'heure de ma mort.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Quenot, in his <i>Statistique de la Charante</i> (1818), +gives the subjoined:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i8"> Dieu l'a faite, je la dit;</p> +<p>J'ai trouvé quatre anges couchés dans mon lit;</p> +<p class="i8"> Deux à la tête, deux aux pieds,</p> +<p class="i8"> Et le bon Dieu aux milieu.</p> +<p class="i8"> De quoi puis-je avoir peur?</p> +<p class="i8"> Le bon Dieu est mon père,</p> +<p class="i12"> La Vierge ma mère,</p> +<p class="i12"> Les saints mes frères,</p> +<p class="i12"> Les saints mes sœurs;</p> +<p class="i12"> Le bon Dieu m'a dit:</p> +<p class="i12"> Lève-toi, couche-toi,</p> +<p>Ne crains rien; le feu, l'orage, et la tempête</p> +<p class="i12"> Ne peuvent rien contre toi.</p> +<p>Saint Jean, Saint Marc, Saint Luc, et St Matthieu,</p> +<p class="i12"> Qui mettez les âmes en repos,</p> +<p class="i12"> Mettez-y la mienne si Dieu veut.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>In Provence many a worthy country woman repeats +each night this <i>preiro doou soir</i>:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4">Au liech de Diou</p> +<p class="i4">Me couche iou,</p> +<p>Sept anges n'en trouve iou,</p> +<p class="i4">Tres es peds,</p> +<p class="i4">Quatre au capet (caput—head);</p> +<p>La Buoeno Mero es au mitan</p> +<p>Uno roso blanco à la man.</p> + </div> </div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page207" id="page207"></a>207</span> + +<p>The white rose borne by the Good Mother is a +pretty and characteristic interpolation peculiar to +flower-loving Provence. In the conclusion of the +prayer the <i>Boueno Mero</i> tells whosoever recites it to +have no fear of dog or wolf, or wandering storm or +running water, or shining fire, or any evil folk. M. +Damase Arbaud got together a number of other devotional +fragments that may be regarded as offshoots +from the parent stem. St Joseph, "Nourricier de +Diou," is asked to preserve the supplicant from sudden +death, "et de l'infer et de ses flammos." St Ann, +"mero-grand de Jésus Christ," is prayed to teach the +way to Paradise. To St Denis a very practical petition +is addressed:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Grand Sant Danis de Franço,</p> +<p>Gardetz me moun bouen sens, ma boueno remembranço.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Another verse points distinctly to a desire for protection +against witchcraft. The Provençals, by the bye, +are of opinion that the <i>Angelus</i> was instituted to scare +away any ill-conditioned spirits that might be tempted +out by the approach of night.</p> + +<p>In Germany the guardian saints are dispensed +with, but the angels are retained in force. I am indebted +to Mr C. G. Leland for a translation of the +most popular German even-song:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Fourteen angels in a band</p> +<p>Every night around me stand.</p> +<p class="i4">Two to my left hand,</p> +<p class="i6">Two to my right,</p> +<p class="i4">Who watch me ever</p> +<p class="i6">By day and night.</p> +<p class="i4">Two at my head,</p> +<p class="i6">Two at my feet,</p> +<p class="i4">To guard my slumber</p> +<p class="i6">Soft and sweet;</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page208" id="page208"></a>208</span> +<p class="i4">Two to wake me</p> +<p class="i6">At break of day,</p> +<p class="i4">When night and darkness</p> +<p class="i6">Pass away;</p> +<p class="i4">Two to cover me</p> +<p class="i6">Warm and nice,</p> +<p class="i4">And two to lead me</p> +<p class="i6">To Paradise.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Passing on to Italy we find an embarrassing abundance +of folk-prayers framed after the self-same model. +The repose of the Venetian is under the charge of the +Perfect Angel, the Angel of God, St Bartholomew, the +Blessed Mother, St Elizabeth, the Four Evangelists, +and St John the Baptist. Venetian children are +taught to say: "I go to bed, I know not if I shall +arise. Thou, Lord, who knowest, keep good watch +over me. Before my soul separates from my body, +give me help and good comfort. In the name of the +Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, so be it. Bless +my heart and my soul!" The Venetians also have +a "Paternoster pichenin," and a "Paternoster grande," +both of which are, in their existing form, little else +than nonsense. The native of the Marches goes to +his rest accompanied by our Lord, the Madonna, the +Four Evangelists, <i>l'Angelo perfetto</i>, four greater angels, +and three others—one at the foot, one at the head, +one in the middle. The Tuscan, like the German, +has only angels around him: of these he has seven—one +at the head, one at the foot, two at the sides, one +to cover him, one to watch him, and one to bear him +to Paradise. The Sicilian says: "I lay me down in +this bed, with Jesus on my breast. I sleep and he +watches. In this bed where I am laid, five saints I +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page209" id="page209"></a>209</span> +find: two at the head, two at the feet, in the middle +is St Michael."</p> + +<p>Perhaps the best expression of the belief in the +divine guardians of sleep is that given to it by an +ancient Sardinian poet:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Su letto meo est de battor cantones,</p> +<p>Et battor anghelos si bie ponen;</p> +<p>Duos in pes, et duos in cabitta,</p> +<p>Nostra Segnora a costazu m'ista.</p> +<p>E a me narat: Dormi e reposa,</p> +<p>No hapas paura de mala cosa,</p> +<p>No hapas paura de mala fine.</p> +<p class="i6">S' Anghelu Serafine,</p> +<p class="i6">S' Anghelu Biancu,</p> +<p class="i6">S' Ispiridu Santu,</p> +<p class="i6">Sa Vigine Maria,</p> +<p>Tote siant in cumpagnia mea.</p> +<p class="i6">Anghelu de Deu,</p> +<p class="i6">Custodio meo,</p> +<p class="i6">Custa nott' illuminame!</p> +<p>Guarda e difende a me</p> +<p>Ca eo mi incommando a tie.</p> + </div> </div> + +<blockquote><p> +My bed has four corners and four angels standing by it. Two +at the foot and two at the head; our Lady is beside me. And +to me she says, "Sleep and repose; have no fear of evil things; +have no fear of an evil end." The angel Serafine, the angel +Blanche, the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary—all are here to keep +me company. Angel of God, thou my guardian, illuminate me +this night. Watch and defend me, for I commend myself to +thee. +</p></blockquote> + +<p>A Spanish verse, so near to this that it would be +needless to give it a separate translation, was sent by +a friend who at that time was in the Royal College +of Santa Ysabel at Madrid:</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page210" id="page210"></a>210</span> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Quatro pirondelitas</p> +<p class="i2">Tiene mi cama;</p> +<p>Quatro angelitos</p> +<p class="i2">Me la acompaña.</p> +<p>La madre de dios</p> +<p class="i2">Esta enmedio,</p> +<p>Dicendome:</p> +<p class="i2">Duerme y reposa,</p> +<p>Que no te sucedera</p> +<p class="i2">Ninguna mala cosa.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i18">Amen.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>In harmony with the leading idea of the White +Paternoster, the recumbent figures of the Archbishops +in Canterbury Cathedral have angels kneeling at each +corner of their altar tombs. It is worth remarking, +too, how certain English lettered compositions have +become truly popular through the fact of their introducing +the same idea. A former Dean of Canterbury +once asked an old woman, who lived alone without +chick or child, whether she said her prayers? "Oh! +yes," was the reply, "I say every night of my life,</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"Hush, my babe, lie still in slumber,</p> +<p>Holy angels guard thy bed!"</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The White Paternoster itself, in the form of "Matthew, +Mark, Luke, John," was, till lately, a not uncommon +evening prayer in the agricultural parts of Kent. At +present the orthodox night and morning prayers of +the people in Catholic countries are the Lord's +Prayer, <i>Credo</i> and <i>Ave Maria</i>, but to these, as has +been seen, the White Paternoster is often added, and +at the date of the Reformation—when the "Hail +Mary" had scarcely come into general use—it is +probable that it was rarely omitted. Prayers that +partake of the nature of charms, have always been +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page211" id="page211"></a>211</span> +popular, and people have ever indulged in odd, little +roundabout devices to increase the efficacy of even +the most sacred words. Boccaccio, for instance, +speaks of "the Paternoster of San Giuliano," which +seems to have been a Paternoster said for the repose +of the souls of the father and mother of St Julian, in +gratitude for which attention, the Saint was bound to +give a good night's lodging. It remains to be asked, +why the White Paternoster is called white? In the +actual state of our knowledge, the reason is not +apparent; but possibly the term is to be taken +simply in an apologetic sense, as when applied to a +stated form of dealing with the supernatural. White +charms had a recognised place in popular extra-belief. +It was sweet to be able to compel the invisible powers +to do what you would, and yet to feel secure from +uncomfortable consequences. Of course, in such a +case, the thing willed must be of an innocent nature. +The Breton who begs vengeance of St Yves, knows +tolerably well that what he is doing is very black +indeed, even though the saint were ten times a saint. +Topsy-turvy as may be his moral perceptions, he +would not call this procedure a "white charm." He +has, however, white charms of his own, one of which +was described with great spirit by Auguste Brizeux, +the Breton poet who wove many of the wild superstitions +of his country into picturesque verse. Brizeux' +poems are not very well known either in France or out +of it, but they should be dear to students of folk-lore. +The following is a version of "La Poussière Sainte:"</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Sweeping an ancient chapel through the night</p> +<p>(A ruin now), built 'neath a rocky height,</p> +<p>The aged Coulm's old wife was muttering,</p> +<p>As if some secret strange abroad to fling.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page212" id="page212"></a>212</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"I brave, thee tempest, and will do alone</p> +<p>What by my grand-dame in her youth was done,</p> +<p>When at her beck (of Leon's land, the pride),</p> +<p>The ocean, lion-headed, curbed its tide.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Sweep, sweep, my broom, until my charm uprears</p> +<p>A force more strong than sighs, more strong than tears:</p> +<p>Charm loved of heaven, which forces wind and wave,</p> +<p>Though fierce and mad, our children's lives to save.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"My angel knows, a Christian true am I;</p> +<p>No Pagan, nor in league with sorcery.</p> +<p>Hence I dispense to the four winds of God,</p> +<p>To quell their rage, dust from the holy sod.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Sweep on my broom; by virtues such as these</p> +<p>Oft through the air I scattered swarms of bees.</p> +<p>And you, old Coulm, to-morrow shall be prest,</p> +<p>You, and my children three, against my breast."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>In Enn-Tell's port meanwhile, the pier along</p> +<p>Pressed forward, mute, dismayed, the anxious throng.</p> +<p>And as the billows howl, the lightnings flash,</p> +<p>And skies, lead-black, to earth seem like to dash;</p> +<p>Neighbours clasped hand to hand, and each one prayed,</p> +<p>Through superstition, speechless, while afraid.</p> +<p>Still as the port a sail did safely reach,</p> +<p>All shouting hurried forward to the beach:</p> +<p>"Father, is't you? Speak, father is it true?"</p> +<p>Others, "Hast seen my son?" "My brother, you?"</p> +<p>"Brave man, the truth, whate'er has happened, say,</p> +<p>Am I a widow?" Night in such dismay</p> +<p>Dragged 'neath a sky without a moon or star.</p> +<p>Thank God! Meanwhile all boats in safety are,</p> +<p>And every hearth is blazing—all save one,</p> +<p>The Columban's. But that was void and lone.</p> +<p>But you, Coulm's wife, still battle with the storm,</p> +<p>Fixed on the rocks, your task you still perform,—</p> +<p>You cast, towards east, towards west, and towards the north,</p> +<p>And towards the south, your incantations forth.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page213" id="page213"></a>213</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Go, holy dust, 'gainst all the winds that fly.</p> +<p>No sorceress, but a Christian true am I.</p> +<p>By the lamp's light, when I the fire had lit,</p> +<p>In God's own house, my hands collected it.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"You from the statues of the saints I swept,</p> +<p>And silken flags, still on the pillars kept,</p> +<p>And the dark tombs, of those whose sons neglect,</p> +<p>But you, with your white winding-sheet protect.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Go, holy dust! To stem the winds depart!</p> +<p>Born beneath Christian feet, thou glorious art:</p> +<p>When from the porch, I to the altar sped,</p> +<p>I seemed upon some heavenly path to tread.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"On you the deacons and the priests have trod,</p> +<p>Pilgrims who live, forefathers 'neath the sod;</p> +<p>Wood flowers, sweet grains of incense, saintly bones;</p> +<p>By dawn you will restore my spouse and sons."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">She ceased her charm; and from the chapel then</p> +<p class="i2">She saw approach four bare-foot fishermen.</p> +<p class="i2">The aged dame in tears fell on her knees</p> +<p class="i2">And cried, "I knew they would escape the seas!"</p> +<p class="i2">Then cleansing sand and sea-weed o'er them spread,</p> +<p class="i2">With happy lips she kissed each cherished head.</p> + </div> </div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page214" id="page214"></a>214</span> + +<h2>THE DIFFUSION OF BALLADS.</h2> + +<h3 style="margin-top: 0.5em;">I.—<span class="sc">Lord Ronald in Italy.</span></h3> + +<p>Several causes have combined to give the professional +minstrel a more tenacious hold on life in Italy +than in France or Germany or England. One of +them is, that Italian culture has always been less +dependent on education—or what the English poor +call "book-learning"—than the culture of those +countries.</p> + +<p>To this day you may count upon finding a blind +ballad-singer in every Italian city. The connection of +blindness with popular songs is a noteworthy thing. +It is not, perhaps, a great exaggeration to say that, +had there been no blind folks in the world, there +would have been few ballads. Who knows, indeed, +but that Homer would not have earned his bread by +bread-making instead of by enchanting the children +and wise men of all after-ages, had he not been "one +who followed a guide"? Every one remembers how +it was the singing of a "blinde crowder, with no +rougher voice than rude style," that moved the heroic +heart of Sidney more than the blare of trumpets. +Every one may not know that in the East of Europe +and in Armenia, "blinde crowders" still wander from +village to village, carrying, wheresoever they go, the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page215" id="page215"></a>215</span> +songs of a former day and the news of the latest +hour; acting, after a fashion, as professors of history +and "special correspondents," and keeping alive the +sentiment of nationality under circumstances in which, +except for their agency, it must almost without a +doubt have expired.</p> + +<p>When the Austrians occupied Trebinje in the +Herzegovina, they forbade the playing of the "guzla," +the little stringed instrument which accompanies the +ballads; but the ballads will not be forgotten. Proscription +does not kill a song. What kills it sometimes, +if it have a political sense, is the fulfilment of +the hopes it expresses; then it may die a natural +death. I hunted all over Naples for some one who +could sing a song which every Neapolitan, man and +boy, hummed through the year when the Redshirts +brought freedom: <i>Camicia rossa, camicia ardente</i>. It +seemed that there was not one who still knew it. +Just as I was on the point of giving up the search, a +blind man was produced out of a tavern at Posilippo; +a poor creature in threadbare clothes, holding a +wretched violin. He sang the words with spirit and +pathos; he is old, however, and perhaps the knowledge +of them will not survive him.</p> + +<p>Our present business is not with songs of a national +or local interest, but with those which can hardly be +said to belong to any country in particular. And, +first of all, we have to go back to a certain <i>Camillo, +detto il Bianchino cieco fiorentino</i>, who sang ballads at +Verona in the year 1629, and who had printed for +the greater diffusion of his fame a sort of rhymed +advertisement containing the first few lines of some +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page216" id="page216"></a>216</span> +twenty songs that belonged to his repertory. Last +but one of these samples stands the following:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"Dov' andastú jersera,</p> +<p>Figlioul mio ricco, savio e gentil;</p> +<p>Dov' andastú jersera?"</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>"When I come to look at it," adds Camillo, "this is +too long; it ought to have been the first to be sung"—alluding, +of course, to the song, not to the sample.</p> + +<p>Later in the same century, the ballad mentioned +above had the honour of being cited before a more +polite audience than that which was probably in the +habit of listening to the blind Florentine. On the +24th of September 1656, Canon Lorenzo Panciatichi +reminded his fellow-academicians of the Crusca of +what he called "a fine observation" that had been +made regarding the song:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"Dov' andastú a cena figlioul mio</p> +<p>Ricco, savio, e gentile?"</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The observation (continued the Canon) turned on the +answer the son makes to the mother when she asks +him what his sweetheart gave him for supper. "She +gave me," says the son, "<i>un' anguilla arrosto cotta nel +pentolin dell' olio</i>." The idea of a roasted eel cooked +in an oil pipkin offended the academical sense of the +fitness of things; it had therefore been proposed to +say instead that the eel was hashed:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"Madonna Madre,</p> +<p>Il cuore stá male,</p> +<p>Per un anguilla in guazzetto."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Had we nothing to guide us beyond these fragments, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page217" id="page217"></a>217</span> +there could be no question but that in this Italian +ballad we might safely recognise one of the most +spirited pieces in the whole range of popular literature—the +song of Lord Ronald, otherwise Rowlande, or +Randal, or "Billy, my son:"</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"O where hae ye been, Lord Ronald, my son?</p> +<p>O where hae ye been, my handsome young man?"</p> +<p>"I hae been to the wood; mother, make my bed soon,</p> +<p>For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain would lie down."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Where gat ye your dinner, Lord Ronald, my son?</p> +<p>Where gat ye your dinner, my handsome young man?"</p> +<p>"I dined wi' my love; mother, make my bed soon,</p> +<p>For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain would lie down."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"What gat ye to dinner, Lord Ronald, my son?</p> +<p>What gat ye to dinner, my handsome young man?"</p> +<p>"I gat eels boil'd in broo; mother, make my bed soon,</p> +<p>For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain would lie down."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"And where are your bloodhounds, Lord Ronald, my son?</p> +<p>And where are your bloodhounds, my handsome young man?"</p> +<p>"O they swell'd and they died; mother, make my bed soon,</p> +<p>For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain would lie down."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"O I fear ye are poison'd, Lord Ronald, my son!</p> +<p>O I fear ye are poison'd, my handsome young man!"</p> +<p>"O yes, I am poison'd! mother, make my bed soon,</p> +<p>For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain would lie down."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>This version, which I quote from Mr Allingham's +<i>Ballad Book</i> (1864), ends here; so does that given by +Sir Walter Scott in the <i>Border Minstrelsy</i>. There is, +however, another version which goes on:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"What will ye leave to your father, Lord Ronald, my son?</p> +<p>What will ye leave to your father, my handsome young man?"</p> +<p>"Baith my houses and land; mither, mak' my bed sune</p> +<p>For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie doun."</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page218" id="page218"></a>218</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"What will ye leave to your brither, Lord Ronald, my son?</p> +<p>What will ye leave to your brither, my handsome young man?"</p> +<p>"My horse and my saddle; mither, mak' my bed sune,</p> +<p>For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie doun."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"What will ye leave to your sister, Lord Ronald, my son?</p> +<p>What will ye leave to your sister, my handsome young man?"</p> +<p>"Baith my gold box and rings; mither, mak' my bed sune,</p> +<p>For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie doun."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"What will ye leave to your true love, Lord Ronald, my son?</p> +<p>What will ye leave to your true love, my handsome young man?"</p> +<p>"The tow and the halter, for to hang on yon tree,</p> +<p>And let her hang there for the poisoning o' me."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Lord Ronald has already been met with, though +somewhat disguised, both in Germany and in Sweden, +but his appearance two hundred and fifty years ago +at Verona has a peculiar interest attached to it. That +England shares most of her songs with the Northern +nations is a fact familiar to all; but, unless I am mistaken, +this is almost the first time of discovering a +purely popular British ballad in an Italian dress.</p> + +<p>It so happens that to the fragments quoted by +Camillo and the Canon can be added the complete +story as sung at the present date in Tuscany, Venetia, +and Lombardy. Professor d'Ancona has taken pains +to collate the slightly different texts, because few +Italian folk-songs now extant can be traced even as +far back as the seventeenth century. The learned +Professor, whose great antiquarian services are well +known, does not seem to be aware that the song has +currency out of Italy. The best version is one set +down from word of mouth in the district of Como, +and of this I subjoin a literal rendering:</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page219" id="page219"></a>219</span> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4">"Where were you yester eve?</p> +<p>My son, beloved, blooming, and gentle bred,</p> +<p class="i4">Where were you yester eve?"</p> +<p class="i4">"I with my love abode;</p> +<p>O lady mother, my heart is very sick:</p> +<p class="i4">I with my love abode;</p> +<p>Alas, alas, that I should have to die."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4">"What supper gave she you?</p> +<p>My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred,</p> +<p class="i4">What supper gave she you?"</p> +<p class="i4">"I supped on roasted eel;</p> +<p>O lady mother, my heart is very sick:</p> +<p class="i4">I supped on roasted eel;</p> +<p>Alas, alas, that I should have to die."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4">"And did you eat it all?</p> +<p>My son, beloved, blooming, and gentle bred,</p> +<p class="i4">And did you eat it all?"</p> +<p class="i4">"Only the half I eat;</p> +<p>O lady mother, my heart is very sick:</p> +<p class="i4">Only the half I eat;</p> +<p>Alas, alas, that I should have to die."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4">"Where went the other half?</p> +<p>My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred,</p> +<p class="i4">Where went the other half?"</p> +<p class="i4">"I gave it to the dog;</p> +<p>O lady mother, my heart is very sick:</p> +<p class="i4">I gave it to the dog;</p> +<p>Alas, alas, that I should have to die?"</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4">"What did you with the dog?</p> +<p>My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred,</p> +<p class="i4">What did you with the dog?"</p> +<p class="i4">"It died upon the way;</p> +<p>O lady mother, my heart is very sick:</p> +<p class="i4">It died upon the way;</p> +<p>Alas, alas, that I should have to die."</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page220" id="page220"></a>220</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4">"Poisoned it must have been!</p> +<p>My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred,</p> +<p class="i4">Poisoned it must have been!"</p> +<p class="i4">"Quick for the doctor send;</p> +<p>O lady mother, my heart is very sick:</p> +<p class="i4">Quick for the doctor send;</p> +<p>Alas, alas, that I should have to die.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4">"Wherefore the doctor call?</p> +<p>My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred,</p> +<p class="i4">Wherefore the doctor call?"</p> +<p class="i4">"That he may visit me;</p> +<p>O lady mother, my heart is very sick:</p> +<p class="i4">That he may visit me;</p> +<p>Alas, alas, that I should have to die."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="xxl"> . . . . . .</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4">"Quick for the parson send;</p> +<p>O lady mother, my heart is very sick:</p> +<p class="i4">Quick for the parson send;</p> +<p>Alas, alas, that I should have to die."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4">"Wherefore the parson call?</p> +<p>My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred,</p> +<p class="i4">Wherefore the parson call?"</p> +<p class="i4">"So that I may confess;</p> +<p>O lady mother, my heart is very sick:</p> +<p class="i4">So that I may confess;</p> +<p>Alas, alas, that I should have to die."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="xxl"> . . . . . .</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4">"Send for the notary;</p> +<p>O lady mother, my heart is very sick:</p> +<p class="i4">Send for the notary;</p> +<p>Alas, alas, that I should have to die."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4">"Why call the notary?</p> +<p>My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred,</p> +<p class="i4">Why call the notary?"</p> +<p class="i4">"To make my testament;</p> +<p>O lady mother, my heart is very sick:</p> +<p class="i4">To make my testament;</p> +<p>Alas, alas, that I should have to die."</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page221" id="page221"></a>221</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4">"What to your mother leave?</p> +<p>My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred,</p> +<p class="i4">What to your mother leave?"</p> +<p class="i4">"To her my palace goes;</p> +<p>O lady mother, my heart is very sick:</p> +<p class="i4">To her my palace goes;</p> +<p>Alas, alas, that I should have to die."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4">"What to your brothers leave?</p> +<p>My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred,</p> +<p class="i4">What to your brothers leave?"</p> +<p class="i4">"To them the coach and team;</p> +<p>O lady mother, my heart is very sick:</p> +<p class="i4">To them the coach and team;</p> +<p>Alas, alas, that I should have to die."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4">"What to your sisters leave?</p> +<p>My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred,</p> +<p class="i4">What to your sisters leave?"</p> +<p class="i4">"A dower to marry them;</p> +<p>O lady mother, my heart is very sick:</p> +<p class="i4">A dower to marry them;</p> +<p>Alas, alas, that I should have to die."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4">"What to your servants leave?</p> +<p>My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred,</p> +<p class="i4">What to your servants leave?"</p> +<p class="i4">"The road to go to Mass;</p> +<p>O lady mother, my heart is very sick:</p> +<p class="i4">The road to go to Mass;</p> +<p>Alas, alas, that I should have to die."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4">"What leave you to your tomb?</p> +<p>My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred,</p> +<p class="i4">What leave you to your tomb?"</p> +<p class="i4">"Masses seven score and ten;</p> +<p>O lady mother, my heart is very sick:</p> +<p class="i4">Masses seven score and ten;</p> +<p>Alas, alas, that I should have to die."</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page222" id="page222"></a>222</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4">"What leave you to your love?</p> +<p>My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred,</p> +<p class="i4">What leave you to your love?"</p> +<p class="i4">"The tree to hang her on;</p> +<p>O lady mother, my heart is very sick:</p> +<p class="i4">The tree to hang her on;</p> +<p>Alas, alas, that I should have to die."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>At first sight it would seem that the supreme dramatic +element of the English song—the circumstance +that the mother does not know, but only suspects, +with increasing conviction, the presence of foul play—is +weakened in the Lombard ballad by the refrain, +"Alas, alas, that I should have to die." But a little +more reflection will show that this is essentially of +the nature of an <i>aside</i>. In many instances the office +of the burden in old ballads resembles that of the +chorus in a Greek play: it is designed to suggest to +the audience a clue to the events enacting which is +not possessed by the <i>dramatis personæ</i>—at least not +by all of them.</p> + +<p>In the northern songs, Lord Ronald is a murdered +child: a character in which he likewise figures in the +Scotch lay of "The Croodlin Doo." This is the +Swedish variant:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"Where hast thou been so long, my little daughter?"</p> +<p>"I have been to Bœnne to see my brother;</p> +<p class="i32"> Alas! how I suffer."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"What gave they thee to eat, my little daughter?"</p> +<p>"Roast eel and pepper, my step-mother.</p> +<p class="i32"> Alas! how I suffer."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"What didst thou do with the bones, my little daughter?"</p> +<p>"I threw them to the dogs, my step-mother.</p> +<p class="i32"> Alas! how I suffer."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"What happened to the dogs, my little daughter?"</p> +<p>"Their bodies went to pieces, my step-mother.</p> +<p class="i32"> Alas! how I suffer."</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page223" id="page223"></a>223</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"What dost thou wish for thy father, my little daughter?"</p> +<p>"Good grain in the grange, my step-mother.</p> +<p class="i32"> Alas! how I suffer."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"What dost thou wish for thy brother, my little daughter?"</p> +<p>"A big ship to sail in, my step-mother.</p> +<p class="i32"> Alas! how I suffer."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"What dost thou wish for thy sister, my little daughter?"</p> +<p>"Coffers and caskets of gold, my step-mother.</p> +<p class="i32"> Alas! how I suffer."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"What dost thou wish for thy step-mother, my little daughter?"</p> +<p>"The chains of hell, step-mother.</p> +<p class="i32"> Alas! how I suffer."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"What dost thou wish for thy nurse, my little daughter?"</p> +<p>"The same hell, my nurse.</p> +<p class="i32"> Alas! how I suffer."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>A point connected with the diffusion of ballads is +the extraordinarily wide adoption of certain conventional +forms. One of these is the form of testamentary +instructions by means of which the plot of a song is +worked up to its climax. It reappears in the "Cruel +Brother"—which, I suppose, is altogether to be regarded +as of the Roland type:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"O what would ye leave to your father, dear?"</p> +<p class="i4"><i>With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay.</i></p> +<p>"The milk-white steed that brought me here,"</p> +<p class="i4"><i>As the primrose spreads so sweetly.</i></p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"What would ye give to your mother, dear?"</p> +<p class="i4"><i>With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay.</i></p> +<p>"My wedding shift which I do wear,"</p> +<p class="i4"><i>As the primrose spreads so sweetly.</i></p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"But she must wash it very clean,"</p> +<p class="i4"><i>With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay</i>,</p> +<p>"For my heart's blood sticks in every seam,"</p> +<p class="i4"><i>As the primrose spreads so sweetly</i>.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page224" id="page224"></a>224</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"What would ye give to your sister Anne?"</p> +<p class="i4"><i>With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay.</i></p> +<p>"My gay gold ring and my feathered fan,"</p> +<p class="i4"><i>As the primrose spreads so sweetly</i>.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"What would ye give to your brother John?"</p> +<p class="i4"><i>With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay.</i></p> +<p>"A rope and a gallows to hang him on!"</p> +<p class="i4"><i>As the primrose spreads so sweetly</i>.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"What would ye give to your brother John's wife?"</p> +<p class="i4"><i>With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay.</i></p> +<p>"Grief and sorrow to end her life!"</p> +<p class="i4"><i>As the primrose spreads so sweetly</i>.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"What would ye give to your own true lover?"</p> +<p class="i4"><i>With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay.</i></p> +<p>"My dying kiss, and my love for ever!"</p> +<p class="i4"><i>As the primrose spreads so sweetly</i>.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The Portuguese ballad of "Helena," which has not +much in common with "Lord Roland"—except that +it is a story of treachery—is brought into relation +with it by its bequests. Helena is a blameless wife +whom a cruel mother-in-law first encourages to pay a +visit to her parents, and then represents to her husband +as having run away from him in his absence. +No sooner has he returned from his journey than he +rides irate after his wife. When he arrives he is met +by the news that a son is born to him, but unappeased +he orders the young mother to rise from her bed and +follow him. She obeys, saying that in a well-ordered +marriage it is the husband who commands; only, +before she goes, she kisses her son and bids her +mother tell him of these kisses when he grows up. +Then her husband takes her to a high mountain, +where the agony of death comes upon her. The +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page225" id="page225"></a>225</span> +husband asks: "To whom leavest thou thy jewels?" +She answers: "To my sister; if thou wilt permit it." +"To whom leavest thou thy cross and the stones of +thy necklace?" "The cross I leave to my mother; +surely she will pray for me; she will not care to +have the stones, thou canst keep them—if to another +thou givest them, better than I, let her adorn herself +with them." "Thy substance, to whom leavest thou?" +"To thee, my husband; God grant it may profit +thee." "To whom leavest thou thy son, that he may +be well brought up?" "To thy mother, and may it +please God that he should make himself loved of +her." "Not to that dog," cries the husband, his eyes +at last opened, "she might well kill him. Leave him +rather to thy mother, who will bring him up well; +she will know how to wash him with her tears, and +she will take the coif from her head to swaddle him."</p> + +<p>A strange, wild Roumanian song, translated by Mr +C. F. Keary (<i>Nineteenth Century</i>, No. lxviii.), closes +with a list of "gifts" of the same character:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"But mother, oh mother, say how</p> +<p>Shall I speak, and what name call him now?"</p> +<p>"My beloved, my step-son,</p> +<p>My heart's love, my cherished one."</p> +<p>"And her, O my mother, what word</p> +<p>Shall I give her, what name?"</p> +<p>"My step-daughter, abhorred,</p> +<p>The whole world's shame."</p> +<p>"Then, my mother, what shall I take him?</p> +<p>What gift shall I make him?"</p> +<p>"A handkerchief fine, little daughter,</p> +<p>Bread of white wheat for thy loved one to eat,</p> +<p>And a glass of wine, my daughter."</p> +<p>"And what shall I take <i>her</i>, little mother,</p> + </div> </div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page226" id="page226"></a>226</span> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>What gift shall I make <i>her</i>?"</p> +<p>"A kerchief of thorns, little daughter;</p> +<p>A loaf of black bread for her whom he wed,</p> +<p>And a cup of poison, my <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'daugher'">daughter</ins>."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Before parting with "Lord Ronald" it should be +noticed that the song clearly travelled in song-shape, +not simply as a popular tradition; and that its +different adaptators have been still more faithful to +the shape than to the substance. It is not so easy to +decide whether the victim was originally a child or a +lover, whether the north or the south has preserved +the more correct version. Some crime of the middle +ages may have been the foundation of the ballad; on +the other hand it is conceivable that it formed part of +the enormous accumulation of literary odds and ends +brought to Europe from the east, by pilgrims and +crusaders. Stories that, as we know them, seem distinctly +mediæval, such as Boccaccio's "Falcon," have +been traced to India. If a collection were made of +the ballads now sung by no more widely extended +class than the three thousand ballad singers inscribed +in the last census of the North-Western Provinces and +Oude, what a priceless boon would not be conferred +upon the student of comparative folk-lore! We cannot +arrive at a certainty even in regard to the minor +question of whether Lord Ronald made his appearance +first in England or in Italy. The English and +Italian songs bear a closer affinity to each other than +is possessed by either towards the Swedish variant. +Supposing the one to be directly derived from the +other—a supposition which in this case does not +seem improbable—the Italian was most likely the +original. There was a steady migration into England +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page227" id="page227"></a>227</span> +of Italian literature, literate and probably also illiterate, +from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century. +The English ballad-singers may have been as much +on the look-out for a new, orally communicated song +from foreign parts, as Chaucer was for a poem of +Petrarch's or a tale of Boccaccio's.</p> + +<h3>II.—<span class="sc">The Theft of a Shroud.</span></h3> + +<p>The ballad with which we have now to deal has +had probably as wide a currency as that of "Lord +Ronald." The student of folk-lore recognises at once, +in its evident fitness for local adaptation, its simple +yet terrifying motive, and the logical march of its +events, the elements that give a popular song a free +pass among the peoples.</p> + +<p>M. Allègre took down from word of mouth and +communicated to the late Damase Arbaud a Provençal +version, which runs as follows:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>His scarlet cape the Prior donned,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>His scarlet cape the Prior donned,</p> +<p class="i4">And all the souls in Paradise</p> +<p class="i4">With joy and triumph fill the skies.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>His sable cape the Prior donned,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>His sable cape the Prior donned,</p> +<p class="i4">And all the spirits of the dead</p> +<p class="i4">Fast tears within the graveyard shed.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Now, Ringer, to the belfry speed,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>Now, Ringer, to the belfry speed,</p> +<p class="i4">Ring loud, to-night thy ringing tolls</p> +<p class="i4">An office for the dead men's souls.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page228" id="page228"></a>228</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Ring loud the bell of good St John:</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>Ring loud the bell of good St John:</p> +<p class="i4">Pray all, for the poor dead; aye pray,</p> +<p class="i4">Kind folks, for spirits passed away.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Soon as the midnight hour strikes,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>Soon as the midnight hour strikes,</p> +<p class="i4">The pale moon sheds around her light,</p> +<p class="i4">And all the graveyard waxeth white.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>What seest thou, Ringer, in the close?</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>What seest thou, Ringer, in the close?</p> +<p class="i4">"I see the dead men wake and sit</p> +<p class="i4">Each one by his deserted pit."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Full thousands seven and hundreds five,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>Full thousands seven and hundreds five,</p> +<p class="i4">Each on his grave's edge, yawning wide,</p> +<p class="i4">His dead man's wrappings lays aside.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Then leave they their white winding-sheets,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>Then leave they their white winding-sheets,</p> +<p class="i4">And walk, accomplishing their doom,</p> +<p class="i4">In sad procession from the tomb.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Full one thousand and hundreds five,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>Full one thousand and hundreds five,</p> +<p class="i4">And each one falls upon his knees</p> +<p class="i4">Soon as the holy cross he sees.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Full one thousand and hundreds five,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>Full one thousand and hundreds five</p> +<p class="i4">Arrest their footsteps, weeping sore</p> +<p class="i4">When they have reached their children's door.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page229" id="page229"></a>229</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Full one thousand and hundreds five,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>Full one thousand and hundreds five</p> +<p class="i4">Turn them aside and, listening, stay</p> +<p class="i4">Whene'er they hear some kind soul pray.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Full one thousand and hundreds five,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>Full one thousand and hundreds five,</p> +<p class="i4">Who stand apart and groan bereft,</p> +<p class="i4">Seeing for them no friends are left.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>But soon as ever the white cock stirs,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>But soon as ever the white cock stirs,</p> +<p class="i4">They take again their cerements white,</p> +<p class="i4">And in their hands a torch alight.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>But soon as ever the red cock crows,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>But soon as ever the red cock crows,</p> +<p class="i4">All sing the Holy Passion song,</p> +<p class="i4">And in procession march along.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>But soon as the gilded cock doth shine,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>But soon as the gilded cock doth shine,</p> +<p class="i4">Their hands and their two arms they cross,</p> +<p class="i4">And each descends into his foss.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>'Tis now the dead men's second night,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>Tis now the dead men's second night:</p> +<p class="i4">Peter, go up to ring; nor dread</p> +<p class="i4">If thou shouldst chance to see the dead.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"The dead, the dead, they fright me not,"</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>"The dead, the dead, they fright me not,</p> +<p class="i4">—Yet prayers are due for the dead, I ween,</p> +<p class="i4">And due respect should they be seen."</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page230" id="page230"></a>230</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>When next the midnight hour strikes,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>When next the midnight hour strikes,</p> +<p class="i4">The graves gape wide and ghastly show</p> +<p class="i4">The dead who issue from below.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Three diverse ways they pass along,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>Three diverse ways they pass along,</p> +<p class="i4">Nought seen but wan white skeletons</p> +<p class="i4">Weeping, nought heard but sighs and moans.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Down from the belfry Peter came,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>Down from the belfry Peter came,</p> +<p class="i4">While still the bell of good St John</p> +<p class="i4">Gave forth its sound: barin, baron.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>He carried off a dead man's shroud,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>He carried off a dead man's shroud;</p> +<p class="i4">At once it seemed no longer night,</p> +<p class="i4">The holy close was all alight.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>The holy Cross that midmost stands,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>The holy Cross that midmost stands</p> +<p class="i4">Grew red as though with blood 'twas dyed,</p> +<p class="i4">And all the altars loudly sighed.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Now, when the dead regained the close,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>Now, when the dead regained the close</p> +<p class="i4">—The Holy Passion sung again—</p> +<p class="i4">They passed along in solemn train.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Then he who found his cerements gone,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>Then he who found his cerements gone,</p> +<p class="i4">From out the graveyard gazed and signed</p> +<p class="i4">His winding-sheet should be resigned.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page231" id="page231"></a>231</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Peter every entrance closed,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>But Peter every entrance closed</p> +<p class="i4">With locks and bolts, approach defies,</p> +<p class="i4">Then looks at him—but keeps the prize!</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>He with his arm, and with his hand,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>He with his arm, and with his hand,</p> +<p class="i4">Made signs in vain, two times or three,</p> +<p class="i4">And then the belfry entered he.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>A noise is mounting up the stair,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>A noise is mounting up the stair,</p> +<p class="i4">The bolts are shattered, and the door</p> +<p class="i4">Is burst and dashed upon the floor.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Ringer trembled with dismay,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>The Ringer trembled with dismay,</p> +<p class="i4">And still the bell of good St John</p> +<p class="i4">For ever swung: barin, baron.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>At the first stroke of Angelus,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>At the first stroke of Angelus</p> +<p class="i4">The skeleton broke all his bones,</p> +<p class="i4">Falling to earth upon the stones.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Peter upon his bed was laid,</p> +<p class="i4">Ding dong, dong ding dong!</p> +<p>Peter upon his bed was laid,</p> +<p class="i4">Confessed his sin, repenting sore,</p> +<p class="i4">Lingered three days, then lived no more.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>It will be seen that, in this ballad, which is locally +called "Lou Jour des Mouerts," the officiating priest +assumes red vestments in the morning, and changes +them in the course of the day for black. The vestments +appropriate to the evening of All Saints' Day +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page232" id="page232"></a>232</span> +are still black (it being the Vigil of All Souls'), but in +the morning the colour worn is white or gold. An +explanation, however, is at hand. The feast of All +Saints had its beginning in the dedication of the +Roman Pantheon by Boniface IV., in the year 607, +to <i>S. Maria ad Martyres</i>, and red ornaments were +naturally chosen for a day set apart especially to the +commemoration of martyrdom. These were only +discarded when the feast came to have a more general +character, and there is evidence of their retention here +and there in French churches till a date as advanced +as the fifteenth century. Thus, we gain incidentally +some notion of the age of the song.</p> + +<p>Not long after giving a first reading to the Provençal +ballad of the Shroud-theft, I became convinced +of its substantial identity with a poem whose author +holds quite another rank to that of the nameless folk-poet. +Goethe's "Todten Tanz" tends less to edification +than "Lou jour des Mouerts;" nor has it, I +venture to think, an equal power. We miss the +pathetic picture of the companies of sad ghosts; +these kneeling before the wayside crosses; these +lingering by their children's thresholds; these listening +to the prayers of the pious on their behalf; these +others weeping, <i>en vesent que n'ant plus d'amics</i>. But +the divergence of treatment cannot hide the fact that +the two ballads are made out of one tale.</p> + +<h5><span class="sc">The Dance of Death.</span></h5> + <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The watcher looks down in the dead of the night</p> +<p class="i2">On graves in trim order gleaming;</p> +<p>The moon steeps the world all around in her light—</p> +<p class="i2">'Tis clear as if noon were beaming.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page233" id="page233"></a>233</span> +<p>One grave gaped apart, then another began;</p> +<p>Here forth steps a woman, and there steps a man,</p> +<p class="i2">White winding-sheets trailing behind them.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>On sport they determine, nor pause they for long,</p> +<p class="i2">All feel for the measure advancing;</p> +<p>The rich and the poor, the old and the young;</p> +<p class="i2">But winding-sheets hinder the dancing.</p> +<p>Since sense of decorum no longer impedes,</p> +<p>They hasten to shake themselves free of their weeds,</p> +<p class="i2">And tombstones are quickly beshrouded.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Then legs kick about and are lifted in air,</p> +<p class="i2">Strange gesture and antic repeating;</p> +<p>The bones crack and rattle, and crash here and there,</p> +<p class="i2">As if to keep time they were beating.</p> +<p>The sight fills the watcher with mirth 'stead of fear,</p> +<p>And the sly one, the Tempter, speaks low in his ear:</p> +<p class="i2">"Now go and a winding-sheet plunder!"</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>The hint he soon followed, the deed it was done,</p> +<p class="i2">Then behind the church-door he sought shelter;</p> +<p>The moon in her splendour unceasingly shone,</p> +<p class="i2">And still dance the dead helter-skelter.</p> +<p>At last, one by one, they all cease from the play,</p> +<p>And, wrapt in the winding-sheets, hasten away,</p> +<p class="i2">Beneath the turf silently sinking.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>One only still staggers and stumbles along,</p> +<p class="i2">The grave edges groping and feeling;</p> +<p>'Tis no brother ghost who has done him the wrong;</p> +<p class="i2">Now his scent shows the place of concealing.</p> +<p>The church-door he shakes, but his strength is represt;</p> +<p>'Tis well for the watcher the portals are blest</p> +<p class="i2">By crosses resplendent protected.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>His shirt he must have, upon this he is bent,</p> +<p class="i2">No time has he now for reflection;</p> +<p>Each sculpture of Gothic some holding has lent,</p> +<p class="i2">He scales and he climbs each projection.</p> +<p>Dread vengeance o'ertakes him, 'tis up with the spy!</p> +<p>From arch unto arch draws the skeleton nigh,</p> +<p class="i2">Like lengthy-legged horrible spider.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page234" id="page234"></a>234</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>The watcher turns pale, and he trembles full sore,</p> +<p class="i2">The shroud to return he beseeches;</p> +<p>But a claw (it is done, he is living no more),</p> +<p class="i2">A claw to the shroud barely reaches.</p> +<p>The moonlight grows faint; it strikes one by the clock;</p> +<p>A thunderclap burst with a terrible shock;</p> +<p class="i2">To earth falls the skeleton shattered.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>It needed but small penetration to guess that Goethe +had neither seen nor heard of the Provençal song. It +seemed, therefore, certain that a version of the Shroud-theft +must exist in Germany, or near it—an inference +I found to be correct on consulting that excellent +work, Goethe's <i>Gedichte erläutert von Heinrich Viehoff</i> +(Stuttgart, 1870). So far as the title and the incident +of the dancing are concerned, Goethe apparently had +recourse to a popular story given in Appel's <i>Book of +Spectres</i>, where it is related how, when the guards of +the tower looked out at midnight, they saw Master +Willibert rise from his grave in the moonshine, seat +himself on a high tombstone, and begin to perform +on his pocket pipe. Then several other tombs opened, +and the dead came forth and danced cheerily over +the mounds of the graves. The white shrouds fluttered +round their dried-up limbs, and their bones +clattered and shook till the clock struck one, when +each returned into his narrow house, and the piper +put his pipe under his arm and followed their example. +The part of the ballad which has to do directly with +the Shroud-theft is based upon oral traditions collected +by the poet during his sojourn at Teplitz, in +Bohemia, in the summer of 1813. Viehoff has ascertained +that there are also traces of the legend in +Silesia, Moravia, and Tyrol. In these countries the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page235" id="page235"></a>235</span> +story would seem to be oftenest told in prose; but +Viehoff prints a rhymed rendering of the variant +localised in Tyrol, where the events are supposed to +have occurred at the village of Burgeis:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>The twelve night strokes have ceased to sound,</p> +<p>The watchman of Burgeis looks around,</p> +<p class="i2">The country all in moonlight sleeps;</p> +<p>Standing the belfry tower beneath</p> +<p>The tombstones, with their wreaths of death,</p> +<p class="i2">The wan moon's ghastly pallor steeps.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Does the young mother in child-birth dead</p> +<p>Rise in her shroud from her lonely bed,</p> +<p class="i2">For the sake of the child she has left behind?</p> +<p>To mock them (they say) makes the dead ones grieve,</p> +<p>Let's see if I cannot her work relieve,</p> +<p class="i2">Or she no end to her toil may find."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>So spake he, when something, with movement slow,</p> +<p>Stirs in the deep-dug grave below,</p> +<p class="i2">And in its trailing shroud comes out;</p> +<p>And the little garments that infants have</p> +<p>It hangs and stretches on gate and grave,</p> +<p class="i2">On rail and trellis, the yard about.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>The rest of the buried in sleep repose,</p> +<p>That nothing of waking or trouble knows,</p> +<p class="i2">For the woman the sleep of the grave is killed;</p> +<p>Her leaden sleep, each midnight hour,</p> +<p>Flees, and her limbs regain their power,</p> +<p class="i2">And she hastes as to tend her new-born child.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>All with rash spite the watchman views,</p> +<p>And with cruel laughter the form pursues,</p> +<p class="i2">As he leans from the belfrey's narrow height,</p> +<p>And in sinful scorn on the tower rails</p> +<p>Linen and sheets and bands he trails,</p> +<p class="i2">Mocking her acts in the moon's wan light.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page236" id="page236"></a>236</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Lo, with swift steps, foreboding doom,</p> +<p>From the churchyard's edge o'er grave and tomb</p> +<p class="i2">The ghost to the tower wends its ways;</p> +<p>And climbs and glides, ne'er fearing fall,</p> +<p>Up by the ledges, the lofty wall,</p> +<p class="i2">Fixing the sinner with fearful gaze.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>The watcher grows pale, and with hasty hand,</p> +<p>Tears from the tower the shrouds and bands;</p> +<p class="i2">Vainly! That threatening grin draws nigh!</p> +<p>With a trembling hand he tolls the hour,</p> +<p>And the skeleton down from the belfry-tower,</p> +<p class="i2">Shattered and crumbling, falls from high.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>This story overlaps the great cycle of popular +belief which treats of the help given by a dead +mother to her bereaved child. They say in Germany, +when the sheets are ruffled in the bed of a +motherless infant, that the mother has lain beside it +and suckled it. Kindred superstitions stretch through +the world. The sin of the Burgeis watchman is that +of heartless malice, but it stops short of actual robbery, +which is perhaps the reason why he escapes with his +life, having the presence of mind to toll forth the first +hour of day, when—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,</p> +<p>The extravagant and erring spirit hies</p> +<p>To his confine.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The prose legends which bear upon one or another +point in the Shroud-theft, are both numerous and +important. Joseph Macé, a cabin-boy of Saint Cast, +in Upper Brittany, related the following to the able +collector of Breton folk-lore, M. Paul Sébillot. There +was a young man who went to see a young girl; his +parents begged him not to go again to her, but he +replied: "Mind your own business and leave me to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page237" id="page237"></a>237</span> +mind mine." One evening he invited two or three of +his comrades to accompany him, and as they passed +by a stile they saw a woman standing there, dressed +all in white. "I'll take off her coif," said the youth. +"No," said the others, "let her alone." But he went +straight up to her and carried off her coif—there only +remained the little skullcap underneath, but he did +not see her face. He went with the others to his +sweetheart, and showed her the coif. "Ah!" said +he, "as I came here I met a woman all in white, and +I carried off her coif." "Give me the coif," replied +his sweetheart; "I will put it away in my wardrobe." +Next evening he started again to see the girl, and on +reaching the stile he saw a woman in white like the +one of the day before, but this one had no head. +"Dear me," he said to himself, "it is the same as +yesterday; still I did not think I had pulled off her +head." When he went in to his sweetheart, she said, +"I wore to-day the coif you gave me; you can't think +how nice I look in it!" "Give it back to me, I beg +of you," said the young man. She gave it back, and +when he got home he told his mother the whole story. +"Ah, my poor lad," she said, "you have kept sorry +company. I told you some ill would befall you." He +went to bed, but in the night his mother heard sighs +coming from the bed of her son. She woke her good +man and said, "Listen; one would say someone was +moaning." She went to her son's bed and found him +bathed in sweat. "What is the matter with you?" +she asked. "Ah, my mother, I had a weight of more +than three hundred pounds on my body; it stifled me, +I could bear it no longer." Next day the youth went +to confession, and he told all to the curate. "My +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page238" id="page238"></a>238</span> +boy," said the priest, "the person you saw was a +woman who came from the grave to do penance; it +was your dead sister." "What can I do?" asked the +young man. "You must go and take her back her +coif, and set it on the neck on the side to which it +leans." "Ah! sir, I should never dare, I should die +of fright!" Still he went that evening to the stile, +where he saw the woman who was dressed in white +and had no head; he set the coif just on the side +the neck leant to; all at once a head showed itself +inside it, and a voice said, "Ah! my brother, you +hindered me from doing penance; to-morrow you will +come and help me to finish it." The young man went +back to bed, but next day he did not get up when the +others did, and when they went to his bed he was +dead.</p> + +<p>At Saint Suliac a young man saw three young girls +kneeling in the cemetery. He took the cap off one of +them, saying that he would not give it back till she +came to embrace him. Next day, instead of the cap +he found a death's head. At midnight he carried it +back, holding in his arms a new-born infant. The +death's head became once more a cap, the woman +disappeared, and the young man, thanks to the child, +suffered no harm.</p> + +<p>In a third Breton legend a child commits the theft, +but without any consciousness of wrong-doing. A +little girl picked up a small bone in a graveyard and +took it away to amuse herself with it. In the evening, +when she returned home, she heard a voice saying:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Give me back my bone!</p> +<p>Give me back my bone!</p> + </div> </div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page239" id="page239"></a>239</span> + +<p>"What's that?" asked the mother.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it is because of a bone I picked up in the +cemetery."</p> + +<p>"Well, it must be given back."</p> + +<p>The little girl opened the door and threw the bone +into the court, but the voice went on saying:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Give me back my bone!</p> +<p>Give me back my bone!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>"Maybe it is the bone of a dead man; take the +candle, go into the court and give it back to him."</p> + +<p>It is most unfortunate to possess a human bone, +even by accident. It establishes unholy relations +between the possessor and the spirit world which +render him defenceless against spells and enchantments. +A late chaplain to the forces in Mauritius +told me that the witches, or rather wizards, who have +it all their own way in that island, contrived, after +a course of preparatory persecution, to surreptitiously +introduce into his house the little finger of a child. +He could not think what to do with it: at last he +consulted a friend, a Catholic priest, who advised him +to burn it, which was done. We all know "the +finger of birth-strangled babe" in the witches' cauldron +in <i>Macbeth</i>; but it is somewhat surprising to +find a similar "charm for powerful trouble" in current +use in a British colony.</p> + +<p>A Corsican legend, reported by M. Frédéric Ortoli, +should have a place here. On the Day of the Dead +a certain man had to go to Sartena to sell chestnuts. +Overnight he filled his panniers, so as to be ready to +start with the first gleam of daylight. The only thing +left for him to do was to go and get his horse, which +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page240" id="page240"></a>240</span> +was out at pasture not far from the village. So he +went to bed, but hardly had he lain down when a +fearful storm broke over the house. Cries and curses +echoed all round: "Cursed be thou! cursed be thy +wife! cursed be thy children!" The wretched man +grew cold with fear; he got quite close to his wife, who +asked: "Did you put the water outside the window?" +"Sangu di Cristu!" cried the man, "I forgot!" He +rose at once to put vessels filled with water on the +balcony. The dead—whose vigil it was—were in fact +come, and finding no water either to drink or to +wash and purify their sins in, they had made a frightful +noise and hurled maledictions against him who +had forgotten their wants. The poor man went to +bed again, but the storm continued, though the +cursing and blaspheming had ceased.</p> + +<p>Towards three in the morning the man wished to +get up, "Stay," said his wife, "do not go."</p> + +<p>"No, go I must."</p> + +<p>"The weather is so bad, the wind so high; some +mischief will come to you."</p> + +<p>"Never mind; keep me no more."</p> + +<p>And so saying the husband went out to find his +horse. He had barely reached the crossway when by +the path from Giufari, he saw, marching towards +him, the <i>squadra d'Arrozza</i>—the Dead Battalion. +Each dead man held a taper, and chanted the +<i>Miserere</i>.</p> + +<p>The poor peasant was as if petrified; his blood +stood still in his veins, and he could not utter a word. +Meanwhile the troop surrounded him, and he who +was at its head offered him the taper he was carrying. +"Take hold!" he said, and the poor wretch took it.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page241" id="page241"></a>241</span> + +<p>Then the most dreadful groans and cries were +heard. "Woe! woe! woe! Be accursed, be accursed, +be accursed."</p> + +<p>The villager soon came to himself, but oh! horrid +sight! in his hand was the arm of a little child. It +was that, and not a taper, that the dead had given +him. He tried to get rid of it, but every effort proved +fruitless. In despair, he went to the priest, and told +him all about it. "Men should never take what +spirits offer them," said the priest, "it is always a +snare they set for us; but now that the mischief is +done, let us see how best we can repair it."</p> + +<p>"What must I do?"</p> + +<p>"For three successive nights the Dead Battalion +will come under your windows at the same hour as +when you met it: some will cry, some will sob, others +will curse you, and ask persistently for the little child's +arm; the bells of all the churches will set to tolling +the funeral knell, but have no fear. At first you +must not throw them the arm—only on the third day +may you get rid of it, and this is how. Get ready a +lot of hot ashes; then when the dead come and begin +to cry and groan, throw them a part. That will +make them furious; they will wish to attack your +house—you will let them in, but when all the spectres +are inside, suddenly throw at them what is left of +the hot ashes with the child's arm along with it. +The dead will take it away, and you will be saved."</p> + +<p>Everything happened just as the priest said; for +three nights cries, groans, and imprecations surrounded +the man's house, while the bells tolled the death-knell. +It was only by throwing hot ashes on the +ghosts that he got rid of the child's arm. Not long +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page242" id="page242"></a>242</span> +after, he died. "Woe be to him who forgets to give +drink to the dead."</p> + +<p>The Dead Battalion, or Confraternity of Ghosts, walk +abroad dressed as penitents, with hoods over their heads. +The solitary night traveller sees them from time to time, +defiling down the mountain gorges; they invariably +try to make him accept some object, not to be recognised +in the dark—but beware, lest you accept! If +some important person is about to die, they come out +to receive his soul into their dread brotherhood.</p> + +<p>Ghost stories are common in Corsica. What wilder +tale could be desired than that of the girl, betrayed by +her lover to wed a richer bride, who returns thrice, and +lies down between man and wife—twice she vanishes +at cock-crow, the third time she clasps her betrayer in +her chilly arms, saying, "Thou art mine, O beloved! +mine thou wilt be forever, we part no more." While +she speaks he breathes his last breath.</p> + +<p>The dead, when assembled in numbers, and when +not employed in rehearsing the business or calling of +their former lives, are usually engaged either in +dancing or in going through some sort of religious +exercise. On this point there is a conformity of +evidence. A spectre's mass is a very common superstition. +On All Soul's Eve an old woman went to +pray in the now ruined church of St Martin, at Bonn. +Priests were performing the service, and there was a +large congregation, but by and by the old woman +became convinced that she was the only living mortal +in the church. She wished to get away, but she could +not; just as Mass was ending, however, her deceased +husband whispered to her that now was the time to +fly for her life. She ran to the door, but she stopped +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page243" id="page243"></a>243</span> +for one moment at the spot in the aisle where two of +her children were buried, just to say, "Peace be unto +them." The door swung open and closed after her: +a bit of her cloak was shut in, so that she had to leave +it behind. Soon after she sickened and died; the +neighbours said it must be because a piece of her +clothes had remained in the possession of the dead.</p> + +<p>The dance of the dead sometimes takes the form +not of an amusement but of a doom. One of the +most curious instances of this is embodied in a Rhineland +legend, which has the advantage of giving names, +dates, and full particulars. In the 14th century, +Freiherr von Metternich placed his daughter Ida in a +convent on the island of Oberwörth, in order to +separate her from her lover, one Gerbert, to whom +she was secretly betrothed. A year later the maiden +lay sick in the nunnery, attended by an aged lay +sister. "Alas!" she said, "I die unwed though a +betrothed wife." "Heaven forefend!" cried her companion, +"then you would be doomed to dance the +death-dance." The old sister went on to explain +that betrothed maidens who die without having either +married or taken religious vows, are condemned to +dance on a grassless spot in the middle of the island, +there being but one chance of escape—the coming of +a lover, no matter whether the original betrothed or +another, with whom the whole company dances round +and round till he dies; then the youngest of the +ghosts makes him her own, and may henceforth rest +in her grave. The old nun's gossip does not delay +(possibly it hastens) the hapless Ida's departure, and +Gerbert, who hears of her illness on the shores of the +Boden See, arrives at Coblentz only to have tidings +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page244" id="page244"></a>244</span> +of her death. He rows over to Oberwörth: it is +midnight in midwinter. Under the moonlight dance +the unwed brides, veiled and in flowing robes; Gerbert +thinks he sees Ida amongst them. He joins in +the dance; fast and furious it becomes, to the sound +of a wild, unearthly music. At last the clock strikes, +and the ghosts vanish—only one, as it goes, seems to +stoop and kiss the youth, who sinks to the ground. +There the gardener finds him on the morrow, and in +spite of all the care bestowed upon him by the sisterhood +he dies before sundown.</p> + +<p>In China they are more practical. In the natural +course of things the spirit of an engaged girl would +certainly haunt her lover, but there is a way to prevent +it, and that way he takes. He must go to the +house where she died, step over the coffin containing +her body, and carry home a pair of her shoes. Then +he is safe.</p> + +<p>A story may be added which comes from a Dutch +source. The gravedigger happened to have a fever +on All Saints' Day. "Is it not unlucky?" he said to +a friend who came to see him, "I am ill, and must go +to-night in the cold and snow to dig a grave." "Oh, +I'll do that for you," said the gossip. "That's a little +service." So it was agreed. The gossip took a spade +and a pick-axe, and cheered himself with a glass at +the alehouse; then, by half-past eleven, the work was +done. As he was going away from the churchyard +he saw a procession of white friars—they went round +the close, each with a taper in his hand. When they +passed the gossip, they threw down the tapers, and +the last flung him a big ball of wax with two wicks. +The gossip laughed quite loudly: all this wax would +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page245" id="page245"></a>245</span> +sell for a pretty sum! He picked up the tapers and +hid them under his bed. Next day was All Souls'. +The gossip went to bed betimes, but he could not get +to sleep, and as twelve struck he heard three knocks. +He jumped up and opened the door—there stood all +the white monks, only they had no tapers! The +gossip fell back on his bed from fright, and the monks +marched into the room and stood all round him. +Then their white robes dropped off, and, only to +think of it! they were all skeletons! But no skeleton +was complete; one lacked an arm, another a leg, +another a backbone, and one had no head. Somehow +the cloth in which the gossip had wrapped the +wax came out from under the bed and fell open; +instead of tapers it was full of bones. The skeletons +now called out for their missing members: "Give me +my rib," "Give me my backbone," and so on. The +gossip gave back all the pieces, and put the skull on +the right shoulders—it was what he had mistaken +for a ball of wax. The moment the owner of the +head had got it back he snatched a violin which was +hanging against the wall, and told the gossip to +begin to play forthwith, he himself extending his +arms in the right position to conduct the music. All +the skeletons danced, making a fearful clatter, and +the gossip dared not leave off fiddling till the morning +came and the monks put on their clothes and went +away. The gossip and his wife did not say one word +of what had happened till their last hour, when they +thought it wisest to tell their confessor.</p> + +<p>Mr Benjamin Thorpe saw a link between the above +legend, of which he gave a translation in his "Northern +Mythology," and the Netherlandish proverb, "Let no +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page246" id="page246"></a>246</span> +one take a bone from the churchyard: the dead will +torment him till he return it." Its general analogy +with our Shroud-theft does not admit of doubt, though +the proceedings of the expropriator of wax lights are +more easily accounted for than are those of the Shroud-thief. +Peter of Provence either stole the winding-sheet +out of sheer mischief, or he took it to enable +him to see sights not lawfully visible to mortal eyes. +In any case a well-worn shroud could scarcely enrich +the thief, while the wax used for ecclesiastical candles +was, and is still, a distinctly marketable commodity. +A stranger who goes into a church at Florence in the +dusk of the evening, when a funeral ceremony is in +the course of performance, is surprised to see men +and boys dodging the footsteps of the brethren of the +<i>Misericordia</i>, and stooping at every turn to the pavement; +if he asks what is the object of their peculiar +antics, he will hear that it is to collect</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>The droppings of the wax to sell again.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The industry is time-honoured in Italy. At Naples +in the last century, the wax-men flourished exceedingly +by reason of a usage described by Henry Swinburne. +Candidates for holy orders who had not +money enough to pay the fees, were in the habit of +letting themselves out to attend funerals, so that they +might be able to lay by the sum needful. But as +they were often indisposed to fulfil the duties thus +undertaken, they dressed up the city vagrants in +their clothes and sent them to pray and sing instead +of them. These latter made their account out of the +transaction by having a friend near, who held a paper +bag, into which they made the tapers waste plenteously. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page247" id="page247"></a>247</span> +Other devices for improving the trade were +common at that date in the Neapolitan kingdom. +Once, when an archbishop was to be buried, and four +hundred genuine friars were in attendance, suddenly +a mad bull was let loose amongst them, whereupon +they dropped their wax lights, and the thieves, who +had laid the plot, picked them up. At another great +funeral, each assistant was respectfully asked for his +taper by an individual dressed like a sacristan; the +tapers were then extinguished and quietly carried +away—only afterwards it was discovered that the +supposed sacristans belonged to a gang of thieves. +The Shroud-theft is a product of the peculiar fascination +exercised by the human skeleton upon the +mediæval fancy. The part played by the skeleton in +the early art and early fiction of the Christian æra is +one of large importance; the horrible, the grotesque, +the pathetic, the humorous—all are grouped round +the bare remnants of humanity. The skeleton, figuring +as Death, still looks at you from the <i>façades</i> of +the village churches in the north of Italy and the +Trentino—sometimes alone, sometimes with other +stray members of the <i>Danse Macabre</i>; carrying +generally an inscription to this purport:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Giunge la morte plena de egualeza,</p> +<p>Sole ve voglio e non vostra richeza.</p> +<p>Digna mi son de portar corona,</p> +<p>E che signoresi ogni persona.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The <i>Danse Macabre</i> itself is a subject which is well +nigh exhaustless. The secret of its immense popularity +can be read in the lines just quoted: it proclaimed +equality. "Nous mourrons tous," said the +French preacher—then, catching the eye of the king, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page248" id="page248"></a>248</span> +he politely substituted "<i>presque</i> tous." Now there is +no "presque" in the Dance of Death. Whether +painted by Holbein's brush, or by that of any +humble artist of the Italian valleys, the moral is the +same: grand lady and milkmaid, monarch and herdsman, +all have to go. Who shall fathom the grim +comfort there was in this vivid, this highly intelligible +showing forth of the indisputable fact? It was a +foretaste of the declaration of the rights of man. +Professor Pellegrini, who has added an instructive +monograph to the literature of the <i>Danse Macabre</i>, +mentions that on the way to the cemetery of Galliate +a wall bears the guiding inscription: "Via al vero +comunismo!"</p> + +<p>The old custom of way-side ossuaries contributed +no doubt towards keeping strongly before the people +the symbol and image of the great King. I have +often reflected on the effect, certainly if unconsciously +felt, of the constant and unveiled presence of the +dead. I remember once passing one of the still +standing chapels through the gratings of which may +be seen neatly ranged rows of human bones, as I was +descending late one night a mountain in Lombardy. +The moon fell through the bars upon the village +ancestors; one old man went by along the narrow +way, and said gravely as he went the two words: +"È tardi!" It was a scene which always comes +back to me when I study the literature of the +skeleton.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page249" id="page249"></a>249</span> + +<h2>SONGS FOR THE RITE OF MAY.</h2> + +<p>One of the first of living painters has pointed to the +old English custom of carrying about flowers on May +Day as a sign that, in the Middle Ages, artistic +sensibility and a pleasure in natural beauty were not +dead among the common people of England. Nothing +can be truer than this way of judging the observance +of the Rite of May. Whatever might be the foolishness +that it led to here and there, its origin lay always +in pure satisfaction at the returned glory of the earth; +in the wish to establish a link that could be seen and +felt—if only that of holding a green bough or of +wearing a daffodil crown—between the children of +men and the new and beautiful growth of nature. +The sentiment is the same everywhere, but the +manner of its expression varies. In warmer lands it +finds a vent long before the coming of May. March, +in fact, rather than May, seems to have been chosen +as the typical spring month in ancient Greece and +Rome; and when we see the almond-trees blooming +down towards Ponte Molle in the earliest week in +February, even March strikes us as a little late for the +beginning of the spring festival. A few icicles next +morning on the Trevi, act, however, as a corrective to +our ideas. In a famous passage Ovid tells the reason +why the Romans kept holiday on the first of March: +"The ice being broken up, winter at last yields, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page250" id="page250"></a>250</span> +the snow melts away, conquered by the sun's gentle +warmth; the leaves come back to the trees that were +stripped by the cold, the sap-filled bud swells with +the tender twig, and the fertile grass, that long lay +unseen, finds hidden passages and uplifts itself in the +air. Now is the field fruitful, now is the time of the +birth of cattle, now the bird prepares its house and +home in the bough." (<i>Fastorum</i>, lib. iii.)</p> + +<p>March day is still kept in Greece by bands of +youngsters who go from house to house in the hopes +of getting little gifts of fruit or cheese. They take +with them a wooden swallow which they spin round +to the song:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>The swallow speeds her flight</p> +<p class="i4">O'er the sea-foam white,</p> +<p>And then a-singing she doth slake her wing.</p> +<p class="i4">"March, March, my delight,</p> +<p class="i4">And February wan and wet,</p> +<p class="i4">For all thy snow and rain thou yet</p> +<p>Hast a perfume of the spring."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Or perhaps to the following variant, given by Mr +Lewis Sergeant in <i>New Greece</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>She is here, she is here,</p> +<p>The swallow that brings us the beautiful year;</p> +<p>Open wide the door,</p> +<p>We are children again, we are old no more.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>These little swallow-songs are worth the attention +of the Folk-Lore student, since they are of a greater +antiquity than can be proved on written evidence in +the case, so far as I know, of any other folk-song +still current. More than two thousand years ago +they existed in the form quoted from Theognis by +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page251" id="page251"></a>251</span> +Athenæus as "an excellent song sung by the children +of Rhodes."</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>The swallow comes! She comes, she brings</p> +<p>Glad days and hours upon her wings.</p> +<p class="i8">See on her back</p> +<p class="i8">Her plumes are black,</p> +<p class="i8">But all below</p> +<p class="i8">As white as snow.</p> +<p>Then from your well-stored house with haste,</p> +<p>Bring sweet cakes of dainty taste,</p> +<p>Bring a flagon full of wine,</p> +<p>Wheaten meal bring, white and fine;</p> +<p>And a platter load with cheese,</p> +<p>Eggs and porridge add—for these</p> +<p>Will the swallow not decline.</p> +<p>Now shall we go, or gifts receive!</p> +<p>Give, or ne'er your house we leave,</p> +<p>Till we the door or lintel break,</p> +<p>Or your little wife we take;</p> +<p>She so light, small toil will make.</p> +<p class="i8">But whate'er ye bring us forth,</p> +<p class="i8">Let the gift be one of worth.</p> +<p>Ope, ope your door, to greet the swallow then,</p> +<p>For we are only boys, not bearded men.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>In Ægina the children's prattle runs: "March is +come, sing, ye hills and ye flowers and little birds! +Say, say, little swallow, where hast thou passed? +where hast thou halted?" And in Corfu: "Little +swallow, my joyous one, joyous my swallow; thou +that comest from the desert, what good things bringest +thou? Health, joy, and red eggs." Yet another version +of the swallow song deals in scant compliments +to the month of March, which was welcomed so gladly +at its first coming:</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page252" id="page252"></a>252</span> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>From the Black Sea the swallow comes,</p> +<p class="i20"> She o'er the waves has sped,</p> +<p>And she has built herself a nest</p> +<p class="i20"> And resting there she said:</p> +<p>"Thou February cold and wet,</p> +<p class="i20"> And snowy March and drear,</p> +<p>Soft April heralds its approach,</p> +<p class="i20"> And soon it will be here.</p> +<p>The little birds begin to sing,</p> +<p class="i20"> Trees don their green array,</p> +<p>Hens in the yard begin to cluck,</p> +<p class="i20"> And store of eggs to lay.</p> +<p>The herds their winter shelter leave</p> +<p class="i20"> For mountain-side and top;</p> +<p>The goats begin to sport and skip,</p> +<p class="i20"> And early buds to crop;</p> +<p>Beasts, birds, and men all give themselves</p> +<p class="i20"> To joy and merry heart,</p> +<p>And ice and snow and northern winds</p> +<p class="i20"> Are melted and depart.</p> +<p>Foul February, snowy March,</p> +<p class="i20"> Fair April will not tarry.</p> +<p>Hence, February! March, begone!</p> +<p class="i20"> Away the winter carry!"</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>When they leave off singing, the children cry "Pritz! +Pritz!" imitating the sound of the rapid flight of a +bird. Longfellow translated a curious Stork-carol +sung in spring-time by the Hungarian boys on the +islands of the Danube:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Stork! Stork! Poor Stork!</p> +<p>Why is thy foot so bloody?</p> +<p>A Turkish boy hath torn it,</p> +<p>Hungarian boy will heal it,</p> +<p>With fiddle, fife, and drum.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Before the sun was up on May-day morning, the +people of Edinburgh assembled at Arthur's Seat to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page253" id="page253"></a>253</span> +"meet the dew." May-dew was thought to possess +all kinds of virtues. English girls went into the fields +at dawn to wash their faces in it, in order to procure +a good complexion. Pepys speaks of his wife going +to Woolwich for a little change of air, and to gather +the May-dew. In Croatia, the women get from the +woods flowers and grasses which they throw into +water taken from under a mill-wheel, and next morning +they bathe in the water, imagining that thus the +new strength of Nature enters into them. There is +said to also exist a singular rain-custom in Croatia. +When a drought threatens to injure the crops, a young +girl, generally a gipsy, dresses herself entirely in +flowers and grasses, in which primitive raiment she +is conducted through the village by her companions, +who sing to the skies for mercy. In Greece, too, +there are many songs and ceremonies in connection +with a desire for the rain, which never comes during +the whole pitiless summer.</p> + +<p>If there be a part of the world where spring plays +the laggard, it is certainly the upper valley of the Inn. +Nevertheless the children of the Engadine trudge +forth bravely over the snow, shaking their cow-bells +and singing lustily:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Chalanda Mars, chaland'Avrigl</p> +<p>Lasché las vachias our d'nuilg.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Were the cows to leave their stables as is here enjoined, +they would not find a blade of grass to eat—but +that does not matter. The children have probably +sung that song ever since their forefathers +came up to the mountains; came up in all likelihood +from sunny Tuscany. The Engadine lads, after doing +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page254" id="page254"></a>254</span> +justice to their March-day fare, set out for the boundaries +of their commune, where they are met by +another band of boys, with whom they contend in +various trials of strength, which sometimes end in +hand-to-hand fights. This may be analogous to the +old English usage of beating the younger generation +once a year at the village boundaries in order to impress +on them a lasting idea of local geography. By +the Lake of Poschiavo it is the custom to "call after +the grass"—"chiamar l'erba"—on March-day.</p> + +<p>In the end, as has been seen, March gets an ill-word +from the Greek folk-singer, who is not more constant +in his praise of April. It is the old fatality which +makes the Better the Enemy of the Good.</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>May is coming, May is coming, comes the month so blithe and gay;</p> +<p>April truly has its flowers, but all roses bloom in May;</p> +<p>April, thou accurst one, vanish! Sweet May-month I long to see;</p> +<p>May fills all the world with flowers, May will give my love to me.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>May is pre-eminently the bridal month in Greece; +a strange contradiction to the prejudice against May +marriages that prevails in most parts of Europe. +"Marry in May, rue for aye." The Romans have +been held responsible for this superstition. They +kept their festival of the dead during May, and while +it lasted other forms of worship were suspended. To +contract marriage would have been to defy the fates. +Traces of a spring feast of souls survive in France, +where, on Palm Sunday, <i>Pâques fleuries</i> as it is called, +it is customary to set the first fresh flowers of the +year upon the graves. Nor is it by any means uninteresting +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page255" id="page255"></a>255</span> +to note that in one great empire far outside +of the Roman world the <i>fête des morts</i> is assigned not +to the quiet close of the year but to the delightful +spring. The Chinese festival of Clear Weather which +falls in April is the chosen time for worshipping at +the family tombs.</p> + +<p>The marriage of Mary Queen of Scots and James +Bothwell was celebrated on the 16th of May; an +unknown hand wrote upon the gate of Holyrood +Palace Ovid's warning:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i8"> Si te proverbia tangunt,</p> +<p>Mense malas Maio nubere vulgus ait.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Of English songs treating of that "observance" or +"rite" of May to which Chaucer and Shakespeare +bear witness, there are unfortunately few. The old +nursery rhyme:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Here we go a-piping,</p> +<p>First in spring and then in May,</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>tells the usual story of house-to-house visiting and +expected largess. In Devonshire, children used to +take round a richly-dressed doll; such a doll is still +borne in triumph by the children of Great Missenden, +Bucks, where a doggerel is sung, of which these are +the concluding verses:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>A branch of May I have you brought,</p> +<p>And at your door I stand;</p> +<p>'Tis but a spray that's well put out</p> +<p>By the works of the mighty Lord's hand.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>If you have got no strong beer,</p> +<p>We'll be content with small;</p> +<p>And take the goodwill of your house,</p> +<p>And give good thanks for all.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page256" id="page256"></a>256</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>God bless the master of this house,</p> +<p>The mistress also;</p> +<p>Likewise the little children</p> +<p>That round the table go.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>My song is done, I must be gone,</p> +<p>No longer can I stay;</p> +<p>God bless you all, both great and small,</p> +<p>And send you a joyful May.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The poets of Great Missenden not being prolific, the +two middle stanzas are used at Christmas as well as +on May-day.</p> + +<p>May-poles were prohibited by the Long Parliament +of 1644, being denounced as a "heathenish vanity +generally abused to superstition and wickedness." A +long while before, the Roman Floralia, the feast when +people carried green boughs and wore fresh garlands, +had been put down for somewhat the same reasons. +With regard to May-poles I am not inclined to think +too harshly of them. They died hard: an old Essex +man told me on his death-bed of how when he was a +lad the young folks danced regularly round the May-pole +on May-day, and in his opinion it was a good +time. It was a time, he went on to say, when the +country was a different thing; twice a day the +postillion's horn sounded down the village street, the +Woolpack Inn was often full even to the attics in its +pretty gabled roof, all sorts of persons of quality fell +out of the clouds, or to speak exactly, emerged from +the London coach. The life of the place seemed to +be gone, said my friend, and yet "the place" is in the +very highest state of modern prosperity.</p> + +<p>The parade of sweeps in bowers of greenery lingered +on rather longer in England than May-poles. It is +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page257" id="page257"></a>257</span> +stated to have originated in this way. Edward +Wortley Montagu (born about 1714), who later was +destined to win celebrity by still stranger freaks, +escaped when a boy from Westminster School and +borrowed the clothes of a chimney sweep, in whose +trade he became an adept. A long search resulted +in his discovery and restoration to his parents on +May 1; in recollection of which event Mrs Elizabeth +Montagu is said to have instituted the May-day feast +given by her for many years to the London chimney-sweepers.</p> + +<p>In the country west of Glasgow it is still remembered +how once the houses were adorned with flowers and +branches on the first of May, and in some parts of +Ireland they still plant a May-tree or May-bush before +the door of the farmhouse, throwing it at sundown +into a bonfire. The lighting of fires was not an +uncommon feature of May-day observance, but it is +a practice which seems to me to have strayed into +that connection from its proper place in the great +festival of the summer solstice on St John's Eve. +Among people of English speech, May-day customs +are little more than a cheerful memory. Herrick wrote:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Wash, dress, be brief in praying,</p> +<p>Few beads are best when once we go a-maying.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>People neglect their "beads" or the equivalents now +from other motives.</p> + +<p>May night is the German Walpurgis-nacht. The +witches ride up to the Brocken on magpies' tails, not +a magpie can be seen for the next twenty-four hours—they +are all gone and they have not had time to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page258" id="page258"></a>258</span> +return. The witches dance on the Brocken till they +have danced away the winter's snow. May-brides and +May-kings are still to be heard of in Germany, and +children run about on May-day with buttercups or +with a twist of bread, a <i>Bretzel</i>, decked with ribbons, +or holding imprisoned may-flies, which they let loose +whilst they sing:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Maïkäferchen fliege,</p> +<p>Dein Vater ist in kriege,</p> +<p>Deine Mutter ist in Pommerland,</p> +<p>Pommerland ist abgebrannt,</p> +<p>Maïkäferchen fliege.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>May chafer must fly away home, his father is at the +wars, his mother is in Pomerania, Pomerania is all +burnt. May chafer in short is the brother of our ladybird. +Dr Karl Blind is of opinion that "Pommerland" +is a later interpolation for "Holler-land"—the +land of Freya—Holda, the Teutonic Aphrodite; and +he and other German students of mythology see in +the conflagration an allusion to the final end and doom +of the kingdom of the gods. It is pointed out that +the ladybird was Freya's messenger, whose business it +was to call the unborn from their tranquil sojourn +amongst celestial flowers, into the storms of human +existence. There is an airy May chafer song in +Alsace—Teutonic in tradition, though French in tongue:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4">Avril, tu t'en vas,</p> +<p class="i4">Car Mai vient là-bas,</p> +<p>Pour balayer ta figure</p> +<p>De pluie, aussi de froidure.</p> +<p class="i8">Hanneton, vole!</p> +<p class="i8">Hanneton, vole!</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page259" id="page259"></a>259</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4">Au firmament bleu</p> +<p class="i4">Ton nid est en feu,</p> +<p>Les Turcs avec leur épée</p> +<p>Viennent tuer ta couvée.</p> +<p class="i8">Hanneton, vole!</p> +<p class="i8">Hanneton, vole!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Dr Blind recollects taking part, as a boy, in an +extremely curious children's drama, which is still +played in some places in the open air. It is an allegory +of the expulsion of winter, who is killed and +burnt, and of the arrival of summer, who comes +decked with flowers and garlands. The children repeat:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Now have we chased death away,</p> +<p>And we bring the summer weather;</p> +<p>Summer dear and eke the May,</p> +<p>And the flowers all together:</p> +<p>Bringing summer we are come,</p> +<p>Summer tide and sunshine home.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>With this may be compared an account given by +Olaus Magnus, a Swedish writer of the fifteenth century, +of how May Day was celebrated in his time. +"A number of youths on horseback were drawn up +in two lines facing each other, the one party representing +'Winter' and the other 'Summer.' The +leader of the former was clad in wild beasts' skins, +and he and his men were armed with snow-balls and +pieces of ice. The commander of the latter—'Maj +Greve,' or Count May—was, on the contrary, decorated +with leaves and flowers, and his followers had +for weapons branches of the birch or linden tree, +which, having been previously steeped in water, were +then in leaf. At a given signal, a sham fight ensued +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page260" id="page260"></a>260</span> +between the opposing forces. If the season was cold +and backward, 'Winter' and his party were impetuous +in their attack, and in the beginning the +advantage was supposed to rest with them; but if +the weather was genial, and the spring had fairly set +in, 'Maj Greve' and his men carried all before them. +Under any circumstances, however, the umpire always +declared the victory to rest with 'Summer.' The +winter party then strewed ashes on the ground, and a +joyous banquet terminated the game." Mr L. Lloyd, +author of "Peasant Life in Sweden" (1870), records +some lines sung by Swedish children when collecting +provisions for the <i>Maj gille</i> or May feast, which recall +the "Swallow-song":</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"Best loves from Mr and Mrs Magpie,</p> +<p>From all their eggs and all their fry,</p> +<p>O give them alms, if ever so small,</p> +<p>Else hens and chickens and eggs and all,</p> +<p>A prey to 'Piet' will surely fall."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The Swedes raise their <i>Maj stăng</i> or May-pole, not +on May, but on St John's Eve, a change due, I suspect, +to the exigencies of the climate.</p> + +<p>German <i>Mailieder</i> are one very much like the +other; they are full of the simple gladness of children +who have been shut up in houses, and who now can +run about in the sunny air. I came across the following +in Switzerland:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"Alles neu macht der Mai,</p> +<p>Macht die Seele frisch und frei.</p> +<p>Lasst dans Haus!</p> +<p>Kommt hinaus!</p> +<p>Windet einen Strauss!</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page261" id="page261"></a>261</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Rings erglänzet Sonnenschein,</p> +<p>Dustend pranget Flur und Hain.</p> +<p>Vögel-sang,</p> +<p>Lust'ger Klang</p> +<p>Tönt den Wald entlang."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>In Lorraine girls dressed in white go from village +to village stringing off couplets, in which the inhabitants +are turned into somewhat unmerciful ridicule. +The girls of this place enlighten the people of that +as to their small failings, and so <i>vice versâ</i>. All the +winter the village poets harvest the jokes made by +one community at the expense of another, in order to +shape them into a consecutive whole for recital on +May Day. The girls are rewarded for their part in +the business by small coin, cakes and fruit. The +May-songs of Lorraine are termed "Trimazos," from +the fact that they are always sung to the refrain,</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"O Trimazot, ç'at lo Maye;</p> +<p class="i10"> O mi-Maye!</p> +<p>Ç'at lo joli mois de Maye,</p> +<p class="i10"> Ç'at lo Trimazot."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The derivation of <i>Trimazo</i> is uncertain; someone +suggested that <i>Tri</i> stands for three, and <i>mazo</i> for +maidens; but I think <i>mazo</i> is more likely to be connected +with the Italian <i>mazzo</i>, "nosegay." The word +is known outside Lorraine: at Islettes children say:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"Trimazot! en nous allant</p> +<p>Nous pormenés eddans les champs</p> +<p>Nous y ons trouvé les blés si grands</p> +<p>Les Aubépin' en fleurissant."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>They beg for money to buy a taper for the Virgin's +altar; for it must not be forgotten that the month of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page262" id="page262"></a>262</span> +May is the month of Mary. The villagers add a little +flour to their pious offering, so that the children may +make cakes. Elsewhere in Champagne young girls +collect the taper money; they cunningly appeal to +the tenderness of the young mother by bringing to +her mind the hour "when she takes her pretty child +up in the morning and lays him to sleep at night." +There was a day on which the girls of the neighbourhood +of Remiremont used to way-lay every youth +they met on the road to the church of Dommartin and +insist on sticking a sprig of rosemary or laurel in his +cap, saying, "We have found a fine gentleman, God +give him joy and health; take the May, the pretty +May!" The fine gentleman was requested to give +"what he liked" for the dear Virgin's sake. In the +department of the Jura there are May-brides, and in +Bresse they have a May-queen who is attended by a +youth, selected for the purpose, and by a little boy +who carries a green bough ornamented with ribands. +She heads the village girls and boys, who walk as in +a marriage procession, and who receive eggs, wine, or +money. A song still sung in Burgundy recalls the +præ-revolutionary æra and the respect inspired by the +seigneurial woods:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"Le voilà venu le joli mois,</p> +<p class="i4"> Laissez bourgeonner le bois;</p> +<p>Le voilà venu le joli mois,</p> +<p class="i4"> Le joli bois bourgeonne.</p> +<p>Il faut laisser bourgeonner le bois,</p> +<p class="i4"> Le bois du gentilhomme."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The young peasants of Poitou betake themselves to +the door of each homestead before the dawn of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page263" id="page263"></a>263</span> +May morning and summon the mistress of the house +to waken her daughters:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"For we are come before hath come the day</p> +<p>To sing the coming of the month of May."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>But they do not ask the damsels to stand there +listening to compliments; "Go to the hen-roost," +they say, "and get eighteen, or still better, twenty +new laid eggs." If the eggs cannot be had, they can +bring money, only let them make haste, as day-break +is near and the road is long. By way of acknowledgment +the spokesman adds a sort of "And your petitioners +will ever pray;" they will pray for the purse +which held the money and for the hen that laid the +eggs. If St Nicholas only hears them that hen will +eat the fox, instead of the fox eating the hen. The +gift is seemly. Now the dwellers in the homestead +may go back to their beds and bar doors and windows; +"as for us, we go through all the night singing +at the arrival of sweet spring."</p> + +<p>The antiquary in search of May-songs will turn to +the Motets and Pastorals of that six-hundred-year-old +Comic Opera "Li gieus de Robin et de Marion." +Its origin was not illiterate, but in Adam de la Halle's +time and country poets who had some letters and +poets who had none did not stand so widely apart. +The May month, the summer sweetness, the lilies of +the valley, the green meadows—these constituted +pretty well the whole idea which the French rustic +had formed to himself of what poetry was. It cannot +be denied that he came to use these things occasionally +as mere commonplaces, a tendency which increased +as time wore on. But he has his better +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page264" id="page264"></a>264</span> +moods, and some of his ditties are not wanting in +elegance. Here is an old song preserved in Burgundy:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Voici venu le mois des fleurs</p> +<p>Des chansons et des senteurs;</p> +<p class="i6"> Le mois qui tout enchante</p> +<p class="i6"> Le mois de douce attente.</p> +<p>Le buisson reprend ses couleurs</p> +<p class="i6"> Au bois l'oiseau chante.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Il est venu sans mes amours</p> +<p>One j'attends, hélas, toujours;</p> +<p class="i6"> Tandis que l'oiseau chante</p> +<p class="i6"> Et que le mai l' on plante</p> +<p>Seule en ces bois que je parcours</p> +<p class="i6"> Seule je me lamente.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>In the France of the sixteenth century, the planting +of the May took a literary turn. At Lyons, for +instance, the printers were in the habit of setting up +what was called "Le Mai des Imprimeurs" before +the door of some distinguished person. The members +of the illustrious Lombard house of Trivulzi, who +between them held the government of Lyons for +more than twenty-five years, were on several occasions +chosen as recipients of the May-day compliment. +"Le Grand Trivulce," marshal of France, +was a great patron of literature, and the encouragement +of the liberal arts grew to be a tradition in the +family. In 1529 Theodore de Trivulce had a May +planted in his honour bearing a poetical address from +the pen of Clement Marot, and Pompone de Trivulce +received a like distinction in 1535, when Etienne +Dolet wrote for the occasion an ode in the purest +Latin, which may be read in Mr R. C. Christie's +biography of its author.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page265" id="page265"></a>265</span> + +<p>Giulio Cesare Croce, the famous ballad-singer of +Bologna (born 1550), wrote a "Canzonetta vaga in +lode del bel mese di maggio et delle regine o contesse +che si fanno quel giorno in Bologna," and in 1622, +a small book was published at Bologna, entitled: +"Ragionamenti piacevoli intorno alle contesse di +maggio; piantar il maggio; nozze che si fanno in +maggio." The author, Vincenzo Giacchiroli, observes: +"These countesses, according to what I have read, +the Florentines call Dukes of May—perhaps because +there they have real dukes." The first of May, he +continues, the young girls select one from among +them and set her on a high seat or throne in some +public street, adorned and surrounded with greenery, +and with such flowers as the season affords. To this +maiden, in semblance like the goddess Flora, they +compel every passer-by to give something, either by +catching him by his clothes, or by holding a cord +across the street to intercept him, singing at the same +time, "Alla contessa, alla contessa!" They who pass, +therefore, throw into a plate or receptacle prepared +for the purpose, money, or flowers, or what not, for +the new countess. In some places it was the custom +to kiss the countess; "neither," adds the author, "is +this to be condemned, since so were wont to do the +ancients as a sign of honour."</p> + +<p>Regarding a similar usage at Mantua, Merlinus +Coccaius (Folengo) wrote:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"Accidit una dies qua Mantua tota bagordat</p> +<p>Prima dies mensis Maii quo quisque piantat</p> +<p>Per stradas ramos frondosos nomine mazzos." &c.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Exactly the same practice lingers in Spain. In the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page266" id="page266"></a>266</span> +town of Almeria, improvised temples are raised at +the street corners and gateways, where, on an altar +covered with damask or other rich stuff, a girl decked +with flowers is seated, whilst around her in a circle +stand other girls, also crowned with flowers, who hold +hands, and intone, like a Greek chorus—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">"Un cuartito para la Maya,</p> +<p>Que no tiene manto ni saya."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>"A penny for the May who has neither mantle nor +petticoat."</p> + +<p>Lorenzo de' Medici says in one of his ballads:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Se tu vuo' appiccare un maio.</p> +<p>A qualcuna che tu ami....</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>In his day "Singing the May" was almost a trade; +the country folk flocked into Florence with their May +trees and rustic instruments and took toll of the +citizens. The custom continues along the Ligurian +coast. At Spezia I saw the boys come round on +May-day piping and singing, and led by one, taller +than the rest, who carried an Italian flag covered with +garlands. The name of the master of the house +before which they halt is introduced into a song that begins:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Siam venuti a cantar maggio,</p> +<p class="i2">Al Signore ——</p> +<p>Come ogn' anno usar si suole,</p> +<p class="i2">Nella stagion di primavera.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Since Chaucer, who loved so dearly the "May Kalendes" +and the "See of the day," no one has celebrated +them with a more ingenuous charm than the country +lads of the island of Sardinia, who sing "May, May, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page267" id="page267"></a>267</span> +be thou welcome, with all Sun and Love; with the +Flower and with the Soul, and with the Marguerite." +A Tuscan and a Pisan <i>Rispetto</i> may be taken as +representative of Italian May-song:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">'Twas in the Calends of the month of May,</p> +<p class="i4">I went into the garden for a flower,</p> +<p class="i2">A wild bird there I saw upon a spray,</p> +<p class="i4">Singing of love with skilled melodious power.</p> +<p class="i2">O little bird, who dost from Florence speed</p> +<p class="i2">Teach me whence loving doth at first proceed?</p> +<p class="i2">Love has its birth in music and in songs</p> +<p class="i2">Its end, alas! to tears and grief belongs.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Era di maggio, se ben mi ricordo</p> +<p class="i6">Quando c'incominciammo a ben volere</p> +<p class="i6">Eran fiorite le rose dell'orto,</p> +<p class="i6">E le ciliege diventavan nere;</p> +<p class="i8">Ciliege nere e pere moscatelle,</p> +<p class="i6">Siete il trionfo delle donne belle</p> +<p class="i8">Ciliege nere e pere moscatate.</p> +<p class="i6">Siete il trionfo delle innamorate</p> +<p class="i8">Ciliege nere e pere moscatine.</p> +<p class="i6">Siete il trionfo delle piu belline.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The child's or lover's play of words in this last baffles +all attempt at translation: it is not sense but sweetness, +not poetry but music. It is as much without +rule or study or conventionality as the song of birds +when in Italian phrase, <i>fanno primavera</i>.</p> + +<p>In the Province of Brescia the Thursday of Mid-Lent +is kept by what is called "Burning the old +women." A doll made of straw or rags, representing +the oldest woman, is hung outside the window; or, if +in a street, suspended from a cord passed from one +side to the other. Everyone makes the tour of town +or village to see <i>le Vecchie</i> who at sundown are consigned +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page268" id="page268"></a>268</span> +to the flames, generally with a distaff placed +in their hands. It is a picturesque sight at Salò, +when the bonfires blaze at different heights up the +hills, casting long reflections across the clear lake-water. +The sacrifice is consummated—but what sacrifice? +I was at first disposed to simply consider the +"old woman" as a type of winter, but I am informed +that by those who have studied relics of the same +usage in other lands, she is held to be a relative of the +"harvest-man" or growth-genius, who must be either +appeased or destroyed. Yet a third interpretation +occurs to me, which I offer for what it is worth. +Might not the <i>Vecchia</i> be the husk which must be +cast off before the miracle of new birth is accomplished? +"The seed that thou sowest shall not +quicken unless it die." Hardly any idea has furnished +so much occasion for symbolism as this, that life is +death, and death is life.</p> + +<p>Professor d'Ancona believes, that to the custom of +keeping May by singing from house to house and +collecting largess of eggs or fruit or cheese, may be +traced the dramatic representations, which, under the +name of <i>Maggi</i>, can still be witnessed in certain +districts of the Tuscan Hills and of the plain of Pisa. +These May-plays are performed any Sunday in +Spring, just after Mass; the men, women, and children, +hastening from the church-door to the roughly-built +theatre which has the sky for roof, the grey +olives and purple hills for background. The verses +of the play (it is always in verse) are sung to a sort of +monotonous but elastic chant, in nearly every case +unaccompanied by instruments. No one can do more +than guess when that chant was composed; it may +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page269" id="page269"></a>269</span> +have been five hundred years ago and it may have +been much more. Grief or joy, love and hate, all are +expressed upon the same notes. It is possible that +some such recitative was used in the Greek drama. +A play that was not sung would not seem a play to +the Tuscan contadino. The characters are acted by +men or boys, the peasants not liking their wives and +daughters to perform in public. A considerable number +of <i>Maggi</i> exist in print or in MS. carefully copied +for the convenience of the actors. The subjects range +from King David to Count Ugolino, from the siege +of Troy to the French Revolution. They seem for +most part modern compositions, cast in a form which +was probably invented before the age of Dante.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page270" id="page270"></a>270</span> + +<h2>THE IDEA OF FATE IN SOUTHERN TRADITIONS.</h2> + +<p>In the early world of Greece and Italy, the beliefs +relating to Fate had a vital and penetrative force +which belonged only to them. "Nothing," says +Sophocles, "is so terrible to man as Fate." It was +the shadow cast down the broad sunlight of the roofless +Hellenic life. All Greece, its gods and men, +bowed at that word which Victor Hugo saw, or +imagined that he saw, graven on a pillar of Nôtre +Dame: <ins title="Anankê"><i>Ανάγκη</i></ins>. Necessity alone of the supernatural +powers was not made by man in his own image. It +had no sacred grove, for in the whole world there was +no place where to escape from it, no peculiar sect of +votaries, for all were bound equally to obey; it could +not be bought off with riches nor withstood by valour; +no man worshipped it, many groaned under its dispensation; +but by all it was vaguely felt to be the +instrument of a pure justice. If they did not, with +Herder, call Fate's law "Eternal Truth," yet their +idea of necessity carried these men nearer than did +any other of their speculative guesses to the idea of a +morally-governed universe.</p> + +<p>The belief in one Fate had its train of accessorial +beliefs. The Parcae and the Erinnyes figured as dark +angels of Destiny. Then, in response to the double +needs of superstition and materialism, the impersonal +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page271" id="page271"></a>271</span> +Fate itself took the form of the Greek Tyche, and of +that Fortuna, who, in Rome alone, had no less than +eight temples. There were some indeed who saw in +Fortune nothing else than the old <i>dira necessitas</i>; but +to the popular mind, she was nearer to chance than to +necessity; she dealt out the favourable accident +which goes further to secure success than do the +subtlest combinations of men. The Romans did not +only demand of a military leader that he should have +talent, foresight, energy; they asked, was he <i>felix</i>—happy, +fortunate? Since human life was seen to be, +on the whole, but a sorry business, and since it was +also seen that the prosperous were not always the +meritorious, the inference followed that Fortune was +capricious, changeable, and, if not immoral, at least +unmoral. With this character she came down to the +Middle Ages, having contrived to outlive the whole +Roman pantheon.</p> + +<p>So Dante found her, and inquired of his guide who +and what she might really be?</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4">Maestro, dissi lui, or mi di' anche:</p> +<p>Questa Fortuna di che tu mi tocche,</p> +<p>Che è, che i ben del mondo ha sì tra branche?</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Dante had no wish to level the spiritual windmills +that lay in his path: he left them standing, only +seeking a proper reason for their being there. Therefore +he did not answer himself in the words of the +Tuscan proverb: "Chi crede in sorte, non crede in +Dio;" but, on the contrary, tried to prove that the +two beliefs might be perfectly reconciled. "He +whose knowledge transcends all things" (is the reply) +"fashioned the heavens, and gave unto them a controlling +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page272" id="page272"></a>272</span> +force in such wise that each part shines upon +each, distributing equally the light. Also to worldly +splendours he ordained a general minister, and +captain, who should timely change the tide of vain +prosperity from race to race and from blood to +blood. Why these prevail, and those languish, according +to her ruling, is hidden, like the snake in +the grass; your knowledge has in her no counterpart; +she provides, judges, and pursues her governance, as +do theirs the other gods. Her permutations have no +truce, necessity makes her swift; for he is swift in +coming who would have his turn. This is she who is +upbraided even by those who should praise her, giving +her blame wrongfully and ill-repute; but she continues +blessed, and hearkens not; glad among the +other primal creatures, she revolves her sphere, and +being blessed, rejoices."</p> + +<p>The peasants, the <i>pagani</i> of Italy, did not give +their name for nothing to the entire system of antiquity. +They were its last, its most faithful adherents, +and to this day their inmost being is watered from +the springs of the antique. They have preserved old-world +thoughts as they have preserved old-world pots +and pans. In the isolated Tuscan farm you will be +lighted to your bed by a woman carrying an oil lamp +identical in form with those buried in Etruscan +tombs; on the Neapolitan hill-side a girl will give +you to drink out of a jar not to be distinguished from +the amphoræ of Pompeii. A stranger hunting in the +campagna may often hear himself addressed with the +"Tu" of Roman simplicity. The living Italian +people are the most interesting of classical remains. +Even their religion has helped to perpetuate practices +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page273" id="page273"></a>273</span> +older than Italy. How is it possible, for instance, to +see the humble shrine by vineyard or maize field, with +its posy of flowers and its wreath of box hung before +the mild countenance of some local saint, without remembering +what the chorus says to Admetus: "Deem +not, O king, of the tomb of thy wife as of the vulgar +departed; rather let it be kept in religious veneration, +a cynosure for the way-faring man. And as one +climbs the slanting pathway, these will be the words +he utters: 'This was she who erewhile laid down her +life for her husband; now she is a saint for evermore. +Hail, blessed spirit, befriend and aid us!' Such the +words that will be spoken."</p> + +<p>Can it be doubted that the Catholic honour of the +dead—nay, even the cult of the Virgin, which crept so +mysteriously into the exercise of Christian worship—had +birth, not in the councils of priests and schoolmen, +but in the all-unconscious grafting by the people +of Italy of the new faith upon an older stock?</p> + +<p>With this persistency of thought, observable in outward +trifles, as in the deepest yearnings of the soul, it +would be strange if the Italian mind had ceased to +occupy itself with the old wonder about fate. The +folk-lore of the country will show the mould into +which the ancient speculations have been cast, and in +how far these have undergone change, whether in the +sense of assimilating new theories or in that of reverting +to a still earlier order of ideas.</p> + +<p>They tell at Venice the story of a husbandman +who had set his heart on finding <i>one who was just</i> to +be sponsor to his new-born child. He took the babe +in his arms and went forth into the public ways to +seek <i>El Giusto</i>. He walked and walked and met a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page274" id="page274"></a>274</span> +man (who was our Lord) and to him he said, "I have +got this son to christen, but I do not wish to give him +to any one who is not just. Are you just?" To him +the Lord replied, "But I do not know if I am just." +Then the husbandman went a little further and met +a woman (who was the Madonna), and to her he +said, "I have this son to christen, but I only wish to +give him to one who is just. Are you just?" "I +know not," said the Madonna; "but go a little further +and you will meet one who is just." After that, he +went a little further, and met another woman who +was Death. "I have been sent to you," he said, +"for they say you are just. I have a child to christen, +and I do not wish to give him except to one who is +just. Are you just?" "Why, yes; I think I am +just," said Death; "but let us christen the babe and +afterwards I will show you if I am just." So the boy +was christened, and then this woman led the husbandman +into a long, long room where there were an +immense number of lighted lamps. "Gossip," said +the man, who marvelled at seeing so many lamps, +"what is the meaning of all these lights?" Said +Death: "These are the lights of all the souls that are in +the world. Would you like just to see, Gossip? That +is yours, and that is your son's." And the husbandman, +who saw that his lamp was going out, said, +"And when there is no more oil, Gossip?" "Then," +replied Death, "one has to come to me, for I am +Death." "Oh! for charity," said the husbandman, +"do let me pour a little of the oil out of my son's +lamp into mine!" "No, no, Gossip," said Death, "I +don't go in for that sort of thing. A just one you +wished to meet, and a just one you have found. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page275" id="page275"></a>275</span> +And now, go you to your house and put your affairs +in order, for I am waiting for you."<a id="footnotetagF1" name="footnotetagF1"></a><a href="#footnoteF1"><sup>1</sup></a></p> + +<p>In this parable, we see a severe fatalism, which is +still more oriental than antique.</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p> <span class="xl">. . . </span>God gives each man one life, like a lamp, then gives</p> +<p>That lamp due measure of oil....</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The Mahomedans say that there are trees in heaven +on each of whose leaves is the name of a human being, +and whenever one of these leaves withers and falls, +the man whose name it bears dies with it. The conception +of human life as of something bound up and +incorporated with an object seemingly foreign, lies at +the very root of elementary beliefs. In an Indian +tale the life of a boy resides in a gold necklace +which is in the heart of a fish; in another a woman's +life is contained in a bird: when the bird is killed, the +woman must perish. In a third a prince plants a +tree before he goes on a journey, saying as he does +so, "This tree is my life. When you see the tree +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page276" id="page276"></a>276</span> +green and fresh, then know that it is well with me. +When you see the tree fade in some parts, then know +that I am in an ill case. When you see the whole +tree fade, then know that I am dead and gone."</p> + +<p>According to a legend of wide extension—it is +known from Esthonia to the Pyrenees—all men were +once aware of the hour of their death. But one day +Christ went by and saw a man raising a hedge of +straw. "That hedge will last but for a short while," +He said; to which the man answered, "It will be +good for as long as I live; that it should last longer, +matters not;" and forthwith Christ ordained that no +man should thereafter know when he should die.</p> + +<p>The southern populations of Italy cling to the idea +that from the moment of a man's birth his future lot +is decided, whether for good or evil hap, and that he +has but little power of altering or modifying the +irrevocable sentence. There are lucky and unlucky +days to be born on; lucky and unlucky circumstances +attendant on an entry into the world, which affect all +stages of the subsequent career. He who is born on +the last day of the year, will always arrive late. It +is very unfortunate to be born when there is no moon. +Anciently the moon was taken as symbol both of +Fortune, and of Hecate, goddess of Magic. The +Calabrian children have a song: "Moon, holy moon, +send me good fortune; thou shining, and I content, +lustrous thou, I fortunate." Also at Cagliari, in +Sardinia, they sing: "Moon, my moon, give me +luck; give me money, so I may amuse myself; give +it soon, so I may buy sweetmeats." The changing +phases of the moon doubtless contributed to its +identification with fortune; "Wind, women, and fortune," +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page277" id="page277"></a>277</span> +runs the Basque proverb, "change like the +moon." But yet more, its influence over terrestrial +phenomena, always mysterious to the ignorant observer +and by him readily magnified to any extent, +served to connect it with whatever occult, unaccountable +power was uppermost in people's minds.</p> + +<p>In Italy, nothing is done without consulting the +<i>Lunario</i>. All kinds of roots and seeds must be +planted with the new moon, or they will bear no +produce. Timber must be cut down with the old +moon, or it will quickly rot. These rules and many +more are usually followed; and it is reported as a +matter of fact, that their infringement brings the +looked-for results. In the Neapolitan province, old +women go to the graveyards by night and count the +tombs illuminated by the moonlight; the sum total +gives them a "number" for the lottery. The extraordinary +vagaries of superstition kept alive by the public +lotteries are of almost endless variety and complexity. +No well-known man dies without thousands of the +poorest Neapolitans racking their brains with abtruse +calculations on the dates of his birth, death, and so +on, in the hope of discovering a lucky number. Fortune, +chance (what, after all, shall it be called?) sometimes +strangely favours these pagan devices. When +Pio Nono died, the losses of the Italian exchequer +were enormous; and in January 1884, the numbers +staked on the occasion of the death of the patriot De +Sanctis, produced winnings to the amount of over two +million francs. During the last cholera epidemic, the +daily rate of mortality was eagerly studied with a +view to happy combinations. Even in North Italy +such things are not unknown. At Venice, when a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page278" id="page278"></a>278</span> +notable Englishman died some years ago in a hotel, +the number of his room was played next day by half +the population. Domestic servants are among the +most inveterate gamblers; they all have their cabalistic +books, and a large part of their earnings goes to +the insatiable "lotto."</p> + +<p>The feeling of helplessness in the hands of Fate is +strongest in those countries where there is the least +control over Nature. The relations between man and +Nature affect not only the social life, but also the +theology and politics of whole races of men. A +learned Armenian who lives at Venice, came to London +for a week in June to see some English friends. +It rained every day, and when he left Dover, the +white cliffs were enveloped in impenetrable fog. "I +asked myself" (he wrote, describing his experiences) +"how it was possible that a great nation should exist +behind all that vapour?" It was suggested to him +that in the continual but, in the long run, victorious +struggle with an ungenial climate might lie the secret +of the development of that great nation. Different +are the lands where the soil yields its increase almost +without the labour of man, till one fine day the whole +is swallowed up by flood or earthquake.</p> + +<p>The songs of luck, or rather of ill-luck, nearly all +come from the Calabrias. There are hundreds of +variations upon the monotonous theme of predestined +misery. "In my mother's womb I began to have no +fortune; my swaddling clothes were woven of melancholy; +when we went to church, the woman who +carried me died upon the way, and the godfather who +held me at the font said, 'Misfortunate art thou born, +my daughter!'" Here is another: "Hapless was I +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page279" id="page279"></a>279</span> +born, and with a darkened moon; never did a fair +day dawn for me. Habited in weeds, and attended +by cruel fortune, I sail upon a sea of grief and +trouble." Or this: "Wretched am I, for against me +conspired heaven and fortune and destiny; and the +four elements decreed that never should I prosper: +earth would engulf me; air took away my breath; +water flowed with my tears; fire burnt this poor +heart." Again: "I was created under an ill-star; +never had I an hour's content. By my friends I saw +myself forsaken, and chased away by my mistress. +The heavens moved against me, the stars, the planets, +and fortune; if there is no better lot for me, open +thou earth and give me sepulchre!" The luckless +wretch imagines that the sea, even where it was +deepest, dried up at his birth; and the spring dried +up for that year, and all the flowers that were in the +world dried up; and the birds went singing: "I am +the most luckless wight on earth!" Human friendship +is a delusion: "I was the friend of all, and a true +friend—for my friends I reckoned life as little." But +he is not served so by others: "Wretched is he who +trusts in fortune; sad is he who hopes in human +friendship! Every friend abandons thee at need, and +walks afar from thy sorrow." No good can come to +him who is born for ill: "When I was born, it was at +sea, amongst Turks and Moors. A gipsy asked to +tell my fortune; 'Dig,' she said, 'and thou shalt find +a great treasure.' I took the spade in my hand to +dig, but I found neither silver nor gold. Traitress +gipsy who deceived me! Who is born afflicted, dies +disconsolate."</p> + +<p>So continues the long tale of woe; childish in part, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page280" id="page280"></a>280</span> +but withal tragic by other force of iteration. This +song of Nardò may be taken as its epitome:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>The heavens were overcast when I was born;</p> +<p>No luck for me, no, luckless and forlorn,</p> +<p>E'en from my cradle, all forlorn was I;</p> +<p>No luck for me, no, grief for ever nigh.</p> +<p>I loved—my love was paid by fraud and scorn;</p> +<p>No luck for me, no, luckless and forlorn.</p> +<p>The stars and moon were darkened in the sky,</p> +<p>No luck for me, no, naught but misery!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The Calabrians have a house-spirit called the +<i>Auguriellu</i>, who appears generally dressed as a little +monk, and who has his post especially by babies' +cradles: he is thought to be one of the less erring +fallen angels, and is harmless and even beneficent if +kindly treated. The "house-women" (<i>Donne di casa</i>) +of Sicily are also in the habit of watching the sleep of +infants. But in no part of Italy does there seem to +be any distinct recollection of the Parcae. In Greece, +on the other hand, the three dread sisters are still +honoured by propitiatory rites, and they figure frequently +in the folk-lore of Bulgaria and Albania. A +Bulgarian song shows them weaving the destiny of +the infant Saviour. In M. Auguste Dozon's collection +of Albanian stories, there is one called "The sold +child," which bears directly on the survival of the +Parcae. "There was an old man and woman who +had no children" (so runs the tale). "At last at the +end of I do not know how many years, God gave +them a son, and their joy was without bounds that +the Lord had thus remembered them. Two nights +had passed since the birth, and the third drew nigh, +when the Three Women would come to assign the +child his destiny.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page281" id="page281"></a>281</span> + +<p>"That night it was raining so frightfully that +nobody dared put his nose out of doors, lest he should +be carried away by the waters and drowned. Nevertheless, +who should arrive through the rain but a +Pasha, who asked the old man for a night's lodging. +The latter, seeing that it was a person of importance, +was very glad; he put him in the place of honour at +the hearth, lit a large fire, gave him to eat what he +could find; and putting aside certain objects, which +he set in a corner, he made room for the Pasha's +horse—for this house was only half covered in, a part +of the roof was missing.</p> + +<p>"The Pasha, when he was warmed and refreshed, +had nothing more to do but to go to sleep; but how +can one let himself go to sleep when he has I know +not how many thousand piastres about him?</p> + +<p>"That night, as we have said already, the Three +Women were to come and apportion the child his +destiny. They came, sure enough, and sat down by +the fire. The Pasha, at the sight of that, was in a +great fright, but he kept quiet, and did not make the +least sound.</p> + +<p>"Let us leave the Pasha and busy ourselves with +these women. The first of the three said, 'This child +will not live long; he will die early.' The second +said, replying to her who had just spoken, 'This child +will live many years, and then he will die by the +hand of his father.' Finally the third spoke as +follows: 'My friends, what are you talking about? +This child will live sufficiently long to kill the Pasha +you see there, rob him of his authority, and marry his +daughter.'"</p> + +<p>How the Pasha froze with fear when he heard that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page282" id="page282"></a>282</span> +sentence, how he persuaded the old man to let him +have the child under pretence of adopting him, how +he endeavoured by every means, but vainly, to put +him out of the way, and how, in the end, he fell into +an ambush he had prepared for his predestined successor, +must be read in M. Dozon's entertaining pages. +Though not precisely stated, it would seem that the +mistaken predictions of the two first women arose +rather from a misinterpretation of the future than +from complete ignorance. The boy but narrowly +escaped the evils they threatened. In Scandinavian +traditions a disagreement among the Norns is not +uncommon. In one case, two Norns assign to a newborn +child long life and happiness, but the third and +youngest decrees that he shall only live while a +lighted taper burns. The eldest Norn snatches the +taper, puts it out, and gives it to the child's mother, +not to be kindled till the last day of his life.</p> + +<p>In India it is the deity Bidhata-Purusha who forecasts +the events of each man's life, writing them +succinctly on the forehead of the child six days after +birth. The apportionment of good and evil fortune +belongs to Lakshmi and Sani. Once they fell out +in heaven, and Sani, the giver of ill, said that he +ranked higher than the beneficent Lakshmi. The +gods and goddesses were equally ranged on either +side, so the two disputants decided to refer the case +to a just mortal. To which end they approached a +wise and wealthy man called Sribatsa. Now Sribatsa +means "the child of Fortune," Sri being one of the +names of Lakshmi. Sribatsa did not know what to +do lest he should give offence to one or the other of +the celestial powers. At last he set out two stools +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page283" id="page283"></a>283</span> +without saying a word; one was silver, and on that +he bade Sani sit; the other was gold, and to that he +conducted Lakshmi. But Sani was furious at having +only the silver stool, so he swore that he would cast +his evil eye upon Sribatsa for three years, "and I +should like to see how you fare at the end of that +time," he added. When he was gone, Lakshmi said: +"My child, do not fear; I'll befriend you." Needless +to say that after the three trial years were passed, +Sribatsa became far more prosperous than he had +ever been before.</p> + +<p>Among the Parsis, a tray with writing materials +including a sheet of blank paper is placed by the +mother's bed on the night of the sixth day. The +goddess who rules human destiny traces upon the +paper the course of the child's future, which henceforth +cannot be changed, though the writing is +invisible to mortal eyes.</p> + +<p>In Calabria there is a plant called "Fortune's +Grass," which is suspended to the beams of the ceiling: +if the leaves turn upwards, Fortune is sure to +follow; if downwards, things may be expected to go +wrong. The oracle is chiefly consulted on Ascension +Day, when it is asked to tell the secrets confided to +it by Christ when He walked upon the earth.</p> + +<p>Auguries, portents, charms, waxen images, votive +offerings, the evil eye and its antidotes, happy "finds," +such as horseshoes, four-leaved shamrocks, and two-tailed +lizards: these, and an infinite number of +kindred superstitions, are closely linked with what +may be called the Science of Luck. Fortune and +Hecate come into no mere chance contiguity when +they meet in the moon. For the rest, there is hardly +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page284" id="page284"></a>284</span> +any popular belief that has not points of contact with +magic, and that is not in some sort made the more +comprehensible by looking at the premises on which +magical rites rest. Magic is the power admitted to +exist among all classes not so very long ago, of entering +by certain processes into relation with invisible +powers. For modern convenience it was distinguished +into black magic, and natural, and white—the latter +name being given when the intention of the operant +was only good or allowable, and when the powers +invoked were only such as might be supposed, +whether great or small, to be working in good understanding +with the Creator. The reason of existence +of all magic, which runs up into unfathomable antiquity, +lies in the maxim of the ancient sages, Egyptian, +Hebrew, Platonist, that all things visible and sensible +are but types of things or beings immediately above +them, and have their origin in such. Hence, in magical +rites, black or white, men used and offered to the +unseen powers those words or actions or substances +which were conceived to be in correspondence with +their character or nature, employing withal certain +secret traditional manœuvres. The lowest surviving +form is fetish; sacrifice also had a similar source; +so had the Mosaic prescriptions, in which only +innocent rites and pure substances were to be employed. +Whereas the most horrible practices and +repulsive substances have always been associated with +witches, necromancers, &c., who are reported to have +put their wills at the absolute disposal of the infernal +and malevolent powers who work in direct counter-action +of the decrees and providence of the Deity. +Hence the renunciation of baptism, treading on holy +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page285" id="page285"></a>285</span> +things, the significant act of saying the Lord's Prayer +backwards, <i>i.e.</i>, in the opposite intention to that of +the author. This is the consummate sin of <i>pacti</i>, +or, as it is said, "selling the soul," and is the very +opposite of divine magic or the way of the typical +saint: "Present yourselves a living sacrifice (not a +dead carcase) in body, soul, and spirit." To persons +in the last condition unusual effects have been +ascribed, as it was believed that those who had put +themselves at the absolute disposal of the malignant +powers were also enabled to effect singular things, on +the wrong side, indeed, and very inferior in order, so +long as the agreement held good.</p> + +<p>The most sensible definition of magic is "an effect +sought to be produced by antecedents obviously +inadequate in themselves." Certain words, gestures, +practices, have been recognised on the tradition of +ancient experience to have certain remedial or other +properties or consequents, and they are used in all +simplicity by persons who can find no other reason +than that they are thought to succeed.</p> + +<p>One of the most remarkable of early ideas still +current about human destiny is that which pictures +each man coupled with a personal and individualised +fate. This fate may be beneficent or maleficent, a +guardian angel or a possessive fiend; or it may, in +appearance at least, combine both functions. The +belief in a personal fate was deeply rooted among the +Greeks and Romans, and proved especially acceptable +to the Platonists. Socrates' dæmon comes to mind: +but in that case the analogy is not clear, because the +inward voice to which the name of dæmon was afterwards +given, was rather a personal conscience than a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page286" id="page286"></a>286</span> +personal fate—a difference that involves the whole +question of the responsibility of man. But the evil +genii of Dion the Syracusan and of Brutus were +plainly "personal fates." Dion's evil genius appeared +to him when he was sitting alone in the portico before +his house one evening; it had the form of a gigantic +woman, like one of the furies as they were represented +on the stage, sweeping the floor with a broom. It +did not speak, but the apparition was followed by the +death of Dion's son, who jumped in a fit of childish +passion from the house-top, and soon after, Dion himself +was assassinated. Brutus' dæmon was, as every-one +knows, a monstrous spectre that seemed to be +standing beside him in his tent one night, a little +while before he left Asia, and which, on being questioned, +said to him, "I am thy evil genius, Brutus, +thou wilt see me at Philippi."</p> + +<p>We catch sight again of the personal fate in the +relations of Antony with the young Octavius. Antony +had in his house an Egyptian astrologer, who +advised him by all means to keep away from the +young man, "for your genius," he said, "is in fear of +his; when it is alone its port is erect and fearless, +when his approaches it, it is dejected and depressed." +There were circumstances, says Plutarch, that carried +out this view, for in every kind of play, whether they +cast lots or cast the die, Antony was still the loser; +in their cock fights and quail fights, it was still +"Cæsar's cock and Cæsar's quail."</p> + +<p>In ancient Norse and Teutonic traditions, where +Salida, or Frau Sælde, takes the place of Fortuna, we +find indications of the personal fate, both kindly and +unkindly. The fate appeared to its human turn +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page287" id="page287"></a>287</span> +chiefly in the hour of death, that is, in the hour of +parting company. Sometimes it was attached not to +one person, but to a whole family, passing on from +one to another, as in the case of the not yet extinct +superstition of the White Lady of the Hohenzollerns.</p> + +<p>In a very old German story, quoted by Jacob +Grimm, a poor knight is shown, eating his frugal meal +in a wood, who on looking up, sees a monstrous +creature among the boughs which cries, "I am thy +<i>ungelücke</i>!" The knight asks his "ill-luck" to share +his meal, and when it comes down, catches it, and +shuts it up in a hollow oak. Someone, who wishes to +do him an ill-turn, lets out the <i>ungelücke</i>; but instead +of reverting to the knight, it jumps on the back of its +evil-minded deliverer.</p> + +<p>In the Sicilian story of "Feledico and Epomata," +one of those collected by Fraülein Laura Gonzenbach,<a id="footnotetagF2" name="footnotetagF2"></a><a href="#footnoteF2"><sup>2</sup></a> +a childless king and queen desire to have children. +One day they see a soothsayer going by: they call +him in, and he says that the queen will bear a son, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page288" id="page288"></a>288</span> +but that he will die when he is eighteen years of age. +The grief of the royal pair is extreme, and they ask +the soothsayer for advice what to do. He can only +suggest that they should shut the child up in a tower +till the unlucky hour be past, after which his fate will +have no more power over him. This is accordingly +done, and the child sees no one in the tower but the +nurse and a lady of the court, whom he believes to be +his mother. One day, when the lady has gone to +make her report to the queen, the boy hears his fate +crying to him in his sleep, and asking why he stays +shut up there, when his real father and mother are +king and queen and live in a fine castle? He makes +inquiries, and at first is pacified by evasive answers, +but after three visits of his fate, who always utters the +same words, he insists on going to the castle and +seeing his father and mother. "His fate has found +him out, there is no good in resisting it," says the +queen. However, by the agency of Epomata, the +beautiful daughter of an enchantress, who had conveyed +the prince to her castle, and had provided for +his execution on the very day ordained by his fate, +Feledico tides over the fatal moment and attains a +good old age.</p> + +<p>Hahn states that the Greek name of <ins title="Moirai"><i>Μο<span style="font-size: 0.9em;">ῖ</span>ραι</i></ins> is given +by the Albanians to what I have called personal fates, +as well as to the Parcae; but the Turkish designation +of <i>Bakht</i>, meaning a sort of protecting spirit, seems +to be in more common use. The Albanian story-teller +mentions a negress who is in want of some +sequins, and who says, "Go and find my fortune +(<i>Bakht</i>), but first make her a cake, and when you +offer it to her, ask her for a few gold pieces."</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page289" id="page289"></a>289</span> + +<p>A like propitiatory offering of food to one's personal +fate forms a feature of a second Sicilian story +which is so important in all its bearings on the subject +in hand, that it would not do to abridge it. Here +it is, therefore, in its entirety.</p> + +<blockquote><p> +There was a certain merchant who was so rich that he had +treasures which not even the king possessed. In his audience +chamber there were three beautiful arm-chairs, one of silver, +one of gold, and one of diamonds. This merchant had an only +daughter of the name of Caterina, who was fairer than the sun. +One day Caterina sat alone in her room, when suddenly the door +opened of itself, and there entered a tall and beautiful lady, who +held a wheel in her hands. "Caterina," said she, "when would +you like best to enjoy your life? in youth, or in age?" Caterina +gazed at her in amazement, and could not get over her +stupor. The beautiful lady asked again, "Caterina, when do +you wish to enjoy your life in youth or in age?" Then Caterina +thought, "If I say in youth, I shall have to suffer in age; hence +I prefer to enjoy my life in age, and in youth I must get on as the +Lord wills." So she said, "In age." "Be it unto you according +to your desire," said the beautiful lady, who gave a turn to her +wheel, and disappeared. This tall and beautiful lady was poor +Caterina's fate. After a few days her father received the sudden +news that several of his ships had gone down in a storm; again, +after a few days, other of his ships met with the same fate, and +to make a long story short, a month had not gone by before he +saw himself despoiled of all his wealth. He had to sell everything, +and remained poor and miserable, and finally he fell ill +and died. Thus poor Caterina was left alone in the world, and +no one would give her a home. Then she thought, "I will go +to another city and will seek a place as serving-maid." She +wandered a long way till she reached another city. As she +passed down the street, she saw at a window a worthy-looking +lady, who questioned her. "Where are you going, all alone, +fair girl?" "Oh! noble lady, I am a poor girl, and I would willingly +go into service to earn my bread. Could you, by chance, +employ me?" The worthy lady engaged her, and Caterina +served her faithfully. After a few days the lady said one evening, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page290" id="page290"></a>290</span> +"Caterina, I am going out, and shall lock the house-door." +"Very well," said Caterina, and when her mistress was gone, she +took her work and began to sew. Suddenly the door opened, +and her fate came in. "So!" cried this one, "you are here, +Caterina, and you think that I shall leave you in peace!" With +these words, she ran to the cupboards and turned out the linen +and clothes of Caterina's mistress, and threw them all about the +room. Caterina thought, "When my mistress returns and finds +everything in such a state, she will kill me!" And out of fear +she broke open the door and fled. But her fate made all the +things right again, and gathered them up and put them in their +places. When the mistress came home, she called Caterina, +but she could not find her anywhere. She thought she must +have robbed her, but when she looked at her cupboards, she +saw that nothing was missing. She wondered greatly, but +Caterina never came back—she ran and ran till she reached +another city, when, as she passed along the street, she saw once +more a lady at a window, who asked her, "Where are you going, +all alone, fair girl?" "Ah! noble lady, I am a poor girl, and I +wish to find a place so as to earn my bread. Could you take +me?" The lady took her into her service, and Caterina thought +now to remain in peace. Only a few days had passed, when +one evening, when the lady was out, Caterina's fate appeared +again, and spoke hard words to her, saying, "So you are here, +are you? and you think to escape from me?" Then she +scattered whatever she could lay hands on, and poor Caterina +once more fled out of fright.</p> + +<p>To be brief, poor Caterina had to lead this terrible life for +seven years, flying from city to city in search of a place. +Whenever she entered service, after a few days her fate always +appeared and disordered her mistress' things, and so the poor +girl had to fly. As soon as she was gone, however, her fate repaired +all the damage that had been done. At last, after seven +years, it seemed as if the unhappy Caterina's fate was weary of +persecuting her. One day she arrived in a city where she saw +a lady at a window, who said, "Where go you, all alone, fair +girl?" "Ah! noble lady, I am a poor girl, and willingly would +I enter service to earn my bread; could you employ me?" +The lady replied, "I will take you, but every day you will have +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page291" id="page291"></a>291</span> +to do me a certain service, and I am not sure that you have the +strength." "Tell me what it is," said Caterina, "and if I can, I +will do it." "Do you see that high mountain?" said the lady; +"every morning you will have to carry up to the top a baker's +tray of new bread, and then you must cry aloud, 'O fate of my +mistress!' three times repeated. My fate will appear and will +receive the bread." "I will do it willingly," said Caterina, and +thereupon the lady engaged her. With this lady Caterina +stayed many years, and every morning she carried the tray of +fresh bread up the mountain, and after she had cried three times, +"O fate of my mistress!" there appeared a beautiful, stately +lady, who received the bread. Caterina often wept, thinking +how she, who was once so rich, had now to work like any poor +girl, and one day her mistress asked her, "Why are you always +crying?" Caterina told her how ill things had gone with her, +and her mistress said, "You know, Caterina, when you take the +bread up the mountain to-morrow? Well, do you beg my fate +to try and persuade yours to leave you in peace. Perhaps this +may do some good." The advice pleased poor Caterina, and +the following morning when she carried up the bread, she told +her mistress' fate of the sore straits she was in, and said, "O +fate of my mistress, pray ask my fate no longer to torment me." +"Ah! poor girl," the fate answered, "your fate is covered with a +sevenfold covering, and that is why she cannot hear you. But +to-morrow when you come, I will lead you to her." When +Caterina had gone home, her mistress' fate went to her fate, +and said, "Dear sister, why are you not tired of persecuting +poor Caterina? Let her once again see happy days." The fate +replied, "To-morrow bring her to me; I will give her something +that will supply all her needs." The next morning, when Caterina +brought the bread, her mistress' fate conducted her to her +own fate, who was covered with a sevenfold covering. The fate +gave her a skein of silk, and said, "Take care of it, it will be of +use to you." After she had returned home, Caterina said to her +mistress, "My fate has made me a present of a skein of silk; +what ought I to do with it?" "It is not worth three grains of +corn," said the mistress. "Keep it, all the same; who knows +what it may be good for?"</p> + +<p>After some time, it happened that the young king was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page292" id="page292"></a>292</span> +about to take a wife, and, therefore, he had himself made some +new clothes. But when the tailor was going to make up one +fine piece of stuff, he could not anywhere find silk of the same +colour with which to sew it. The king had it cried through the +land, that whosoever had silk of the right colour was to bring it +to court, and would be well paid for his pains. "Caterina," said +her mistress, "your skein of silk is of that colour; take it to the +king and he will make you a fine present." Caterina put on her +best gown, and went to court, and when she came before the +king, she was so beautiful that he could not take his eyes off her. +"Royal Majesty," she said, "I have brought a skein of silk of the +colour you could not find." "Royal majesty," cried one of the +ministers, "we should give her the weight of her silk in gold." +The king agreed, and the scales were brought in. On one side +the king placed the skein of silk, and on the other a gold piece. +Now, what do you think happened? The silk was always the +heaviest, no matter how many gold pieces the king placed in +the balance. Then he ordered a larger pair of scales, and he +put all his treasure to the one side, but the silk remained the +heaviest. Then he took his gold crown off his head and set it +with the other treasure, and upon that the two scales became +even.</p> + +<p>"Where did you get this silk?" asked the king. "Royal +Majesty, my mistress gave it to me." "That is not possible," +cried the king. "If you do not tell me the truth I will have +your head cut off!" Caterina related all that had happened +to her since the time when she was a rich maiden. At Court +there was a very wise lady, who said: "Caterina, you have +suffered much, but now you will see happy days, and since the +gold crown made the balance even, it is a sign that you will live +to be a queen." "She shall be a queen," cried the king, "I will +make her a queen! Caterina and no other shall be my bride." +And so it was. The king sent to his bride to say that he no +longer wanted her, and married the fair Caterina, who, after +much suffering in youth, enjoyed her age in full prosperity, living +happy and content, whereof we have assured testimony. +</p></blockquote> + +<p>The most suggestive passages in this ingenious +story are those which refer to the relative positions of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page293" id="page293"></a>293</span> +a man and his fate, and of one fate to another. On +these points something further is to be gleaned from +an Indian, a Servian, and a Spanish tale, all having a +family likeness amongst themselves, and a strong +affinity with our story. The Indian variant is one of +the collection due to the youthful energies of Miss +Maive Stokes, whose book of "Indian Fairy Tales" +is a model of what such a book ought to be. The +Servian tale is to be found in Karadschitsch's +"Volksmaerschen der Serben;" the Spanish in Fernan +Caballero's "Cuentos y Poesias Populares Andaluses." +The chief characteristics of the personal fates, as they +appear in folk-lore, may be briefly summarised. In +the first place, they know each other, and are acquainted +up to a given point with one another's +secrets. Thus, in the Servian story, a man who goes +to seek his fate is commissioned by persons he meets +on the road to ask it questions touching their own +private concerns. A rich householder wants to know +why his servants are always hungry, however much +food he gives them to eat, and why "his aged, miserable +father and mother do not die?" A farmer +would have him ask why his cattle perish; and a +river, whose waters bear him across, is anxious to +know why no living thing dwells in it. The fate +gives a satisfactory answer to each inquiry.</p> + +<p>The fates exercise a certain influence, one over the +other, and hence over the destinies of the people in +their charge. Caterina's mistress' fate intercedes for +her with her own fate. The attention of the fates is +not always fixed on the persons under them: they +may be prevented from hearing by fortuitous circumstances, +such as the "seven coverings or veils" of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page294" id="page294"></a>294</span> +Caterina's fate, or they may be asleep, or absent from +home. Their home, by the by, is invariably placed +in a spot very difficult to get at. In the Spanish +variant, the palace of Fortune is raised "where our +Lord cried three times and was not heard"—it is up +a rock so steep that not even a goat can climb it, +and the sunbeams lose their footing when trying to +reach the top. A personal fate is propitiated by +suitable offerings, or, if obdurate, it may be brought +to reason by a well-timed punishment. The Indian +beats his fate-stone, just as the Ostyak beats his +fetish if it does not behave well and bring him sport. +The Sicilian story gives no hint of this alternative, +but it is one strictly in harmony with the Italian way +of thinking, whether ancient or modern. Statius' +declaration:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Fataque, et injustos rabidis pulsare querelis</p> +<p>Cælicolas solamen erat ...</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>was frequently put into practice, as when, upon the +death of Germanicus, the Roman populace cast stones +at the temples, and the altars were levelled to the +ground, and the Lares thrown into the street. Again, +Augustus took revenge on Neptune for the loss of +his fleet, by not allowing his image to be carried in +the procession of the Circensian games. It is on +record that at Florence, in 1498, a ruined gamester +pelted the image of the Virgin with horse dung. +Luca Landucci, who tells the story, says that the +Florentines were shocked; but in the southern kingdom +the incident would have passed without much +notice. The Neapolitans have hardly now left off +heaping torrents of abuse on San Gennaro if he fails +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page295" id="page295"></a>295</span> +to perform the miracle of liquefaction quick enough. +Probably every country could furnish an illustration. +In the grand procession of St Leonhard, +the Bavarians used from time to time to drop the +Saint into the river, as a sort of gentle warning.</p> + +<p>The physical presentment of the personal fate +differs considerably. According to the Indian account, +"the fates are stones, some standing, and +others lying on the ground." It has been said that +this looks like a relic of stock and stone worship: +which is true if it can be said unreservedly that anyone +ever worshipped a stock or a stone. The lowest +stage of fetish worship only indicates a diseased +spiritualism—a mental state in which there is no +hedge between the real and the imagined. No +savage ever supposed that his fetish was a simple +three-cornered stone and nothing more. If one +could guess the thoughts of the pigeon mentioned +by Mr Romanes as worshipping a gingerbeer bottle, +it would be surely seen that this pigeon believed +his gingerbeer bottle to be other than a piece +of unfeeling earthenware. It is, however, a sign +of progress when man begins to picture the ruling +powers not as stones, or even as animals, but as +men. This point is reached in the Servian narrative, +where the hero's fortune is a hag given to +him as his luck by fate. In the Spanish tale, the +aspect of the personal fate varies with its character: +the fortunate man's fate is a lovely girl, the fate of +the unfortunate man being a toothless old woman. +In the <i>Pentamerone</i> of Giambattista Basile, Fortune +is also spoken of as an old woman, but this seems +a departure from the true Italian ideal, which is +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page296" id="page296"></a>296</span> +neither a stone nor a luck-hag, nor yet a varying +fair-and-foul fortune, but a "bella, alta Signora:" the +imposing figure that surmounts the wheel of fortune +on the marble pavement of the Cathedral of Siena. +It is a graver conception than the gracefully fickle +goddess of Jean Cousin's "Liber Fortunæ":</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p><span class="xl">. . .</span> On souloit la pourtraire,</p> +<p>Tenant un voile afin d'aller au gré du vent</p> +<p>Des aisles aux costez pour voler bien avant.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Shakespeare had the Emblematist's Fortune in his +mind when he wrote: "Fortune is painted blind, +with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify to you, which +is the moral of it, that she is turning, and inconstant, +and mutability, and variation: and her foot, look +you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, which rolls, and +rolls, and rolls."</p> + +<p>In hands less light than Cousin's, it was easy for +the Fortune of the emblem writers to become +grotesque, and to lose all artistic merit. The Italian +Fortuna does not in the least lend herself to caricature. +In Italy, the objects of thought, even of the +common people, have the tendency to assume concrete +and æsthetic forms—a fact of great significance +in the history of a people destined to render essential +service to art.</p> + +<p>The "tall, beautiful lady" of the Sicilian story, +reappears in a series of South Italian folk-songs +which contains further evidence of this unconsciously +artistic instinct. The Italian folk-poet, for the most +part, lets the lore of tradition altogether alone. It +does not lie in his province, which is purely lyrical. +But he has seized upon Fortune as a myth very capable +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page297" id="page297"></a>297</span> +of lyrical treatment, and following the free bent +of his genius, he has woven out of his subject the +delicate fancies of these songs. A series in the sense +of being designed to form a consecutive whole, they, +of course, are not. No two, probably, had the same +author; the perfect individuality of the figure presented, +only showing how a type may be so firmly +fixed that the many have no difficulty in describing +it with the consistency of one man who draws the +creation of his own brain.</p> + +<h4>I.</h4> +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Once in the gloaming, Fortune met me here;</p> +<p>Fair did she seem, and Love was on me laid,</p> +<p>Her hair was raised, as were it half a sphere,</p> +<p>Flowered on her breast a rose that cannot fade.</p> +<p>Then said I, "Fortune, thou without a peer,</p> +<p>What rule shall tell the measure of thine aid?"</p> +<p>"The pathway of the moon through all the year,</p> +<p>The channel of the exhaustless sea," she said.</p> +</div> </div> +<h4>II.</h4> + <div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>One night, the while I slept, drew Fortune near,</p> +<p>At once I loved, such beauty she displayed;</p> +<p>A crescent moon did o'er her brows appear,</p> +<p>And in her hand a wheel that never stayed.</p> +<p>Then said I to her, "O my mistress dear,</p> +<p>Grant all my wishes, mine if thou wilt aid."</p> +<p>But she turned from me with dark sullen cheer</p> +<p>And "Never!" as she turned, was all she said.</p> +</div> </div> +<h3>III.</h3> +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>I saw my Fortune midst the sounding sea</p> +<p>Sit weeping on a rocky height and steep,</p> +<p>Said I to her, "Fortune, how is't with thee?"</p> +<p>"I cannot help thee, child" (so answered she),</p> +<p>"I cannot help thee more—so must I weep."</p> +<p>How sweet were those her tears, how sweet, ah me!</p> +<p>Even the fishes wept within the deep.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page298" id="page298"></a>298</span> + </div> </div> +<h3>IV.</h3> +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>One day did Fortune call me to her side,</p> +<p>"What are the things," she asked, "that thou hast done?"</p> +<p>Then answered I, "Dear mistress, I have tried</p> +<p>To grave them upon marble, every one."</p> +<p>"Ah! maddest of the mad!" so she replied,</p> +<p>"Better hadst writ on sand than wrought in stone;</p> +<p>He who to marble should his love confide,</p> +<p>Loves when he loves till all his wits are gone."</p> + </div> </div> +<h3>V.</h3> +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>There where I lay asleep came Fortune in,</p> +<p>She came the while I slept and bid me wake,</p> +<p>"What dost thou now?" she said, "companion mine?</p> +<p>What dost thou now? Wilt thou then love forsake?</p> +<p>Arise," she said, "and take this violin,</p> +<p>And play till every stone thereat shall wake."</p> +<p>I was asleep when Fortune came to me,</p> +<p>And bid me rise, and led me unto thee!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>These songs come from different villages; from +Caballino and Morciano in Calabria, from Corigliano +and Calimera in Terra d'Otranto; the two last are in +the Greek dialect spoken in the latter district. There +are a great many more, in all of which the same sweet +and serious type is preserved; but the above quintet +suffices to give a notion of this modern Magna-Græcian +Idyll of Fortune.</p> + +<p class="footnote"><a id="footnoteF1" name="footnoteF1"></a><a class="footnote" href="#footnotetagF1">Footnote 1:</a> In a Breton variant the "Bon Dieu" is the first to offer himself +as sponsor, but is refused by the peasant, "Because you are +not just; you slay the honest bread-winner and the mother +whose children can scarce run alone, and you let folks live who +never brought aught but shame and sorrow on their kindred." +Death is accepted, "Because at least you take the rich as well +as the poor, the young as well as the old." The German tale of +"Godfather Death" begins in the same way, but ends rather +differently, as it is the godson and not the father who is shown +the many candles, and who vainly requests Death to give him a +new one instead of his own which is nearly burnt out. A poem +by Hans Sachs (1553) contains reference to the legend, of which +there are also Provençal and Hungarian versions.</p> + +<p class="footnote"><a id="footnoteF2" name="footnoteF2"></a><a class="footnote" href="#footnotetagF2">Footnote 2:</a> Laura Gonzenbach was the daughter of the Swiss Consul at +Messina, where she was born. At an early age she developed +uncommon gifts, and she was hardly twenty when she made +her collection of Sicilian stories, almost exclusively gathered +from a young servant-girl who did not know how to write or +read. It was with great difficulty that a publisher was found +who would bring out the book. Fräulein Gonzenbach married +Colonel La Racine, a Piedmontese officer, and died five or six +years ago, being still quite young. A relation of hers, from +whom I have these particulars, was much surprised to hear +that the <i>Sicilianische Märchen</i> is widely known as one of the +best works of its class. It is somewhat singular that the preservation +of Italian folk-tales should have been so substantially +aided by two ladies not of Italian origin: Fräulein Gonzenbach +and Miss R. H. Busk, author of "The Folk-lore of Rome."</p> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page299" id="page299"></a>299</span> + +<h2>FOLK-LULLABIES.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p> <span class="xxl">. . . </span> A nurse's song</p> +<p>Of lullaby, to bring her babe asleep.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Infancy is a great mystery. We know that we each +have gone over that stage in human life, though even +this much is not always quite easy to realise. But +what else do we know about it? Something by +observation, something by intuition; by experience +hardly anything at all. We have as much personal +acquaintance with a lake-dwelling or stone age infant +as with our proper selves at the time when we were +passing through the "avatar" of babyhood. The recollections +of our earliest years are at most only as +the confused remembrance of a morning dream, which +at one end fades into the unconsciousness of sleep, +whilst at the other it mingles with the realities of +awaking. And yet, as a fact, we did not sleep through +all the dawn of our life, nor were we unconscious; only +we were different from what we now are; the term +"thinking animal" did not then fit us so well. We +were less reasonable and less material. Babies have +a way of looking at you that makes you half suspect +that they belong to a separate order of beings. You +speculate as to whether they have not invisible wings, +which drop off afterwards as do the birth wings of the +young ant. There is one thing, however, in which the +baby is very human, very manlike. Of all newborn +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page300" id="page300"></a>300</span> +creatures he is the least happy. You may sometimes +see a little child crying softly to himself with a +look of world woe on his face that is positively appalling. +Perhaps human existence, like a new pair of +shoes, is very uncomfortable till one gets accustomed +to it. Anyhow the child, being for some reason or +reasons exceedingly disposed to vex its heart, needs +much soothing. In one highly civilised country a +good many mothers are in the habit of going to the +nearest druggist for the means to tranquillise their +offspring, with the result that these latter are not +unfrequently rescued from the sea of sorrows in the +most final and expeditious way. In less advanced +states of society another expedient has been resorted +to from time immemorial—to wit, the cradle song.</p> + +<p>Babies show an early appreciation of rhythm. +They rejoice in measured noise, whether it takes the +form of words, music, or the jingle of a bunch of +keys. In the way of poetry I am afraid they must be +admitted to have a perverse preference for what goes +by the name of sing-song. It will be a long time +before the infantine public are brought round to Walt +Whitman's views on versification. For the rest, they +are not very severe critics. The small ancient Roman +asked for nothing better than the song of his nurse—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Lalla, lalla, lalla,</p> +<p>Aut dormi, aut lacta.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>This two-line lullaby constitutes one of the few but +sufficing proofs which have come down to us of the +existence among the people of old Rome of a sort of +folk verse not by any means resembling the Latin +classics, but bearing a considerable likeness to the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page301" id="page301"></a>301</span> +<i>canti popolari</i> of the modern Italian peasant. It may +be said parenthetically that the study of dialect tends +altogether to the conviction that there are country +people now living in Italy to whom, rather than to +Cicero, we should go if we want to know what style +of speech was in use among the humbler subjects of +the Cæsars. The lettered language of the cultivated +classes changes; the spoken tongue of the uneducated +remains the same; or, if it too undergoes a process of +change, the rate at which it moves is to the other +what the pace of a tortoise is to the speed of an +express train. About eight hundred years ago a +handful of Lombards went to Sicily, where they still +preserve the Lombard idiom. The Ober-Engadiner +could hold converse with his remote ancestors who +took refuge in the Alps three or four centuries before +Christ; the Aragonese colony at Alghero, in Sardinia, +yet discourses in Catalan; the Roumanian language +still contains terms and expressions which, though +dissimilar to both Latin and standard Italian, find +their analogues in the dialects of those eastward-facing +"Latin plains" whence, in all probability, the +people of Roumania sprang. But we must return to +our lullabies.</p> + +<p>There exists another Latin cradle song, not indeed +springing from classical times, but which, were popular +tradition to be trusted, would have an origin greatly +more illustrious than that of the laconic effusion of +the Roman nurse. It is composed in the person of +the Virgin Mary, and was, in bygone days, believed +to have been actually sung by her. Authorities differ +as to its real age, some insisting that the peculiar +structure of the verse was unknown before the 12th +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page302" id="page302"></a>302</span> +century. There is, however, good reason to think +that the idea of composing lullabies for the Virgin +belongs to an early period.</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Dormi, fili, dormi! mater</p> +<p class="i4">Cantat unigenito:</p> +<p>Dormi puer, dormi! pater</p> +<p class="i4">Nato clamat parvulo:</p> +<p>Millies tibi laudes canimus</p> +<p class="i4">Mille, mille, millies.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Lectum stravi tibi soli,</p> +<p class="i4">Dormi, nate bellule!</p> +<p>Stravi lectum foeno molli:</p> +<p class="i4">Dormi mi animule.</p> +<p>Millies tibi laudes canimus</p> +<p class="i4">Mille, mille, millies.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Dormi, decus et corona!</p> +<p class="i4">Dormi, nectar lacteum!</p> +<p>Dormi, mater dabo dona,</p> +<p class="i4">Dabo favum melleum.</p> +<p>Millies tibi laudes canimus</p> +<p class="i4">Mille, mille, millies.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Dormi, nate mi mellite!</p> +<p class="i4">Dormi plene saccharo,</p> +<p>Dormi, vita, meae vitae,</p> +<p class="i4">Casto natus utero.</p> +<p>Millies tibi laudes canimus</p> +<p class="i4">Mille, mille, millies.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Quidquid optes, volo dare;</p> +<p class="i4">Dormi, parve pupule</p> +<p>Dormi, fili! dormi carae,</p> +<p class="i4">Matris deliciolae!</p> +<p>Millies tibi laudes canimus</p> +<p class="i4">Mille, mille, millies.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page303" id="page303"></a>303</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Dormi cor, et meus thronus;</p> +<p class="i4">Dormi matris jubilum;</p> +<p>Aurium caelestis sonus,</p> +<p class="i4">Et suave sibilum!</p> +<p>Millies tibi laudes canimus</p> +<p class="i4">Mille, mille, millies.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Dormi fili! dulce, mater</p> +<p class="i4">Duke melos concinam;</p> +<p>Dormi, nate! suave, pater,</p> +<p class="i4">Suave carmen accinam.</p> +<p>Millies tibi laudes canimus</p> +<p class="i4">Mille, mille, millies.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Ne quid desit, sternam rosis,</p> +<p class="i4">Sternam foenum violis,</p> +<p>Pavimentum hyacinthis</p> +<p class="i4">Et praesepe liliis.</p> +<p>Millies tibi laudes canimus</p> +<p class="i4">Mille, mille, millies.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Si vis musicam, pastores</p> +<p class="i4">Convocabo protinus;</p> +<p>Illis nulli sunt priores;</p> +<p class="i4">Nemo canit castius.</p> +<p>Millies tibi laudes canimus</p> +<p class="i4">Mille, mille, millies.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Everybody who is in Rome at Christmas-tide +makes a point of visiting Santa Maria in Ara Cœli, +the church which stands to the right of the Capitol, +where once the temple of Jupiter Feretrius is supposed +to have stood. What is at that season to be +seen in the Ara Cœli is well enough known—to one +side a "presepio," or manger, with the ass, the ox, St +Joseph, the Virgin, and the Child on her knee; to the +other side a throng of little Roman children rehearsing +in their infantine voices the story that is pictured +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page304" id="page304"></a>304</span> +opposite.<a id="footnotetagL1" name="footnotetagL1"></a><a href="#footnoteL1"><sup>1</sup></a> The scene may be taken as typical of the +cult of the Infant Saviour, which, under one form or +another, has existed distinct and separable from the +main stem of Christian worship ever since a Voice in +Judæa bade man seek after the Divine in the stable +of Bethlehem. It is almost a commonplace to say +that Christianity brought fresh and peculiar glory +alike to infancy and to motherhood. A new sense +came into the words of the oracle—</p> + +<blockquote><p> +Thee in all children, the eternal Child ... +</p></blockquote> + +<p>And the mother, sublimely though she appears +against the horizon of antiquity, yet rose to a higher +rank—because the highest—at the founding of the +new faith. Especially in art she left the second place +that she might take the first. The sentiment of +maternal love, as illustrated, as transfigured, in the +love of the Virgin for her Divine Child, furnished the +great Italian painters with their master motive, whilst +in his humble fashion the obscure folk-poet exemplifies +the selfsame thought. I am not sure that the +rude rhymes of which the following is a rendering do +not convey, as well as can be conveyed in articulate +speech, the glory and the grief of the Dresden +Madonna:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Sleep, oh sleep, dear Baby mine,</p> +<p class="i12"> King Divine;</p> +<p>Sleep, my Child, in sleep recline;</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page305" id="page305"></a>305</span> +<p>Lullaby, mine Infant fair,</p> +<p class="i12"> Heaven's King</p> +<p class="i12"> All glittering,</p> +<p>Full of grace as lilies rare.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Close thine eyelids, O my treasure,</p> +<p class="i12"> Loved past measure,</p> +<p>Of my soul, the Lord, the pleasure;</p> +<p>Lullaby, O regal Child,</p> +<p class="i12"> On the hay</p> +<p class="i12"> My joy I lay;</p> +<p>Love celestial, meek and mild.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Why dost weep, my Babe? alas!</p> +<p class="i12"> Cold winds that pass</p> +<p>Vex, or is 't the little ass?</p> +<p>Lullaby, O Paradise;</p> +<p class="i12"> Of my heart</p> +<p class="i12"> Though Saviour art;</p> +<p>On thy face I press a kiss.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Wouldst thou learn so speedily,</p> +<p class="i12"> Pain to try,</p> +<p class="i12"> To heave a sigh?</p> +<p>Sleep, for thou shalt see the day</p> +<p class="i12"> Of dire scath,</p> +<p class="i12"> Of dreadful death,</p> +<p>To bitter scorn and shame a prey.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Rays now round thy brow extend,</p> +<p class="i12"> But in the end</p> +<p>A crown of cruel thorns shall bend.</p> +<p>Lullaby, O little one,</p> +<p class="i12"> Gentle guest</p> +<p class="i12"> Who for thy rest</p> +<p>A manger hast, to lie upon.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Born in winter of the year,</p> +<p class="i12"> Jesu dear,</p> +<p>As the lost world's prisoner.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page306" id="page306"></a>306</span> +<p>Lullaby (for thou art bound</p> +<p class="i12"> Pain to know,</p> +<p class="i12"> And want and woe),</p> +<p>Mid the cattle standing round.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Beauty mine, sleep peacefully;</p> +<p class="i12"> Heaven's monarch! see,</p> +<p>With my veil I cover thee.</p> +<p>Lullaby, my Spouse, my Lord,</p> +<p class="i12"> Fairest Child</p> +<p class="i12"> Pure, undefiled,</p> +<p>Thou by all my soul adored.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Lo! the shepherd band draws nigh;</p> +<p class="i12"> Horns they ply</p> +<p>Thee their Lord to glorify.</p> +<p>Lullaby, my soul's delight,</p> +<p class="i12"> For Israel,</p> +<p class="i12"> Faithless and fell,</p> +<p>Thee with cruel death would smite.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Now the milk suck from my breast,</p> +<p class="i12"> Holiest, best,</p> +<p>Thy kind eyes thou openest.</p> +<p>Lullaby, the while I sing;</p> +<p class="i12"> Holy Jesu</p> +<p class="i12"> Now sleep anew,</p> +<p>My mantle is thy sheltering.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Sleep, sleep, thou who dost heaven impart</p> +<p class="i12"> My Lord thou art;</p> +<p>Sleep, as I press thee to my heart.</p> +<p>Poor the place where thou dost lie,</p> +<p class="i12"> Earth's loveliest!</p> +<p class="i12"> Yet take thy rest;</p> +<p>Sleep my Child, and lullaby.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>It would be interesting to know if Mrs Browning +ever heard any one of the many variants of this lullaby +before writing her poem "The Virgin Mary to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page307" id="page307"></a>307</span> +the Child Jesus." The version given above was communicated +to me by a resident at Vallauria, in the +heart of the Ligurian Alps. In that district it is +sung in the churches on Christmas Eve, when out +abroad the mountains sleep soundly in their snows +and a stray wolf is not an impossible apparition, +nothing reminding you that you are within a day's +journey of the citron groves of Mentone.</p> + +<p>There are several old English carols which bear a +strong resemblance to the Italian sacred lullabies. +One, current at least as far back as the time of Henry +IV., is preserved among the Sloane MSS.:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Lullay! lullay! lytel child, myn owyn dere fode,</p> +<p>How xalt thou sufferin be nayled on the rode.</p> +<p class="i20"> So blyssid be the tyme!</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Lullay! lullay! lytel child, myn owyn dere smerte,</p> +<p>How xalt thou sufferin the scharp spere to Thi herte?</p> +<p class="i20"> So blyssid be the tyme!</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Lullay! lullay! lytel child, I synge all for Thi sake,</p> +<p>Many on is the scharpe schour to Thi body is schape.</p> +<p class="i20"> So blyssid be the tyme!</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Lullay! lullay! lytel child, fayre happis the befalle,</p> +<p>How xalt thou sufferin to drynke ezyl and galle?</p> +<p class="i20"> So blyssid be the tyme!</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Lullay! lullay! lytel child, I synge al beforn</p> +<p>How xalt thou sufferin the scharp garlong of thorn?</p> +<p class="i20"> So blyssid be the tyme!</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Lullay! lullay! lytel child, gwy wepy Thou so sore,</p> +<p>Thou art bothin God and man, gwat woldyst Thou be more?</p> +<p class="i20"> So blyssid be the tyme!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Here, as in the Piedmontese song, the "shadow of +the cross" makes its presence distinctly felt, whereas +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page308" id="page308"></a>308</span> +in the Latin lullaby it is wholly absent. Nor are +there any dark or sad forebodings in the fragment:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">Dormi Jesu, mater ridet,</p> +<p>Quæ; tam dulcem somnum videt,</p> +<p class="i2">Dormi, Jesu blandule.</p> +<p class="i2">Si non dormis, mater plorat,</p> +<p class="i2">Inter fila cantans orat:</p> +<p class="i2">Blande, veni Somnule.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Many Italian Christmas cradle songs are in this +lighter strain. In Italy and Spain a <i>presepio</i> or <i>nacimento</i> +is arranged in old-fashioned houses on the eve +of Christmas, and all kinds of songs are sung or +recited before the white image of the Child as it lies +in its bower of greenery. "Flower of Nazareth sleep +upon my breast, my heart is thy cradle," sing the +Tuscans, who curiously call Christmas "the Yule-log +Easter." In Sicily a thousand endearing epithets are +applied to the Infant Saviour: "figghiu duci," "Gesiuzzi +beddu," "Gesiuzzi picchiureddi." The Sicilian +poet relates how once, when the Madunazza was +mending St Joseph's clothes, the Bambineddu cried +in His cradle because no one was attending to Him; +so the archangel Raphael came down and rocked +Him, and said three sweet little words to Him, "Lullaby, +Jesus, Son of Mary!" Another time, when the +Child was older and the mother was going to visit St +Anne, he wept because He wished to go too. The +mother let Him accompany her on condition that +He would not break St Anne's bobbins. Yet another +time the Virgin went to the fair to buy flax, and the +Child said that He too would like to have a fairing. +The Virgin buys Him a tambourine, and angels descend +to listen to His playing. Such stories are endless; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page309" id="page309"></a>309</span> +some, no doubt, are invented on the spur of the +moment, but the larger portion are scraps of old +legendary lore. Not a few of the popular beliefs, relating +to the Infant Jesus may be traced to the apocryphal +Gospels, which were extensively circulated +during the earlier Christian centuries. There is, for +instance, a Provençal song containing the legend of +an apple-tree that bowed its branches to the Virgin, +which is plainly derived from this source. Speaking +of Provence, one ought not to forget the famous +"Troubadour of Bethlehem," Saboly, who was born +in 1640, and who composed more than sixty <i>noëls</i>. +Five pretty lines of his form an epitome of sacred +lullabies:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Faudra dire, faudra dire,</p> +<p class="i2">Quauco cansoun,</p> +<p class="i4">Au garçoun,</p> +<p class="i6">A la façoun</p> +<p>D'aquelo de <i>soum-soum</i>.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>George Wither deserves remembrance here for +what he calls a "Rocking hymn," written about the +year of Saboly's birth. "Nurses," he says, "usually +sing their children asleep, and through want of pertinent +matter they oft make use of unprofitable, if not +worse, songs; this was therefore prepared that it +might help acquaint them and their nurse children +with the loving care and kindness of their Heavenly +Father." Consciously or unconsciously, Wither caught +the true spirit of the ancient carols in the verses—charming +in spite, or perhaps because of their demure +simplicity—which follow his little exordium:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Sweet baby, sleep: what ails my dear;</p> +<p>What ails my darling thus to cry?</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page310" id="page310"></a>310</span> +<p>Be still, my child, and lend thine ear,</p> +<p>To hear me sing thy lullaby.</p> +<p class="i4">My pretty lamb, forbear to weep;</p> +<p class="i4">Be still, my dear; sweet baby, sleep.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Thou blessed soul, what canst thou fear?</p> +<p>What thing to thee can mischief do?</p> +<p>Thy God is now thy Father dear,</p> +<p>His holy Spouse thy mother too.</p> +<p class="i4">Sweet baby, then forbear to weep;</p> +<p class="i4">Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep....</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Whilst thus thy lullaby I sing,</p> +<p>For thee great blessings ripening be;</p> +<p>Thine eldest brother is a king,</p> +<p>And hath a kingdom bought for thee.</p> +<p class="i4">Sweet baby, then forbear to weep;</p> +<p class="i4">Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. &c., &c.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Count Gubernatis, in his "Usi Natalizj," quotes a +popular Spanish lullaby, addressed to any ordinary +child, but having reference to the Holy Babe:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>The Baby Child of Mary,</p> +<p class="i2">Now cradle He has none;</p> +<p>His father is a carpenter,</p> +<p class="i2">And he shall make Him one.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>The lady good St Anna,</p> +<p class="i2">The lord St Joachim,</p> +<p>They rock the Baby's cradle,</p> +<p class="i2">That sleep may come to Him.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Then sleep thou too, my baby,</p> +<p class="i2">My little heart so dear;</p> +<p>The Virgin is beside thee,</p> +<p class="i2">The Son of God is near.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>When they are old enough to understand the meaning +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page311" id="page311"></a>311</span> +of words, children are sure to be interested up to +a certain point by these saintly fables, but, taken as a +whole, the songs of the South give us the impression +that the coming of Christmas kindles the imagination +of the Southern mother rather than that of the +Southern child. On the north side of the Alps it is +otherwise; there is scarcely need to say that in the +Vaterland, Christmas is before all the children's feast. +We, who have borrowed many of the German yule-tide +customs, have left out the "Christkind;" and it +is well that we have done so. Transplanted to foreign +soil, that poetic piece of extra-belief would have +become a mockery. As soon try to naturalise Kolyada, +the Sclavonic white-robed New-year girl. The +Christkind in His mythical attributes is nearer to +Kolyada than to the Italian Bambinello. He belongs +to the people, not to the Church. He is not swathed +in jewelled swaddling clothes; His limbs are free, +and He has wings that carry Him wheresoever good +children abide. There is about Him all the dreamy +charm of lands where twilight is long and shade and +shine intermingle softly, and where the earth's wintry +winding-sheet is more beautiful than her April bride +gown. The most popular of German lullabies is a +truly Teutonic mixture of piety, wonder-lore, and +homeliness. Wagner has introduced the music to +which it is sung into his "Siegfried-Idyl." I have to +thank a Heidelberg friend for the text:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Sleep, baby, sleep:</p> +<p>Your father tends the sheep;</p> +<p class="i6">Your mother shakes the branches small,</p> +<p class="i6">Whence happy dreams in showers fall:</p> +<p>Sleep, baby, sleep.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page312" id="page312"></a>312</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Sleep, baby, sleep:</p> +<p>The sky is full of sheep;</p> +<p class="i6">The stars the lambs of heaven are,</p> +<p class="i6">For whom the shepherd moon doth care:</p> +<p>Sleep, baby, sleep.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Sleep, baby, sleep:</p> +<p>The Christ Child owns a sheep;</p> +<p class="i6">He is Himself the Lamb of God;</p> +<p class="i6">The world to save, to death He trod:</p> +<p>Sleep, baby, sleep.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Sleep, baby, sleep:</p> +<p>I'll give you then a sheep</p> +<p class="i6">With pretty bells, and you shall play</p> +<p class="i6">And frolic with him all the day:</p> +<p>Sleep, baby, sleep.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Sleep, baby, sleep:</p> +<p>And do not bleat like sheep,</p> +<p class="i6">Or else the shepherd's dog will bite</p> +<p class="i6">My naughty, little, crying spright:</p> +<p>Sleep, baby, sleep.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Sleep, baby, sleep:</p> +<p>Begone, and watch the sheep,</p> +<p class="i6">You naughty little dog! Begone,</p> +<p class="i6">And do not wake my little one:</p> +<p>Sleep, baby, sleep.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>In Denmark children are sung to sleep with a +cradle hymn which is believed (so I am informed by +a youthful correspondent) to be "very old." It has +seven stanzas, of which the first runs, "Sleep sweetly, +little child; lie quiet and still; as sweetly sleep as +the bird in the wood, as the flowers in the meadow. +God the Father has said, 'Angels stand on watch +where mine, the little ones, are in bed.'" A correspondent +at Warsaw (still more youthful) sends me +the even-song of Polish children:</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page313" id="page313"></a>313</span> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>The stars shine forth from the blue sky;</p> +<p class="i2">How great and wondrous is God's might;</p> +<p>Shine, stars, through all eternity,</p> +<p class="i2">His witness in the night.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>O Lord, Thy tired children keep:</p> +<p class="i2">Keep us who know and feel Thy might;</p> +<p>Turn Thine eye on us as we sleep,</p> +<p class="i2">And give us all good-night.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Shine, stars, God's sentinels on high,</p> +<p class="i2">Proclaimers of His power and might;</p> +<p>May all things evil from us fly:</p> +<p class="i2">O stars, good-night, good-night!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Is this "Dobra Noc" of strictly popular origin? +From internal evidence I should say that it is not. +It seems, however, to be extremely popular in the +ordinary sense of the word. Before me lie two or +three settings of it by Polish musicians.</p> + +<p>The Italians call lullabies <i>ninne-nanne</i>, a term used +by Dante when he makes Forese predict the ills +which are to overtake the dames of Florence:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>E se l'anteveder qui non m' inganna,</p> +<p class="i6">Prima fien triste che le guance impeli</p> +<p class="i6">Colui che mo si consola con <i>nanna</i>.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Some etymologists have sought to connect "nanna" +with <i>neniæ</i> or <ins title="nênitos"><i>νήνιτος</i></ins>, but its most apparent relationship +is with <ins title="nannarismata"><i>νανναρισματα</i></ins>, the modern Greek name for +cradle songs, which is derived from a root signifying +the singing of a child to sleep. The <i>ninne-nanne</i> of +the various Italian provinces are to be found scattered +here and there through volumes of folk poesy, and no +attempt has yet been made to collate and compare +them. Signor Dal Medico did indeed publish, some +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page314" id="page314"></a>314</span> +ten years ago, a separate collection of Venetian nursery +rhymes, but his initiative has not been followed +up. The difficulty I had in obtaining the little work +just mentioned is characteristic of the way in which +Italian printed matter vanishes out of all being; +instead of passing into the obscure but secure limbo +into which much of English literature enters, it attains +nothing short of Nirvāna—a happy state of non-existence. +The inquiries of several Italian book-sellers +led to no other conclusion than that the book +in question was not to be had for love or money; +and most likely I should still have been waiting for it +were it not for the courtesy of the Baron Giovanni di +Sardagna, who, on hearing that it was wanted by a +student of folk-lore, borrowed from the author the +only copy in his possession and made therefrom a +verbatim transcript. The following is one of Signor +Dal Medico's lullabies:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Hush! lulla, lullaby! So mother sings;</p> +<p>For hearken, 'tis the midnight bell that rings.</p> +<p>But, darling, not thy mother's bell is this:</p> +<p>St Lucy's priests it calls to prayer, I wis.</p> +<p>St Lucy gave thee eyes—a matchless pair—</p> +<p>And gave the Magdalen her golden hair;</p> +<p>Thy cheeks their hue from heaven's angels have;</p> +<p>Her little loving mouth St Martha gave.</p> +<p>Love's mouth, sweet mouth, that Florence hath for home,</p> +<p>Now tell me where love springs, and how doth come?...</p> +<p>With music and with song doth love arise,</p> +<p>And then its end it hath in tears and sighs.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The question and answer as to the beginning and +end of love run through all the songs of Italy, and in +nearly every case the reply proceeds from Florence. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page315" id="page315"></a>315</span> +The personality of the answerer changes: sometimes +it is a little wild bird; on one occasion it is a preacher. +And the idea has been suggested that the last is the +original form, and that the Preacher of Florence who +preaches against love is none other than Jeronimo +Savonarola.</p> + +<p>In an Istriot variant of the above song, "Santa +Luceîa" is spoken of as the Madonna of the eyes; +"Santa Puluonia" as the Madonna of the teeth: we +hear also something of the Magdalene's old shoes and +of the white lilies she bears in her hands. It is not +always quite clear upon what principle the folk-poet +shapes his descriptions of religious personages; if the +gifts and belongings he attributes to them are at times +purely conventional, at others they seem to rest on +no authority, legendary or historic. Most likely his +ideas as to the personal appearance of such or such a +saint are formed by the paintings in the church where +he is accustomed to go to mass; it is probable, too, +that he is fond of talking of the patrons of his village +or of the next village, whose names are associated +with the <i>feste</i>, which as long as he can recollect have +constituted the great annual events of his life. But +two or three saints have a popularity independent of +local circumstance. One of these is Lucy, whom the +people celebrate with equal enthusiasm from her +native Syracuse to the port of Pola. Perhaps the +maiden patroness of the blessed faculty of vision has +come to be thought of as a sort of gracious embodiment +of that which her name signifies: of the sweet +light which to the southerner is not a mere helpmate +in the performance of daily tasks, but a providential +luxury. Concerning the earthly career of their +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page316" id="page316"></a>316</span> +favourite, her peasant votaries have vague notions: +once when a French traveller in the Apennines suggested +that St Januarius might be jealous of her +praises, he received the answer, "<i>Ma che, excellenza</i>, +St Lucy was St Januarius' wife!"</p> + +<p>In Greece we find other saints invoked over the +baby's cradle. The Greek of modern times has his +face, his mind, his heart, set in an undeviating eastward +position. To holy wisdom and to Marina, the +Alexandrian martyr, the Greek mother confides her +cradled darling:</p> + +<blockquote><p> +Put him to bed, St Marina; send him to sleep, St Sophia! +Take him out abroad that he may see how the trees flower and +how the birds sing; then come back and bring him with you, +that his father may not ask for him, may not beat his servants, +that his mother may not seek him in vain, for she would weep +and fall sick, and her milk would turn bitter. +</p></blockquote> + +<p>At Gessopalena, in the province of Chieti (Abruzzo +Citeriore) there would seem to be much faith in +numbers. Luke and Andrew, Michael and Joseph, +Hyacinth and Matthew are called in, and as if these +were not enough to nurse one baby, a summons is +sent to <i>Sant Giusaffat</i>, who, as is well known, is +neither more nor less than Buddha introduced into +the Catholic calendar.</p> + +<p>Another of Signor Dal Medico's <i>ninne-nanne</i> presents +several points of interest:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>O Sleep, O Sleep, O thou beguiler, Sleep,</p> +<p>Beguile this child, and in beguilement keep,</p> +<p>Keep him three hours, and keep him moments three;</p> +<p>Until I call beguile this child for me.</p> +<p>And when I call I'll call:—My root, my heart,</p> +<p>The people say my only wealth thou art.</p> +<p>Thou art my only wealth; I tell thee so.</p> +<p>Now, bit by bit, this boy to sleep will go;</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page317" id="page317"></a>317</span> +<p>He falls and falls to sleeping bit by bit,</p> +<p>Like the green wood what time the fire is lit,</p> +<p>Like to green wood that never flame can dart,</p> +<p>Heart of thy mother, of thy father heart!</p> +<p>Like to green wood, that never flame can shoot.</p> +<p>Sleep thou, my cradled hope, sleep thou, my root,</p> +<p>My cradled hope, my spirit's strength and stay;</p> +<p>Mother, who bore thee, wears her life away;</p> +<p>Her life she wears away, and all day long</p> +<p>She goes a-singing to her child this song.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Now, in the first place, the comparison of the child's +gradual falling asleep with the slow ignition of fresh-cut +wood is the common property of all the populations +whose ethnical centre of gravity lies in Venice. +I have seen an Istriot version of it, and I heard it +sung by a countrywoman at San Martino di Castrozza +in the Trentino; so that, at all event, <i>Italia redenta</i> +and <i>irredenta</i> has a community of song. The second +thing that calls for remark is the direct invocation of +sleep. A distinct little group of cradle ditties displays +this characteristic. "Come, sleep," cries the Grecian +mother, "come, sleep, take him away; come sleep, +and make him slumber. Carry him to the vineyard +of the Aga, to the gardens of the Aga. The Aga +will give him grapes; his wife, roses; his servant, +pancakes." A second Greek lullaby must have sprung +from a luxuriant imagination. It comes from Schio:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Sleep, carry off my son, o'er whom three sentinels do watch,</p> +<p>Three sentinels, three warders brave, three mates you cannot match.</p> +<p>These guards: the sun upon the hill, the eagle on the plain,</p> +<p>And Boreas, whose chilly blasts do hurry o'er the main.</p> +<p>—The sun went down into the west, the eagle sank to sleep,</p> +<p>Chill Boreas to his mother sped across the briny deep.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page318" id="page318"></a>318</span> +<p>"My son, where were you yesterday? Where on the former night?</p> +<p>Or with the moon or with the stars did you contend in fight?</p> +<p>Or with Orion did you strive—though him I deem a friend?"</p> +<p>"Nor with the stars, nor with the moon, did I in strife contend,</p> +<p>Nor with Orion did I fight, whom for your friend I hold,</p> +<p>But guarded in a silver cot a child as bright as gold."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The Greeks have a curious way of looking at sleep: +they seem absorbed in the thought of what dreams +may come—if indeed the word dream rightly +describes their conception of that which happens to +the soul while the body takes its rest—if they do +not rather cling to some vague notion of a real +severance between matter and spirit during sleep.</p> + +<p>The mothers of La Bresse (near Lyons) invoke +sleep under the name of "le souin-souin." I wish I +could give here the sweet, inedited melody which +accompanies these lines:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Le poupon voudrait bien domir;</p> +<p>Le souin-souin ne veut pas venir.</p> +<p>Souin-souin, vené, vené, vené;</p> +<p>Souin-souin, vené, vené, donc!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The Chippewaya Indians were in the habit of +personifying sleep as an immense insect called Weeng, +which someone once saw at the top of a tree engaged +in making a buzzing noise with its wings. +Weeng produced sleep by sending fairies, who beat +the foreheads of tired mortals with very small clubs.</p> + +<p>Sleep acts the part of questioner in the lullaby of +the Finland peasant woman, who sings to her child +in its bark cradle: "Sleep, little field bird; sleep +sweetly, pretty redbreast. God will wake thee when +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page319" id="page319"></a>319</span> +it is time. Sleep is at the door, and says to me, 'Is +not there a sweet child here who fain would sleep? +a young child wrapped in swaddling clothes, a fair +child resting beneath his woollen coverlet?'" A +questioning sleep makes his appearance likewise in a +Sicilian <i>ninna</i>:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>My little son, I wish you well, your mother's comfort when in grief.</p> +<p>My pretty boy, what can I do? Will you not give one hour's relief?</p> +<p>Sleep has just past, and me he asked if this my son in slumber lay.</p> +<p>Close, close your little eyes, my child; send your sweet breath far leagues away.</p> +<p>You are the fount of rose water; you are with every beauty fraught.</p> +<p>Sleep, darling son, my pretty one, my golden button richly wrought.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>A vein of tender reproach is sprung in that inquiry, +"Ca n' ura ri riposu 'un vuo rari?" The mother +appeals to the better feeling, to the Christian charity +as it were, of the small but implacable tyrant. Another +time she waxes yet more eloquent. "Son, my +comfort, I am not happy. There are women who +laugh and enjoy themselves while I chafe my very +life out. Listen to me, child; beautiful is the lullaby +and all the folk are asleep—but thou, no! My wise +little son, I look about for thy equal; nowhere do I +find him. Thou art mamma's consolation. There, +do sleep just a little while." So pleads the Sicilian; +her Venetian sister tries to soften the obduracy of +her infant by still more plaintive remonstrances. +"Hushaby; but if thou dost not sleep, hear me. Thou +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page320" id="page320"></a>320</span> +hast robbed me of my heart and of all my sentiments. +I really do not know for what cause thou lamentest, +and never will have done lamenting." On this occasion +the appeal seems to be made to some purpose, +for the song concludes, "The eyes of my joy are closing; +they open a little and then they shut. Now is +my joy at peace with me and no longer at war." So +happy an issue does not always arrive. It may +happen that the perverse babe flatly refuses to listen +to the mother's voice, sing she never so sweetly. +Perhaps he might have something to say for himself +could he but speak, at any rate in the matter of mid-day +slumbers. It must no doubt be rather trying to +be called upon to go straight to sleep just when the +sunbeams are dancing round and round and wildly +inviting you to make your first studies in optics. +Most often the long-suffering mother, if she does not +see things in this light, acts as though she did. Her +patience has no limit; her caresses are never done; +with untiring love she watches the little wakeful, +wilful culprit—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Chi piangendo e ridendo pargoleggia....</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>But it is not always so; there are times when she +loses all patience, and temper into the bargain. +Such a contingency is only too faithfully reflected in +a Sicilian <i>ninna</i> which ends with the utterance of a +horrible wish that Doctor Death would come and +quiet the recalcitrant baby once for all. I ought to +add that this same murderous lullaby is nevertheless +brimful of protestations of affection and compliments; +the child is told that his eyes are the finest +imaginable, his cheeks two roses, his countenance +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page321" id="page321"></a>321</span> +like the moon's. The amount of incense which the +Sicilian mother burns before her offspring would +suffice to fill any number of cathedrals. Every +moment she breaks forth into words such as, "Hush! +child of my breath, bunch of jasmine, handful of +oranges and lemons; go to sleep, my son, my beauty: +I have got to take thy portrait." It has been remarked +that a person who resembled an orange +would scarcely be very attractive, whence it is inferred +that the comparison came into fashion at the +date when the orange tree was first introduced into +Sicily and when its fruit was esteemed a rare novelty. +A little girl is described as a spray of lilies and a +bouquet of roses. A little boy is assured that his +mother prefers him to gold or fine silver. If she lost +him where would she find a beloved son like to him? +A child dropped out of heaven, a laurel garland, one +under whose feet spring up flowers? Here is a string +of blandishments prettily wound up in a prayer:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Hush, my little round-faced daughter; thou art like the stormy sea.</p> +<p>Daughter mine of finest amber, godmother sends sleep to thee.</p> +<p>Fair thy name, and he who gave it was a gallant gentleman.</p> +<p>Mirror of my soul, I marvel when thy loveliness I scan.</p> +<p>Flame of love, be good. I love thee better far than life I love.</p> +<p>Now my child sleeps. Mother Mary, look upon her from above.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The form taken by parental flattery shows the +tastes of nations and of individuals. The other day +a young and successful English artist was heard to +exclaim with profound conviction, whilst contemplating +his son and heir, twenty-four hours old, "There is +a great deal of <i>tone</i> about that baby!"</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page322" id="page322"></a>322</span> + +<p>The Hungarian nurse tells her charge that his cot +must be of rosewood and his swaddling clothes of +rainbow threads spun by angels. The evening breeze +is to rock him, the kiss of the falling star to awake +him; she would have the breath of the lily touch +him gently, and the butterflies fan him with their +brilliant wings. Like the Sicilian, the Magyar has +an innate love of splendour.</p> + +<p>Corsica has a <i>ninna-nanna</i> into which the whole +genius of its people seems to have passed. The +village, <i>fêtes</i>, with dancing and music, the flocks and +herds and sheep-dogs, even the mountains, stars, and +sea, and the perfumed air off the <i>macchi</i>, come back +to the traveller in that island as he reads—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Hushaby, my darling boy;</p> +<p>Hushaby, my hope and joy.</p> +<p>You're my little ship so brave</p> +<p>Sailing boldly o'er the wave;</p> +<p>One that tempests doth not fear,</p> +<p>Nor the winds that blow from high.</p> +<p>Sleep awhile, my baby dear;</p> +<p>Sleep, my child, and hushaby.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Gold and pearls my vessel lade,</p> +<p>Silk and cloth the cargo be,</p> +<p>All the sails are of brocade</p> +<p>Coming from beyond the sea;</p> +<p>And the helm of finest gold,</p> +<p>Made a wonder to behold.</p> +<p>Fast awhile in slumber lie;</p> +<p>Sleep, my child, and hushaby.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>After you were born full soon</p> +<p>You were christened all aright;</p> +<p>Godmother she was the moon,</p> +<p>Godfather the sun so bright;</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page323" id="page323"></a>323</span> +<p>All the stars in heaven told</p> +<p>Wore their necklaces of gold.</p> +<p>Fast awhile in slumber lie;</p> +<p>Sleep, my child, and hushaby.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Pure and balmy was the air,</p> +<p>Lustrous all the heavens were;</p> +<p>And the seven planets shed</p> +<p>All their virtues on your head;</p> +<p>And the shepherds made a feast</p> +<p>Lasting for a week at least.</p> +<p>Fast awhile in slumber lie;</p> +<p>Sleep, my child, and hushaby.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Nought was heard but minstrelsy,</p> +<p>Nought but dancing met the eye,</p> +<p>In Cassoni's vale and wood</p> +<p>And in all the neighbourhood;</p> +<p>Hawk and Blacklip, stanch and true,</p> +<p>Feasted in their fashion too.</p> +<p>Fast awhile in slumber lie;</p> +<p>Sleep, my child, and hushaby.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Older years when you attain,</p> +<p>You will roam o'er field and plain;</p> +<p>Meadows will with flowers be gay,</p> +<p>And with oil the fountains play,</p> +<p>And the salt and bitter sea</p> +<p>Into balsam changèd be.</p> +<p>Fast awhile in slumber lie;</p> +<p>Sleep, my child, and hushaby.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>And these mountains, wild and steep,</p> +<p>Will be crowded o'er with sheep,</p> +<p>And the wild goat and the deer</p> +<p>Will be tame and void of fear;</p> +<p>Vulture, fox, and beast of prey,</p> +<p>From these bounds shall flee away.</p> +<p>Fast awhile in slumber lie;</p> +<p>Sleep, my child, and hushaby.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page324" id="page324"></a>324</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>You are savory, sweetly blowing,</p> +<p>You are thyme, of incense smelling,</p> +<p>Upon Mount Basella growing,</p> +<p>Upon Mount Cassoni dwelling;</p> +<p>You the hyacinth of the rocks</p> +<p>Which is pasture for the flocks.</p> +<p>Fast awhile in slumber lie;</p> +<p>Sleep, my child, and hushaby.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>At the sight of a new-born babe the Corsican involuntarily +sets to work making auguries. The mountain +shepherds place great faith in divination based on +the examination of the shoulder-blades of animals: +according to the local tradition the famous prophecy +of the greatness of Napoleon was drawn up after this +method. The nomad tribes of Central Asia search +the future in precisely the same way. Corsican lullabies +are often prophetical. An old woman predicts a +strange sort of millennium, to begin with the coming +of age of her grandson:</p> + +<div class="center"><div class="content"> +<p>"There grew a boy in Palneca of Pumonti, and his dear +grandmother was always rocking his cradle, always wishing +him this destiny:—</p> + +<p>"Sleep, O little one, thy grandmother's joy and gladness, for +I have to prepare the supper for thy dear little father, and thy +elder brothers, and I have to make their clothes.</p> + +<p>"When thou art older, thou wilt traverse the plains, the grass +will turn to flowers, the sea-water will become sweet balm.</p> + +<p>"We will make thee a jacket edged with red and turned up in +points, and a little peaked hat, trimmed with gold braid.</p> + +<p>"When thou art bigger, thou wilt carry arms; neither soldier +nor gendarme will frighten thee, and if thou art driven up into a +corner, thou wilt make a famous bandit.</p> + +<p>"Never did woman of our race pass thirteen years unwed, for +when an impertinent fellow dared so much as look at her, he +escaped not two weeks unless he gave her the ring.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page325" id="page325"></a>325</span> + +<p>"But that scoundrel of Morando surprised the kinsfolk, +arrested them all in one day, and wrought their ruin. And the +thieves of Palneca played the spy.</p> + +<p>"Fifteen men were hung, all in the market-place: men of +great worth, the flower of our race. Perhaps it will be thou, O +dearest! who shall accomplish the vendetta!" +</p></div></div> + +<p>An unexpected yet logical development leads from +the peaceful household cares, the joyous images of the +familiar song, the playful picture of the baby boy in +jacket and pointed hat, to a terrible recollection of +deeds of shame and blood, long past, and perhaps +half-forgotten by the rest of the family, but at which +the old dame's breast still burns as she rocks the +sleeping babe on whom is fixed her last passionate +hope of vengeance fulfilled.</p> + +<p>In the mountain villages scattered about the borders +of the vast Sila forest, Calabrian mothers whisper +to their babes, "brigantiellu miu, brigantiellu della +mamma." They tell the little ones gathered round +their knees legends of Fra Diavolo and of Talarico, +just as Sardinian mothers tell the legend of Tolu of +Florinas. This last is a story of to-day. In 1850, +Giovanni Tolu married the niece of the priest's housekeeper. +The priest opposed the marriage, and soon +after it had taken place, in the absence of Tolu, he +persuaded the young wife to leave her husband's +house, never to return. Tolu, meeting his enemy in +a lonely path, fired his pistol, but by some accident +it did not go off, and the priest escaped with his life. +Arrest and certain conviction, however, awaited Tolu, +who preferred to take to the woods, where he remained +for thirty years, a prince among outlaws. He protected +the weak; administered a rude but wise justice +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page326" id="page326"></a>326</span> +to the scattered peasants of the waste country between +Sassari and the sea; his swift horse was always ready +to fly in search of their lost or stolen cattle; his gun +was the terror of the thieves who preyed upon these +poor people. In Osilo lived two families, hereditary +foes, the Stacca and the Achena. An Achena offered +Tolu five hundred francs to kill the head of the Stacca +family. Tolu not only refused, he did not rest till +he had brought about a reconciliation between the +two houses. At last, in the autumn of 1880, the +gendarmes, after thirty years' failure, arrested Tolu +without a struggle at a place where he had gone to +take part in a country <i>festa</i>. For two years he was +kept untried in prison. In September 1882 he was +brought before the Court of Assize at Frosinone. +Not a witness could be found to testify against him. +"Tolu," they said, "è un Dio." When asked by the +President what he had to say in his defence, he replied: +"I never fired first. The carabineers hunted +me like a wild beast, because a price was set on my +head, and like a wild beast I defended myself." The +jury brought in a verdict of acquittal; and if any one +wishes to make our hero's acquaintance, he has only +to take ship for Sardinia and then find the way to the +village of Florinas, where he is now peaceably living, +beloved and respected by all who know him.</p> + +<p>The Sardinian character has old-world virtues and +old-world blemishes; if you live in the wilder districts +you may deem it advisable to keep a loaded pistol on +the table at meal-time; but then you may go all over +the island without letters of introduction, sure of a +hearty welcome, and an hospitality which gives to the +stranger the best of everything that there is. If the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page327" id="page327"></a>327</span> +Sardinian has an imperfect apprehension of the sacredness +of other laws, he is blindly obedient to that +of custom; when some progressive measure is proposed, +he does not argue—he says quietly: "Custu +non est secundu la moda nostra." No man sweeps +the dust on antique time less than he. One of his +distinctive traits is an overweening fondness of his +children; the ever-marvellous baby is represented not +only as the glory of its mother, but also as the light +even of its most distant connexions—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Lullaby, sweet lullaby,</p> +<p>You our happiness supply;</p> +<p>Fair your face, and sweet your ways,</p> +<p>You, your mother's pride and praise.</p> +<p>As the coral, rare and bright,</p> +<p>In your life does father live;</p> +<p>You, of all the dear delight,</p> +<p>All around you pleasure give.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>All your ways, my pretty boy,</p> +<p>Of your parents are the joy;</p> +<p>You were born for good alone,</p> +<p>Sunshine of the family!</p> +<p>Wise, and kind to every one.</p> +<p>Light of every kinsman's eye;</p> +<p>Light of all who hither come,</p> +<p>And the gladness of our home.</p> +<p class="i12"> Lullaby, sweet lullaby.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>On the northern shore the people speak a tongue +akin to that of the neighbouring isle, and the dialect +of the south is semi-Spanish; but in the midland +Logudoro the old Sard speech is spoken much as it +is known to have been spoken a thousand years ago. +It is simply a rustic Latin. Canon Spano's loving +rather than critical labours have left Sardinia a fine +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page328" id="page328"></a>328</span> +field for some future folk-lore collector. The Sardinian +is short in speech, copious in song. I asked a +lad, just returned to Venetia from working in Sardinian +quarries, if the people there had many songs? "Oh! +tanti!" he answered, with a gesture more expressive +than the words. He had brought back more than a +touch of that malarious fever which is the scourge of +the island and a blight upon all efforts to develop its +rich resources. A Sardinian friend tells me that the +Sard poet often shows a complete contempt for metrical +rules; his poesy is apt to become a rhythmic chant +of which the words and music cannot be dissevered. +But the Logudorian lullabies are regular in form, +their distinguishing feature being an interjection with +an almost classical ring that replaces the <i>fa la nanna</i> +of Italy—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh! ninna and anninia!</p> +<p class="i4">Sleep, baby boy;</p> +<p>Oh! ninna and anninia!</p> +<p class="i4">God give thee joy.</p> +<p>Oh! ninna and anninia!</p> +<p class="i4">Sweet joy be thine;</p> +<p>Oh! ninna and anninia!</p> +<p class="i4">Sleep, brother mine.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Sleep, and do not cry,</p> +<p class="i4">Pretty, pretty one,</p> +<p>Apple of mine eye,</p> +<p class="i4">Danger there is none;</p> +<p>Sleep, for I am by,</p> +<p class="i4">Mother's darling son.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh! ninna and anninia!</p> +<p class="i4">Sleep, baby boy;</p> +<p>Oh! ninna and anninia!</p> +<p class="i4">God give thee joy.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page329" id="page329"></a>329</span> +<p>Oh! ninna and anninia!</p> +<p class="i4">Sweet joy be thine;</p> +<p>Oh! ninna and anninia!</p> +<p class="i4">Sleep, brother mine.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The singer is the little mother-sister: the child who, +while the mother works in the fields or goes to +market, is left in charge of the last-come member of +the family, and is bound to console it as best she +may, for the absence of its natural guardian. The +baby is to her somewhat of a doll, just as to the children +of the rich the doll is somewhat of a baby. She +may be met without going far afield; anyone who +has lived near an English village must know the +curly-headed little girl who sits on the cottage door-step +or among the meadow buttercups, her arms +stretched at full length, round a soft, black-eyed +creature, small indeed, yet not much smaller than +herself. This, she solemnly informs you, is her baby. +Not quite so often can she be seen now as before the +passing of the Education Act, prior to which all +truants fell back on the triumphant excuse, "I can't +go to school because I have to mind my baby," some +neighbouring infant brother, cousin, nephew, being +producible at a moment's notice in support of the +assertion. In those days the mere sight of a baby +filled persons interested in the promotion of public +instruction with wrath and suspicion. Yet womanhood +would lose a sweet and sympathetic phase were +the little mother-sister to wholly disappear. The +songs of the child-nurse are of the slenderest kind; +the tether of her imagination has not been cut by +hope or memory. As a rule she dwells upon the +important fact that mother will soon be here, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page330" id="page330"></a>330</span> +when she has said that, she has not much more to +say. So it is in an Istriot song: "This is a child +who is always crying; be quiet, my soul, for mother +is coming back; she will bring thee nice milk, and +then she will put thee in the crib to hushaby." A +Tuscan correspondent sends me a sister-rhyme which +is introduced by a pretty description of the grave-eyed +little maiden, of twelve or thirteen years perhaps, responsible +almost to sadness, who leans down her face +over the baby brother she is rocking in the cradle; +and when he stirs and begins to cry, sings softly the +oft-told tale of how the dear mamma will come +quickly and press him lovingly to her breast:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Che fa mai col volto chino,</p> +<p class="i4">Quella tacita fanciulla?</p> +<p class="i4">Sta vegliando il fratellino,</p> +<p class="i4">Adagiato nella culla.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Ed il pargolo se desta,</p> +<p class="i4">E il meschino prorompe in pianto,</p> +<p class="i4">La bambina, mesta, mesta,</p> +<p class="i4">Vuol chetarlo col suo canto:</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Bambolino mio, riposa,</p> +<p class="i4">Presto mamma tornerà;</p> +<p class="i4">Cara mamma che amorosa</p> +<p class="i4">Al suo sen ti stringerà.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The little French girl turns her thoughts to the hot +milk and chocolate that are being prepared, and of +which she no doubt expects to have a share:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Fais dodo, Colin, mon p'tit frère,</p> +<p>Fais dodo, t'auras du lolo.</p> +<p class="i4">Le papa est en haut, qui fait le lolo,</p> +<p class="i4">Le maman est en bas, qui fait le colo;</p> +<p>Fais dodo, Colin, mon p'tit frère</p> +<p class="i4">Fais dodo.</p> + </div> </div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page331" id="page331"></a>331</span> + +<p>In enumerating the rewards for infantine virtue—which +is sleep—I must not forget the celebrated +hare's skin to be presented to Baby Bunting, and the +"little fishy" that the English father, set to be nurse +<i>ad interim</i>, promises his "babby" when the ship +comes in; nor should I pass over the hopes raised +in an inedited cradle song of French Flanders, +which opens, like the Tuscan lullaby, with a short +narration:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Un jour un' pauv' dentillière</p> +<p>En amicliton ch'un petiot garchun,</p> +<p>Qui d'puis le matin n'fesions que blaìre,</p> +<p>Voulait l'endormir par une canchun.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>In this barbarous <i>patios</i>, the poor lace-maker tells +her "p'tit pocchin" (little chick) that to-morrow he +shall have a cake made of honey, spices, and rye flour; +that he shall be dressed in his best clothes "com' un +bieau milord;" and that at "la Ducasse," a local <i>fête</i>, +she will buy him a laughable Polchinello and a bird-organ +playing the tune of the sugar-loaf hat. Toys +are also promised in a Japanese lullaby, which the +kindness of the late author of "Child-life in Japan" +has enabled me to give in the original:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Nén-ne ko yō—nén-né ko yō</p> +<p>Nén-né no mori wa—doko ye yuta</p> +<p>Ano yama koyété—sato ye yuta</p> +<p>Sato no miyagé ni—nani morota</p> +<p>Tén-tén taiko ni—shō no fuyé</p> +<p>Oki-agari koboshima—ìnu hari-ko.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Signifying in English:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Lullaby, baby, lullaby, baby</p> +<p>Baby's nursey, where has she gone</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page332" id="page332"></a>332</span> +<p>Over those mountains she's gone to her village;</p> +<p>And from her village, what will she bring?</p> +<p>A tum-tum drum, and a bamboo flute,</p> +<p>A "daruma" (which will never turn over) and a paper dog.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Scope is allowed for unlimited extension, as the +singer can go on mentioning any number of toys. +The <i>Daruma</i> is what English children call a tumbler; +a figure weighted at the bottom, so that turn it how +you will, it always regains its equilibrium.</p> + +<p>More ethereal delights than chocolate, hare's skins, +bird-organs, or even paper dogs (though these last +sound irresistibly seductive), form the subject of a +beautiful little Greek song of consolation: "Lullaby, +lullaby, thy mother is coming back from the laurels +by the river, from the sweet banks she will bring thee +flowers; all sorts of flowers, roses, and scented pinks." +When she does come back, the Greek mother makes +such promises as eclipse all the rest: "Sleep, my +child, and I will give thee Alexandria for thy sugar, +Cairo for thy rice, and Constantinople, there to reign +three years!" Those who see deep meaning in +childish things will look with interest at the young +Greek woman, who sits vaguely dreaming of empire +while she rocks her babe. The song is particularly +popular in Cyprus; the English residents there must +be familiar with the melody—an air constructed on +the Oriental scale, and only the other day set on +paper. The few bars of music are like a sigh of passionate +longing.</p> + +<p>From reward to punishment is but a step, and next +in order to the songs that refer to the recompense of +good, sleepy children, must be placed those hinting at +the serious consequences which will be the result of +unyielding wakefulness. It must be confessed that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page333" id="page333"></a>333</span> +retribution does not always assume a very awful form; +in fact, in one German rhyme, it comes under so +gracious a disguise, that a child might almost lie +awake on purpose to look out for it:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Sleep, baby, sleep,</p> +<p>I can see two little sheep;</p> +<p>One is black and one is white,</p> +<p>And, if you do not sleep to-night,</p> +<p>First the black and then the white</p> +<p>Will give your little toes a bite.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The translation is by "Hans Breitmann."</p> + +<p>In the threatening style of lullaby, the bogey plays a +considerable part. A history of the bogeys of all +nations would be an instructive book. The hero of +one people is the bogey of another. Wellington and +Napoleon (or rather "Boney") served to scare +naughty babies long after the latter, at least, was laid +to rest. French children still have songs about "le +Prince Noir," and the nurses sang during the siege of +Paris:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>As-tu vu Bismarck</p> +<p class="i2">A la porte de Chatillon?</p> +<p>Il lance les obus</p> +<p class="i2">Sur le Panthéon.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The Moor is the nursery terror of many parts of +Southern Europe; not, however, it would seem of +Sicily—a possible tribute to the enlightened rule of +the Kalifs. The Greeks do not enjoy a like immunity: +Signor Avolio mentions, in his "Canti popolari +di Noto," that besides saying "the wolf is coming," +it is common for mothers to frighten their little ones +with, "Zìttiti, ca viènunu i Riece; Nu sciri ca 'ncianu +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page334" id="page334"></a>334</span> +ci sù i Rieci" ("Hush, for the Greeks are coming: +don't go outside for the Greeks are there.") Noto +was the centre of the district where the ancient Sikeli +made their last stand against Greek supremacy: a +coincidence that opens the way to bold speculation, +though the originals of the bogey Greeks may have +been only pirates of times far less remote.</p> + +<p>In Germany the same person distributes rewards +and punishments: St Nicholas in the Rhenish provinces, +Knecht Ruprecht in Northern and Central +Germany, Julklapp in Pomerania. On Christmas +eve, some one cries out "Julklapp!" from behind a +door, and throws the gift into the room with the +child's name pinned upon it. Even the gentle St +Lucy, the Santa Claus of Lombardy, withholds her +cakes from erring babes, and little Tuscans stand a +good deal in awe of their friend the Befana; delightful +as are the treasures she puts in their shoes when +satisfied with their behaviour, she is credited with an +unpleasantly sharp eye for youthful transgressions. +She has a relative in Japan of the name of Hotii. +Once upon a time Hotii, who belongs to the sterner +sex, lived on earth in the garb of a priest. His birthland +was China, and he had the happy fame of being +extremely kind to children. At present he walks +about Japan with a big sack full of good things for +young people, but the eyes with which the back of +his head is furnished, enable him to see in a second +if any child misconducts itself. Of more dubious +antecedents is another patron of the children of Japan, +Kishi Mojin, the mother of the child-demons. Once +Kishi Mojin had the depraved habit of stealing any +young child she could lay hands on and eating it. In +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page335" id="page335"></a>335</span> +spite of this, she was sincerely attached to her own +family, which numbered one thousand, and when the +exalted Amida Niorai hid one of its members to +punish her for her cruel practices, she grieved bitterly. +Finally the child was given back on condition that +Kishi Mojin would never more devour her neighbours' +infants: she was advised to eat the fruit of the pomegranate +whenever she had a craving for unnatural +food. Apparently she took the advice and kept the +compact, as she is honoured on the 28th day of every +month, and little children are taught to solicit her +protection. The kindness shown to children both in +Japan and China is well known; in China one baby +is said to be of more service in insuring a safe journey +than an armed escort.</p> + +<p>"El coco," a Spanish bogey, figures in a sleep-song +from Malaga: "Sleep, little child, sleep, my soul; +sleep, little star of the morning. My child sleeps with +eyes open like the hares. Little baby girl, who has +beaten thee that thine eyes look as if they had been +crying? Poor little girl! who has made thy face red? +The rose on the rose-tree is going to sleep, and to +sleep goes my child, for already it is late. Sleep little +daughter for the <i>coco</i> comes."</p> + +<p>The folk-poet in Spain reaps the advantage of a +recognised freedom of versification; with the great +stress laid upon the vowels, a consonant more or less +counts for nothing:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>A dormir va la rosa</p> +<p class="i2">De los rosales;</p> +<p>A dormir va mi <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'nĩna'">niña</ins></p> +<p class="i2">Porque ya es tarde.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>All folk-poets, and notably the English, have recourse +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page336" id="page336"></a>336</span> +to an occasional assonant, but the Spaniard can trust +altogether to such. Verse-making is thus made easy, +provided ideas do not fail, and up to to-day, they +have not failed the Spanish peasant. He has not, +like the Italian, begun to leave off composing songs. +My correspondent at Malaga writes that at that place +improvisation seems innate in the people: they go +before a house and sing the commonest thing they +wish to express. Love and hate they also turn into +songs, to be rehearsed under the window of the +individual loved or hated. There is even an old +woman now living in Malaga who rhymes in Latin +with extraordinary facility. To the present section +falls one other lullaby—coo-aby, perhaps I ought to +say, since the Spanish <i>arrullo</i> means the cooing of +doves as well as the lulling of children. It is quoted +by Count Gubernatis:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Isabellita, do not pine</p> +<p class="i2">Because the flowers fade away;</p> +<p class="i2">If flowers hasten to decay</p> +<p>Weep not, Isabellita mine.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Little one, now close thine eyes,</p> +<p class="i2">Hark, the footsteps of the Moor!</p> +<p class="i2">And she asks from door to door,</p> +<p>Who may be the child who cries?</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>When I was as small as thou</p> +<p class="i2">And within my cradle lying,</p> +<p class="i2">Angels came about me flying</p> +<p>And they kissed me on my brow.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Sleep, then, little baby, sleep:</p> +<p class="i2">Sleep, nor cry again to-night,</p> +<p class="i2">Lest the angels take to flight</p> +<p>So as not to see thee weep.</p> + </div> </div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page337" id="page337"></a>337</span> + +<p>"The Moor" is in this instance a benignant kind of +bogey, not far removed from harmless "wee Willie +<ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Winkile'">Winkie</ins>" who runs upstairs and downstairs in his +nightgown:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Tapping at the window,</p> +<p class="i2">Crying at the lock,</p> +<p>"Are the babes in their beds?</p> +<p class="i2">For it's now ten o'clock."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>These myths have some analogy with a being known +as "La Dormette" who frequents the neighbourhood +of Poitou. She is a good old woman who throws +sand and sleep on children's eyes, and is hailed with +the words:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Passez la Dormette,</p> +<p class="i2">Passez par chez nous!</p> +<p>Endormir gars et fillettes</p> +<p class="i2">La nuit et le jou.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Now and then we hear of an angel who passes by at +nightfall; it is not clear what may be his mission, +but he is plainly too much occupied to linger with +his fellow seraphs, who have nothing to do but to kiss +the babe in its sleep. A little French song speaks of +this journeying angel:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Il est tard, l'ange a passé,</p> +<p>Le jour a déja baissé;</p> +<p>Et l'on n'entend pour tout bruit</p> +<p>Que le ruisseau qui s'enfuit.</p> +<p>Endors toi,</p> +<p>Mon fils! c'est moi.</p> +<p>Il est tard et ton ami,</p> +<p>L'oiseau blue, s'est endormi.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>In Calabria, when a butterfly flits around a baby's +cradle, it is believed to be either an angel or a baby's +soul.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page338" id="page338"></a>338</span> + +<p>The pendulum of good and evil is set swinging +from the moment that the infant draws its first +breath. Angelical visitation has its complement in +demonial influence; it is even difficult to resist the +conclusion that the ministers of light are frequently +outnumbered by the powers of darkness. In most +Christian lands the unbaptised child is given over +entirely to the latter. Sicilian women are loth to +kiss a child before its christening, because they consider +it a pagan or a Turk. In East Tyrol and +Styria, persons who take a child to be baptised say +on their return—"A Jew we took away, a Christian +we bring back." Some Tyrolese mothers will not +give any food to their babies till the rite has been +performed. The unbaptised Greek is thought to be +simply a small demon, and is called by no other +designation than <ins title="srakos"><i>σρακος</i></ins> if a boy, +and <ins title="srakoula"><i>σρακõυλα</i></ins> if a +girl. Once when a christening was unavoidably delayed, +the parents got so accustomed to calling their +little girl by the snake name, that they continued doing +so even after she had been presented with one less +equivocal. Dead unchristened babes float about on the +wind; in Tyrol they are marshalled along by Berchte, +the wife of Pontius Pilate; in Scotland they may be +heard moaning on calm nights. The state to which +their baby souls are relegated, is probably a lingering +recollection of that into which, in pagan days, all +innocent spirits were conceived to pass: an explanation +that has also the merit of being as little offensive +as any that can be offered. There is naturally a +general wish to make baptism follow as soon as possible +after birth—an end that is sometimes pursued +regardless of the bodily risks it may involve. A poor +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page339" id="page339"></a>339</span> +woman gave birth to a child at the mines of Vallauria; +it was a bitterly cold winter; the snow lay +deep enough to efface the mountain tracks, and +all moisture froze the instant it was exposed to the +air. However, the grandmother of the new-born +babe carried it off immediately to Tenda—many +miles away—for the christening rite. As she had +been heard to remark that it was a useless encumbrance, +there were some who attributed her action to +other motives than religious zeal; but the child survived +the ordeal and prospered. In several parts of the +Swiss mountains a baptism, like a funeral, is an event +for the whole community. I was present at a christening +in a small village lying near the summit of the +Julier Pass. The bare, little church was crowded, +and the service was performed with a reverent carefulness +contrasting sharply with the mechanical and +hurried performance of a baptism witnessed shortly +before in a very different place, the glorious baptistry +at Florence. It ended with a Lutheran hymn, sung +sweetly without accompaniment, by five or six young +girls. More than half of the congregation consisted +of men, whose weather-tried faces were wet with tears, +almost without exception. I could not find out that +there was anything particularly sad in the circumstances +of the case; the women certainly wore black, +but then, the rule of attending the funerals even of +mere acquaintances, causes the best dress in Switzerland +to be always one suggestive of mourning. It +seemed that the pathos of the dedication of a dawning +life to the Supreme Good was sufficient to touch the +hearts of these simple folk, starved from coarser +emotion.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page340" id="page340"></a>340</span> + +<p>In Calabria it is thought unlucky to be either born +or christened on a Friday. Saturday is likewise +esteemed an inauspicious day, which points to its +association with the witches' Sabbath, once the subject +of numerous superstitious beliefs throughout the +southern provinces of Italy. Not far from the battlefield +near Benevento where Charles of Anjou defeated +Manfred, grew a walnut tree, which had an almost +European fame as the scene of Sabbatical orgies. +People used to hang upon its branches the figure of a +two-headed viper coiled into a ring, a symbol of +incalculable antiquity. St Barbatus had the tree cut +down, but the devil raised new shoots from the root +and so it was renewed. Shreds of snake-worship +may be still collected. The Calabrians hold that the +cast-off skin of a snake is an excellent thing to put +under the pillow of a sick baby. Even after their +christening, children are unfortunately most susceptible +to enchantment. When a beautiful and healthy +child sickens and dies, the Irish peasant infers that +the genuine baby has been stolen by fairies, and this +miserable sprite left in its place. Two ancient antidotes +have great power to counteract the effect of +spells. One is the purifying Fire. In Scotland, as +in Italy, bewitched children, within the memory of +living men, have been set to rights by contact with +its salutary heat. My relative, Count Belli of Viterbo, +was "looked at" when an infant by a <i>Jettatrice</i>, and +was in consequence put by his nurse into a mild oven +for half-an-hour. One would think that the remedy +was nearly as perilous as the practice of the lake-dwellers +of cutting a little hole in their children's +heads to let out the evil spirits, but in the case mentioned +it seems to have answered well.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page341" id="page341"></a>341</span> + +<p>The other important curative agent is the purifying +spittle. In Scotland and in Greece, any one who +should exclaim, "What a beautiful child!" is expected +to slightly spit upon the object of the remark, or +some misfortune will follow. Ladies in a high position +at Athens have been observed to do this quite +lately. The Scotch and Greek uneasiness about the +"well-faured" is by no means confined to those +peoples; the same anxiety reappears in Madagascar; +and the Arab does not like you to praise the beauty +of his horse without adding the qualifying "an it +please God." Persius gives an account of the precautions +adopted by the friends of the infant Roman: +"Look here—a grandmother or superstitious aunt +has taken baby from his <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'cardle'">cradle</ins> and is charming his +forehead and his slavering lips against mischief by +the joint action of her middle finger and her purifying +spittle; for she knows right well how to check the +evil eye. Then she dandles him in her arms, and +packs off the little pinched hope of the family, so far +as wishing can do it, to the domains of Licinus, or to +the palace of Crœsus. 'May he be a catch for my +lord and lady's daughter! May the pretty ladies +scramble for him! May the ground he walks on turn +to a rose-bed.'" (Prof. Conington's translation.)</p> + +<p>One of the rare lullabies that contain allusion to +enchantment is the following Roumanian "Nani-nani":</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Lullaby, my little one,</p> +<p>Thou art mother's darling son;</p> +<p>Loving mother will defend thee,</p> +<p>Mother she will rock and tend thee,</p> +<p>Like a flower of delight,</p> +<p>Or an angel swathed in white.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page342" id="page342"></a>342</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Sleep with mother, mother well</p> +<p>Knows the charm for every spell.</p> +<p>Thou shalt be a hero as</p> +<p>Our good lord, great Stephen, was,</p> +<p>Brave in war, and strong in hand,</p> +<p>To protect thy fatherland.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Sleep, my baby, in thy bed;</p> +<p>God upon thee blessings shed.</p> +<p>Be thou dark, and be thine eyes</p> +<p>Bright as stars that gem the skies.</p> +<p>Maidens' love be thine, and sweet</p> +<p>Blossoms spring beneath thy feet.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The last lines might be taken for a paraphrase +of—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p><span class="xxl">. . . . . . . </span>puellae</p> +<p>Hunc rapiant: quicquid calcaverit hic, rosa fiat.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The Three Fates have still their cult at Athens. +When a child is three days old, the mother places by +its cot a little table spread with a clean linen cloth, +upon which she sets a pot of honey, sundry cakes and +fruits, her wedding ring, and a few pieces of money +belonging to her husband. In the honey are stuck +three almonds. These are the preparations for the +visit of the <ins title="Moirai"><i>Μοιραι</i></ins>. In some places the Norns or +Parcæ have got transformed into the three Maries; +in others they closely retain their original character. +A perfect sample of the mixing up of pagan and +Christian lore is to be found in a Bulgarian legend, +which shows the three Fates weaving the destiny of +the infant Saviour during a momentary absence of +the Virgin—the whole scene occurring in the middle +of a Balkan wood. In Sicily exists a belief in certain +strange ladies ("donni-di-fora"), who take charge of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page343" id="page343"></a>343</span> +the new-born babe, with or without permission. The +Palermitan mother says aloud, when she lifts her +child out of the cradle, "'Nnome di Dio!" ("In God's +name!")—but she quickly adds <i>sotto voce</i>: "Cu licenzi, +signuri miu!" ("By your leave, ladies").</p> + +<p>At Noto, <i>Ronni-di-casa</i>, or house-women, take the +place of the <i>Donni-di-fora</i>. They inhabit every house +in which a fire burns. If offended by their host, they +revenge themselves on the children: the mother finds +the infant whom she left asleep and tucked into the +cradle, rolling on the floor or screaming with sudden +fright. When, however, the <i>Ronni-di-casa</i> are amiably +disposed, they make the sleeping child smile, after the +fashion of angels in other parts of the world. Should +they wish to leave an unmistakable mark of their good +will, they twist a lock of the baby's hair into an inextricable +tress. In England, elves were supposed to +tangle the hair during sleep (<i>vide King Lear</i>: "Elf +all my hair in knots;" and Mercutio's Mab speech). +The favour of the Sicilian house-women is not without +its drawbacks, for if by any mischance the knotted +lock be cut off, they will probably twist the child's +spine out of spite. "'Ccussi lu lassurii li Ronni-di-casa," +says an inhabitant of Noto when he points out +to you a child suffering from spinal curvature. The +voice is lowered in mentioning these questionable +guests, and there are Noticiani who will use any +amount of circumlocution to avoid actually naming +them. <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'The'">They</ins> are often called "certi signuri," as in this +characteristic lullaby:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>My love, I wish thee well; so lullaby!</p> +<p>Thy little eyes are like the cloudless sky,</p> +<p>My little lovely girl, my pretty one,</p> +<p>Mother will make of thee a little nun:</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page344" id="page344"></a>344</span> +<p>A sister of the Saviour's Priory</p> +<p>Where noble dames and ladies great there be.</p> +<p>Sleep, moon-faced treasure, sleep, the while I sing:</p> +<p>Thou hadst thy cradle from the Spanish king.</p> +<p>When thou hast slept, I'll love thee better still.</p> +<p>(Sleep to my daughter comes and goes at will</p> +<p>And in her slumber she is made to smile</p> +<p>By certain ladies whom I dare not style.)</p> +<p>Breath of my body, thou, my love, my care,</p> +<p>Thou art without a flaw, so wondrous fair.</p> +<p>Sleep then, thy mother's breath, sleep, sleep, and rest,</p> +<p>For thee my very soul forsakes my breast.</p> +<p>My very soul goes forth, and sore my heart:</p> +<p>Thou criest; words of comfort I impart.</p> +<p>Daughter, my flame, lie still and take repose,</p> +<p>Thou art a nosegay culled from off the rose.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>At Palermo, mothers dazzled their little girls with +the prospect of entering the convent of Santa Zita or +Santa Chiara. In announcing the birth of his child, +a Sicilian peasant commonly says, "My wife has a +daughter-abbess." "What! has your wife a daughter +old enough to be an abbess?" has sometimes been +the innocent rejoinder of a traveller from the mainland. +The Convent of the Saviour, which is the +destination of the paragon of beauty described in the +above lullaby, was one of the wealthiest, and what is +still more to the point, one of the most aristocratic +religious houses in the island. To have a relation +among its members was a distinction ardently coveted +by the citizens of Noto; a town which once rejoiced +in thirty-three noble families, one loftier than the other. +The number is now cut down, but according to Signor +Avolio such as remain are regarded with undiminished +reverence. There are households in which the whole +conversation runs on the <i>Barone</i> and <i>Baronessa</i>, when +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page345" id="page345"></a>345</span> +not absorbed by the <i>Baronello</i> and the <i>Baronessella</i>. +It is just possible that the same phenomenon might +be observed without going to Noto. <i>Tutto il mondo +è paese</i>: a proverb which would serve as an excellent +motto for the Folk-lore Society.</p> + +<p>Outside Sicily the cradle-singer's ideal of felicity is +rather matrimonial than monastic. The Venetian is +convinced that who never loved before must succumb +to her daughter's incomparable charms. It seems, +by-the-by, that the "fatal gift" can be praised without +fear or scruple in modern Italy; the visitors of a +new-born babe ejaculate in a chorus, "Quant' è +bellino! O bimbo! Bimbino!" and Italian lullabies, +far more than any others, are one long catalogue of +perfections, one drawn-out reiteration of the boast of +a Greek mother of Terra d'Otranto: "There are +children in the street, but like my boy there is not +one; there are children before the house, but like my +child there are none at all." The Sardinian who +wishes to say something civil of a baby will not do +less than predict that "his fame will go round the +world." The cradle-singer of the Basilicata desires +for her nursling that he may outstrip the sun and +moon in their race. It has been seen that the Roumanian +mother would have her son emulate the famous +hero of Moldavia; for her daughter she cherishes a +gentler ambition:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Sleep, my daughter, sleep an hour;</p> +<p>Mother's darling gilliflower.</p> +<p>Mother rocks thee, standing near,</p> +<p>She will wash thee in the clear</p> +<p>Waters that from fountains run,</p> +<p>To protect thee from the sun.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page346" id="page346"></a>346</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Sleep, my darling, sleep an hour,</p> +<p>Grow thou as the gilliflower.</p> +<p>As a tear-drop be thou white,</p> +<p>As a willow, tall and slight;</p> +<p>Gentle as the ring-doves are,</p> +<p>And be lovely as a star!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>This <i>nani-nani</i> calls to mind some words in a letter +of Sydney Dobell's: "A little girl-child! The very +idea is the most exquisite of poems! a child-daughter—wherein +it seems to me that the spirit of all dews +and flowers and springs and tender, sweet wonders +'strikes its being into bounds.'" "Tear drop" +(<i>lacrimiòra</i>) is the poetic Roumanian name for the +lily of the valley. It may be needful to add that +gilliflower is the English name for the clove-pink; +at least an explanatory foot-note is now attached to +the word in new editions of the old poets. Exiled +from the polite society of "bedding plants"—all +heads and no bodies—the "matted and clove gilliflowers" +which Bacon wished to have in his garden, +must be sought for by the door of the cottager who +speaks of them fondly yet apologetically, as "old-fashioned +things." To the folk-singers of the small +Italy on the Danube and the great Italy on the Arno +they are still the type of the choicest excellence, of the +most healthful grace. Even the long stalk, which has +been the flower's undoing, from a worldly point of +view, gets praised by the unsophisticated Tuscan. +"See," he says, "with how lordly an air it holds itself +in the hand!" ("Guarda con quanta signoria si +tiene in mano!")</p> + +<p>The anguish of the Hindu dying childless has its +root deeper down in the human heart than the reason +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page347" id="page347"></a>347</span> +he gives for it, the foolish fear lest his funeral rites be +not properly performed. No man quite knows what +it is to die who leaves a child in the world; children +are more than a link with the future—they <i>are</i> the +future: the portion of ourselves that belongs not to this +day but to to-morrow. To them may be transferred +all the hopes sadly laid by, in our own case, as illusions; +the "to be" of their young lives can be turned +into a beautiful "arrangement in pink," even though +experience has taught us that the common lot of +humanity is "an Imbroglio in Whity-brown." Most +parents do all this and much more; as lullabies +would show were there any need for the showing of +it. One cradle-song, however, faces the truth that of +all sure things the surest is that sorrow and disappointment +will fall upon the children as it has fallen +upon the fathers. The song comes from Germany; +the English version is by Mr C. G. Leland:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Sleep, little darling, an angel art thou!</p> +<p>Sleep, while I'm brushing the flies from your brow.</p> +<p>All is as silent as silent can be;</p> +<p>Close your blue eyes from the daylight and me.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>This is the time, love, to sleep and to play;</p> +<p>Later, oh later, is not like to-day,</p> +<p>When care and trouble and sorrow come sore</p> +<p>You never will sleep, love, as sound as before.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Angels from heaven as lovely as thou</p> +<p>Sweep round thy bed, love, and smile on thee now;</p> +<p>Later, oh later, they'll come as to-day,</p> +<p>But only to wipe all the tear-drops away.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Sleep, little darling, while night's coming round,</p> +<p>Mother will still by her baby be found;</p> +<p>If it be early, or if it be late,</p> +<p>Still by her baby she'll watch and she'll wait.</p> + </div> </div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page348" id="page348"></a>348</span> + +<p>The sad truth is there, but with what tenderness is +it not hedged about! These Teutonic angels are +worth more than the too sensitive little angels of +Spain who fly away at the sight of tears. And the +last verse conveys a second truth, as consoling as the +first is sad; pass what must, change what may, the +mother's love will not change or pass; its healing +presence will remain till death; who knows? perhaps +after. Signor Salomone-Marino records the cry of +one, who out of the depths blesses the haven of +maternal love:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Mamma, Mammuzza mia, vu' siti l'arma,</p> +<p>Lu mè rifugiu <ins title="Transcriber's Note: Sic. See TN at top.">nni</ins> la sorti orrenna,</p> +<p>Vui siti la culonna e la giurlanna,</p> +<p>Lu celu chi vi guardi e vi mantegna!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The soul that directs and inspires, the refuge that +shelters, the column that supports, the garland that +crowns—such language would not be natural in the +mouth of an English labourer. An Englishman who +feels deeply is almost bound to hold his tongue; but +the poor Sicilian can so express himself in perfect +naturalness and simplicity.</p> + +<p>There is a kind of sleep-song that has only the +form in common with the rose-coloured fiction that +makes the bulk of cradle literature. It is the song of +the mother who lulls her child with the overflow of +her own troubled heart. The child may be the very +cause of her sorest perplexity: yet from it alone she +gains the courage to live, from it alone she learns a +lesson of duty:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"The babe I carry on my arm,</p> +<p>He saves for me my precious soul."</p> + </div> </div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page349" id="page349"></a>349</span> + +<p>A Corsican mother says to the infant at her breast, +"Thou art my guardian angel!"—which is the same +thought spoken in another way.</p> + +<p>The most lovely of all sad lullabies is that written +much more than two thousand years ago by Simonides +of Ceos. Acrisius, king of Argos, was informed +by an oracle that he would be killed by the son of his +daughter Danaë, who was therefore shut up in a tower, +where Zeus visited her in the form of a shower of +gold. Afterwards, when she gave birth to Perseus, +Acrisius ordered mother and child to be exposed in a +wicker chest or coffin on the open sea. This is the +story which Simonides took as the subject of his +poem:</p> + +<blockquote><p> +Whilst the wind blew and rattled on the decorated ark, and +the troubled deep tossed as though in terror—her own fair +cheek also not unwet—around Perseus Danaë threw her arms, +and cried: "O how grievous, my child, is my trouble; yet thou +sleepest, and with tranquil heart slumberest within this joyless +house, beneath the brazen-barred, black-gleaming, musky +heavens. Ah! little reckest thou, beloved object, of the howling +of the tempest, nor of the brine wetting thy delicate hair, as +there thou liest, clad in thy little crimson mantle! But even +were this dire pass dreadful also to thee, yet lend thy soft ear to +my words: Sleep on, my babe, I say; sleep on, I charge thee; +nay, let the wild waters sleep, and sleep the immeasurable woe. +Let me, too, see some change of will on thy part, Zeus, father! +or if the speech be deemed too venturous, then, for thy child's +sake, I pray thee pardon." +</p></blockquote> + +<p>This is not a folk-song, but it has a prescriptive +right to a place among lullabies.</p> + +<p>Passing over the beautiful Widow's Song, quoted in +a former essay, we come to some Basque lines, which +bring before us the blank and vulgar ugliness of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page350" id="page350"></a>350</span> +modern misery with a realism that would please +M. Zola:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Hush, poor child, hush thee to sleep;</p> +<p>(See him lying in slumber deep!)</p> +<p>Thou first, then following I,</p> +<p>We will hush and hushaby.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Thy bad father is at the inn;</p> +<p>Oh! the shame of it, and the sin!</p> +<p>Home at midnight he will fare,</p> +<p>Drunk with strong wine of Navarre.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>After each verse the singer repeats again and again: +<i>Lo lo, lo lo</i>, on three lingering notes that have the +plaintive monotony of the chiming of bells where +there are but three in the belfry.</p> + +<p>Almost as dismal as the Basque ditty is the English +nursery rhyme:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4">Bye, O my baby!</p> +<p class="i4">When I was a lady</p> +<p>O then my poor baby didn't cry;</p> +<p class="i4">But my baby is weeping</p> +<p class="i4">For want of good keeping;</p> +<p>Oh! I fear my poor baby will die!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>—which may have been composed to fit in with some +particular story, as was the tearful little song occurring +in the ballad of Childe Waters:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>She said: Lullabye, mine own dear child,</p> +<p class="i2">Lullabye, my child so dear;</p> +<p>I would thy father were a king,</p> +<p class="i2">Thy mother laid on a bier.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>One feels glad that that story ends happily in a +"churching and bridal" that take place upon the +same day.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page351" id="page351"></a>351</span> + +<p>I have the copy of a lullaby for a sick child, written +down from memory by Signor Lerda, of Turin, who +reports it to be popular in Tuscany:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Sleep, dear child, as mother bids:</p> +<p class="i2">If thou sleep thou shalt not die!</p> +<p class="i2">Sleep, and death shall pass thee by.</p> +<p>Close worn eyes and aching lids,</p> +<p class="i2">Yield to soft forgetfulness;</p> +<p class="i2">Let sweet sleep thy senses press:</p> +<p>Child, on whom my love doth dwell,</p> +<p>Sleep, sleep, and thou shalt be well.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>See, I strew thee, soft and light,</p> +<p class="i2">Bed of down that cannot pain;</p> +<p class="i2">Linen sheets have o'er it lain</p> +<p>More than snow new-fallen white.</p> +<p class="i2">Perfume sweet, health-giving scent,</p> +<p class="i2">The meadows' pride, is o'er it sprent:</p> +<p>Sleep, dear son, a little spell,</p> +<p>Sleep, sleep, and thou shalt be well.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Change thy side and rest thee there,</p> +<p class="i2">Beauty! love! turn on thy side,</p> +<p class="i2">O my son, thou dost not bide</p> +<p>As of yore, so fresh and fair.</p> +<p class="i2">Sickness mars thee with its spite,</p> +<p class="i2">Cruel sickness changes quite;</p> +<p>How, alas! its traces tell!</p> +<p>Yet sleep, and thou shalt be well.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Sleep, thy mother's kisses poured</p> +<p class="i2">On her darling son. Repose;</p> +<p class="i2">God give end to all our woes.</p> +<p>Sleep, and wake by sleep restored,</p> +<p class="i2">Pangs that make thee faint shall fly!</p> +<p class="i2">Sleep, my child, and lullaby!</p> +<p>Sleep, and fears of death dispel;</p> +<p>Sleep, sleep, and thou shalt be well.</p> + </div> </div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page352" id="page352"></a>352</span> + +<p>"Se tu dormi, non morrai!" In how many tongues +are not these words spoken every day by trembling +lips, whilst the heart seems to stand still, whilst the +eyes dare not weep, for tears would mean the victory +of hope or fear; whilst the watcher leans expectant +over the beloved little wasted form, conscious that all +that can be done has been done, that all that care or +skill can try has been tried, that there are no other +remedies to fall back upon, that there is no more +strength left for battle, and that now, even in this +very hour, sleep or his brother death will decide the +issue.</p> + +<p>When a Sicilian hears that a child is dead, he +exclaims, "Glory and Paradise!" The phrase is +jubilant almost to harshness; yet the underlying +sentiment is not harsh. The thought of a dead +child makes natural harmonies with thoughts of +bright and shining things. A mother likes to dream +of her lost babe as fair and spotless and little. If +she is sad, with him it is surely well. He is gone to +play with the Holy Boys. He has won the crown of +innocence. There are folk-songs that reflect this radiancy +with which love clothes dead children; songs +for the last sleep full of all the confusion of fond +epithets commonly addressed to living babies.</p> + +<p>Only in one direction did my efforts to obtain +lullabies prove fruitless. America has, it seems, no +nursery rhymes but those which are still current in +the Old World.<a id="footnotetagL2" name="footnotetagL2"></a><a href="#footnoteL2"><sup>2</sup></a> Mr Bret Harte told me: "Our +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page353" id="page353"></a>353</span> +lullabies are the same as in England, but there are +also a few Dutch ones," and he went on to relate how, +when he was at a small frontier town on the Rhine, +he heard a woman singing a song to her child: it was +the old story,—if the child would not sleep it would +be punished, its shoes would be taken away; if it +would go to sleep at once, Santa Claus would bring +it a beautiful gift. Words and air, said Mr Bret +Harte, were strangely familiar to him; then, after a +moment's reflection, he remembered hearing this +identical lullaby sung amongst his own kindred in +the Far West of America.</p> + +<p class="footnote"><a id="footnoteL1" name="footnoteL1"></a><a class="footnote" href="#footnotetagL1">Footnote 1:</a> The "Preaching of the children" took place as usual in the +Christmas week of 1885, but as the convent in connection with +the church of Santa Maria is about to be pulled down, I cannot +tell whether the pretty custom will be adhered to in future. +The church, however, which was also threatened with demolition, +is now safe.</p> + +<p class="footnote"><a id="footnoteL2" name="footnoteL2"></a><a class="footnote" href="#footnotetagL2">Footnote 2:</a> This is confirmed by Mr W. Newell in his admirable book, +"Games and Songs of American Children" (1885), which might +be called with equal propriety, "Games and Songs of British +Children." It is indeed the best collection of English nursery +rhymes that exists. Thus America will have given the mother +country the most satisfactory editions, both of her ballads (Prof. +F. T. Child's splendid work, now in course of publication) and +of her children's songs.</p> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page354" id="page354"></a>354</span> + +<h2>FOLK-DIRGES.</h2> + +<p>There are probably many persons who could repeat +by heart the greater portion of the last scene in the +last book of the <i>Iliad</i>, and who yet have never been +struck by the fact, that not its least excellence consists +in its setting before us a carefully accurate picture +of a group of usages which for the antiquity of +their origin, the wide area of their observance, and +the tenacity with which they have been preserved, +may be fairly said to occupy an unique position +amongst popular customs and ceremonials. First, +we are shown the citizens of Troy bearing their +vanquished hero within the walls amidst vehement +demonstrations of grief: the people cling to the +chariot wheels, or prostrate themselves on the earth; +the wife and the mother of the dead tear their hair and +cast it to the winds. Then the body is laid on a bed +of state, and the leaders of a choir of professional +minstrels sing a dirge, which is at times interrupted +by the wailing of the women. When this is done, +Andromache, Hecuba, and Helen in turn give voice +each one to the feelings awakened in her by their +common loss; and afterwards—so soon as the proper +interval has elapsed—the body is burnt, wine being +poured over the embers of the pyre. Lastly, the +ashes are consigned to the tomb, and the mourners +sit down to a banquet. "Such honours paid they to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page355" id="page355"></a>355</span> +the good knight Hector;" and such, in their main +features, are the funeral rites which may be presumed +to date back to a period not only anterior to the siege +of Troy, granting for the moment that event to have +veritably taken place, but also previous to the crystallisation +of the Greek or any other of the Indo-European +nationalities which flowed westward from +the uplands of the Hindu Kush. The custom of +hymning the dead, which is just now what more +particularly concerns us, once prevailed over most if +not all parts of Europe; and the firmness of its hold +upon the affections of the people may be inferred +from the persistency with which they adhered to it, +even when it was opposed not only by the working +of the gradual, though fatal, law of decay to which all +old usages must in the end submit, but also by the +active interposition of persons in authority. Charlemagne, +for instance, tried to put it down in Provence—desiring +that all those attending funerals, who did +not know by rote any of the appropriate psalms, +should recite aloud the <i>Kyrie eleison</i> instead of singing +"profane songs" made to suit the occasion. But the +edict seems to have met with a signal want of success; +for some five hundred years after it was issued, the +Provençals still hired Præficæ, and still introduced +within the very precincts of their churches, whole +choirs of lay dirge-singers, frequently composed of +young girls who were stationed in two companies, +that chanted songs alternately to the accompaniment +of instrumental music; and this notwithstanding that +the clergy of Provence showed the strongest objection +to the performance of observances at funerals, other +than such as were approved by ecclesiastical sanction. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page356" id="page356"></a>356</span> +The custom in question bears an obvious affinity to +Highland coronachs and Irish keens, and here in +England there is reason to believe it to have survived +as late as the seventeenth century. That Shakespeare +was well acquainted with it is amply testified by the +fourth act of <i>Cymbeline</i>; for it is plain that the song +pronounced by Guiderius and Arviragus over the +supposed corpse of Imogene was no mere poetic outburst +of regret, but a real and legitimate dirge, the +singing or saying of which was held to constitute +Fidele's obsequies. In the Cotton Library there is a +MS., having reference to a Yorkshire village in the +reign of Elizabeth, which relates: "When any dieth, +certaine women sing a song to the dead bodie recyting +the jorney that the partye deceased must goe." +Unhappily the English Neniæ are nearly all lost and +forgotten; I know of no genuine specimen extant, +except the famous Lyke Wake (<i>i.e.</i>, Death Watch) +dirge beginning:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>This ae nighte, this ae nighte,</p> +<p class="i2"><i>Everie nighte and alle</i>,</p> +<p>Fire and sleete and candle lighte,</p> +<p class="i2"><i>And Christe receive thy saule</i>, &c.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>To the present day we find practices closely analogous +with those recounted in the <i>Iliad</i> scattered here +and there from the shores of the Mediterranean to the +banks of Lake Onega; and the Trojan threnody is +even now reproduced in Ireland, in Corsica, Sardinia, +and Roumania, in Russia, in Greece, and South Italy. +Students who may be tempted to make observations +on this strange survival of the old world, will do well, +however, to set about it at once, in parts which are +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page357" id="page357"></a>357</span> +either already invaded or else threatened with an imminent +invasion of railways, for the screech of the +engine sounds the very death-knell of ancient customs. +Thus the Irish practice of keening is becoming less +and less general. On recently making inquiries of a +gentleman residing in Leinster, I learnt that it had +gone quite out in that province; he added that he +had once seen keeners at a funeral at Clonmacnoise +(King's County), but was told they came from the +Connaught side of the Shannon. The keens must +not be confused with the peculiar wail or death-cry +known as the Ullagone; they are articulate utterances, +in a strongly marked rhythm, extolling the +merits of the dead, and reproaching him for leaving +his family, with much more in the same strain. The +keeners may or may not be professional, and the keens +are more often of a traditional than of an improvised +description. One or two specimens in Gaelic have +appeared in the <i>Journal of the Irish Archæological +Association</i>, but on the whole the subject is far from +having received the attention it deserves. The Irish +keeners are invariably women, as also are all the +continental dirge-singers of modern times. Whether +by reason of the somewhat new-fashioned sentiment +which forbids a man to exhibit his feelings in public, +or from other motives not unconnected with selfishness, +the onus of discharging the more active and +laborious obligations prescribed in popular funeral +rites has bit by bit been altogether shifted upon the +shoulders of the weaker sex; <i>e.g.</i>, in places where +scratching and tearing of the face forms part of the +traditional ritual, the women are expected to continue +the performance of this unpleasant ceremony +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page358" id="page358"></a>358</span> +which the men have long since abandoned. Together +with the dirge, a more or less serious measure of self-disfigurement +has come down from an early date. An +Etruscan funeral urn, discovered at Clusi, shows an +exact picture of the hired mourners who tear their hair +and rend their garments, whilst one stands apart, in a +prophetic attitude, and declaims to the accompaniment +of a flute. Of the precise origin of the employment of +Public Wailers, or Præficæ, not much has been ascertained. +One distinguished writer on folk-lore suggests +that it had its rise not in any lack of consideration +for the dead, but in the apprehension lest the +repose of their ghosts should be disturbed by a display +of grief on the part of those who had been +nearest and dearest to them in life; and his theory +gains support in the abundant evidence forthcoming +to attest the existence of a widely-spread notion that +the dead are pained, and even annoyed and exasperated, +by the tears of their kindred. Traces of this +belief are discoverable in Zend and Hindu writings; +also amongst the Sclavs, Germans, and Scandinavians—and, +to look nearer home, in Ireland and Scotland. +On the other hand, it is possible that the business of +singing before the dead sprang from the root of well-nigh +every trade—that its duties were at first exclusively +performed by private persons, and their passing +into public hands resulted simply from people finding +out that they were executed with less trouble and +more efficiency by a professional functionary; a common-place +view of the matter which is somewhat +borne out by the circumstance, that whenever a member +of the family is qualified and disposed to undertake +the dirge-singing, there seems to be no prejudice +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page359" id="page359"></a>359</span> +against her doing so. It is often far from easy to +determine whether such or such a death-song was +composed by a hired præfica who for the time being +assumed the character of one of the dead man's +relatives, or by the latter speaking in her own person.</p> + +<p>In Corsica, the wailing and chanting are kept up, off +and on, from the hour of death to the hour of burial. +The news that the head of a family has expired is +quickly communicated to his relations and friends in +the surrounding hamlets, who hasten to form themselves +into a troop or band locally called the Scirrata, +and thus advance in procession towards the house of +mourning. If the death was caused by violence, the +scirrata makes a halt when it arrives in sight of the +village; and then it is that the Corsican women tear +their hair and scratch their faces till the blood flows—just +as do their sisters in Dalmatia and Montenegro. +Shortly after this, the scirrata is met by the deceased's +fellow-villagers, accompanied by all his near relatives +with the exception of the widow, to whose abode the +whole party now proceeds with loud cries and lamentations. +The widow awaits the scirrata by the door +of her house, and, as it draws near, the leader steps +forward and throws a black veil over her head to +symbolise her widowhood; the term of which must +offer a dreary prospect to a woman who has the misfortune +to lose her husband while she is still in the +prime of life, for public opinion insists that she remain +for years in almost total seclusion. The mourners +and as many as can enter the room assemble round +the body, which lies stretched on a table or plank +supported by benches; it is draped in a long mantle, +or it is clothed in the dead man's best suit. Now +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page360" id="page360"></a>360</span> +begins the dirge, or Vocero. Two persons will perhaps +start off singing together, and in that case the +words cannot be distinguished; but more often only +one gets up at a time. She will open her song with a +quietly-delivered eulogy of the virtues of the dead, +and a few pointed allusions to the most important +events of his life; but before long she warms to her +work, and pours forth volleys of rhythmic lamentation +with a fire and animation that stir up the women +present into a frenzied delirium of grief, in which, as +the præfica pauses to take breath, they howl, dig their +nails into their flesh, throw themselves on the ground, +and sometimes cover their heads with ashes. When +the dirge is ended they join hands and dance frantically +round the plank on which the body lies. More +singing takes place on the way to the church, and +thence to the graveyard. After the funeral the men +do not shave for weeks, and the women let their hair +go loose and occasionally cut it off at the grave—cutting +off the hair being, by the way, a universal +sign of female mourning; it was done by the women of +ancient Greece, and it is done by the women of India. +A good deal of eating and drinking brings the ceremonials +to a close. If the bill of fare comes short of +that recorded of the funeral feast of Sir John Paston, +of Barton, when 1300 eggs, 41 pigs, 40 calves, and 10 +nete were but a few of the items—nevertheless the +Corsican baked meats fall very heavily upon the +pockets of such families as deem themselves compelled +to "keep up a position." Sixty persons is +not an extraordinary number to be entertained at the +banquet, and there is, over and above, a general distribution +of bread and meat to poorer neighbours. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page361" id="page361"></a>361</span> +Mutton in summer, and pork in winter, are esteemed +the viands proper to the occasion. In happy contrast +to all this lugubrious feasting is the simple cup of +milk drunk by each kinsman of the shepherd who +dies in the mountains; in which case his body is laid +out, like Robin Hood's, in the open air, a green sod +under his head, his loins begirt with the pistol belt, +his gun at his side, his dog at his feet. Curious are +the superstitions of the Corsican shepherds touching +death. The dead, they say, call the living in the +night time, and he who answers will soon follow +them; they believe, too, that, if you listen attentively +after dark, you may hear at times the low beating of +a drum, which announces that a soul has passed.</p> + +<p>A notable section of the voceri treats of that insatiable +thirst after vengeance which formerly provided +as fruitful a theme to French romancers as it presented +a perplexing problem to French legislators. In these +dirges we see the vendetta in its true character, as the +outgrowth and relic of times when people were, in +self-defence, almost coerced into lawlessness through +the perpetual miscarriage of constituted justice, and +they enable us to better understand the process by +which what was at the outset something of the nature +of a social necessity, developed into the ruling passion +of the race, and led to the frightful abuses that are +associated with its name. All that he held sacred in +heaven or on earth became bound up in the Corsican's +mind with the obligation to avenge the blood of his +kindred. Thus he made Hate his deity, and the old +inexorable spirit of the Greek <i>Oresteia</i> lived and +breathed in him anew, the Furies themselves finding +no bad counterpart in the frenzied women who officiated +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page362" id="page362"></a>362</span> +at his funeral rites. As is well known, when no +man was to be found to do the deed a woman would +often come forward in his stead, and this not only +among the lower orders, but in the highest ranks of +society. A lady of the noble house of Pozzo di Borgo +once donned male attire, and in velvet-tasselled cap, +red doublet, high sheepskin boots, with pistol, gun, +and dagger for her weapons, started off in search of +an assassin at the head of a band of partisans. When +he was caught, however, after the guns had been two +or three times levelled at his breast, she decided to +give him his life. Another fair avenger whose name +has come down to us was Maria Felice di Calacuccia, +of Niolo. Her vocero may be cited here as affording +a good idea of the tone and spirit of the vendetta +dirges in general.</p> + +<p>"I was spinning at my distaff when I heard a loud +noise; it was a gun-shot, it re-echoed in my heart. +It seemed to say to me: 'Fly! thy brother dies.' I +ran into the upper chamber. As I unlatched the door, +'I am struck to the heart,' he said; and I fell senseless +to the ground. If I too died not, it was that one +thought sustained me. Whom wouldst thou have to +avenge thee? Our mother, nigh to death, or thy +sister Maria? If Lario was not dead surely all this +would not end without bloodshed. But of so great a +race, thou dost only leave thy sister: she has no +cousins, she is poor, an orphan, young. Still be at +rest—to avenge thee, she suffices!"</p> + +<p>A dramatic vocero, dealing with the same subject, +is that of the sister of Canino, a renowned brigand, +who fell at Nazza in an encounter with the military. +She begins by regretting that she has not a voice of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page363" id="page363"></a>363</span> +thunder wherewith to rehearse his prowess. Alas! +one early morning the soldiers ("barbarous set of +bandits that they are!") sallied forth on his pursuit, +and pounced upon him like wolves upon a lamb. +When she heard the bustle of folks going to and fro +in the street, she put her head out of window and +asked what it was all about. "Thy brother has been +slaughtered in the mountains," they reply. Even so +it was; his arquebuse was of no use to him; no, nor +his dagger, nor his pistol, nor yet his amulet. When +they brought him in, and she beheld his wounds, the +bitterness of her grief redoubled. Why did he not +answer her—did he lack heart to do so? "Canino, +heart of thy sister," she cries, "how thou art grown +pale! Thou that wert so stalwart and so full of grace, +thou who didst appear like unto a nosegay of flowers. +Canino, heart of thy sister, they have taken thy life. +I will plant a blackthorn in the land of Nazza, that +none of our house may henceforth pass that way—for +there were not three or four, but seven men against +one. Would I could make my bed at the foot of the +chestnut tree beneath whose shade they fired upon +thy breast. I desire to cast aside these women's +skirts, to arm me with poniard, and pistol, and gun, +to gird me with the belt and pouch; Canino, heart +of thy sister, I desire to avenge thy death." In the +lamentations over one Matteo, a doctor who was +murdered in 1745, we have an example of the songs +improvised along the road to the grave. This time +there are plenty of male relatives—brothers, brothers-in-law, +and cousins—to accomplish the vendetta. +The funeral procession passes through the village +where the crime was committed, and one of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page364" id="page364"></a>364</span> +inhabitants, perhaps as a peace-offering, invites the +whole party to come in and refresh themselves. To +this a young girl replies: "We want none of your +bread and wine; what we do want is your blood." +She invokes a thunderbolt to exterminate every soul +in the blood-guilty place. But an aged dame interposes, +for a wonder, with milder counsels; she bids +her savage sisters calm their wrath: "Is not Matteo +in heaven with the Lord? Look at his winding sheet," +says she, "and learn from it that Christ dwells above, +who teaches forgiveness. The waters are troubled +enough already without your goading on your men to +violence." It is not unlikely that the Corsicans may +have been in the habit, like the Irish, of intentionally +parading the coffin of a murdered man past the door +of the suspected murderer, in order that they might +have a public opportunity of branding the latter with +infamy.</p> + +<p>Having glanced at these hymns of the avenger, we +will turn to the laments expressive of grief unmixed +with threats or anger. In these, also, Corsica is +very rich. Sometimes it is a wife who deplores her +husband struck down by no human hand, but by fever +or accident. In one such vocero the widow pathetically +crowds epithet on epithet, in the attempt to give +words to her affection and her sorrow. "You were +my flower, my thornless rose, my stalwart one, my +column, my brother, my hope, my prop, my eastern +gem, my most beautiful treasure," she says to her +lost "Petru Francescu!" She curses fate which in a +brief moment has deprived her of her paladin—she +prayed so hard that he might be spared, but it was +all in vain. He was laid low, the greatly courageous +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page365" id="page365"></a>365</span> +one, who seemed so strong! Is it indeed true, that +he, the clever-headed, the handy-handed, will leave +his Nunziola all alone? Then she bids Mari, her +little daughter, come hither to where papa lies, and +beg him to pray God in paradise that she may have +a better lot than her little mother. She wishes her +eyes may change into two fountains ere she forgets +his name; for ever would she call him her Petru +Francescu. But most of all she wishes that her heart +might break so that her poor little soul could go with +his, and quit this treacherous world where is no more +joy. The typical keen given in Carleton's <i>Traits and +Stories of the Irish Peasantry</i> is so like Nunziola's +vocero, that in parts it might be taken for a translation +of it. Sometimes it is a plaint of a mother whose +child has met the fate of those "whom the gods love." +That saying about the gods has its equivalent in the +Corsican lines:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Chi nasci pe u paradisu</p> +<p>A stu mondu un po' imbecchia,</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>which occur in the lament of La Dariola Danesi, of +Zuani, who mourns her sixteen-year-old daughter +Romana. Decked in feast-day raiment the damsel +sleeps in the rest of death, after all her sufferings. +Her sweet face has lost its hues of red and white; it +is like a gone-out sun. Romana was the fairest of +all the young girls, a rose among flowers; the youths +of the country round were consumed by love of her, +but in her presence they were filled with decorous +respect. She was courteous to all, familiar with none; +in church everybody gazed at her, but she looked at +no one; and the minute mass was over she would +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page366" id="page366"></a>366</span> +say: "Mamma, let us go." Never can the mother +be consoled, albeit she knows her darling fares well +up there in heaven where all things smile and are +glad. Of a surety this earth was not worthy to contain +so fair a face. "Ah! how much more beautiful +Paradise will be now she is in it!" cries the voceratrice, +with the sublime audacity of maternal love. In +another dirge we have pictured a troop of girls coming +early to the house of Maria, their young companion, +to escort her to the Church of St Elia: for this morning +the father of her betrothed has settled the marriage +portion, and it is seemly that she should hear +mass, and make an offering of wax tapers. But the +maiden's mother comes forth to tell the gladsome +band that to-day's offering to St Elia is not of waxen +tapers; it is a peerless flower, a bouquet adorned +with ribands—surely the saint will be well pleased +with such a fine gift! For the bride elect lies dead; +who will now profit by her possessions—the twelve +mattresses, the twenty-four lambs? "I will pray the +Virgin," says the mother, "I will pray my God that +I may go hence this morning, pressing my flower to +my heart." The playfellows bathe Maria's face with +tears: sees she not those who loved her? Will she +leave them in their sadness? One runs to pluck +flowers, a second to gather roses; they twine her a +garland, a bridal crown—will she depart all the same, +lying upon her bier? But, after all, why should there +be all this grief? "To-day little Maria becomes the +spouse of the Lord; with what honour will she not +be greeted in paradise!" Alas for broken hearts! +they were never yet healed by that line of argument. +Up the street steals the chilling sound of the funeral +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page367" id="page367"></a>367</span> +chant, <i>Ora pro eâ</i>. They are come to bear the maiden +to St Elia's Church; the mother sinks to the ground; +fain would she follow the body to the grave, but she +faints with sorrow; only her streaming tears can pay +the tribute of her love.</p> + +<p>It will be observed that it is usual for the survivors +to be held up as objects of pity rather than the dead, +who are generally regarded as well off; but now and +then we come across less optimist presages of the +future life. A woman named Maddelè complains +that they have taken her blonde daughter, her snow-white +dove, her "Chilì, cara di Mamma," to the worst +possible of places, where no sun penetrates, and no +fire is lit.</p> + +<p>Sometimes to a young girl is assigned the task of +bewailing her playmate. "This morning my companion +is all adorned," begins a maiden dirge-singer; +"one would think she was going to be married." But +the ceremony about to take place differs sadly from +that other. The bell tolls slowly, the cross and +banner arrive at the door; the dead companion is +setting out on a long journey, she is going to find +their ancestors—the voceratrice's father, and her uncle +the curé—in the land whither each one must go in +his turn and remain for ever. Since she has made +up her mind thus to change country and climate +(though it be all too soon, for she has not yet done +growing), will she at any rate listen for an instant to +her friend of other days? She wishes to give her a +little letter to carry to her father; and, besides the +letter, she would like her to take him a message, and +give him news of the family he left so young, all +weeping round his hearth. She is to tell him that all +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page368" id="page368"></a>368</span> +goes well; that his eldest daughter is married and +has a boy, a flowering lily, who already knows his +father, and points at him with his finger. The boy is +called after the grandpapa, and old friends declare +him to be his very image. To the curé she is to say +that his flock flourish and do not forget him. Now +the priest enters, bringing the holy water; everyone +lifts his hat; they bear the body away: "Go to +heaven, dear; the Lord awaits you."</p> + +<p>It is hardly necessary to add that the voceri of +Corsica are without exception composed in the native +speech of the country, which the accomplished scholar, +lexicographer, and poet, Niccolò Tommaseo, spoke +of with perfect truth as one of "the most Italian of +the dialects of Italy." The time may come when +the people will renounce their own language in favour +of the idiom of their rulers, but it has not come yet; +nor do they show much disposition to abandon their +old usages, as may be guessed from the fact that even +in their Gallicanised capital the dead are considered +slighted if the due amount of wailing is left undone.</p> + +<p>The Sardinian Attitido—a word which has been +thought to have some connection with the Greek +<ins title="ototoi"><i>οτοτοι</i></ins>, and the Latin <i>atat</i>—is made on exactly the +same pattern as the Corsican vocero. I have been +told on trustworthy authority that in some districts +in the island the keening over a married man is performed +not by a dirge-singer but by his own children, +who chant a string of homely sentences, such as: +"Why art thou dead, papa? Thou didst not want +for bread or wine!" A practice may here be mentioned +which recalls the milk and honey and nuts of +the Roman Inferiæ, and which, so far as I am aware, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page369" id="page369"></a>369</span> +lingers on nowhere excepting Sardinia; the attidora +whilst she sings, scatters on the bier handfuls of +almonds or—if the family is well-to-do—of sweetmeats, +to be subsequently buried with the body.</p> + +<p>Very few specimens of the attitido have found their +way into print; but amongst these few, in Canon +Spano's <i>Canti popolari Tempiesi</i>, there is one that is +highly interesting. Doubts have been raised as to +whether the bulk of the songs in Canon Spano's +collection are of purely illiterate origin; but even if +the author of the dirge to which I allude was guilty +of that heinous offence in the eyes of the strict folk-lore +gleaner—the knowledge of the alphabet—it must +still be judged a remarkable production. The attidora +laments the death of a much-beloved bishop:—</p> + +<p>"It was the pleasure of this good father, this gentle +pastor," she says, "at all hours to nourish his flock; +to the bread of the soul he joined the bread of the +body. Was the wife naked, her sons starving and +destitute? He laboured unceasingly to console them +all. The one he clothed, the others he fed. None +can tell the number of the poor whom he succoured. +The naked came to him that they might be clothed, +the hungry came to him that they might be fed, and +all went their way comforted. How many had suffered +hunger in the winter's cold, had not his tender +heart proffered them help! It was a grand sight to +behold so many poor gathered together in his house—above, +below, they were so numerous there was no +room to pass. And these were the comers of every +day. I do not count those to whom once a month +he supplied the needful food, nor yet those other poor +to whose necessities he ministered in secret. By the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page370" id="page370"></a>370</span> +needy rogue he let himself be deceived with shut eyes: +he recognised the fraud, but he esteemed it gain so to +lose. Ah, dear father, father to us all, I ought not to +weep for thee! I mourn our common bereavement, +for thy death this day has been a blow to all of us, +even to the strongest men."</p> + +<p>It would be hard to conceive a more lovely portrait +of the Christian priest; it is scarcely surpassed by that +of Monseigneur Bienvenu in <i>Les Misérables</i>, of whose +conduct in the matter of the silver candlesticks we are +not a little reminded by the good Sardinian bishop's +compassion for the needy rogue. Neither the one nor +the other realises an ideal which would win the unconditional +approval of the Charity Organisation Society, +and we must perhaps admit that humane proclivities +which indirectly encourage swindling are more a mischief +than an advantage to the State. Yet who can +be insensible to the beauty of this unconquerable pity +for the evil-doer, this charity that believeth all things, +hopeth all things, endureth all things? Who can say +how much it has done to make society possible, to +keep the world on its wheels? It is the bond that +binds together all religions. Six thousand years ago +the ancient Egyptian dirge-singers chanted before +their dead: "There is no fault in him. No answer +riseth up against him. In the truth he liveth, with +the truth he nourisheth himself. The gods are satisfied +with all he hath done.... He succoured +the afflicted, he gave bread to the hungry, drink to +the thirsty, clothes to the naked, he sheltered the +outcast, his doors were open to the stranger, he was +a father to the fatherless."</p> + +<p>The part of France where dirge-singing stayed the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page371" id="page371"></a>371</span> +longest seems to have been the south-west. The old +women of Gascony still preserve the memory of a +good many songs, some of which have been fortunately +placed on record by M. Bladé in his collection +of Gascon folk-lore. The Gascon dirge is a kind +of prose recitative made up of distinct exclamations +that fall into irregular strophes. Each has a burden +of this description:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4">Ah!</p> +<p>Ah! Ah! Ah!</p> +<p>Ah! Praube!</p> +<p>Ah! Praube!</p> +<p class="i2">Moun Diu!</p> +<p>Moun Diu! Moun Diu!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The wife mourns for the loss of "Praube Jan;" +when she was a young girl she loved only him. "No, +no! I will not have it! I will not have them take thee +to the graveyard!" "What will become of us?" +asks the daughter; "my poor mother is infirm, my +brothers and sisters are too small; there is only me +to rule the house." The mother bewails her boy: +"Poor little one! I loved thee so much, thou wert so +pretty, thou wert so good. Thou didst work so well; +all I bid thee do, thou didst; all I told thee, didst +thou believe; thou wert very young, yet already didst +thou earn thy bread. Poor little one, thou art dead; +they carry thee to the grave, with the cross going +before. They put thee into the earth.... Poor +little one, I shall see thee no more; never! never! +never! Thou goest and I stay. My God! thou wilt +be very lonely in the graveyard this night; and I, I +shall weep at home."</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page372" id="page372"></a>372</span> + +<p>If we transport ourselves to the government of +Olonetz, we discover the first cousin of the Corsican +voceratrice in the Russian Voplénitsa ("the sobbing +one"). But the jurisdiction of this functionary is of +wider extent; she is mistress of the ceremonies at +marriages as well as at funerals, and in both cases +either improvises new songs or adapts old ones. Mr +Ralston has familiarised English readers with some +excellent samples of the Russian neniæ in his work +on the <i>Songs of the Russian People</i>. In Montenegro +dirge-singing survives in its most primitive form. +During the war of 1877 there were frequent opportunities +of observing it. One such occurred at Ostrog. +A wounded man arrived at that place, which was +made a sort of hospital station, with his father and +mother, his sisters and a brother. Another brother +and a cousin had fallen by his side in the last fight—the +Montenegrins have always gone into battle in +families—and the women had their faces covered with +scratches, self-inflicted in their mourning for these +kindred. The man was young, lively, and courageous; +he might have got well but there were no surgical +instruments to extract the ball in his back, and so in +a day or two he was dead. At three in the morning +the women began shrieking in spite of the orders +given by the doctors in the interest of the other +wounded; the noise was horrible, and no sooner were +they driven away than they came back and renewed +it. The Prince, who has tried to put down the custom +as barbarous, was quartered at Ostrog, and he succeeded +in having the wailers quieted for a moment, +but when the body was borne to the cemetery the +uproar began again. The women beat their breasts, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page373" id="page373"></a>373</span> +scratched their faces, and screamed at a pitch that +could be heard a mile off. It is usual to return to the +house where the person died—they made their way +therefore back into the hospital (the Prince being +absent), and it was only after immense efforts on the +part of the sisters of charity and those who were in +authority that they were expelled. Then they seated +themselves in the courtyard, and continued beating +their breasts and reciting their death-song. An eyewitness +of the scene described the dirge as a monotonous +chant. One of the dead man's sisters had +worked herself up into a state of hysterical frenzy, in +which she seemed to have lost all control over her +words and actions; she led the dirge, and her rhythmic +ejaculations flowed forth as if she had no power to +contain them. The father and brother went to salute +the Prince the day after the funeral; the old man +appeared to be extremely cheerful, but was doggedly +inattentive to the advice to go home and fight no +more, as his family had suffered enough losses. He +had a son of ten, he said, who could accompany him +now as there was a gun to spare, which before had +not been the case. He wished he had ten sons to +bring them all to fight the Turks.</p> + +<p>The Sclavs are everywhere very strict in all that +regards the cult of the dead, and the observances +which have to be gone through by Russians who have +lost friends or relations are by no means confined to +the date of death and burial. Even when they have +experienced no personal loss, they are still thought +called upon to visit the cemeteries on the second +Tuesday after Easter, and howl lustily over the tombs +of their ancestors. Nor would it be held sufficient +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page374" id="page374"></a>374</span> +to strew flowers upon the graves, as is done on the +Catholic All Souls' day; the most orthodox ghosts +want something more substantial, and libations of +beer and spirits are poured over their resting-places. +Furthermore, disagreeable consequences have been +said to result upon an omission of like marks of +respect due to "the rude forefathers of the hamlet;" +there is no making sure that a highly estimable individual +will not, when thus incensed, re-enter an appearance +on life's stage in the shape of a vampire. +A small volume might be written on the preventive +measures adopted to procure immunity from such-like +visitations. The people of Havellend and Altmark +put a small coin into the mouths of the dead in the +hope that, so appeased, they will not assume vampire +form; but this time the superstition, like a vast number +of others, is clearly a later invention to explain a +custom, the original significance of which is forgotten. +The peasants of Roumelia also place pieces of money +in the coffins, not as an insurance against vampires—who +they think may be best avoided by burning +instead of burying the mortal remains of any person +they credit with the prospect of becoming one—but +to pay the entrance fee into Paradise; a more authentic +version of the old fable. The setting apart of a +day, fixed by the Church or varying according to +private anniversaries, for the special commemoration +of the dead, is a world-wide custom.</p> + +<p>If, as Mr Herbert Spencer thinks, the rudimentary +form of all religion is the propitiation of dead ancestors +who are supposed still to exist, some kind of +<i>fête des morts</i> was probably the oldest of religious +feasts. A theory has been started, to the effect that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page375" id="page375"></a>375</span> +the time of its appointment has been widely influenced +by the rising of the Pleiades, in support of which is +cited the curious fact that the Australians and Society +Islanders keep the celebration in November, though +with them November is a spring month. But this +may be no more than a coincidence. In ancient +Rome, in Russia, in China, the tendency has been to +commemorate the dead in the season of resurrection.</p> + +<p>The Letts and Esthonians observe the Feast of +Souls, by spreading a banquet of which they suppose +their spirit relatives to partake; they put torches on +the graves to light the ghosts to the repast, and they +imagine every sound they hear through the day to be +caused by the movements of the invisible guests. +Both these people celebrate death-watches with much +singing and drinking, the Esthonians addressing long +speeches to the dead, and asking him why he did not +stay longer, if his puddro (gruel) was not to his taste, +&c., precisely after the style of the keeners of less +remote parts. In some countries the entire system of +life would seem to be planned and organised mainly +with a view to honouring the dead. In Albania, for +example, one of the foremost objects pursued by the +peasantry is that of marrying their daughters near +home; not so much from any affectionate unwillingness +to part with them, as in order to secure their +attendance at the <i>vaï</i> or lamentations which take +place on the death of a member of the family; and +so rigorous are the mourning regulations, that even +married women who have lost their fathers remain +year after year shut up in houses deprived of light +and draped in black—they may not even go out to +church. The Albanian keens are not always versified; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page376" id="page376"></a>376</span> +they sometimes consist simply in the endless +reiteration of a single phrase. M. Auguste Dozon +reports that he was at one time constantly hearing +"les hurlements" of a poor Mussulman widow who +bewailed two sons; on certain anniversaries she took +their clothes out of a chest, and, placing them before +her, she repeated, without intermission, <ins title="Chalasia mon"><i>χαλασια μον</i></ins>. +The Greeks have the somewhat analogous practice, +on the recurrence of the death-days of their dear ones, +of putting their lips close to the graves and whispering +to their silent tenants that they still love them.</p> + +<p>The near relations in Greece leave their dwelling, +as soon as they have closed the eyes of the dead, to +take refuge in the house of a friend, with whom they +sojourn till the more distant connections have had +time to arrive, and the body is dressed in holiday +gear. Then they return, clothe themselves in white +dresses, and take up their position beside the bier. +After some inarticulate wailing, which is strenuously +echoed back by the neighbours, the dirge is sung, the +chief female mourner usually leading off, and whosoever +feels disposed following wake. When the +body is lowered into the earth, the best-beloved of +the dead—his mother or perhaps his betrothed—stoops +down to the ground and imploringly utters his +name, together with the word "Come!" On his +making no reply, he is declared to be indeed dead, +and the grave is closed.<a id="footnotetagD1" name="footnotetagD1"></a><a href="#footnoteD1"><sup>1</sup></a> The usage points to a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page377" id="page377"></a>377</span> +probability that all the exhortations to awaken and +to return with which the dirges of every nation are +interlarded are remnants of ancient makeshifts for a +medical certificate of death; and we may fancy with +what breathless excitement these apostrophes were +spoken in former days when they were accompanied +by an actual, if faint, expectation that they would be +heard and answered. It is conceivable that the complete +system of making as much noise as possible at +funerals may be derived from some sort of notion +that the uproar would wake the dead if he were not +dead at all, but sleeping. As elsewhere, so in +Greece, the men take no part in the proceedings +beyond bidding one last farewell just before they +retire from the scene. Præficæ are still employed +now and then; but the art of improvisation seems to +be the natural birthright of Greek peasant women, +nor do they require the inspiration of strong grief to +call their poetic gifts into operation; it is stated to be +no unusual thing to hear a girl stringing elegies over +some lamb, or bird, or flower, which may have died, +while she works in the fields. The Greeks send communications +and even flowers by the dead to the +dead: "Now is the time," the folk-poet makes one +say whose body is about to be buried, "for you to +give me any messages or commissions; and if your +grief is too poignant for utterance, write it down +on paper and bring me the letter." The Greek neniæ +are marked by great vigour and variety of imagery +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page378" id="page378"></a>378</span> +as is apparent in the subjoined extract from the dirge +of a poor young country-woman who was left a widow +with two children:—</p> + +<p>"The other day I beheld at our threshold a youth +of lofty stature and threatening mien; he had out-stretched +wings of gleaming white, and in his hand +was a sword. 'Woman, is thy husband in the house?' +'Yes; he combs our Nicos' hair, and caresses him so +he may not cry. Go not in, terrible youth; do not +frighten our babe.' The white-winged would not +listen; I tried to drive him back, but I could not; he +darted past me, and ran to thy side, O my beloved. +Hapless one, he smote thee; and here is thy little +son, thy tiny Nicos, whom likewise he was fain to +strike." ...</p> + +<p>So vivid was the impression created by the woman's +fantasy that some of the spectators looked towards +the door, half expecting the white-winged visitant to +advance in their midst; others turned to the child, +huddled by his mother's knees. She, coming down +from flights of imagination to the bitter realities of +her condition, exclaimed, as she flung herself sobbing +upon the bier: "How can I maintain the children? +How will they be able to live? What will they not +suffer in the contrast between the rough lot in store +for them and the tender care which guarded them in +the happy days when their father lived?" At last, +worn out by the force of her emotions, she sank senseless +to the floor. The laments of widows, which are +very rare in some localities, are often to be met with +in Greece. In one of them we come upon an original +idea respecting the requirements of spirits: the singer +prays that her tears may swell into a lake or a sea, so +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page379" id="page379"></a>379</span> +they may trickle through the earth to the nether +regions, to moisten those who get no rain, to be drink +to those who thirst, and—to fill up the dry inkstands +of the writers! "Then will they be able to chronicle +the chagrins of the loved ones who cross the river, +taste its wave, and forget their homes and their poor +orphans." Every species of Grecian peasant-song +abounds in classical reminiscences, which are easy to +identify, although they betray some mental confusion +of the attributes and functions belonging to the personages +of antiquity. Of all the early myths, that of +the Stygian ferryman is the one which has shown +greatest longevity. Far from falling into oblivion, +the son of Erebus has gone on diligently accumulating +honours till he has managed to get the arbitrament +of life and death into his power, and to enlist +the birds of the air as a staff of spies, to give him +prompt information should any unlucky individual +refer to him in a tone of mockery or defiance. Perhaps +this is not development but reversion. Charon +may have been a great Infernal deity before he was a +boatman. The Charun of the Etruscans could destroy +life and torment the guilty—the office of conducting +shades to the other world forming only one part of +his duties.</p> + +<p>The opinion of Achilles, that it was better to be a +slave amongst men than a king over ghosts, is very +much that which prevails in the Greece of to-day. +Visions of a Christian paradise above the skies have +much less hold on the popular mind than dread of a +pagan Tartarus under the earth; and that full conviction +that after all it was a very bad thing to die, +that tendency to attach a paramount value to life, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page380" id="page380"></a>380</span> +<i>per se</i>, and <i>quand même</i>, which constituted so significant +a feature of the old Greeks, is equally characteristic +of their modern representatives. The next +world of the Romaic songs is far from being a place +"where all smiles and is glad;" the forebodings of +the Corsican's Chilina's mother are common enough +here in Greece. "Rejoice in the present world, rejoice +in the passing day," runs a <ins title="myrologion"><i>μυρολόγιον</i></ins>, quoted +by Fauriel; "to-morrow you will be under the sod, +and will behold the day no more." Down in Tartarus +youths and maidens spend their time dismally +in asking if there be yet an earth and a sky up above. +Are there still churches and golden icons? Do people +continue to work at their several trades? "Blessed +are the mountains and the pastures," it is said, "where +we meet not Charon." The parents of a dying girl +ask of her why she is resolved to hasten into the +other world where the cock crows not, and the hen +clucks not; where there is no water and no grass, +and where the hungry find it impossible to eat, and +the tired are incapable of sleep. Why is she not +content to abide at home? The girl replies she +cannot, for yesterday, in the late evening, she was +married, and her consort is the tomb. That is the +peasant elegist's way of speaking of a sudden death, +caused very likely by the chill of nightfall. Of +another damsel, who succumbed to a long illness, +"who had suffered as none before suffered under +the sun," he narrates how she pressed her father's +hand to her heart, saying: "Alas! my father, I am +about to die." She clasped her mother's hand to her +breast, saying: "Alas! my mother, I am about to +die." Then she sent for her betrothed, and she bent +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page381" id="page381"></a>381</span> +over him and kissed him, and whispered softly into +his ear: "Oh, my friend, when I am dead deck my +grave as you would have decked my nuptial bed." +We find in Greek poesy the universal legend of the +lover who kills himself on hearing of the death of his +mistress; but, as a rule, the regret of survivors is +depicted as neither desperate nor durable. Long ago, +three gallant youths plotted together to contrive an +escape from Hades, and a fair-haired maiden prayed +that they would take her with them; she did so wish +to see her mother mourning her loss, her brothers weeping +because she is no more. They answered: "As +to thy brothers, poor girl, they are dancing, and thy +mother diverts herself with gossiping in the street." +The mournfully beautiful music that Schubert wedded +to Claudius's little poem <i>Der Tod und das Mädchen</i> +might serve as melodious expression to many a one +of these Grecian lays of dead damsels. Death will +not halt because he hears a voice crying: "Tarry, I +am still so young!" The future is as irrevocably +fixed as the past; and if fate deals hardly by mortals, +there is nothing to fall back upon but the sorry +resignation of despair; such is the sombre folk philosophy +of the land of eternal summer. Perhaps it is +the very brightness of the sky and air that makes the +quitting of this mortal coil so unspeakably grievous. +The most horribly painful idea associated with death +in the mind of the modern as of the ancient Greek is +the idea of darkness, of separation from what Dante, +yet more Greek than Italian in his passionate sun-worship, +describes in a line which seems somehow to +hold incarnate the thing it tells of—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p><span class="xl">. . . </span>l'aer dolce che dal sol s'allegra.</p> + </div> </div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page382" id="page382"></a>382</span> +<p>It is worth noting that, whether the view entertained +of immortality be cheerful or the reverse, in the songs +of Western nations the disembodied soul is universally +taken to be the exact duplicate of the creature +of flesh and blood, in wants, tastes, and semblance. +The European folk-singer could no more grasp a +metaphysical conception of the eternity of spirit, such +as that implied in the grand Indian dirge which craves +everlasting good for the "unborn part" in man, than +he would know what to make of the scientific theory +of the indestructibility of matter shadowed forth in the +ordinary Sanskrit periphrases for death, signifying +"the resolution of the body into its five elementary +constituents."</p> + +<p>Among the Greek-speaking inhabitants of Southern +Italy a peculiar metre is set apart to the composition +of the neniæ, and the office of public wailer is transmitted +from mother to daughter; so that the living +præficæ are the lineal descendants of the præficæ who +lived of old in the Grecian Motherland. Unrivalled +in the matter of her improvisations as in the manner +of their delivery, the hereditary dirge-singer no doubt, +like a good actress, keenly realises at the moment the +sorrow not her own, of which she undertakes the interpretation +in return for a trifling gratuity, and to +her hearers she appears as the genius or high priestess +of woe: she excites them into a whirlwind of ecstatic +paroxysms not greatly differing from kindred phenomena +vouched for by the historians of religious mysticism. +There are, however, one or two of the Græco-Italic +death-songs which bear too clear and touching +a stamp of sincerity for us to attribute them even to +the most skilled of hired "sobbing ones." There is +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page383" id="page383"></a>383</span> +no savour of vicarious mourning in the plaint of the +desolate girl, who says to her dead mother that she +will wait for her, so that she may tell her how she has +passed the day: at eight she will await her, and if she +does not come she will begin to weep; at nine she +will await her, and if she comes not she will grow +black as soot; at ten she will await her, and if she +does not come at ten she will turn to earth, to earth +that may be sown in. And it is difficult to believe +that aught save the anguish of a mother's broken +heart could have quickened the senses of an ignorant +peasant to the tragic intensity of the following +lament:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Now they have buried thee, my little one,</p> +<p class="i4">Who will make thy little bed?</p> +<p class="i4">Black Death will make it for me</p> +<p class="i4">For a very long night.</p> +<p>Who will arrange thy pillows,</p> +<p class="i4">So thou mayst sleep softly?</p> +<p class="i4">Black Death will arrange them for me</p> +<p class="i4">With hard stones.</p> +<p>Who will awake thee, my daughter,</p> +<p class="i4">When day is up?</p> +<p class="i4">Down here it is always sleep,</p> +<p class="i4">Always dark night.</p> +<p>This my daughter was fair.</p> +<p>When I went (with her) to high mass,</p> +<p>The columns shone,</p> +<p>The way grew bright.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The neniæ of Terra d'Otranto and of Calabria are +not uncommonly composed in a semi-dramatic form. +Professor Comparetti cites one, in which the friend +of a dead girl is represented as going to pay her a +visit, in ignorance of the misfortune that has happened. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page384" id="page384"></a>384</span> +She sees a crowd at the door, and she exclaims: +"How many folks are in thy house! they come from +all the neighbourhood; they are bidden by thy mother, +who shows thee the bridal array!" But on crossing +the threshold she finds that the shutters are closed: +"Alas!" she cries, "I deceive myself—I enter into +darkness." Again she repeats: "How many folks +are in thy house! All Corigliano is there." The +mother says: "My daughter has bidden them by the +tolling of the bell." Then the daughter is made to +ask: "What ails thee, what ails thee, my mother? +wherefore dost thou rend thy hair?" The mother +rejoins: "I think of thee, my daughter, of how thou +liest down in darkness." "What ails thee, what ails +thee, my mother, that all around one can hear thee +wailing?" "I think of thee, my daughter, of how +thou art turned black as soot." A sort of chorus +is appended: "All, all the mothers weep and rend +their hair: let them weep, the poor mothers who lose +their children." Here are the last four lines as they +were originally set on paper:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Ole sole i mane i cluene</p> +<p class="i2">Isirnune anapota ta maddia,</p> +<p>Afi nà clapsune tio mane misere</p> +<p class="i2">Pu ichannune ta pedia!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Professor Comparetti has shaped them into looking +more like Greek:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p><ins title="Olais, holais ê manai êklaioune"> +<i>Ολαις, <span style="font-size: 0.9em;">ὅ</span>λαις <span style="font-size: 0.9em;">ῃ</span> μάναι <span style="font-size: 0.9em;">ἠ</span>κλαίουνε</i></ins></p> +<p><ins title="Êsyrnoune anapoda ta mallia"><i>᾿Ησρνουνε ἀνάποδα τὰ +μαλλιά</i></ins></p> +<p><ins title="Aphêse na klapsoune tais manais"><i>῎Αφησε νὰ κλάψουνε +τα<span style="font-size: 0.9em;">ῖ</span>ς μάναις</i></ins> <i>misere</i></p> +<p><ins title="Pou êchanoune ta paidia!"><i>Ποῦ ἠχἁνουνε +τὰ παιδιἁ</i></ins></p> + </div> </div> + +<p>In his "Tour through the Southern Provinces of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page385" id="page385"></a>385</span> +the Kingdom of Naples," the Hon. R. Keppel Craven +gave an account of a funeral at Corigliano. The +deceased, a stout, swarthy man of about fifty, had +been fond of field sports; he was, therefore, laid on +his open bier in the dress of a hunter. When the +procession passed the house of a friend of the dead +man, it halted as a mark of respect, and the friend got +up from his dinner and looked out for a few minutes, +afterwards philosophically returning to the interrupted +meal. The busy people in the street, carpenters, +blacksmiths, cobblers, and fruitsellers, paused from +their several occupations—all carried on, as usual, in +the open air, when the dismal chant of the priests +announced the approach of the funeral, resuming +them with redoubled energy as soon as it had moved +on. A group of weeping women led the widow, +whose face was pale and motionless as a statue; her +black tresses descended to her knees, and at regular +intervals she pulled out two or three hairs—the women +instantly taking hold of her hands and replacing them +by her side, where they hung till the operation was +next repeated.</p> + +<p>The practice of plucking out the hair was so general +in the last century that even at Naples the old women +had hardly a hair left from out-living many relations. +It was proper also to observe the day of burial as a +fast day. Two unlucky women near Salerno lost +their characters for ever because the dog of a visitor +who had come to condole, sniffed out a dish of tripe +which had been hastily thrust into a corner.</p> + +<p>The Italian, or rather Calabrese-speaking population +of Calabria, call their preficæ—where they still +have any—<i>Reputatrici</i>. Some remarkable songs have +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page386" id="page386"></a>386</span> +been collected in the commune of Pizzo, the place of +dubious fame by whose peasants Murat was caught +and betrayed. There is something Dantesque in the +image of Death as <i>'nu gran levreri</i> crouching in a +mountain defile:</p> + +<blockquote><p> +Joy, I saw death; Joy, I saw her yesterday; I beheld her in +a narrow way, like unto a great greyhound, and I was very +curious. "Death, whence comest thou?" "I am come from +Germany, going thence to Count Roger. I have killed princes, +counts, and cavaliers; and now I am come for a young maiden +so that with me she may go".</p> + +<p>Weep, mamma, weep for me, weep and never rest; weep for +me Sunday, Easter, and Christmas Day; for no more wilt thou +see thy daughter sit down at thy board to eat, and no more +shalt thou await me. +</p></blockquote> + +<p>One conclusion forced upon us incidentally by folk-dirges +must seem strange when we remember how +few are the cultured poetesses who have attained +eminence—to wit, that with the unlettered multitude +the poetic faculty is equally the property of women +as of men.</p> + +<p>In various parts of Italy the funerals of the poor +are conducted exclusively by those of like sex with +the dead—a custom of which I first took note at +Varese in the year 1879. The funeral procession +came up slowly by the shady paths near the lake; +long before it appeared one could hear the sound of +shrill voices chanting a litany. When it got near to +the little church of S. Vittore, it was seen that only +women followed the bier, which was carried by women. +"Una povera donna morta in parto," said a peasant +standing by, as she pointed to the coffin with a +gesture of sympathy. The mourners had black +shawls thrown over their heads and bore tapers. A +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page387" id="page387"></a>387</span> +sight yet stranger to unaccustomed eyes is the funeral +of a child at Spezia. A number of little girls, none +older than eleven or twelve, some as young as five, +carry the small coffin to the cemetery. Some of the +children hold candles; they are nicely dressed in their +best frocks; the sun plays on their bare black or +golden curls. They have the little serious look of +children engaged in some business of work or play, +but no look of gloom or sadness. The coffin is +covered with a white pall on which lies a large nosegay. +No priests or elder persons are there except +one man, walking apart, who has to see that the +children go the right way. About twenty children is +the average number, but there may be sometimes a +hundred. When they return, running across the grass +between the road and the sea-wall, they tumble over +one another in the scramble to snatch daisies from +the ground.</p> + +<p>It is still common in Lombardy to ring the bells +<i>d'allegrezza</i> on the death of an infant, "because its +soul goes straight to Paradise." This way of ringing, +or, rather, chiming, consists in striking the bell with a +clapper held in the hand, when a light, dancing sound +is produced, something like that of hand-bells. On a +high <i>festa</i> all the bells are used; for dead babies, only +two. I have often heard the sad message sounding +gaily from the belfry at Salò.</p> + +<p>Were I sure that all these songs of the Last Parting +would have for others the same interest that they have +had for me, I should be tempted to add a study dedicated +solely to the dirges of savage nations and of those +nations whose civilization has not followed the same +course as ours. I must, at all events, indicate the wonderfully +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page388" id="page388"></a>388</span> +strange and wild Polynesian "Death-talks" and +"Evas" (dirges proper) collected by the Rev. W. W. +Gill. The South Pacific Islanders say of the dying, +"he is passing over the sea." Their dead set out in +a canoe on a long and perilous voyage to the regions +of the sun-setting. When they get there, alas!—when +they reach the mysterious spirit-land, a horrid +doom awaits them: children and old men and women—all, +in short, who have not died in battle, are devoured +by a dreadful deity, and perish for ever. But +this fate does not overtake them immediately; for a +time they remain in a shadowy intermediate state +till their turn comes. The spirit-journey is described +in a dirge for two little children, composed by their +father about the year 1796:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"Thy god,<a id="footnotetagD2" name="footnotetagD2"></a><a href="#footnoteD2"><sup>2</sup></a> pet-child, is a bad one;</p> +<p>For thy body is attenuated;</p> +<p>This wasting sickness must end thy days.</p> +<p>Thy form, once so plump, now how changed!</p> +<p>Ah! that god, that bad god!</p> +<p>Inexpressibly bad, my child!</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="xxl">. . . . . .</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Thou hast entered the expanse;</p> +<p>And wilt visit 'the land of red parrot feathers,'</p> +<p>Where Oārangi was once a guest.</p> +<p>Thou feedest now on ocean spray,</p> +<p>And sippest fresh water out of the rocks,</p> +<p>Travelling over rugged cliffs,</p> +<p>To the music of murmuring billows.</p> +<p>Thy exile spirit is overtaken</p> +<p>By darkness at the ocean's edge.</p> +<p>Fourapapa<a id="footnotetagD3" name="footnotetagD3"></a><a href="#footnoteD3"><sup>3</sup></a> there sleeps. +All three<a id="footnotetagD4" name="footnotetagD4"></a><a href="#footnoteD4"><sup>4</sup></a></p> +<p>Stood awhile to gaze wistfully</p> +<p>At the glories of the setting sun."</p> + </div> </div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page389" id="page389"></a>389</span> + +<p>There is much more, but this is perhaps sufficient to +show the particular note struck.</p> + +<p>I will give, in its entirety, one more dirge—the +death-chant of the tribe of Badagas, in the Neilgherry +Hills—because it is unique, so far as I know, in reversing +the rule <i>de mortius</i>, and in charging, instead, +the dead man with every sin, to make sure that none +are omitted of which he is actually guilty. It is +accompanied by a singular ceremony. An unblemished +buffalo-calf is led into the midst of the mourners, +and as after each verse they catch up and repeat the +refrain, "It is a sin!" the performer of the dirge +lays his hand upon the calf, to which the guilt is +transferred. At the end the calf is let loose; like the +Jewish scape-goat, it must be used for no secular +work; it bears the sins of a human being, and is +sacred till death. The English version is by Mr C. E. +Gover, who has done so much for the preservation of +South-Indian folk-songs.</p> + +<h5><span class="sc">Invocation.</span></h5> + <div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>In the presence of the great Bassava,</p> +<p>Who sprang from Banigé the holy cow.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>The dead has sinned a thousand times.</p> +<p>E'en all the thirteen hundred sins</p> +<p>That can be done by mortal men</p> +<p>May stain the soul that fled to-day.</p> +<p>Stay not their flight to God's pure feet.</p> +<p class="i12"> Chorus—Stay not their flight.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>He killed the crawling snake</p> +<p class="i18"> Chorus—It is a sin.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>The creeping lizard slew.</p> +<p class="i26"> It is a sin.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page390" id="page390"></a>390</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Also the harmless frog.</p> +<p class="i26"> It is a sin.</p> +<p>Of brothers he told tales.</p> +<p class="i26"> It is a sin.</p> +<p>The landmark stone he moved.</p> +<p class="i26"> It is a sin.</p> +<p>Called in the Sircar's aid.<a id="footnotetagD5" name="footnotetagD5"></a><a href="#footnoteD5"><sup>5</sup></a></p> +<p class="i26"> It is a sin.</p> +<p>Put poison in the milk.</p> +<p class="i26"> It is a sin.</p> +<p>To strangers straying on the hills,</p> +<p>He offered aid but guided wrong.</p> +<p class="i26"> It is a sin.</p> +<p>His sister's tender love he spurned</p> +<p>And showed his teeth to her in rage.</p> +<p class="i26"> It is a sin.</p> +<p>He dared to drain the pendent teats</p> +<p>Of holy cow in sacred fold.</p> +<p class="i26"> It is a sin.</p> +<p>The glorious sun shone warm and bright</p> +<p>He turned its back towards its beams.<a id="footnotetagD6" name="footnotetagD6"></a><a href="#footnoteD6"><sup>6</sup></a></p> +<p class="i26"> It is a sin.</p> +<p>Ere drinking from the babbling brook,</p> +<p>He made no bow of gratitude.</p> +<p class="i26"> It is a sin.</p> +<p>His envy rose against the man</p> +<p>Who owned a fruitful buffalo.</p> +<p class="i26"> It is a sin.</p> +<p>He bound with cords and made to plough</p> +<p>The budding ox too young to work.</p> +<p class="i26"> It is a sin.</p> +<p>While yet his wife dwelt in his house</p> +<p>He lusted for a younger bride.</p> +<p class="i26"> It is a sin.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page391" id="page391"></a>391</span> +<p>The hungry begged—he gave no meat,</p> +<p>The cold asked warmth—he lent no fire.</p> +<p class="i26"> It is a sin.</p> +<p>He turned relations from his door,</p> +<p>Yet asked unworthy strangers home.</p> +<p class="i26"> It is a sin.</p> +<p>The weak and poor called for his aid,</p> +<p>He gave no alms, denied their woe.</p> +<p class="i26"> It is a sin.</p> +<p>When caught by thorns, in useless rage</p> +<p>He tore his cloth from side to side.</p> +<p class="i26"> It is a sin.</p> +<p>The father of his wife sat on the floor</p> +<p>Yet he reclined on bench or couch.</p> +<p class="i26"> It is a sin.</p> +<p>He cut the bund around a tank,</p> +<p>Set free the living water's store.</p> +<p class="i26"> It is a sin.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>What though he sinned so much,</p> +<p>Or that his parents sinned?</p> +<p>What though the sins' long score</p> +<p>Was thirteen hundred crimes?</p> +<p>O let them every one,</p> +<p>Fly swift to Bas'va's feet.</p> +<p class="i18"> Chorus—Fly swift.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>The chamber dark of death</p> +<p>Shall open to his soul.</p> +<p>The sea shall rise in waves;</p> +<p>Surround on every side,</p> +<p>But yet that awful bridge</p> +<p>No thicker than a thread,</p> +<p>Shall stand both firm and strong.</p> +<p>The dragon's yawning mouth</p> +<p>Is shut—it brings no fear.</p> +<p>The palaces of heaven</p> +<p>Throw open wide their doors.</p> +<p class="i8"> Chorus—Open wide their doors.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page392" id="page392"></a>392</span> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>The thorny path is steep,</p> +<p>Yet shall his soul go safe.</p> +<p>The silver pillar stands</p> +<p>So near—he touches it.</p> +<p>He may approach the wall</p> +<p>The golden wall of heaven.</p> +<p>The burning pillar's flame</p> +<p>Shall have no heat for him.</p> +<p class="i10"> Chorus—Shall have no heat.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh let us never doubt</p> +<p>That all his sins are gone,</p> +<p>That Bassava forgives.</p> +<p>May it be well with him!</p> +<p class="i14"> Chorus—May it be well!</p> +<p>Let all be well with him!</p> +<p class="i14"> Chorus—Let all be well.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Surely an impressive burial service to have been +found in use amongst a poor little obscure tribe of +Indian mountaineers!</p> + +<p>It cannot be said that this moral attitude is often +reached. Research into funeral rites, of whatever +nature, confronts us with much that would be +ludicrous were it not so very pitiful, for humanity has +displayed a fatal tendency to rush into the committal +of ghastly absurdities by way of showing the most +sacred kind of grief. Yet, take them all in all, the +death laments of the people form a striking and beautiful +manifestation of such homage as "Life may give +for love to death."</p> + +<p class="footnote"><a id="footnoteD1" name="footnoteD1"></a><a class="footnote" href="#footnotetagD1">Footnote 1:</a> "Calling the dead" was without doubt once general amongst +all classes—which may be true of all the customs that we are +now inclined to associate with only the very poor. In the +striking mediæval ceremonial performed at the entombment of +King Alfonso in the vault at the Escurial, the final act was that +of the Lord Chamberlain, who unlocked the coffin, and in the +midst of profound silence shouted into the king's ear, "Señor, +Señor, Señor." After which he rose, saying, "His majesty does +not answer. Then it is true the king is dead."</p> + +<p class="footnote"><a id="footnoteD2" name="footnoteD2"></a><a class="footnote" href="#footnotetagD2">Footnote 2:</a> The child's "personal fate."</p> + +<p class="footnote"><a id="footnoteD3" name="footnoteD3"></a><a class="footnote" href="#footnotetagD3">Footnote 3:</a> The brother.</p> + +<p class="footnote"><a id="footnoteD4" name="footnoteD4"></a><a class="footnote" href="#footnotetagD4">Footnote 4:</a> A little sister had died before.</p> + +<p class="footnote"><a id="footnoteD5" name="footnoteD5"></a><a class="footnote" href="#footnotetagD5">Footnote 5:</a> He had recourse to the Rajahs, whose courts under the +old régime, had become a byeword for oppression and corruption.</p> + +<p class="footnote"><a id="footnoteD6" name="footnoteD6"></a><a class="footnote" href="#footnotetagD6">Footnote 6:</a> Compare <i>Inferno</i>, Canto vii.</p> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page393" id="page393"></a>393</span> + +<h2>BOOKS OF REFERENCE.</h2> + +<blockquote><p> +Alecsandri, Vasile. Poesii Populare ale Romanilor. 1867.</p> + +<p>—— Les Doïnas. Poésies Moldaves. 1855.</p> + +<p>Alexander, Francesca. Roadside Songs of Tuscany (in ten +parts, edited by John Ruskin, LL.D.). 1885.</p> + +<p>Arbaud, Damase. Chants Populaires de la Provence. 2 vols +1864.</p> + +<p>Armana Provençau. 1870.</p> + +<p>Avolio, Corrado. Canti Popolari di Noto. 1875.</p> + +<p>Bernoni, Dom. Giuseppe. Canti Populari Veneziani. 1873.</p> + +<p>—— Preghiere Populari Veneziane. 1873.</p> + +<p>—— Leggende Fantastiche Populari Veneziane. 1873.</p> + +<p>Bladé, J. Poésies Populaires de la Gascogne. 3 vols.</p> + +<p>Boullier, Auguste. Le Dialecte et les Chants Populaires de la +Sardaigne. 1864.</p> + +<p>Burton, Richard. Wit and Wisdom from West Arica. 1865.</p> + +<p>Cardona, Enrico. Dell' Antica Letteratura Catalana. 1878.</p> + +<p>Champfleury. Chansons Populaires des Provinces de France. +1860.</p> + +<p>Comparetti, Prof. D. Saggi de' Dialetti Greci dell' Italia +Meridionale. 1866.</p> + +<p>Constantinescu, Dr B. Probe de Limba si Literatura Tiganilor +din Romania. 1878.</p> + +<p>Dalmedico, A. Canti del Popolo di Chioggia. 1872.</p> + +<p>—— Ninne-Nanne e Giuochi Infantile Veneziani. 1871.</p> + +<p>Davies, William. The Pilgrimage of the Tiber. 1874. (Popular +Songs of the Tiberine District.)</p> + +<p>D'Ancona, Prof. A. Origini del Teatro in Italia. 2 vols. 1877.</p> + +<p>—— La Poesia Popolare Italiana. 1878.</p> + +<p>Day, Rev. Lal Behari. Folk-Tales of Bengal. 1883.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page394" id="page394"></a>394</span> + +<p>Dorsa, Prof. V. La Tradizione Greco-Latina negli usi e nelle +Credenze Popolari della Calabria Citeriore. 2d Ed. 1884.</p> + +<p>Dozon, Auguste. Poésies Populaires Serbes. 1859. +—— Chansons Populaires Bulgares Inédites. 1875.</p> + +<p>Dumersan et Colet. Chants et Chansons Populaires de la +France.</p> + +<p>Fauriel, C. Chansons Populaires de la Grèce. 2 vols. 1824.</p> + +<p>Ferraro, Dr G. Canti Popolari Monferrini. 1870.</p> + +<p>Fissore, G. Canti Popolari dell' Allemagna. 1857.</p> + +<p>Flugi, Alfons von. Die Volkslieder des Engadin. 1873.</p> + +<p>Gill, Rev. W.W. Myths and Songs from the South Pacific. +1876.</p> + +<p>Gonzenbach, Laura. Sicilianische Märchen. 1870.</p> + +<p>Gover, Charles E. The Folk-Songs of Southern India. 1872.</p> + +<p>Grimm, Jacob. Deutsche Mythologie. Vierte Ausgabe Besorgt +von Elard Hugo Meyer. 3 vols. 1875-7-8.</p> + +<p>Gubernatis, Conte A. de. Storia Comparata degli usi Natalizi +in Italia e presso gli altri Popoli Indo-Europei. 1878.</p> + +<p>Imbriani, V., and Casetti, A. Canti Popolari delle Provincie +Meridionali. 2 vols. 1871.</p> + +<p>Issaverdenz, Dr G. Armenian Popular Songs. 1867.</p> + +<p>Ive, Antonio. Canti Popolari Istriani. 1877.</p> + +<p>Kolberg, Oskar. Pièsni Luder Polskiego. 1857.</p> + +<p>Kuhff, Prof. P. Les Enfantines du "Bon Pays de France." +1878.</p> + +<p>Latham, R.G. The Nationalities of Europe (Estonian Poetry). +1863.</p> + +<p>Leger, Louis. Chants Héroïques et Chansons Populaires des +Slaves de Bohême. 1866.</p> + +<p>Lizio-Bruno, Prof. Canti Popolari delle Isole Eolie. 1871.</p> + +<p>Mandalari, Mario. Canti del Popolo Reggino. 1881.</p> + +<p>Marcellus, C<sup>te</sup> de. Chants Populaires de la Grèce Moderne. +1860.</p> + +<p>Marcoaldi, Oreste. Canti Popolari inediti. 1855.</p> + +<p>Marmier, X. Chants Populaires du Nord. 1842.</p> + +<p>Moncaut, Cénac. Littérature Populaire de la Gascogne. 1868.</p> + +<p>Morosi, Dr Giuseppe. Studi sui Dialetti Greci della Terra +d'Otranto, 1870.</p> + +<p>—— I Dialetti Romaici del Dialetto di Bova in Calabria. +1874.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page395" id="page395"></a>395</span> + +<p>Nerucci, G. Sessanta Novelle Popolari Montalesi. 1880.</p> + +<p>Nigra, Conte Constantino. Canzone Popolari del Piemonte. +Rivista Contemporanea: fascicoli lxxiv. and lxxxvi. +1860-1.</p> + +<p>Nino, A. de. Usi Abruzzesi. 3 vols. 1879, 1881-3.</p> + +<p>Ortoli, Frédéric. Les Contes Populaires de l'île de Corse. +1883.</p> + +<p>Pellegrini, Prof. Astorre. Il Dialetto Greco-Calabro di Bova. +1880.</p> + +<p>—— La Poesia di Bova. 1881.</p> + +<p>Pitrè, Cav. Dr Giuseppe. Studi di Poesia Popolare. 1872.</p> + +<p>—— Biblioteca delle Tradizioni Popolari Siciliane. 13 vols.</p> + +<p>Ralston, W. R. S. The Songs of the Russian People. 1872.</p> + +<p>Righi, Ettore-Scipione. Canti Popolari Veronesi. 1863.</p> + +<p>Rink, Dr R. Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo. 1875.</p> + +<p>Rosa, Gabriele. Dialetti, Costumi e Tradizioni nelle Provincie +di Bergamo e di Brescia. Jerza edizione. 1870.</p> + +<p>Salomone-Marino, S. Canti Popolari Siciliani. 1867.</p> + +<p>Stokes, Maive. Indian Fairy Tales. 1880.</p> + +<p>Symonds, T. Addington. Sketches in Italy and Greece.</p> + +<p>(Popular Songs of Tuscany.) 1874.</p> + +<p>Thorpe, B. Northern Mythology. 1851.</p> + +<p>Tigri, G. Canti Popolari Toscani. Terza ediz. 1869.</p> + +<p>Tommaseo, N. Canti Popolari Toscani, Corsi, Illirici, Greci. +1841. +</p></blockquote> + +<p class="center" style="margin-top: 5em;">TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.</p> +<hr class="full" /> + +<a name="transcriber_note"></a> +<table class="tn" summary="tn" align="center" style="margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 5em;"> +<tr> + <td class="note"> + +<h4>Transcriber's Note</h4> + +<h5>Errata</h5> + +<p>Sundry damaged or missing punctuation has been repairesd.</p> + +<p>The rest of the corrections are also indicated, in the text, by a dotted line underneath the correction.</p> +<p style="margin-top:-1em;">Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.)</p> + +<p>Page 62: 'portait' corrected to 'portrait'. <br /> +(he might at least possess his portrait).</p> + +<p>Page 84: 'befel' corrected to 'befell'.<br /> +(the fate that befell a French professorship of Armenian)</p> + +<p>Page 172: 'hushand' corrected to 'husband'. <br /> +(and shortly after her husband had extricated her she became a mother).</p> + +<p>Page 226: 'daugher' corrected to 'daughter'.<br /> +("And a cup of poison, my daughter.")</p> + +Page 335: Page 335: nĩna corrected to niña.<br /> +(A dormir va mi niña). + +<p>Page 337: "wee Willie Winkile" corrected to "wee Willie Winkie"<br /> +("wee Willie Winkie" who runs upstairs and downstairs in his nightgown:)</p> + +<p>Page 341: 'cardle' corrected to 'cradle'. <br /> +(aunt has taken baby from his cradle)</p> + +<p>Page 343: 'The' corrected to 'They'.<br /> +(They are often called "certi signuri,")</p> + +<a href="#top">Return to Top</a> + +</td> +</tr> +</table> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs +(1886), by Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS IN THE STUDY OF *** + +***** This file should be named 36222-h.htm or 36222-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/2/2/36222/ + +Produced by Lesley Halamek, Jonathan Ingram and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/36222.txt b/36222.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e88332c --- /dev/null +++ b/36222.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13243 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs (1886), by +Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs (1886) + +Author: Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco + +Release Date: May 26, 2011 [EBook #36222] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS IN THE STUDY OF *** + + + + +Produced by Lesley Halamek, Jonathan Ingram and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + Will no one tell me what she sings? + Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow + For old, unhappy, far-off things, + And battles long ago: + Or is it some more humble lay, + Familiar matter of to-day? + Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, + That has been, and may be again! + + W. WORDSWORTH. + + + + + ESSAYS IN THE + STUDY OF FOLK-SONGS. + + + BY THE + COUNTESS EVELYN MARTINENGO-CESARESCO. + + LONDON: + GEORGE REDWAY, + YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. + MDCCCLXXXVI. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + INTRODUCTION ix + + THE INSPIRATION OF DEATH IN FOLK-POETRY 1 + + NATURE IN FOLK-SONGS 30 + + ARMENIAN FOLK-SONGS 53 + + VENETIAN FOLK-SONGS 89 + + SICILIAN FOLK-SONGS 122 + + GREEK SONGS OF CALABRIA 152 + + FOLK-SONGS OF PROVENCE 177 + + THE WHITE PATERNOSTER 203 + + THE DIFFUSION OF BALLADS 214 + + SONGS FOR THE RITE OF MAY 249 + + THE IDEA OF FATE IN SOUTHERN TRADITIONS 270 + + FOLK-LULLABIES 299 + + FOLK-DIRGES 354 + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + + Wo man singt da lass dich ruhig nieder, + Boese Menschen haben keine Lieder. + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +It is on record that Wilhelm Mannhardt, the eminent writer on +mythology and folk-lore, was once taken for a gnome by a peasant he +had been questioning. His personal appearance may have helped the +illusion; he was small and irregularly made, and was then only just +emerging from a sickly childhood spent beside the Baltic in dreaming +over the creations of popular fancy. Then, too, he wore a little red +cap, which was doubtless fraught with supernatural suggestions. But +above all, the story proves that Mannhardt had solved the difficulty +of dealing with primitive folk; that instead of being looked upon as +a profane and prying layman, he was regarded as one who was more than +initiated into the mysteries--as one who was a mystery himself. And +for this reason I recall it here. It exactly indicates the way to +set about seeking after old lore. We ought to shake off as much as +possible of our conventional civilization which frightens uneducated +peasants, and makes them think, at best, that we wish to turn them +into ridicule. If we must not hope to pass for spirits of earth or +air, we can aim at inspiring such a measure of confidence as will +persuade the natural man to tell us what he still knows of those +vanishing beings, and to lend us the key to his general treasure-box +before all that is inside be reduced to dust. + +This, which applies directly to the collector at first hand, has also +its application for the student who would profit by the materials when +collected. He should approach popular songs and traditions from some +other stand-point than that of mere criticism; and divesting himself +of preconcerted ideas, he should try to live the life and think the +thoughts of people whose only literature is that which they carry +in their heads, and in whom Imagination takes the place of acquired +knowledge. + + +I. + +Research into popular traditions has now reached a stage at which +the English Folk-Lore Society have found it desirable to attempt a +classification of its different branches, and in future, students +will perhaps devote their labours to one or another of these branches +rather than to the subject as a whole. Certain of the sections thus +mapped out have plainly more special attractions for a particular +class of workers: beliefs and superstitions chiefly concern those who +study comparative mythology; customs are of peculiar importance to the +sociologist, and so on. But tales and songs, while offering points of +interest to scientific specialists, appeal also to a much wider class, +namely, to all who care at all for literature. For the Folk-tale is +the father of all fiction, and the Folk-song is the mother of all +poetry. + +Mankind may be divided into the half which listens and the half which +reads. For the first category in its former completeness, we must +go now to the East; in Europe only the poor, and of them a rapidly +decreasing proportion, have the memory to recite, the patience to +hear, the faith to receive. It was not always or primarily an +affair of classes: down even to a comparatively late day, the pure +story-teller was a popular member of society in provincial France +and Italy, and perhaps society was as well employed in listening to +wonder-tales as it is at present. But there is no going back. +The epitaph for the old order of things was written by the great +philosopher who threw the last shovel of earth on its grave: + + O l'heureux temps que celui de ces fables + Des bons demons, des esprits familiers, + Des farfadets, aux mortels secourables! + On ecoutait tous ces faits admirables + Dans son chateau, pres d'un large foyer: + Le pere et l'oncle, et la mere et la fille, + Et les voisins, et toute la famille, + Ouvraient l'oreille a Monsieur l'aumonier, + Qui leur fesait des contes de sorcier. + On a banni les demons et les fees; + Sous la raison les graces etouffees, + Livrent nous c[oe]urs a l'insipidite; + Le raisonner tristement s'accredite; + On court, helas! apres la verite, + Ah! croyez-moi, l'erreur a son merite.[1] + +Folk-songs differ from folk-tales by the fact of their making a more +emphatic claim to credibility. Prose is allowed to be more fanciful, +more frivolous than poetry. It deals with the brighter side; the hero +and heroine in the folk-tale marry and live happily ever after; in the +popular ballad they are but rarely united save in death. To the blithe +supernaturalism of elves and fairies, the folk-poet prefers the solemn +supernaturalism of ghost-lore. + +The folk-song probably preceded the folk-tale. If we are to judge +either by early record or by the analogy of backward peoples, it seems +proved that in infant communities anything that was thought worth +remembering was sung. It must have been soon ascertained that words +rhythmically arranged take, as a rule, firmer root than prose. "As +I do not know how to read," says a modern Greek folk-singer, "I have +made this story into a song so as not to forget it." + +Popular poetry is the reflection of moments of strong collective or +individual emotion. The springs of legend and poetry issue from the +deepest wells of national life; the very heart of a people is laid +bare in its sagas and songs. There have been times when a profound +feeling of race or patriotism has sufficed to turn a whole nation into +poets: this happened at the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, the +struggle for the Stuarts in Scotland, for independence in Greece. It +seems likely that all popular epics were born of some such concordant +thrill of emotion. The saying of "a very wise man" reported by Andrew +Fletcher of Saltoun, to the effect that if one were permitted to make +all the ballads, he need not care who made the laws, must be taken +with this reservation: the ballad-maker only wields his power for as +long as he is the true interpreter of the popular will. Laws may be +imposed on the unwilling, but not songs. + +The Brothers Grimm said that they had not found a single lie in +folk-poetry. "The special value," wrote Goethe, "of what we call +national songs and ballads, is that their inspiration comes fresh +from nature: they are never got up, they flow from a sure spring." He +added, what must continually strike anyone who is brought in contact +with a primitive peasantry, "The unsophisticated man is more the +master of direct, effective expression in few words than he who has +received a regular literary education." + +Bards chaunted the praises of head-men and heroes, and it may be +guessed that almost as soon and as universally as tribes and races +fell out, it grew to be the custom for each fighting chief to have +one or more bards in his personal service. Robert Wace describes how +William the Conqueror was followed by Taillefer, who + + Mounted on steed that was swift of foot, + Went forth before the armed train + Singing of Roland and Charlemain, + Of Olivere, and the brave vassals + Who died at the Pass of Roncesvals. + +The northern skalds accompanied the armies to the wars and were +present at all the battles. "Ye shall be here that ye may see with +your own eyes what is achieved this day," said King Olaf to his skalds +on the eve of the Battle of Stiklastad (1030), "and have no occasion, +when ye shall afterwards celebrate these actions in song, to depend on +the reports of others." In the same fight, a skald named Jhormod died +an honourable death, shot with an arrow while in the act of singing. +The early Keltic poets were forbidden to bear arms: a reminiscence of +their sacerdotal status, but they, too, looked on while others fought, +and encouraged the combatants with their songs. All these bards served +a higher purpose than the commemoration of individual leaders: they +became the historians of their epoch. The profession was one of +recognised eminence, and numbered kings among its adepts. Then it +declined with the rise of written chronicles, till the last bard +disappeared and only the ballad-singer remained. + + +II. + +This personage, though shorn of bardic dignity, yet contrived to hold +his own with considerable success. In Provence and Germany, itinerant +minstrels who sang for pay brought up the rank and file of the +troubadours and minnesingers; in England and Italy and Northern +France they formed a class apart, which, as times went, was neither +ill-esteemed nor ill-paid. When the minstrel found no better audience +he mounted a barrel in the nearest tavern, or + + At country wakes sung ballads from a cart. + +But his favourite sphere was the baronial hall; and to understand how +welcome he was there made, it is only needful to picture country life +in days when books were few and newspapers did not exist. He sang +before noble knights and gracious dames, who, to us--could we be +suddenly brought into their presence--would seem rough in their +manner, their speech, their modes of life; but who were far from being +dead or insensible to intellectual pleasure when they could get it. He +sang the choicest songs that had come down to him from an earlier age; +songs of the Round Table and of the great Charles; and then, as he +sat at meat, perhaps below the salt, but with his plate well heaped up +with the best that there was, he heard strange Eastern tales from +the newly-arrived pilgrim at his right hand, and many a wild story of +noble love or hate from the white-haired retainer at his left. + +I have always thought that the old ballad-singer's world--the world in +which he moved, and again the ideal world of his songs--is nowhere to +be so vividly realised as in the Hofkirche at Innsbruck, among that +colossal company who watch the tomb of Kaiser Max; huge men and women +in richly wrought bronze array, ugly indeed, most of them, but with +two of their number seeming to embody every beautiful quality that was +possessed or dreamt of through well nigh a millennium: the pensive, +graceful form of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, and the erect +figure whose very attitude suggests all manly worth, all gentle +valour, under which is read the quaint device, "Arthur _von England_." + +If not rewarded with sufficient promptitude and liberality, the +ballad-singer was not slow to call attention to the fact. Colin Muset, +a jongleur who practised his trade in Lorraine and Champagne in the +thirteenth century, has left a charming photograph of contemporary +manners in a song which sets forth his wants and deserts. + + Lord Count, I have the viol played[2] + Before yourself, within your hall, + And you my service never paid + Nor gave me any wage at all; + 'T was villany: + + By faith I to Saint Mary owe, + Upon such terms I serve you not, + My alms-bag sinks exceeding low, + My trunk ill-furnished is, I wot. + + Lord Count, now let me understand, + What 'tis you mean to do for me, + If with free heart and open hand + Some ample guerdon you decree + Through courtesy; + For much I wish, you need not doubt, + In my own household to return, + And if full purse I am without, + Small greeting from my wife I earn. + + "Sir Engele," I hear her say, + "In what poor country have you been, + That through the city all the day + You nothing have contrived to glean! + See how your wallet folds and bends, + Well stuffed with wind and nought beside; + Accursed is he who e'er intends + As your companion to abide." + + When reached the house wherein I dwell, + And that my wife can clearly spy + My bag behind me bulge and swell, + And I myself clad handsomely + In a grey gown, + Know that she quickly throws away + Her distaff, nor of work doth reck, + She greets me laughing, kind and gay, + And twines both arms around my neck. + + My wife soon seizes on my bag, + And empties it without delay; + My boy begins to groom my nag, + And hastes to give him drink and hay; + My maid meanwhile runs off to kill + Two capons, dressing them with skill + In garlic sauce; + + My daughter in her hand doth bear, + Kind girl, a comb to smooth my hair. + Then in my house I am a king, + Great joyance and no sorrowing, + Happier than you can say or sing. + +Ballad-singing suffered by the invention of printing, but it was in +England that the professional minstrel met with the cruellest blow of +all--the statute passed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth which forbade +his recitations, and classed him with "rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy +beggars." + + "Beggars they are with one consent, + And rogues by Act of Parliament." + +On the other hand, it was also in England that the romantic ballad had +its revival, and was introduced to an entirely new phase of existence. +The publication of the _Percy Reliques_ (1765) started the modern +period in which popular ballads were not only to be accepted as +literature, but were to exercise the strongest influence on lettered +poets from Goethe and Scott, down to Dante Rossetti. + +Not that popular poetry had ever been without its intelligent +admirers, here and there, among men of culture: Montaigne had said +of it, "La poesie populere et purement naturelle a des naifvetez et +graces par ou elle se compare a la principale beaute de la poesie +parfaicte selon l'art: comme il se voit es villanelles de Gascouigne +et aus chancons qu'on nous raporte des nations qui n'ont conoissance +d'acune science, ny mesme d'escripture." There were even ardent +collectors, like Samuel Pepys, who is said to have acquired copies of +two thousand ballads.[3] Still, till after the appearance of Bishop +Percy's book (as his own many faults of omission and commission +attest), the literary class at large did not take folk-songs quite +seriously. The _Percy Reliques_ was followed by Herder's _Volkslieder_ +(1782), Scott's _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_ (1802), Fauriel's +_Chansons Populaires de la Grece_ (1824), to mention only three of its +more immediate successors. The "return to Nature" in poetry became an +irresistible movement; the world, tired of the classical forms of +the eighteenth century, listened as gladly to the fresh voice of +the popular muse, as in his father's dreary palace Giacomo Leopardi +listened to the voice of the peasant girl over the way, who sang as +she plied the shuttle: + + Sonavan le quiete + Stanze, e le vie dintorno. + Al tuo perpetuo canto, + Allor che all opre femminili intenta + Sedevi, assai contenta + Di quel vago avvenir che in mente avevi. + Era il Maggio odoroso: e tu solevi + Cosi menare il giorno. + + * * * * * + + Lingua mortal non dice + Quel ch' io sentiva in seno. + +The hunt for ballads led the way to the search for every sort +of popular song, and with what zeal that search has since been +prosecuted, the splendid results in the hands of the public now +testify. + + +III. + +A brief glance must be taken at what may be called domestic +folk-poetry. In a remote past, rural people found delight or +consolation in singing the events of their obscure lives, or in +deputing other persons of their own station, but especially skilled +in the art, to sing them for them. Thus there were marriage-songs and +funeral-songs, labour-songs and songs for the culminating points of +the pastoral or agricultural year. It is beyond my present purpose to +speak of the vintage festivals, and of the literary consequences of +the cult of Dionysus. I will, instead, pause for a moment to consider +the ancient harvest-songs. Among the Greeks, particularly in Phrygia +and in Sicily, all harvest-songs bore the generic name of Lytierses, +and how they got it, gives an instructive instance of myth-facture. +Lytierses was the son of King Midas, and a king himself, but also a +mighty reaper, whose habit it was to indulge in trials of strength +with his companions, and with strangers who were passing by. He tied +the vanquished up in sheaves and beat them. One day he defied an +unknown stranger, who proved too strong for him, and by whom he was +slain. So died Lytierses, the reaper, and the first "Lytierses," or +harvest-song, was composed to console his father, King Midas, for his +loss. + +Now, if we regard Lytierses as the typical agriculturist, and his +antagonist as the growth or vegetation genius, the fable seems to read +thus: Between man and Nature there is a continual struggle; man is +often victorious, but, if too presumptuous, a time comes when he must +yield. In harvest customs continued to this day, a struggle with or +for the last sheaf forms a common feature. The reapers of Western +France tie the sheaf, adorned with flowers, to a post driven strongly +into the ground, then they fetch the farmer and his wife and all the +farm folk to help in dragging it loose, and when the fastenings break, +it is borne off in triumph. So popular is this _Fete de la Gerbe_, +that, during the Chouan war, the leaders had to allow their peasant +soldiers to return to their villages to attend it, or they would have +deserted in a body. It may not be irrelevant to add that in Brittany +the great wrestling matches take place at the _fete_ of the "new +threshing floor," when all the neighbours are invited to unite in +preparing it for the corn. In North Germany, where the peasants still +believe that the last sheaf contains the growth-genius, they set it in +honour on the festive board, and serve it double portions of cake +and ale.[4] Thus appeased, it becomes a friend to the cultivator. The +harvest "man" or "tree" which used to be made by English reapers +at the end of the harvest, and presented to master and mistress, +obviously belonged to the same family. + +We have one or two of the ancient Lytierses in what is most likely +very nearly their original and popular form. One, composed of +distiches telling the story of Midas' son, is preserved in a tragedy +by Sosibius, the Syracusian poet. The following, more general in +subject, I take from the tenth Idyl of Theocritus:-- + + Come now hearken awhile to the songs of the god Lytierses. + + Demeter, granter of fruits, many sheaves vouchsafe to the cornfield, + Aye to be skilfully tilled, and reaped, and the harvest abundant. + + Fasten the heaps, ye binders of sheaves, lest any one passing, + Call out, "worthless clowns, you earn no part of your wages." + + Let every sheaf that the sickle has cut be turned to the north wind + Or to the west exposed, for so will the corn grow fatter. + + Ye who of wheat are threshers, beware how ye slumber at mid-day, + Then is the chaff from the stalk of the wheat, most easily parted. + + Reapers, to labour begin, as soon as the lark upriseth, + And when he sleeps, leave off, yet rest when the sun overpowers. + + Blest, O youths, is the life of a frog, for he never is anxious + Who is to pour him his drink, for he always has plenty. + + Better at once, O miserly steward, to boil our lentils; + Mind you don't cut your fingers in trying to chop them to atoms. + + These are the songs for the toilers to sing in the heat of the harvest. + +Most modern harvest songs manage, like that of Theocritus, to convey +some hint of thirst or hunger. "Be merry, O comrades!" sing the +girl reapers of Casteignano dei Greci, a Greek settlement in Terra +d'Otranto, "Be merry, and go not on your way so downcast; I saw things +you cannot see; I saw the housewife kneading dough, or preparing +macaroni; and she does it for us to eat, so that we may work like +lions at the harvest, and rejoice the heart of the husbandman." This +may be a statement of fact or a suggestion of what ought to be a fact. +Other songs, sung exclusively at the harvest, bear no outward sign of +connection with it; and the reason of their use on that occasion is +hopelessly lost. + + +IV. + +I pass on to the old curiosity shop of popular traditions--the +nursery. Children, with their innate conservatism, have stored a +vast assemblage of odds and ends which fascinate by their very +incompleteness. Religion, mythology, history, physical science, +or what stood for it; the East, the North--those great banks of +ideas--have been impartially drawn on by the infant folk-lorists +at their nurses' knees. Children in the four quarters of the globe, +repeat the same magic formulae; words which to every grown person seem +devoid of sense, have a universality denied to any articles of faith. +What, for example, is the meaning of the play with the snail? Why is +he so persistently asked to put his horns out? Pages might be filled +with the variants of the well-known invocation which has currency from +Rome to Pekin. + +English: + +I. + + Snail, snail, put out your horn, + Or I'll kill your father and mother the morn. + + 2. + + Snail, snail, come out of your hole, + Or else I'll beat you as black as a coal. + + 3. + + Snail, snail, put out your horn, + Tell me what's the day t'morn: + To-day's the morn to shear the corn, + Blaw bil buck thorn. + + 4. + + Snail, snail, shoot out your horn, + Father and mother are dead; + Brother and sister are in the back-yard + Begging for barley bread. + +Scotch: + + Snail, snail, shoot out your horn, + And tell us it will be a bonnie day, the morn. + +German: + + 1. + + Schneckhus, Peckhues, + Staek du din ver Horner rut, + Suest schmut ick di in'n Graven, + Da freten di de Raven. + + 2. + + Taekeltuet, + Kruep uet dyn hues, + Dyn hues dat brennt, + Dyn Kinder de flennt: + Dyn Fru de ligt in Waeken: + Kann 'k dy nich mael spraeken? + Taekeltuet, u. s. w. + + 3. + + Snaek, snaek, komm herduet, + Sunst tobraek ik dy dyn Hues. + + 4. + + Slingemues, + Kruep uet dyn Hues, + Stick all dyn veer Hoeern uet, + Wullt du 's neck uetstaeken, + Wik ik dyn Hues tobraeken. + Slingemues, u. s. w. + + 5. + Kuckuch, kuckuck Gerderut, + Staek dine ver Horns herut. + +French: + + Colimacon borgne! + Montre-moi tes cornes; + Je te dirai ou ta mere est morte, + Elle est morte a Paris, a Rouen, + Ou l'on sonne les cloches. + Bi, bim, bom, + Bi, bim, bom, + Bi, bim, bom. + +Tuscan: + + Chiocciola, chiocciola, vien da me, + Ti daro i' pan d' i' re; + E dell'ova affrittellate + Corni secchi e brucherate. + +Roumanian: + + Culbecu, culbecu, + Scote corne boeresci + Si te du la Dunare + Si be apa tulbure. + +Russian: + + Ulitka, ulitka, + Vypusti roga, + Ya tebe dam piroga.[5] + +Chinese: + + Snail, snail, come here to be fed, + Put out your horns and lift up your head; + Father and mother will give you to eat, + Good boiled mutton shall be your meat. + +Several lines in the second German version are evidently borrowed from +the Ladybird or Maychafer rhyme which has been pronounced a relic of +Freya worship. Here the question arises, is not the snail song also +derived from some ancient myth? Count Gubernatis, in his valuable work +on _Zoological Mythology_ (vol. ii. p. 75), dismisses the matter +with the remark that "the snail of superstition is demoniacal." This, +however, is no proof that he always bore so suspicious a character, +since all the accessories to past beliefs got into bad odour on the +establishment of Christianity, unless saved by dedication to the +Virgin or other saints. I ventured to suggest, in the _Archivio per lo +studio delle tradizioni popolari_ (the Italian Folklore Journal), +that the snail who is so constantly urged to come forth from his dark +house, might in some way prefigure the dawn. Horns have been from all +antiquity associated with rays of light. But to write of "Nature Myths +in Nursery Rhymes" is to enter on such dangerous ground that I will +pursue the argument no further. + + +V. + +Children of older years have preserved the very important class +of songs distinguished as singing-games. Everyone knows the famous +_ronde_ of the Pont d'Avignon: + + Sur le Pont d'Avignon, + Tout le monde y danse, danse, + Sur le Pont d'Avignon + Tout le monde y danse en rond. + + Les beaux messieurs font comme ca, + Sur le Pont d'Avignon, + Tout le monde y danse, danse, + Sur le Pont d'Avignon, + Tout le monde y danse en rond. + +After the "messieurs" who bow, come the "demoiselles" who curtsey; the +workwomen who sew, the carpenters who saw wood, the washerwomen +who wash linen, and a host of other folks intent on their different +callings. The song is an apt demonstration of what Paul de +Saint-Victor called "cet instinct inne de l'imitation qui fait similer +a l'enfant les actions viriles"[6]--in which instinct lies the germ of +the theatre. The origin of all spectacles was a performance +intended to amuse the performers, and it cannot be doubted that +the singing-game throws much light on the beginnings of scenic +representations. + +_Rondes_ frequently deal with love and marriage, and these, from +internal evidence, cannot have been composed by or for the young +people who now play them. There are in fact some which would be better +forgotten by everybody, but the majority are innocent little dramas, +of which it may truly be said, _Honi soit qui mal y pense_. It should +be noticed that a distinctly satirical vein runs through many of +these games, as in the "Gentleman from Spain,"--played in one form or +another all over Europe and the United States,--in which the suitor +would first give any money to get his bride, and then any money to +get rid of her. Or the Swedish _Lek_ (the name given in Sweden to +the singing-game), in which the companions of a young girl put her +sentiments to the test of telling her that father, mother, +sisters, brothers, are dead--all of which she hears with perfect +equanimity--but when they add that her betrothed is also dead, she +falls back fainting. Then all her kindred are resuscitated without the +effect of reviving her, but when she hears that her lover is alive and +well, she springs up and gives chase to her tormentors. + +To my mind there is no more remarkable specimen of the singing game +than _Jenny Jones_--through which prosaic title we can discern the +tender _Jeanne ma joie_ that formed the base of it. The Scotch still +say _Jenny Jo_, "Jo" being with them a term of endearment (_e.g._, +"John Anderson, my Jo!"). The following variant of the game I took +down from word of mouth at Bocking in Essex:-- + + We've come to see Jenny Jones, Jenny Jones, (_repeat_). + How is she now? + + Jenny is washing, washing, washing, + Jenny is washing, you can't see her now. + + We've come to see Jenny Jones. + How is she now? + + Jenny is folding, folding, folding, + You can't see her now. + + We've come to see Jenny Jones. + How is she now? + + Jenny is starching, starching, starching, + Jenny is starching, you can't see her now. + + We've come to see Jenny Jones. + How is she now? + + Jenny is ironing, ironing, ironing, + Jenny is ironing, you can't see her now. + + We've come to see Jenny Jones. + How is she now? + + Jenny is ill, ill, ill, + Jenny is ill, so you can't see her now. + + We've come to see Jenny Jones. + How is she now? + + (_Mournfully._) + Jenny is dead, dead, dead, + Jenny is dead, you can't see her now. + + May we come to the funeral? + Yes. + + May we come in red? + Red is for soldiers; you can't come in red. + + May we come in blue? + Blue is for sailors; you can't come in blue. + + May we come in white? + White is for weddings; you can't come in white. + + May we come in black? + Black is for funerals, so you can come in that. + +Jenny is then carried and buried (_i.e._, laid on the grass) by two +of the girls, while the rest follow as mourners, uttering a low, +prolonged wail. + +Perhaps the earliest acted tragedy--a tragedy acted before AEschylus +lived--was something like this. Anyhow, it may remind us of how early +a taste for the tragic is developed, if not in the life of mankind +at all events in the life of man. "What is the reason," asks St +Augustine, "that men wish to be moved by the sight of tragic and +painful things, which, nevertheless, they do not wish to undergo +themselves? For the spectators (at a play) desire to feel grieved, +and this grief is their joy: whence comes it unless from some strange +spiritual malady?"[7] + +Dr Pitre describes this Sicilian game: A child lies down, pretending +to be dead. His companions stand round and sing a dirge in the most +dolorous tones. Now and then, one of them runs up to him and lifts +an arm or a leg, afterwards letting it fall, to make sure that he is +quite dead. Satisfied on this point, they prepare to bury him, but +before doing so, they nearly stifle him with parting kisses. Tired, at +last, of his painful position, the would-be dead boy jumps up and gets +on the back of the most aggressive of his playmates, who is bound to +carry him off the scene. + +To play at funerals was probably a very ancient amusement. No doubt +some such game as the above is alluded to in the text, "... children +sitting in the markets and calling unto their fellows and saying, We +have piped unto you and ye have not danced, we have mourned unto you +and ye have not lamented." + + +VI. + +Mysteries and Miracle Plays must not be forgotten, though in their +origin they were not a plant of strictly popular growth. Some writers +consider that they were instituted by ecclesiastics as rivals to +the lay or pagan plays which were still in great favour in the first +Christian centuries. Others think with Dr Hermann Ulrici,[8] that they +grew naturally out of the increasingly pictorial celebration of +the early Greek liturgy,--painted scenes developing into _tableaux +vivants_, and these into acted and spoken interludes. It is certain +that they were started by the clergy, who at first were the sole +actors, assuming characters of both sexes. As time wore on, something +more lively was desired, and clowns and buffoons were accordingly +introduced. They appeared in the Innsbruck Play of the fourteenth +century; and again in 1427, in the performances given at Metz, while +the serious parts were acted by ecclesiastics, the lighter, or comic +parts, were represented by laymen. These performances were held in a +theatre constructed for the purpose, but mysteries were often played +in the churches themselves, nor is the practice wholly abandoned. +A Nativity play is performed in the churches of Upper Gascony on +Christmas Eve, of which the subjoined account will, perhaps, be read +with interest:-- + + In the middle of the Midnight Mass, just when the priest has + finished reading the gospel, Joseph and Mary enter the nave, + the former clad in the garb of a village carpenter with his + tools slung across his shoulder, the latter dressed in a robe + of spotless white. The people divide so as to let them pass up + the church, and they look about for a night's lodging. In one + part of the church the stable of Bethlehem is represented + behind a framework of greenery; here they take up their + position, and presently a cradle is placed beside them which + contains the image of a babe. The voice of an angel from on + high now proclaims the birth of the Infant Saviour, and calls + on the shepherds to draw near to the sound of glad music. The + way in which this bit of theatrical "business" is managed, is + by a child in a surplice, with wings fastened to his + shoulders, being drawn up to the ceiling seated on a chair, + which is supported by ropes on a pulley. The shepherds, real + shepherds in white, homespun capes, with long crooks decked + with ribbons, are placed on a raised dais, which stands for + the mountain. They wake up when they hear the angel's song, + and one of them exclaims: + + Diou dou ceou, quino vero vouts! + Un anjou mous parlo, pastous; + Biste quieten noste troupet! + Mes que dit l'anjou, si vous plait? + + (Heavens! with how sweet a voice + The angel calls us to rejoice; + Quick leave your flocks: but tell me, pray, + What doth the heavenly angel say?) + + The angel replies in French: + + Rise, shepherd, nor delay, + 'Tis God who summons thee, + Hasten with zeal away + Thy Saviour's self to see. + The Lord of Hosts hath shown + That since this glorious birth, + War shall be no more known, + But peace shall reign on earth. + + The shepherds, however, are not very willing to be disturbed: + "Let me sleep! Let me sleep!" says one of them, and another + goes so far as to threaten to drive away the angel if he does + not let them alone. "Come and render homage to the new-born + babe," sings the angel, "and cease to complain of your happy + lot." They answer: + + A happy lot + We never yet possest, + A happy lot + For us poor shepherd folk existeth not; + Then wherefore utter the strange jest + That by an infant's birth we shall be blest + With happy lot? + + The shepherds begin to bestir themselves. One says that he + feels overcome with fear at the sound of so much noise and + commotion. The angel responds, "Come without fear; do not + hesitate, but redouble your speed. It is in this village, in a + poor place, near yonder wood, that you may see the Infant + Lord." Another of the shepherds, who seems to have only just + woke up, inquires: + + What do you say? + This to believe what soul is able; + What do you say? + Where do these shepherds speed away? + To see their God within a stable: + This surely seems an idle fable; + What do you say? + + "To understand how it is, go and behold with your own eyes," + replies the angel; to which the shepherd answers, "Good + morrow, angel; pardon me if I have spoken lightly; I will go + and see what is going on." Another, still not quite easy in + his mind, observes that he cannot make out what the angel + says, because he speaks in such a strange tongue. The angel + immediately replies in excellent Gascon patois: + + Come, shepherds, come + From your mountain home, + Come, see the Saviour in a stable born, + This happy morn. + Come, shepherds, come, + Let none remain behind, + Come see the wretched sinners' friend, + The Saviour of mankind. + + When they hear the good news, sung to a quaint and inspiriting + air in their own language, the shepherds hesitate no longer, + but set off for Bethlehem in a body. One of them, it is true, + expresses some doubts as to what will become of the flocks in + their absence; but a veteran shepherd strikes his crook upon + the ground and sternly reproves him for being anxious about + the sheep when a heavenly messenger has declared that "God has + made Himself the Shepherd of mankind." They leave the dais, + and march out of the church, the whole of which is now + considered as being the stable. After a while the shepherds + knock for admittance, and their voices are heard in the calm + crisp midnight air chaunting these words to sweet and solemn + strains: + + Master of this blest abode, + O guardian of the Infant God, + Open your honoured gate, that we + May at His worship bend the knee. + + Joseph fears that the strangers may perchance be enemies, but + reassured by an angel, he opens the door, only naively + regretting that the lowly chamber "should be so badly + lighted." They prostrate themselves before the cradle, and the + choir bursts forth with: + + Gloria Deo in excelsis, + O Domine te laudamus, + O Deus Pater rex caelestis, + In terra pax hominibus. + + The shepherdesses then render their homage, and deposit on the + altar steps a banner covered with flowers and greenery, from + which hang strings of small birds, apples, nuts, chestnuts, + and other fruits. It is their Christmas offering to the cure; + the shepherds have already placed a whole sheep before the + altar, in a like spirit. + + The next scene takes us into Herod's palace, where the magi + arrive, and are directed to proceed to Bethlehem. During their + adoration of the Infant Saviour, Mass is finished, and the + Sacrament is administered; after which the play is brought to + a close with the flight into Egypt and the massacre of the + Innocents. + +This primitive drama gives a better idea of the early mysteries than +do the performances at Ober Ammergau, which have been gradually pruned +and improved under the eye of a critical public. But it is unusually +free from the absurdities and levities which abound in most miracle +plays; such as the wrangle between Noah and his wife in the old +Chester Mysteries, in which the latter declares "by St John" that the +Flood is a false alarm, and that no power on earth shall make her go +into the Ark. Noah ends with putting her on board by main force, and +is rewarded by a box on the ear. + +The best surviving sample of a non-scriptural rustic play is probably +_Saint Guillaume of Poitou_, a Breton versified drama in seven acts. +The history of the Troubadour Count whose wicked manhood leads to a +preternaturally pious old age, corresponds to every requirement of the +peasant play-goer. Time and space are set airily at defiance; saints +and devils are not only called, but come at the shortest notice; +the plot is exciting enough to satisfy the strongest craving for +sensation, and the dialogue is vigorous, and, in parts, picturesque. +One can well believe that the fiery if narrow patriotism of a Breton +audience would be stirred by the scene where the reformed Count +William, who has withstood all other blandishments, is almost lured +out of his holy seclusion by the Evil One coming to him in the shape +of a fellow-townsman who represents his city as hard pressed by +overwhelming foes, and in its extremest need, imploring his aid; that +the religious fervour of Breton peasants would be moved by the +recital of the vision in which a very wicked man appears at the bar +of judgment: his sins out-number the hairs of his head, you would call +him an irredeemable wretch; yet it does so happen that once upon a +time he gave two pilgrims a bed of straw in a pig-stye, and now St +Francis throws this straw into the balance, and it bends down the +scale! + +So in the Song of the Sun, in Saemund's _Edda_, a fierce freebooter, +who has despoiled mankind, and who always ate alone, opens his door +one evening to a tired wayfarer, and gives him meat and drink. The +guest meditates evil; then in his sleep he murders his host, but he is +doomed to take on him all the sins of the man he has slain, while the +one-time evil-doer's soul is borne by angels into a life of purity, +where it shall live for ever with God. This motive is repeatedly +introduced into folk-lore, and was made effective use of by Victor +Hugo in _Sultan Mourad_, the infamous tyrant who goes to Heaven on the +strength of having felt momentary compassion for a pig. + +In plays of the _Saint Guillaume_ class, the plain language in which +the vices and oppression of the nobles is denounced shows signs of +the slow surging up of the democratic spirit whose traces through the +middle ages are nowhere to be more fruitfully sought than in popular +literature--though they lie less in the rustic drama than in the great +mediaeval satires, such as _Reynard the Fox_ and _Marcolfo_, the +latter of which is still known to the Italian people under the form of +_Bertoldo_, in which it was recast in the sixteenth century, by G. B. +Croce, the rhyming blacksmith of Bologna. + + +VII. + +Epopees, _chansons de geste_, romantic ballads, occasional or +ceremonial songs, nursery rhymes, singing-games, rustic dramas; to +these must be added the great order of purely personal and lyrical +songs, of which the unique and exclusive subject is love. Popular love +songs have one quality in common: a sincerity which is not perhaps +reached in the entire range of lettered amorous poetry. Love is to +these singers a thing so serious that however high they fly, they do +not outsoar what is to them the atmosphere of truth. "La passion parle +la toute pure," as Moliere said of the old song: + + Si le roi m'avoit donne + Paris, sa grande ville, + Et qu'il me fallut quitter + L'amour de ma mie: + Je dirois au roi Henri + Reprenez votre Paris + J'aime mieux ma mie, oh gay! + J'aime mieux ma mie. + +An immense, almost incredible, number of popular songs have been set +down during the last twenty years by collectors who, like Tigri in +Tuscany, and Pitre in Sicily, have done honour to their birthlands, +and an enduring service to literature. It has been seen that Italy, +Portugal, and Spain have songs which, though differing in shape, are +yet materially alike. Where was the original fount of this lyrical +river? Some would look for it in Arabia, and cite the evident poetic +fertility of those countries where Arab influence once prevailed. +Others regard the existing passion-verse as a descendant of the +mediaeval poetry associated with Provence. Others, again, while +admitting that there may have been modifications of form, find it +hard to believe that there was ever a time, since the type was first +established, when the southern peasant was dumb, or when he did not +sing in substance very much as he does now. + +Whatever theory be ultimately accepted, it is certain that the popular +love-poetry of southern nations, such as it has been received direct +from peasant lips, is not the least precious gift we owe to the +untaught, uncultured poet, who after having been for long ages ignored +or despised, is now raised to his rightful place near the throne of +his illustrious brother, the perfect lettered poet. Pan sits unrebuked +by the side of Apollo. + + * * * * * + +These introductory remarks are meant to do no more than to show the +principal landmarks of folk-poetry. The subject is a wide one, as +they best know who have given it the most careful attention. In +the following essays, I have dealt with a few of its less familiar +aspects. I would, in conclusion, express my gratitude to the +indefatigable excavators of popular lore whose large labours have +made my small work possible, and to all who have helped, whether by +furnishing unedited specimens or by procuring copies of rare books. +My cordial thanks are also due to the editors and publishers of the +_Cornhill Magazine_, _Fraser's Magazine_, the _National Review_, +the _British Quarterly Review_, the _Revue Internationale_, the +_Antiquary_, and the _Record_ and _Journal_ of the Folk-lore Society, +for leave to reprint such part of this book as had appeared in those +publications. + + SALO, LAGO DI GARDA, + _January 15 1886_. + + + + + [Footnote 1: Voltaire.] + + [Footnote 2: + + Sire cuens, j'ai viele + Devant vous, en vostre oste; + Si ne m'avez, riens done, + Ne mes gages aquite + C'est vilanie; + + Foi que doi Sainte Marie! + Ainc ne vos sievrai je mie, + M'aumosniere est mal garnie + Et ma malle mal farsie. + + Sire cuens, quar comandez + De moi vostre volonte. + Sire, s'il vous vient a gre + Un beau don car me donez + Par cortoisie. + Talent ai, n'en dotez mie, + De r'aler a ma mesnie. + Quant vois borse desgarnie, + Ma feme ne me rit mie. + + Ains me dit: Sire Engele + En quel terre avez este, + Qui n'avez rien conqueste + Aval la ville? + Vez com vostre male plie, + Ele est bien de vent farsie. + Honi soit qui a envie + D'estre en vostre compaignie. + + Quant je vieng a mon hoste + Et ma feme a regarde + Derier moi le sac enfle, + Et ge qui sui bien pare + De robe grise, + Sachiez qu'ele a tot jus mise + La quenoille, sans faintise. + Elle me rit par franchise, + Les deux bras au col me lie. + + Ma feme va destrousser + Ma male, sanz demorer. + Mon garcon va abruver + Mon cheval et conreer. + Ma pucele va tuer + Deux chapons por deporter + A la sause aillie; + + Ma fille m'apporte un pigne. + En sa main par cortoisie + Lors sui de mon ostel sire, + A mult grant joie, sans ire, + Plus que nus ne porroit dire. + ] + + [Footnote 3: Not to speak of Charlemagne, who ordered a + collection to be made of German songs.] + + [Footnote 4: A fuller description of German harvest customs, + with remarks on their presumed meaning, will be found in the + Rev. J. Van den Gheyn's "Essais de Mythologie et de Philologie + comparee," 1885.] + + [Footnote 5: Mr W. R. S. Ralston has kindly communicated to me + this Russian version, which he translates: "Snail, snail, put + forth thy horns, I will give to thee cakes."] + + [Footnote 6: "Les deux Masques," tome i. p. 1.] + + [Footnote 7: "Confessions," book iii. chap. 11.] + + [Footnote 8: "Shakespeare's Dramatic Art," 1876.] + + + + +THE INSPIRATION OF DEATH IN FOLK-POETRY. + + +The Roumanians call death "the betrothed of the world:" that which +awaits. The Neapolitans give it the name of _la vedova_: that +which survives. It would be easy to go on multiplying the stock of +contrasting epithets. Inevitable yet a surprise, of daily incidence +yet a mystery, unvarying yet most various, a common fact yet incapable +of becoming common-place, death may be looked at from innumerable +points of view; but, look at it how we will, it moves and excites +our spiritual consciousness as nothing else can do. The first poet of +human things was perhaps one who stood in the presence of death. +In the twilight that went before civilization the loves of men were +prosaic, and intellectual unrest was remote, but there was already +Rachel weeping for her children and would not be comforted because +they are not. Death, high priest of the ideal, led man in his infancy +through a crisis of awe passing into transcendent exaltation, kindred +with the state which De Quincey describes when recalling the feelings +wrought in his childish brain by the loss of his sister. It set the +child-man asking why? first sign of a dawning intelligence; it told +him in familiar language that we lie on the borders of the unknown; it +opened before him the infinite spaces of hope and fear; it shattered +to pieces the dull round of the food-seeking present, and built up out +of the ruins the perception of a past and a future. It was the symbol +of a human oneness with the coming and going of day and night, summer +and winter, the rising and receding tide. It caused even the rudest +of men to speak lower, to tread more softly, revealing to him unawares +the angel Reverence. And above all, it wounded the heart of man. M. +Renan says with great truth, "Le grand agent de la marche du monde, +c'est la douleur." What poetry owes to the bread of sorrow has never +been better told than by the Greek folk-singer, who condenses it into +one brief sentence: "Songs are the words spoken by those who suffer." + +The influence of death on the popular imagination is shown in those +ballads of the supernatural of which folk-poetry offers so great an +abundance as to make choice difficult. One of the most powerful as +well as the most widely diffused of the people's ghost stories is that +which treats of the persecuted child whose mother comes out of her +grave to succour him. There are two or three variants of this among +the Czech songs. A child aged eighteen months loses his mother. As +soon as he is old enough to understand about such things, he asks his +father what he has done with her? "Thy mother sleeps a heavy sleep, no +one will wake her; she lies in the graveyard hard by the gate." When +the child hears that, he runs to the graveyard. He loosens the earth +with a big pin and pushes it aside with his little finger. Then he +cries mournfully, "Ah! mother, little mother, say one little word to +me!" "My child, I cannot," the mother replies, "my head is weighed +down with clay; on my heart is a stone which burns like fire; go home +little one, there you have another mother." "Ah!" rejoins he, "she is +not good like you were. When she gives me bread she turns it thrice; +when you gave it me you spread it with butter. When she combs my hair +she makes my head bleed; when you combed my hair, mother, you fondled +it. When she bathes my feet she bruises them against the side of the +basin; when you bathed them you kissed them. When she washes my shirt +she loads me with curses; you used to sing whilst you washed." The +mother answers: "Go back to the house, my child, to-morrow I will come +for you." The child goes back to the house and lies down in his bed. +"Ah! father, my little father, make ready my winding-sheet, my +soul now belongs to God, my body to the grave, to the grave near my +mother--how glad her heart will be!" One day he was ill, the second he +died, the third day they buried him. The effect is heightened by the +interval placed between the mother's death and the child's awakening +to his own forlorn condition. When the mother died he was too young to +think or to grieve. He did not know that she was gone until he missed +her. Only by degrees, after years of harsh treatment, borne with the +patience of a child or a dumb animal, he began to feel intuitively +rather than to remember that it had not been always so--that he had +once been loved. Then, going straight to the point with the terrible +accusative power that lies in children, he said to the father, "What +have you done with my mother?" He had been able to live and to suffer +until he was old enough to think; when he thought, he died. Here +we have an instance, one of the many that exist, of a motive which, +having recurred again and again in folk-poetry, gets handled at last +by a master-poet, who gives it enduring shape and immortality. Victor +Hugo may or may not have known the popular legend. It is most likely +that he did not know it. Yet, stripped of the marvellous, and modified +in certain secondary points of construction, the story is the story +of "Petit Paul," little Paul, the child of modern France, who takes +company with Dante's Anselmuccio and Shakespeare's Arthur, and who +with them will live in the pity of all time. The Ruthenes affirm +that it was Christ who bade the child seek his mother's grave. The +Provencal folk-poet begins his tale: "You shall hear the complaint of +three very little children." The mother of these children was dead, +the father had married again. The new wife brought a hard time for the +children, and the day came when they were like to starve. The littlest +begged for a bit of bread, and he got a kick which threw him to the +ground. Then the biggest of the brothers said, "Get up and let us go +to our mother in the graveyard; she will give us bread." They set out +at once; on their way they met Jesus Christ. + + Et ount anetz, mes angis, + Mes angis tant petits? + +"Where are you going, my angels, my so very small angels?" "We go to +the graveyard to find our mother." Jesus Christ tells the mother to +come forth and give her children food. "How would you have me come +forth, when there is no strength left in me?" He answers that her +strength shall come back to her for seven years. Now, as the end of +the seven years drew near, she was always sobbing and sighing, and the +children asked why it was. "I weep, my children, because I have to go +away from you." "Weep no more, mother, we will all go together; one +shall carry the hyssop, another will take the taper, the last will +hold the book. We will go home singing." The Provencal poet does not +tell us what happened when the resuscitated wife came back to her +former abode; we have to go to Scandinavia for an account of that. +Dyring the Dane went to an island and wed a fair maiden. For seven +years they dwelt together and were blessed with children; but while +the youngest born was still a helpless babe, Death stalked through the +land and carried off the young wife in his clutches. Dyring went to +another island and married a girl who was bad and spiteful. He brought +her home to his house, and when she reached the door the six little +children were there crying. She thrust them aside with her foot, she +gave them no ale and no bread; she said, "You shall suffer thirst and +hunger." She took from them their blue cushions, and said, "You shall +sleep on straw." She took from them their wax candles, and said, +"You shall stay in the dark." In the evening, very late, the children +cried, and their mother heard them under the ground. She listened as +she lay in her shroud, and thought to herself, "I must go to my little +children." She begged our Lord so hard to let her go, that her prayer +was granted. "Only you must be back when the cock crows." She lifted +her weary limbs, the grave gaped, she passed through the village, the +dogs howled as she passed, throwing up their noses in the air. When +she got to the house, she saw her eldest daughter on the threshold. +"Why are you standing there, my dear daughter? Where are your brothers +and sisters?" The daughter knew her not. She said her mother was +fair and blithe, her face was white and pink. "How can I be fair and +blithe? I am dead, my face is pale. How can I be white and pink, when +I have been all this time in my winding-sheet?" Answering thus, the +mother hastened to her little children's chamber. She found them with +tears running down their cheeks. She brushed the clothes of one, she +tidied the hair of the second, she lifted the third from the floor, +she comforted the fourth, the fifth she set on her knee as though +she were fain to suckle it. To the eldest girl she said, "Go and tell +Dyring to come here." And when he came she cried in wrath, "I left you +ale and bread, and my little ones hunger; I left you blue cushions, +and my little ones lie on straw; I left you waxen candles, and my +little ones are in the dark. Woe betide you, if there be cause +I should return again! Behold the red cock crows, the dead fly +underground. Behold the black cock crows, heaven's doors are thrown +wide. Behold the white cock crows, I must begone." So saying she went, +and was seen no more. Ever after that night each time Dyring and his +wife heard the dogs bark they gave the children ale and bread; each +time they heard the dogs bay they were seized with dread of the dead +woman; each time they heard the dogs howl they trembled lest she +should come back. Two universal beliefs are introduced into this +variant: the disappearance of the dead at cock crow, and the +connection of the howling of dogs with death or the dead. The last +is a superstition which still obtains a wide acceptance even among +educated people. I was speaking of it lately to an English officer, +who stated that he had twice heard the death howl, once while on duty +in Ireland, and once, if I remember right, in India. It was, he said, +totally unlike any other noise produced by a dog. I observed that +all noises sound singular when the nerves are strained by painful +expectancy; but he answered that in his own case his feelings were not +involved, as the death which occurred, in one instance at least, was +that of a perfect stranger. + +The interpretation of dreams as a direct intercourse with the +spiritual world is not usual in folk-lore; the people hardly see the +need of placing the veil of sleep between mortal eyes and ghostly +appearances. In a Bulgarian song, however, a sleeping girl speaks with +her dead mother. Militza goes down into the little garden where +the white and red roses are in bloom. She is weary, and she is soon +asleep. A small fine rain begins to fall, the wind rustles in the +leaves; Militza sighs, and having sighed, she awakes. Then she +upbraids the rain and the wind: "Whistle no more, O wind; thou, O +rain, descend no more; for in my dreams I found my mother. Rain, may +thy fount be dried; mayst thou be for ever silent, O wind: ye have +taken me from the counsel my mother gave me." The few lines thus +baldly summarized make up, as it seems to me, a little masterpiece of +delicate conception and light workmanship: one which would surprise us +from the lips of a letterless poet, were there not proof that no touch +is so light and so sure as that of the artificer untaught in our own +sense--the man or the woman who produces the intricate filigree, the +highly wrought silver, the wood carving, the embroidery, the lace, the +knitted wool rivalling the spider's web, the shawl with whose weft and +woof a human life is interwoven. + +I have only once come upon the case of a father who returns to take +care of his offspring. Mr Chu, a worthy Chinese gentleman, revisited +this earth as a disembodied spirit to guard and teach his little boy +Wei. When Wei reached the age of twenty-two, and took his doctor's +degree, his father, Mr Chu, finally vanished. As a general rule, the +Chinese consider the sight of his former surroundings to be the worst +penalty that can befall a soul. Mr Herbert Giles, in his fascinating +work on the Liao-Chai of P'u Sing-Ling, gives a full account of the +terrible See-one's-home terrace as represented in the fifth court of +Purgatory in the Taoist Temples. Good souls, or even those who have +done partly good and partly evil, will never stand thereon. The souls +of the wicked only see their homes as if they were near them: they see +their last wishes disregarded, everything upside down, their substance +squandered, the husband prepares to take a new wife, strangers possess +the old estate, in their misery the dead man's family curse him, his +children become corrupt, lands are gone, the house is burnt, the wife +sees her husband tortured, the husband sees his wife stricken down +with mortal disease; friends forget: "some perhaps for the sake of +bygone times may stroke the coffin and let fall a tear, departing with +a cold smile." In the West, this gloomy creed is perhaps hinted at in +the French proverb, "Les morts sont bien mort." But Western thought at +its best, at its highest, imagines differently. It imagines that the +most gracious privilege of immortal spirits is that of beholding those +beloved of them in mortal life-- + + I am still near, + Watching the smiles I prized on earth, + Your converse mild, your blameless mirth. + +Happy and serene optimism! + +The ghosts of folk-lore return not only to succour the innocent, they +come back also to convict the guilty. The avenging ghost shows himself +in all kinds of strange and uncanny ways rather than in his habit as +he lived. He comes in animal or vegetable shape; or perhaps he uses +the agency of some inanimate object. In the Faroe Isles there is a +story of a girl whose sister pushed her into the sea out of jealousy. +The blue waves cast ashore her body, which was found by two pilgrims, +who made the arms into a harp, and the flaxen locks into strings. Then +they went and played the harp at the wedding feast of the murderess +and the dead girl's betrothed. The first string said, "The bride is +my sister." The second string said, "The bride caused my death." The +third string said, "The bridegroom is my betrothed." The harp's notes +swelled louder and louder, and the guilty bride fell sick unto death; +before the pilgrims had done playing, her heart broke. This is much +the same story as the "Twa Sisters of Binnorie." A Slovack legend +describes two musicians who, as they were travelling together, noticed +a fine plane tree; and one said to the other, "Let us cut it down, +it is just the thing to make a violin of; the violin will be equally +yours and mine; we will play on it by turn." At the first blow the +tree sighed; at the second blow blood spurted out; at the third blow +the tree began to talk. It said: "Musicians, fair youths, do not cut +me down; I am not a tree, I am made of flesh and blood; I am a lovely +girl of the neighbouring town; my mother cursed me while I drew +water--while I drew water and chatted with my friend. 'Mayst thou +change into a plane tree with broad leaves,' said she. Go ye, +musicians, and play before my mother." So they betook themselves +to the mother's door and played a dirge over her child. "Play not, +musicians, fair youths," she entreated. "Rend not my heart by your +playing. I have enough of woe in having lost my daughter. Hapless the +mother who curses her children!" The well-known German tale of the +juniper tree belongs to the same class. A beautiful little boy is +killed by his step-mother, who serves him up as a dish of meat to his +father. The father eats in ignorance, and throws away the bones, which +are gathered up by the little half-sister, who puts them into her best +silk handkerchief and buries them under a juniper tree. Presently a +bird of gay plumage perches on the tree, and whistles as it flits from +branch to branch-- + + Min moder de mi slach't, + Min fader de mi att, + Min swester de Marleenken + Soecht alle mine Beeniken, + Und bindt sie in een syden Dook + Legst unner den Machandelboom; + Ky witt! ky witt! Ach watt en schoen vagel bin ich! + +--a rhyme which Goethe puts into the mouth of Gretchen in prison. In +the German story the step-mother's brains are knocked out by the fall +of a mill-stone, and the bird-boy is restored to human form; but in +a Scotch variant the last event does not take place. It may have been +thrown in by some narrator who had a weakness for a plot which ends +well. All these wonder-tales had probably an original connection +with a belief in the transmigration of souls. In truth, the people's +_Maerchen_ are rooted nearly always on some article of ancient faith: +that is why they have so long a life. Faith vitalizes poetry or legend +or art; and what once lived takes a great time to die. Now that the +beliefs which fostered them have gone into the lumber-room of disused +religions, the old wonder-tales still have a freshness and a horror +which cannot be found even in the best of brand-new "made-up" stories. + +Another reason why the dead come back is to fulfil a promise. The +Greek mother of the Kleft song has nine sons and one only daughter. +She bathes her in the darkness, her hair she combs in the light, she +dresses her beneath the shining of the moon. A stranger from Bagdad +has asked her in marriage, and Constantine, one of the sons, counsels +his mother to give her to the stranger. "Thou art wont to be prudent, +but in this thou art senseless," says the mother. "Who will bring her +back to me if there be joy or sorrow?" Constantine gives her God as +surety, and all the saints and martyrs, that if there be sorrow or joy +he will bring her back. In two years all the nine sons die, and when +it is Constantine's turn, the mother leans over his body and tears +her hair. Fain would she have back her daughter Arete, and behold +Constantine lies dead. At midnight Constantine gets up and goes to +where his sister dwells, and bids Arete to follow him. She asks what +has happened, but he tells her nothing. While they journey along the +birds sing: "See you that lovely girl riding with the dead?" Then +Arete asks her brother if he heard what the birds said. "They are only +birds," he answers; "never mind them." She says her brother has such +an odour of incense that it fills her with fear, "It is only," he +says, "because we passed the evening in the chapel of St John." When +they reach their home, the mother opens the portal and sees the dead +and the living come in together, and her soul leaves her body. The +motive of a ride with the dead, made familiar by the "Erl Koenig" +and Burgher's "Lenore," can be traced through endless variations in +folk-poesy. + +In the Swedish ballad of "Little Christina," a lover rises from his +grave, not to carry off his beloved, but simply to console her. One +night Christina hears light fingers tapping at her door; she opens it, +and her dead betrothed comes in. She washes his feet with pure wine, +and for a long while they speak together. Then the cocks begin to +crow, and the dead get them underground. The young girl puts on her +shoes and follows her betrothed through the wide forest. When +they reach the graveyard, the fair hair of the young man begins to +disappear. "See, maiden," he says, "how the moon has reddened all at +once; even so, in a moment, thy beloved will vanish." She sits down on +the tomb and says: "I shall remain here till the Lord calls me." Then +she hears the voice of her betrothed saying to her: "Little Christina, +go back to thy dwelling-place. Every time a tear falls from thine eyes +my shroud is full of blood. Every time thy heart is gay, my shroud is +full of rose leaves." + +If the display of excessive grief is thus shown to be only grievous to +the dead, yet they are held to be keenly sensible of a lack of due and +decorous respect. Such respect they generally get from rough or savage +natures, unless it be denied out of intentional scorn or enmity. There +is a factory in England where common men are employed to manipulate +large importations of bones for agricultural uses. Each cargo contains +a certain quantity of bones which are very obviously human. These the +workmen sort out, and when they have got a heap they bury it, and ask +the manager to read over it some passages from the Burial Service. +They do it of their own free will and initiative; were they hindered, +they would very likely leave the works. Shall it be called foolish or +sublime? Another curious instance of respect to the dead comes to my +mind. On board ship two cannon balls are ordinarily sewed up with a +body to sink it. Once a negro died at sea, and his fellows, negroes +also, took him in a boat and rowed a long way to a place where they +were to commit him to the deep. After a while the boat returned to +the ship, still with its burden. The explanation was soon made. The +negroes discovered that they had only one cannon ball, they had rowed +back for the other. One would have been quite enough to answer all +purposes; but it seemed to them disrespectful to their comrade to +cheat him out of half his due. + +The dead particularly object to people treading carelessly on their +graves. So we learn from one of the songs of Greek outlawry. + + All Saturday we held carouse, and far through Sunday night, + And on the Monday morn we found our wine expended quite. + To seek for more without delay the captain made me go; + I ne'er had seen nor known the way, nor had a guide to show. + And so through solitary roads and secret paths I sped, + Which to a little ivied church long time deserted led. + This church was full of tombs, and all by gallant men possest; + One sepulchre stood all alone, apart from all the rest. + + I did not see it, and I trod above the dead man's bones, + And as from out the nether world came up a sound of groans. + What ails thee, sepulchre? why thus so deeply groan and sigh? + Doth the earth press, or the black stone weigh on thee heavily? + "Neither the earth doth press me down, nor black stone do me scath, + But I with bitter grief am wrung, and full of shame and wrath, + That thou dost trample on my head, and I am scorned in death. + Perhaps I was not also young, nor brave and stout in fight, + Nor wont as thou, beneath the moon, to wander through the night." + +Egil Skallagrimson, after his son was drowned, resolved to let himself +die of hunger. Thorgerd, his daughter, came to him and prayed hard of +him that he would sing. Touched by her affection, he made an effort, +gathered up his ideas, dressed them in images, expressed them in song; +and as he sang, his regrets softened, and in the end his soul became +so calm that he was satisfied to live. In this beautiful saga lies the +secret of folk-elegies. The people find comfort in singing. A Czech +maiden asks of the dark woods how they can be as green in winter as in +summer; as for her, she cannot help vexing her heart. "But who would +not weep in my place? Where is my father, my beloved father? The sandy +plain is his winding-sheet. Where is my mother, my good mother? The +grass grows over her. I have no brother and no sister, and they have +taken away my friend." Of a certainty when she had sung, her vexed +heart was lighter. "Seul a un synonym: mort." Yes, but he who sings +is scarcely alone, even though there be only the waving pine woods to +answer with a sigh. The most passionate laments of the Sclavonic race +are for father and mother. If a Little Russian loses both his parents +his despair is such that it often drives him forth a wanderer on the +face of the earth. One so bereft cries out, "Dear mother, why didst +thou suffer me to see the day? Why didst thou bring me into the world +without obtaining for me by thy prayers a portion of its blessings? +My father and my mother are dead, and with them my country. Why was I +left a wretched orphan? Oh, could I find a being miserable as myself +that we might sympathize one with the other!" The birth-ties of +kindred are reckoned the only strong ones. Some Russian lines, +translated by Mr Ralston, indicate the degrees of mourning: + + There weeps his mother--as a river runs; + There weeps his sister--as a streamlet flows; + There weeps his youthful wife--as falls the dew; + The sun will rise and gather up the dew. + +A Servian _pesma_ illustrates the same idea. Young Toevo has the +misfortune to break his arm. A doctor is fetched--no other than a Vila +of the mountain. The wily sprite demands in guerdon for the cure the +right hand of the mother, the sister's long hair, with the ribbons +that bind it, the pearl necklace of the wife. Quickly the mother +sacrifices her right hand, quickly the sister cuts off her much-prized +braid, but the wife says, "Give up my white pearls that my father gave +me? Not I!" The Vila waxes angry and poisons Toevo's blood. When he is +dead three women fall "a-kookooing"--one groans without ceasing; one +sobs at dawn and dusk; one weeps just now and then when it comes into +her head so to do. As the cuckoo is supposed to be a sister mourning +for her brother, kookooing has come to mean lamenting. The Servian +girl who has lately lost her brother cannot hear the cuckoo's note +without weeping. In popular poetry the love of sister for brother +takes precedence even of the love of mother for child. Not only does +Gudrun in the Elder Edda esteem the murder of her first lord, the +god-like Sigurd, to be of less importance than that of her brothers, +but also to avenge their deaths, she has no scruple in slaying both +her second husband and her own sons. A Bulgarian ballad shows in still +more striking light the relative value set on the lives of child +and brother. There was a certain man named Negul, whose head was in +danger. The folk-poet is careful to express no sort of censure upon +his hero, but the boasts he is made to utter are sufficient guides to +his character. Great numbers of Turks has he put to flight, and yet +more women has he killed of those who would not follow him meekly as +his wives. "And now," he adds plaintively, "a misfortune has befallen +me which I have done nothing at all to deserve." His sister Milenka +hears him bemoaning his fate, and at once she says to him, "Brother +Negul, Negul, my brother, do not disturb yourself, do not distress +yourself; I have nine sons, nine sons and one daughter; the youngest +of all is Lalo; him will I sacrifice to save you; I will sacrifice him +so that you may remain to me." This was the promise of Milenka. Then +she hastened to her own home and prepared hot meats and set flasks of +golden wine wherewith to feast her sons. "Eat and drink together," +she said, "and kiss one another's hands, for Lalo is going away to be +groomsman to his Uncle Negul. Let your mother see you all assembled, +and serve you each in turn with ruddy wine and with smoking viands." +For the others she did not wholly fill the glass, but Lalo's glass +she filled to the brim. Meanwhile Elka, Lalo's sister, made ready his +clothes for the journey; and as she busied about it, the little girl +cried because Lalo was going to be groomsman, and they had not asked +her to be bridesmaid. Lalo said to Elka, "Elka, my little only sister, +do not cry so, sister; do not be so vexed; we are nine brothers, and +one of these days you will surely act as bridesmaid." The words were +hardly spoken when the headsmen reached the door. They took Lalo, +the groomsman, and they chopped off his head in place of his Uncle +Negul's. + +A new and different world is entered when we follow the folk-poet +upon the wrestling-ground of Death and Love. If I have judged rightly, +there were songs of death before there were any other love songs than +those of the nightingale; but the folk-poet was still young when he +learnt to sing of love, and the love poet found out early that his +lyre was incomplete without the string of death. In all folk-poetry +can be plainly heard that music of love and death which may be +said almost to have been the dominant note that sounded through the +literature of the ages of romance. Sometimes the victory is given to +death, sometimes to love; in one song love, while yielding, conquers. +Folk-poetry has not anything more instinct with the quality of +intensity than is this "Last Request" of a Greek robber-lover-- + + When thou shalt hear that I am ill, + O my well-beloved! he said, + O come to me, and quickly come, + Or thou wilt find me dead. + And when that thou hast reached the house, + And the great gates passed through, + Then, O my well-beloved, the braids + Of thy bright hair undo. + And to my mother say straightway, + Tell me, where is your son? + My son is lying on his bed + In his chamber all alone. + Then mount the stairs, O my well-beloved, + And come your lover anigh, + And smooth my pillow that I may + Raise me a little high, + And hold my head up in thy hands + Till flies away my soul. + And when thou seest the priest arrive, + And dress him in his stole, + Then place, my well-beloved, a kiss + On my lips pale and cold; + And when four youths shall lift me up, + And on their shoulders hold, + Then shalt thou, O my well-beloved, + Cast at them many a stone. + And when they reach thy neighbourhood + And by thy house pass on, + Then, O my well-beloved, thy hair, + Thy golden tresses cut; + And when they reach the church's gate, + And there my coffin put, + Then as the hen her feathers plucks, + So pluck thy hair for me. + And when my dirges all are done, + And lights extinguished be, + Then shall my heart, O well-beloved, + Still be possessed of thee. + +We hardly notice the adventitious part of it--the ancient custom of +tearing off the hair, the strange stone-casting at the youths who +represent Charon; our attention is absorbed by what is the essence +of the song: passion which has burned itself into pure fire. Greek +folk-poetry shows a blending together of southern emotions with an +imaginative fervour, a prophetic power that is rather of the East than +of the South. No Tuscan ploughman, for instance, could seize the idea +of the Greek folk-poet of possessing his living love in death. If the +Tuscan thinks of a union in the grave, it can only be attained by the +one who remains joining the one who is gone-- + + O friendly soil, + Soil that doth hold my love in thine embrace, + Soon as for me shall end life's war and toil + Beneath thy sod I too would have a place; + Where my love is, there do I long to be, + Where now my heart is buried far from me-- + Yes, where my love is gone I long to go, + Robbed of my heart I bear too deep a woe. + +This stringer of pretty conceits fails to convince us that he is +very much in earnest in his wish to die. Speaking in the sincerity of +prose, the Tuscan says, "Ogni cosa e meglio che la morte." He does +not believe in the nothingness of life. In his worst troubles he still +feels that all his faculties, all his senses, are made for pleasure. +Death is to him the affair of a not cheerful religious ceremony--a +cross borne before a black draped bier, and bells tolling dolefully. + + I hear Death's step, I see him at my side, + I feel his bony fingers clasp me round; + I see the church's door is open wide, + And for the dead I hear the knell resound. + I see the cross and the black pall outspread; + Love, thou dost lead me whither lie the dead! + I see the cross, the winding-sheet I see; + Love, to the graveyard thou art leading me! + +Going further south, a stage further is reached in crude externality +of vision. People of the South are the only born realists. To them +that comes natural which in others is either affectation or the +fruits of what the French call _l'amour du laid_--a morbid love of the +hideous, such as marred the fine genius of Baudelaire. At Naples death +is a matter of corruption naked in the sunlight. When the Neapolitan +takes his mandoline amongst the tombs he unveils their sorry secrets, +not because he gloats over them, but because the habit of a reserve +of speech is entirely undeveloped in him. He dares to sing thus of his +lost love-- + + Her lattice ever lit no light displays. + My Nella! can it be that you are ill? + Her sister from the window looks and says: + "Your Nella in the grave lies cold and still. + Ofttimes she wept to waste her life unwed, + And now, poor child, she sleeps beside the dead." + Go to the church and lift the winding-sheet, + Gaze on my Nella's face--how changed, alas! + See 'twixt those lips whence issued flowers so sweet + Now loathsome worms (ah! piteous sight!) do pass. + Priest, let it be your care, and promise me, + That evermore her lamp shall lighted be. + +The song beats with the pulses of the people's life--the life of a +people swift in gesture, in action, in living, in dying: always in a +hurry, as if one must be quick for the catastrophe is coming. They are +all here: the lover waiting in the street for some sign or word; the +girl leaning out of window to tell her piece of news; the "poor +child" who had drunk of the lava stream of love; the dead lying +uncoffined in the church to be gazed upon by who will; the priest +to whom are given those final instructions: pious, and yet how +uncomforting, how unilluminated by hope or even aspiration! Here there +is no thought of reunion. A kind-hearted German woman once tried to +console a young Neapolitan whose lover was dead, by saying that they +might meet in Paradise. "In Paradise?" she answered, opening her large +black eyes; "Ah! signora, in Paradise people do not marry." + +The coming back or reappearance of a lover, in whose absence his +beloved has died, is a subject that has been made use of by the +folk-poets of every country, and nothing can be more characteristic of +the nationalities to which they belong than the divergences which +mark their treatment of it. Northern singers turn the narrative of +the event into half a fairy tale. On the banks of the Moldau we are +introduced to a joyous youth, returning with glad steps to his native +village. "My pretty girls, my doves, is my friend cutting oats with +you?" he asks of a group of girls working in the fields near his home. +"Only yesterday," they reply, "his friend was buried." He begs them +to tell him by which path they bore her away. It is a road edged with +rosemary; everybody knows it--it leads to the new cemetery. Thither +he goes, thrice he wanders round the place, the third time he hears a +voice crying, "Who is it treads on my grave and breaks the rest of +the dead?" "It is I, thy friend," he says, and he bids her rise up +and look on him. She says she cannot, she is too weak, her heart is +lifeless, her hands and feet are like stones. But the gravedigger has +left his spade hard by; with it her friend can shovel away the earth +that holds her down. He does what she tells him; when the earth is +lifted he beholds her stretched out at full length, a frozen maiden +crowned with rosemary. He asks to whom has she bequeathed his gifts. +She answers that her mother has them; he must go and beg them of her. +Then shall he throw the little scarf upon a bush, and there will be an +end to his love. And the silver ring he shall cast into the sea, and +there will be an end to his grief. On the shores of the Wener it is +Lord Malmstein who wakes before dawn from a dream that his beloved's +heart is breaking. "Up, up, my little page, saddle the grey; I must +know how it fares with my love." He mounts the horse and gallops into +the forests. Of a sudden two little maids stand in his path; one wears +a dress of blue, and hails him with the words: "God keep you, Lord +Malmstein; what bale awaits you!" The other is dight in red, and of +her Lord Malmstein asks, "Who is ill, and who is dead?" "No one is +ill, no one is dead, save only the betrothed of Malmstein." He makes +haste to reach the village; on the way he meets the bier of his +betrothed. Swiftly he leaps from the saddle; he pulls from off his +finger rings of fine gold, and throws them to the gravedigger--"Delve +a grave deep and wide, for therein we will walk together." His face +turns red and white, and he deals a mortal blow at his heart. This +Swedish Malmstein not only figures as the reappearing lover; he +is also one of that familiar pair whom death unites. In an ancient +Romansch ballad the story is simply an episode of peasant life. A +young Engadiner girl is forced by her father to marry a man of the +village of Surselva, but all the while her troth is plighted to a +youth from the village of Schams. On the road to Surselva the lover +joins the bride and bridegroom unknown to the latter. When they reach +the place the people declare that they have never seen so fair a +woman as the youthful bride. Her husband's father and mother greet +her saying, "Daughter, be thou welcome to our house!" But she answers, +"No, I have never been your daughter, nor do I hope ever to be; for +the time is near when I must die." Then her brothers and sisters greet +her saying, "O sister, be thou welcome to our house!" "No," she says, +"I have never been your sister, nor do I ever hope to be; for the time +comes when I must die. Only one kindness I ask of you, give me a room +where I may rest." They lead her to her chamber, they try to comfort +her with sweet words; but the more they would befriend her, the more +does the young bride turn her mind away from this world. Her lover is +by her side, and to him she says, "O my beloved, greet my father and +my mother; tell them that perhaps they have rejoiced their hearts, but +sure it is they have broken mine." She turns her face to the wall and +her soul returns to God. "O my beloved," cries the lover, "as thou +diest, and diest for me, for thee will I gladly die." He throws +himself upon the bed, and his soul follows hers. As the clock struck +two they carried her to the grave, as the clock struck three they came +for him; the marriage bells rang them to their rest; the chimes of +Schams answering back the chimes of Surselva. From the grave mound of +the girl grew a camomile plant, from the grave mound of the youth a +plant of musk; and for the great love they bore one another even the +flowers twined together and embraced. + + Uoi, i suel toembel da quella bella + Craschiva sue uena flur da chiaminella; + Uoi, i suel toembel da que bel mat + Craschiva sue uena flur nusch muschiat; + Per tant grond bain cha queus dus as leivan, + Parfin las fluors insemmel as brancleivan. + +It is a sign of a natural talent for democracy when the people like +better to tell stories about themselves than to discuss the fortunes +of prince or princess. The devoted lovers are more often to be looked +for in the immediate neighbourhood of a court. So it is in the ballad +of Count Nello of Portugal. Count Nello brings his horse to bathe; +while the horse drinks, the Count sings. It was already very dark--the +King could not recognise him. The poor Infanta knew not whether to +laugh or to cry. "Be quiet, my daughter; listen and thou wilt hear a +beautiful song. It is an angel singing, or the siren in the sea." "No, +it is no angel in heaven, nor is it the siren of the sea; it is Count +Nello, my father, he who fain would wed me." "Who speaks of Count +Nella who dare name him, the rebel vassal whom I have exiled?" "My +Lord, mine only is the fault; you should punish me alone; I cannot +live without him; it is I who have made him come." "Hold thy peace, +traitress; before day dawns thou shalt see his head cut off." "The +headsman who slays him may prepare for me too; there where you dig his +grave dig mine also." For whom are the bells tolling? Count Nello is +dead; the Infanta is like to die. The two graves are open; behold! +they lay the Count near the porch of the church and the Infanta at +the foot of the altar. On one grave grows a cypress, on the other an +orange tree; one grows, the other grows; their branches join and kiss. +The king, when he hears of it, orders them both to be cut down. From +the cypress flows noble blood, from the orange tree blood royal; from +one flies forth a dove, from the other a wood-pigeon. When the +king sits at table the birds perch before him. "Ill luck upon their +fondness," he cries, "ill luck upon their love! Neither in life nor in +death have I been able to divide them." The musk and the camomile +of Switzerland, the cypress and the orange tree of Portugal, are the +cypress and the reed of the Greek folk-song, the thorn and olive of +the Norman _chanson_, the rose and the briar of the English ballad, +the vine and the rose of the Tristram and Iseult story. Through the +world they tell their tale-- + + Amor condusse noi ad una morte. + +The death of heroes has provided an inexhaustible theme for +folk-poets. The chief or partisan leader had his complement in the +skald or bard or roving ballad-singer; if the one acted, turned tribes +into nations, cut out history, the other sang, published his +fame, gave his exploits to the future, preserved to his people the +remembrance of his dying words. The poetry of hero-worship, beginning +on Homeric heights, descends to the "lytell gestes" of all sorts +and conditions of more or less respectable and patriotic outlaws and +_condottieri_, whose "passing" is often the most honourable point +in their career. On the principle which has been followed--that of +letting the folk-poet speak for himself, and show what are his ideas +and his impressions after his own manner and in his own language--I +will take three death scenes from amongst the less known of those +recorded in popular verse. The first is Scandinavian. What ails +Hjalmar the Icelander? Why is his face so pale? The Norse Warrior +answers: "Sixteen wounds have I, and my armour is shattered. All +things grow black in my sight; I reel in walking; the bloody sword of +Agantyr has pierced my heart. Had I five houses in the fields I could +not dwell in one of them; I must abide at Samsa, hopeless and mortally +wounded. At Upsal, in the halls of Josur, many Jarls quaff joyously +the foaming ale, many Jarls exchange hot words; but as for me, I am +here in this island, struck down by the point of the sword. The white +daughter of Hilmer accompanied my steps to Aganfik beyond the reefs; +her words are come true, for she said I should return no more. Draw +off my finger the ring of ruddy gold, bear it to my youthful Ingebrog, +it will remind her that she will see me never more. In the east +upsoars the raven; after him the mightier eagle wings his way. I will +be meat for the eagle and my heart's blood his drink." One backward +look to all that was the joy of his life--the feast, the fight, the +woman he loved--and then a calm facing of the end. This is how the +Norseman died. The Greek hero, who dies peaceably in the ripeness of +old age, meets his doom with even less trouble of spirit-- + + The sun sank down behind the hill, + And Dimos faintly said, + 'Go, children, fetch your evening meal-- + The water and the bread. + Thou, Lamprakis, my brother's son, + Come hither, by me stand, + And arm me with my weapons, + And be captain of the band. + And, children, take my dear old sword + That I no more shall sway, + And cut the green boughs from the trees + And there my body lay; + And hither bring a priestly man + To whom I may confess, + That I may tell him all my sins, + And he forgive and bless. + For thirty years a soldier, + Twenty years a kleft was I; + Now death o'ertakes and seizes me, + 'Tis finished, I must die. + And be ye sure ye make my grave + Of ample height and large, + That in it I may stand upright, + Or lie my gun to charge. + And to the right a lattice make, + A passage for the day, + Where the swallow, bringing springtide, + May dart about and play, + And the nightingale, sweet singer, + Tell the happy month of May. + +The slight natural touches--the eagle soaring against the sunrise, the +nightingale singing through the May nights--suggest an intuition of +the will-of-the-wisp affinity between nature and human chances which +seems for ever on the point of being seized, but which for ever eludes +the mental grasp. We think of the "brown bird" in the noble "Funeral +Song" of one who would have been a magnificent folk-poet, had he not +learnt to write and read--Walt Whitman. + +My third specimen is a Piedmontese ballad composed probably about +a hundred and fifty years ago, and still very popular. Count Nigra +ascertained the existence of eight or more variants. A German soldier, +known in Italy as the Baron Lodrone, took arms under the house of +Savoy, in whose service he presently died. "In Turin," begins the +ballad, "counts and barons and noble dames mourn for the death of the +Baron Lodrone." The king went to Cuneo to visit his dying soldier; +drums and cannons greeted his approach. He spoke kind words to the +sick man: "Courage, thou wilt not die, and I will give thee the +supreme command." "There is no commander who can stand against death," +answered the baron. Now Lodrone was a Protestant, and when the king +was convinced that he must die, he exhorted him to conversion, saying +that he himself would stand his sponsor. Lodrone replied that that +could not be. The king did not insist; he only asked him where he +would be buried, and promised him a sepulchre of gold. He answered-- + + Mi lasserue per testament + Ch 'a mi sotero an val d' Lueserna, + An val d' Lueserna a m sotraran + Dova l me coer s'arposa tan! + +He does not care for a golden sepulchre, but he "leaves for testament" +that his body may lie in Val Luserna, "where my heart rests so well!" +The valley of Luserna was the seat of the Vaudois faith in the "alpine +mountains cold," watered with martyr blood only a little while before +Lodrone lived. To read these four simple lines after the fantasia of +wild or whimsical guesses, passionate longing, unresisted despair, +insatiable curiosity, that death has been seen to create or inspire, +is like going out of a public place with its multiform and voluble +presentment of men and things into the aisles of a small church which +would lie silent but that unseen hands pass over the organ keys. + + + + +NATURE IN FOLK-SONGS. + + +Nature, like music, does not initially make us think, it makes us +feel. A midnight scene in the Alps, a sunrise on the Mediterranean, +suspends at the moment of contemplating it all thought in pure +emotion. Afterwards, however, thought comes back and asks for a reason +for the emotion that has been felt. Man at an early age began to try +and explain, or give a tangible shape, to the feelings wrought in him +by Nature. In the first place he called the things that he saw gods, +"because the things are beautiful that are seen." Later on, seers and +myth-makers resigned their birthright into the hands of poets, who +became henceforth the interpreters between nature and man. A small +piece of this succession fell away from the great masters of the +world's song, and was picked up almost unconsciously by the obscure +and nameless folk-singer. Comparative folk-lore has shown that men +have everywhere the same customs, the same superstitions, the same +games. The study of folk-songs will go far to show that if they have +not likewise a complete community of taste and sentiment, yet even in +these, the finer fibres of their being, there is less of difference +and more of analogy than has been hitherto supposed. Folk-songs +prove, for instance, that the modern unschooled man is not so utterly +ignorant of natural beauty as many of us have imagined him to be. Only +we must not go from the extreme of expecting nothing to the extreme of +expecting too much; it has to be borne in mind that at best folk-poesy +is rather the stammering speech of children than a mature eloquence. + +It is a common idea that, until the other day, mountains were looked +upon with positive aversion. Still we know that there were always men +who felt the power of the hills: the men who lived in the hills. +When they were kept too long in the plain without hope of return they +sickened and died; when a vivid picture of their mountains was of a +sudden brought up before them, they lost control over their actions. +By force of association the sound of the _Kuhreihen_ could doubtless +give the Switzer a vision of the white peak, the milky torrent, the +chalet with slanting roof, the cows tripping down the green Alp to +their night quarters. It is disappointing to find that the words +accompanying the famous cow-call are as a rule mere nonsense. The +first observation which the genuine folk-poet makes about mountains +is the sufficiently self-evident one, that they form a wall between +himself and the people on the further side. The old Pyrenean balladist +seized the political significance of this: "When God created those +mountains," he said, "He did not mean that men should cross them." +Very often the mountain wall is spoken of as a barrier which separates +lovers. The Gascon peasants have an adaptation of Gaston Phoebus' +romance:-- + + Aqueros mountines + Qui ta haoutes soun, + M'empechen de bede + Mas arnous oun soun. + +In Bohemia the simple countryman poetises after much the same fashion +as the Gascon cavalier: "Mountain, mountain, thou art very high! My +friend, thou art far off, far beyond the mountains. Our love will fade +yet more and yet more; there is nothing left for me; in this world +no pleasantness remains." Another Czech singer laments that he is +not where his thought is; if only the mountains did not stand between +them, he would see his beloved walking in the garden and plucking blue +flowers. He tries what a prayer will do: "Mountains, black mountains, +step aside, so I may get my good friend for wife." In similar terms +the native of Friuli begs the dividing range to stoop so he may look +upon his love. Among Italian folk-poets the Friulian is foremost as +a lover of the greater heights; he turns to them habitually in his +moments of poetic inspiration, and, as he says, their echoes repeat +his sighs. It must be admitted that the Tuscan, on the contrary, feels +small sympathy with high mountains; if he speaks of one he is careful +to call it _aspra_, or rough and bitter. But he yields to no man +in his delight in the lesser hills, the _be' poggioli_ of his fair +birthland. Even if an intervening hillock divides him from his beloved +he speaks of the barrier tenderly rather than sadly: "O sun, thou that +goest over the hill-top, do me a kindness if thou canst--greet my +love whom I have not seen to-day. O sun, thou that goest over the +pear-trees, greet those black eyes. O sun, thou that goest over +the small ash-trees, greet those beautiful eyes!" A maiden sings +to herself, "I see what I see and I see not what I would; I see the +leaves flying in the air and I do not see my love turn back from the +hill-top. I do not see him turn back.... that beautiful face has gone +over the hill." A youth tells all his story in these few words: "As I +passed over the mountain-crest thy beautiful name came into my mind; I +fell upon my knees and I joined my hands, and to have left thee seemed +a sin. I fell upon my knees on the hard stones; may our love come back +as of yore!" These are pure love-songs; not by any means descriptions +of scenery, and yet how much of the Tuscan landscape lives in them! + +Almost the only folk-song which is avowedly descriptive of a mountain, +comes from South Greenland:-- + + The great Koonak Mount yonder south I do behold it. The great + Koonak Mount yonder south I regard it. The shining brightness + yonder south I contemplate. Outside of Koonak it is expanding; + the same that Koonak towards the sea-side doth encompass. + Behold how yonder south they tend to beautify each other; + while from the sea-side it is enveloped in sheets still + changing; from the sea-side it is enveloped to mutual + embellishment. + +At the first reading all this may seem incoherent; at the second or +third we begin to see the scene gradually rising before us; the masses +of sea-born cloud sweeping on and up at dawn or sunset, till, finding +their passage barred, they enwrap the obstacle in folds of golden +vapour. It is singular that the Eskimo is incessantly gazing +southwards; can it be that he, too, is dimly sensible of what a great +writer has called "_la fatigue du Nord_"? + +Incidental mention of the varying aspects of peak and upland is common +enough in popular songs. The Bavarian peasant notices the clearness of +the heights while mist hangs over the valley:-- + + Im Thal ist der Nebel + Auf der Alm is schon klar ... + +The Basque observes the "misty summits;" the Greek sees the cloud +hurrying to the heights "like winged messengers." There is the closest +intimacy between the Greek and his mountains. When he has won a +victory for freedom, they cry aloud, "God is great!" When he is in +sorrow he pines for them as for the society of friends: "Why am I not +near the hills? Why have I not the mountains to keep me company?" A +sick Kleft cries to the birds, "Birds, shall I ever be cured? Birds, +shall I recover my strength?" To which the birds reply just as might +a fashionable physician who recommends his patient to try Pontresina: +"If thou wouldst be cured, if thou wouldst have thy wounds close up, +go thou to the heights of Olympus, to the beautiful uplands where the +strong man never suffers, where the suffering regain their strength." +This fine figure of speech also occurs in a Kleft song: "The plains +thirst for water, the mountains thirst for snow." + +The effect of light on his native ice-fields has not escaped the +Switzer: "The sun shines on the glacier, and in the heavens shine the +stars; O thou, my chiefest joy, how I love thee!" A Czech balladist +describes two chieftains travelling towards the sunrise, with +mountains to the right and to the left, on whose summit stands the +dawn. Again, he represents a band of warriors halting on the spurs of +the forest, while before them lies Prague, silent and asleep, with +the Veltava shrouded in morning mist; beyond, the mountains turn blue; +beyond the mountains the east is illuminated. In Bohemia mountains are +spoken of as blue or grey or shadowy; in Servia they are invariably +called green. Servians and Bulgarians cannot conceive a mountain that +is not a wood or a wood that is not a mountain; with them the two +words mean one and the same thing. The charm and beauty of the +combination of hill and forest are often dwelt upon in the Balkan +brigand songs; outlaws and their poets have been among the keenest +appreciators of nature. Who thinks of Robin Hood apart from the +greenwood tree? Who but has smelt the very fragrance of the woods as +he said over the lines?-- + + "In somer when the shawes be sheyn + And leves be large and long, + Hit is full merry in feyre foreste + To here the foulys song." + +The Sclav or semi-Sclav bandit has not got the high moral qualities of +our "most gentle theefe," but, like him, he has suffered the heat, the +cold, the hunger, the fatigue of a life in the good greenwood, +and, like him, he has tasted its joys. Take the ballad called the +"Wintering of the Heidukes." Three friends sit drinking together in +the mountains under the trees; they sip the ruddy wine, and discuss +what they shall do in the coming winter, when the leaves have fallen +and only the naked forest is left. Each decides where he will go, +and the last one says: "So soon as the sad winter is passed, when the +forest is clad again in leaves and the earth in grass and flowers, +when the birds sing in the bushes on the banks of the Save and the +wolves are heard in the hills--then shall we meet as to-day." Spring +returns, the forest is decked again with leaves, the black earth with +flowers and grass, the bird sings in the bush, the wolves howl on +the rocky heights; two of the friends meet at the trysting place--the +third comes not; he has been slain. This is only one _Pesma_ out of +a hundred in which the mountain background is faithfully sketched. +Sometimes the forest figures as a personage. The Balkan mountaineer +more than half believes that as he loves it, so does it love him. The +instinct which insists that "love exempteth nothing loved from love" +has been a great myth-germinator, and when myths die out, it still +finds some niche in the mind of man wherein to abide. It may seem +foolish when applied to inanimate objects; it must seem false in its +human application: but reasoning will not kill it. Is there some truth +unperceived behind the apparent fallacy? The Balkan brigand cares +little for such speculations; all that he tells us is that when he +speaks to the greenwood, it most surely answers him in a soft low +voice. The Bulgarian "Farewell of Liben the brave" is a good specimen +of the dialogues between the forest and its wild denizens. Standing +on the top of the Hodja Balkan, Liben cries aloud, "Forest, O green +forest, and ye cool waters! dost thou remember, O forest, how often +I have roamed about thee with my following of young comrades bearing +aloft my red banner?" Many are the mothers, the wives, and the little +orphans whom Liben has made desolate so that they curse him. Now must +he bid farewell to the mountain, for he is going home to his mother +who will affiance him to the daughter of the Pope Nicholas. "The +forest speaks to no one, yet to Liben she replies." Enough has he +roamed with his braves; enough has he borne his red banner along the +summit of the old mountain, and under fresh and tufted shade, and +over moist green moss. Many are the mothers, the wives, and the little +orphans, who curse the forest for his sake. Till now he has had the +old mountain for mother; for love, the greenwood clothed in tufted +foliage and freshened by the cool breeze. The grass was his bed, the +leaves of the trees his coverlet; his drink came from the pure brook, +for him the wood-birds sang. "Rejoice," sang the wood-birds, "for thee +the wood is gay; the mountain and the cool brook!" But now Liben bids +farewell to the forest; he is going home that his mother may affiance +and wed him to the daughter of the Pope Nicholas. + +Sea-views of the sea, rare in poetry of any sort, can scarcely be said +to exist in folk-poesy. Sailors' songs have generally not much to do +with the wonders of the deep; the larger part of them are known to be +picked up on land, and the few exceptions to the rule are mostly kept +from the ken of the outer and profane public. The Basque sailors have +certain songs of their own, but only a solitary fragment of one of +them has ever been set on record. Once when a Basque was asked to +repeat a song he had been heard singing, he quietly said that he only +taught it to those who sailed with him. The fragment just mentioned +speaks of the silver trumpet (the master's whistle?) sounding over +the waters at break of day, while the coast of Holland trembles in the +distance. The first glimpse of a level reach of land in the morning +haze could hardly be better described. + +The sea impresses the dwellers on its shores chiefly by its depth and +vastness. In folk-songs there is a frequent recurrence of phrases such +as "the waters of the sea are vast, you cannot discern the bottom" +(Basque); "High is the starry sky, profound the abyss of ocean" +(Russian). The Greek calls the sea wicked, and watches the whitening +waves which roll over drowned sailors. For the Southern Sclav it is +simply a grey expanse. The Norseman calls it old, and blue--nature +having for him one sole chord of colour--blue sea, white sands and +snows, green pines. With Italian folk-singers it is a pretty point of +dispute whether the blue sea-and-sky colour is to be preferred to the +colour of the leaves and the grass. "Can you wear a lovelier hue than +azure?" asks one; "the waves of the sea are clothed therein and the +heavens when they are clear." The answer is that if the sky is clad in +a blue garment, green is the vesture of the earth, "E foro del verde +nasse ogni bel frutto." The arguments of the rival partisans remind +one of an amusing scene in a play of Calderon's; one character is made +to say, "Green is the earth's primal hue, the many-coloured flowers +are born out of a green cradle." "In short," says another, "it is a +mere earth-tint, while heaven is dressed in blue." "As to that," comes +the retort, "it is all an azure fiction; far to be preferred is the +veracious verdancy of the earth." + +The Italian folk-poets' "castle in the air" is a castle in the sea. +From Alp to AEtna the love-sick rhymers are fain to go and dwell with +their heart's adoration "in mezzo al mar." But though agreed on +the locality where they intend setting up in life, they differ +considerably as to the manner of "castle" to be inhabited. The +Sicilian, who makes a point of wishing for something worth having +while he is about it, will only be satisfied with a palace built of +peacock's plumes, a stair of gold, and a balcony inlaid with gems. A +more modest minstrel, from the hither side of the straits of Messina, +gives no thought at all to housekeeping; a little wave-lapped garden, +full of pretty flowers, is all his desire. The Italian folk-poet sets +afloat an astonishing number of things for no particular reason; one +has planted a pear-tree, a second has heard a little wood-lark, a +third has seen a green laurel, a fourth has found a small altar "in +the sea-midst," a fifth discovers his own name "scritto all 'onne de +lu mar." + +The Greek lover has no wish to leave the mainland, but he is fond of +picturing his beloved wandering by the shore at dawn to breathe the +morning air, or reclining on a little stone bench at the foot of a +hill, in the silence of solitude and the calm of the sea. For the +rest, he knows too well "the wicked sea" for it to suggest to him none +but pleasant images. If he is in despair, he likens himself to the +waves, which follow one another to their inevitable grave. If he grows +weary of waiting, he exclaims: "The sea darkens, the waves beat back +on the beach; ah! how long have I loved thee!" One or two specimens +have been already given of this particular kind of song; the +recollection of a passing moment in nature is placed text-wise to a +cry of human pain or love. A happy lover remembers in his transport +the glacier glistening in the sunshine; he who languishes from the +sickness of hope deferred, sees an affinity to his own mood in the +lowering storm. + +In the South, light is loved for its own sake. "Il lume e mezza +compagnia," runs a Tuscan proverb: "Light is half company." In a +memorable passage, St Augustine unfolds and elaborates the same idea +of the companionship of light. A Tuscan countryman vows that if his +love to fly from him becomes the light, he, to be near her, will +become a butterfly. Perhaps so radiant an hyperbole would only have +occurred to one who had grown up in the air of the Tuscan hills; the +air to whose purity Michael Angelo ascribed all that his mind was +worth. Anyway, a keen poetic sensibility is argued by the mere fact of +thus joining, in a symbol of the indivisible, the least earth-clogged +of sentient things with the most impersonal of natural phenomena. It +is the more remarkable because, generally speaking, butterflies do +not attract the notice of the unlettered people, even as they did not +attract the notice of the objective and practical Greeks. It may be +that were spirits to be seen flitting noiselessly about the haunts +of men, they would, in time, be equally disregarded. To so few has it +happened to know a butterfly, to watch closely its living beauty, +to feel day by day the light feet or fluttering wings upon the hands +which minister to its unsubstantial wants. Butterflies, to most of us, +are but ethereal strangers; so by the masses they are not valued--at +least, not in Europe. A tribe of West African negroes have this +beautiful saying: "The Butterfly praises God within and without." + +The folk-poet lives out of doors; he is acquainted with the home life +of the sun and stars, and day-break is his daily luxury. The Eskimo +tell a story of a stay-at-home man who dwelt in an island near the +coast of East Greenland. It was his chief joy to see the sun rising +in the morning, out of the sea, and with that he was content. But when +his son had come to years of discretion, he persuaded his father to +set out in a boat, so that he might see a little of the world. The +man started from the island; no sooner, however, had he passed Cape +Farewell than he saw the sun beginning to rise behind the land. It +was more than he could bear; and he set off at once for his home. Next +morning very early he went out of his tent; he did not come back. When +he was sought after, he was found quite dead. The joy of seeing the +sun rising again out of the sea had killed him. Most likely the story +is based on a real incident. The Aztec goes out upon his roof to see +the sunrise; it is his one religious observance. But of the cult of +the sun I must not begin to speak. It belongs to an immense subject +that cannot be touched here: the wide range of the unconscious +appreciation of nature which was worship. + +There is nothing more graceful in all folk-poesy than a little Czech +star-poem:-- + + Star, pale star, + Didst thou know love, + Hadst thou a heart, my golden star, + Thou wouldst weep sparks. + +Further north men do not willingly stay out abroad at night, but those +whose calling obliges them to do so are looked upon as wise in strange +lore. The first tidings of war coming reached the Esthonian shepherd +boy, the keeper of the lambs, "who knew the sun, and knew the moon, +and knew the stars in the sky." In Neo-Sanskrit speaking Lithuania +there abound star-legends which differ from the southern tales of the +same order, by reason of the pagan good faith that clings to them, +The Italian is aware that he is romancing when he speaks of the moon +travelling through the night to meet the morning star, or when he +describes her anger at the loss of one of her stars; the Lithuanian +has a suspicion that there may be a good deal of truth in his poets' +account of the sun's domestic arrangements--how the morning star +lights the fire for him to get up by, and the evening star makes his +bed. He will tell you that once there was a time when sun and moon +journeyed together, but the moon fell in love with the morning star, +which brought about sad mischief. "The moon went with the sun in the +early spring; the sun got up early; the moon went away from him. The +moon walked alone, fell in love with the morning star. Perkun, greatly +angered, stabbed her with a sword. 'Why wentest thou away from the +sun? Why walk alone in the night? Why fall in love with the morning +star? Your heart is full of sorrow.'" The Lithuanians have not wholly +left that stage in man's development when what is imagined seems +_prima facie_ quite as likely to be real as what is seen. The +supernatural does not strike them as either mysterious or terrifying. +It is otherwise with the Teuton. His night phantasms treat of what is, +to man, of all things the most genuinely alarming--his own shadow. +Ghosts, wild huntsmen, erl-kings take the place of an innocuous +un-mortal race. No starry radiance can rob the night of its terrors. +"The stars shine in the sky, bright shine the rays of the moon, fast +ride the dead." Such is the wailing burden to the ballad which Burgher +imitated in his _Lenore_. There is a wide gulf between this and the +tender star-idylls of Lithuania, and a gulf still wider divides it +from the neighbourly familiarity with which the southerner addresses +the heavenly bodies. We go from one world to another when we turn back +to Italy and hear the country lads singing, "La buona sera, O stella +mattutina!" "Good evening to you, O matutinal star." + +The West African negroes call the sky the king of sheds, and the sun +the king of torches; the twinkling stars are the little chickens, and +the meteor is the thief-star. "When day dawns, you rejoice," say +the Yorubas; "do you not know that the day of death is so much the +nearer?" The same tribe give this vivid description of a day-break +scene: "The trader betakes himself to his trade, the spinner takes his +distaff, the warrior takes his shield, the weaver bends over his sley, +the farmer awakes, he and his hoe-handle, the hunter awakes, with his +quiver and bow." Thoughtless of toil, the Tuscan joyfully cries, "Dawn +is about to appear, bells chime, windows open, heaven and earth sing." +The Greek holds that he who has not journeyed with the moon by night, +or at dawn with the dew, has not tasted the world. Folk-poets have +widely recognised the mysterious confusion between summer nights and +days. The dispute at Juliet's window is recalled by the Venetian's +chiding of the "Rondinella Traditora;" by the Berry peasants' vexation +at the "vilaine alouette;" by the reproach of the Navarrese lover, +"You say it is day, it is not yet midnight;" and most of all by the +Servian dialogue: "Dawn whitens, the cock crows: It is not the dawn, +but the moon. The cows low round the house: It is not the cows, it is +the call to prayer. The Turks call to the mosque: It is not the Turks, +it is the wolves." The observation of the swallow's morning song is +another point at which the master poet and the obscure folk-singer +meet. This time both are natives of sunny lands; there is a clear +reason why it should be so--in the north the swallow passes almost +for a dumb bird. Very rarely in England do we hear her notes, soft yet +penetrating, like the high-pitched whisper of the AEolian harp. Some +of us may, indeed, have first got acquainted with them in Dante's +beautiful lines:-- + + Nell' ora che comincia i tristi lai + La Rondinella presso alia mattina ... + +Little suspecting that he is committing the sin of plagiarism, +the Greek begins one of his songs, "In the hour when the swallows, +twittering, awake the dawn." + +The ancient swallow myth does not seem to have anywhere crept into +folk-lore; nor is there much trace of the old Scandinavian delusion +that swallows spent the winter under the ice on lakes, or hanging up +in caves like bunches of grapes. The swallow is taken simply as +the typical bird of passage, the spring-bringer, the messenger, +the traveller _outre mer_. She is the picked bird of countries, the +African explorer, the Indian pioneer. A Servian story reports of +her in the latter capacity. The small-leafed Sweet Basil complains, +"Silent dew, why fallest thou not on me?" "For two mornings," answers +the dew, "I fell on thee; this morning I amused myself by watching a +great marvel. A vila (a mountain spirit) quarrelled with an eagle over +yonder mountain. Said the vila, 'The mountain is mine.' 'No,' said the +eagle, 'it is mine.' The vila broke the eagle's wing, and the young +eaglets moaned bitterly, for great was their peril. Then a swallow +comforted them: 'Make no moan, young eaglets, I will carry you to the +land of Ind, where the amaranth grows up to the horses' knees, where +the clover reaches their shoulders, where the sun never sets.'" How, +it may be asked, did the poet come by that notion of an Asiatic Eden? +The folk-singer seldom paints foreign scenery in these glowing tints. +There may be something of a south-ward longing in the boast-- + + I'll show ye how the lilies grow + On the banks o' Italie. + +But this is cold and colourless beside the empire of the unsetting +sun. + +Next to the swallow, the grey gull has the reputation of being the +greatest traveller. Till lately the women of Croisic met on Assumption +Day and sang a song to the gulls, imploring them to bring back their +husbands and their lovers who were out at sea. Larks are often chosen +as letter-carriers for short distances. The Greek knows that it is +spring when pair by pair the turtle-doves swoop down to the brooks. He +is an accurate observer; in April or May any retired English pool will +be found flecked over with the down of the wood-pigeons that come +to drink and bathe in it. The cooing of doves is by general consent +associated with constancy and requited love. It is not always, +however, that nations are agreed as to the sense of a bird's song. The +"merrie cuckoo" is supposed by the Sclavs to be rehearsing an endless +dirge for a murdered brother. A Czech poet lays down yet another cause +for its conjectured melancholy: "Perched upon an oak tree, a cuckoo +weeps because it is not always spring. How could the rye ripen in the +fields if it were always spring? How could the apples ripen in the +orchard if it were always summer? How could the corn harden in the +rick if it were always autumn?" In spite of the sagacious content +shown by these inquiries, it is probable that the sadness which the +Sclav attributes to the cuckoo-cry is but an echo of the sadness, deep +and wide, of his own race. + +Of the nightingale the Tuscan sings, in the spirit of one greater than +he,-- + + Vedete la quel rusignol che canta + Col suo bel canto lamentar si vuole,-- + +which is not, by the by, his only Miltonic inspiration; there is a +rustling of Vallombrosian leaves through the couplet, composed perhaps +in Vallombrosia: + + E quante primavera foglie adorna + Che si vaga e gentile a noi ritorna. + +The Bulgarian sees a mountain _trembling_ to the song of three +nightingales. Like his Servian neighbours, he must always have a +story, and here is his nightingale story. Marika went into the garden; +she passed the pomegranate-tree and the apple-tree, and sat her down +under the red rose-tree to embroider a white handkerchief. In the +rose-tree was a nightingale, and the nightingale said: "Let us sing, +Marika; if you sing better than I, you shall cut off my wings at the +shoulders and my feet at the knee; if I sing better than you, I will +cut off your hair at the roots." They sang for two days, for three +days; Marika sang the best. Then the nightingale pleaded, "Marika, +fair young girl, do not cut off my feet, let me keep my wings, for I +have three little nightingales to rear, and of one of them I will make +you a gift." "Nightingale, sweet singer," said Marika, "I will give +thee grace of thy wings, and even of thy feet; go, tend thy little +ones, make me a gift of one to lull me to sleep, and of one to awake +me." + +We may take leave of bird-lays with the pretty old Bourbonnaise +_chanson_:-- + + Derrier' chez nous, il y a-t-un vert bocage, + Le rossignol y chant' tous les jours; + La il y dit en son charmant langage: + Les amoreux sont malheureux toujours! + +Flowers, the green leaves and the grass, are suggestive of two kinds +of pathos. The individual flower, the grass or leaf of any one day +or spring-tide, becomes the type of the transitoriness of beauty and +youth and life. "Sing whilst ye are young and fair, soon you will be +slighted, as are sere lilies," is the song even of happy Tuscany. To +the Sclav it seems a question whether it be worth while that there +should be any flowers or morning gladness, since they must be gone +so soon. "O my garden," sings the Ruthenian, "O my little garden, my +garden and my green vine, why bloomest thou in the morning? Hardly +bloomed, thou art withered, and the earth is strewn with thy leaves." +The other kind of pathos springs from a deeper well. Man passes by, +each one hurries to his tragedy; Nature smiles tranquilly on. This +moving force of contrast was known to Lywarch Hen, and to those Keltic +bards who dived so deep into Nature's secrets that scarcely a +greater depth has been fathomed by any after-comers. It was perceived +involuntarily by the English ballad-singers, who strung a burden of +"Fine flowers" upon a tale of infanticide, and bade blackbird and +mavis sing their sweetest between a murder and an execution. And it is +this that gives its key-note to an Armenian popular song of singular +power. A bishop tells how he has made himself a vineyard; he has +brought stones from the valleys and raised a wall around it; he has +planted young vines and plentifully has he watered their roots. Every +morning the nightingale sings sweetly to the rose. Every morning +Gabriel says to his soul: "Rise and come forth from this vineyard, +from this newly-built vineyard." He has not eaten the fruit of the +vine; he has built a wine-vat, but the wine he has not tasted; he has +brought cool streams from the hills, but he has not drunk the water +thereof; he has planted red and white roses, but he has not smelt +their fragrance. The turtle-dove sings to the birds, and the spring is +come. Gabriel calls to his soul, the light of his eyes grows dim; "It +is time I leave my vineyard, my beautiful vineyard." There is hardly +another poem treating of death which is so un-illuminated by one ray +from a future dawn. + +In the great mass of folk-songs flowers are dealt with simply as the +accessories to all beautiful things. The folk-poet learns from them +his alphabet of beauty. Go into any English cornfield after harvest; +whilst the elder children glean wheat ears, the children of two +and three years glean small yellow hearts-eases, vervaine, and blue +scabious. They are as surely learning to distinguish the Beautiful +as the student in the courts of the Vatican. Through life, when these +children think of a beautiful thing, the thought of a flower will not +be far off. Religion and love, after all the two chief embellishments +of the life of the poor, have been hung about with flowers from the +past of Persephone and Freya till to-day. Even in England the common +people are glad if they can find a lily of the valley to carry to +church at Whitsuntide, and the first sign that a country girl has +got a sweetheart is often to be read in the transformation of the +garden-plot before her door. In Italy you will not walk far among the +vineyards and maize-fields without coming upon a shrine which bears +traces of floral decoration. Some Italian villages and country towns +have their special flower festival, or _Infiorata_; Genzano, for +instance, where, on the eighth day after Corpus Domini, innumerable +flowers are stripped of their petals, which are sorted out according +to colour and then arranged in patterns on the way to the church, +the magnificence of the effect going far to make one condone the +heartlessness of immolating so many victims to achieve an hour's +triumph. A charge of stupid indifference to beauty has been brought +against the Italian peasant--it would seem partly on the score that he +has been known to root up his anemones in order to put a stop to the +inroads of foreign marauders. There are certain persons, law-abiding +in the land which gave them birth, who when abroad, adopt the ethics +of our tribal ancestors. A piece of ground, a tree, or a plant not +enclosed by a wall, is turned by this strange public to its own uses. +A walnut tree by the wayside has a stick thrown among its branches +to fetch down the walnuts. The peasant does what he can to protect +himself. He observes that flowers attract trespassers, and so he roots +up the flowers. There are Italian folk-songs which show a delight in +flowers not to be surpassed anywhere. Flower-loving beyond all the +rest are the Tuscan poets, whose love-lyrics have been truly described +as "tutti seminati di fiori"--all sown with lilies, clove pinks, and +jessamine. The fact fits in pleasantly with the legend of the first +Florentines, who are said to have called their city after "the great +basket of flowers" in which it was built. It fits in, too, with the +sentiment attached even now to the very name of Florence. The old +_Floraja_ in the overgrown straw hat at the railway station can +reckon on something more abiding than her long-lost charms to find her +patrons; and it is curious to note how few of the passengers reject +the proffered emblems of the flower town, or fail to earn the parting +wish "Felice ritorno!" + +One point may be granted; in Italy and elsewhere the common people do +not highly or permanently value scentless flowers. A flower without +fragrance is to them almost a dead flower. I put the question to a +troop of English children coming from a wood laden with spoils, "What +makes you like primroses?" "The scent of them," was the answer. A +little further along the lane came another troop, and the question was +repeated. This time the answer was, "Because they smell so nice." +No flower has been more widely reverenced than the unassuming sweet +basil, the _Basilica odorato_ of Sicilian songs, the Tulasi plant of +India, where it is well-nigh worshipped in the house of every pious +Hindu. The scale is graduated thus: the flower which has no smell is +plucked in play, but left remorselessly to wither as children leave +their daisy chains; the flower which has a purely sweet and fresh +perfume is arranged in nosegays, set in water, praised and enjoyed +for the day; the flower which has a scent of spice and incense and +aromatic gums bears off honours scarcely less than divine. + +The folk-poet sings because heaven has given him a sweet voice and a +fair mistress; because the earth brings forth her increase and the sun +shines, and the spring comes back, and rest at noontide and at evening +is lovely, and work in the oil-mill and in the vineyard is lovely too: +he sings to embellish his labour and to enhance his repose. He lives +on the shield of Achilles, singing, accompanied by a viol, to the +grape-pickers; he is crowned with flowers in the golden age of +Lucretius as he raises his sweet song at the _festa_. We have seen a +little of what he says about Nature, but, in truth, he is still +her interpreter when he says nothing. All folk-poesy is sung and +folk-songs are as much one of Nature's voices as the song of the +birds, the song of the brooks, the song of the wind in the pine-tops. +So it is likewise with the rude musical instruments which the +exigencies of his life have taught the peasant how to make; they utter +tones more closely in harmony with nature than those of the finest +Stradivarius. The Greeks were right when they made Pan with his +reed-pipe rather than Apollo with his lyre the typical Nature-god. +Anyone to whom it has chanced to hear a folk-song sung in its own home +will understand what is meant. You may travel a good deal and not have +that chance. The songs, the customs, the traditions of the people form +an arcanum of which they are not always ready to lift the veil. To +those, of course, whose lives are cast among a people that still +sings, the opportunity comes oftener. But if the song be sung +consciously for your pleasure its soul will hardly remain in it. I +shall always vividly remember two occasions of hearing a folk-song +sung. Once, long ago, on the Bidassoa. The day was closing in; the +bell was tolling in the little chapel on the heathery mountain-side, +where mass is said for the peace of the brave men who fell there. +Fontarabia stood bathed in orange light. It was low water, and the +boat got almost stranded; then the boatmen, an older and a younger +man, both built like athletes, began to sing in low, wild snatches +for the tide. Once, not very long since, at the marble quarry of Sant' +Ambrogio. Here also it was towards evening and in the autumn. The +vintage was half over; all day the sweet "Prenda! Prenda!" of the +grape-gatherers had invited the stranger to share in its purple +magnificence. The blue of the more distant Veronese hills deepened +against a coralline sky; not a dark thing was in sight except here or +there the silhouette of a cypress. Only a few workmen were employed in +the quarry; one, a tall, slight lad, sang in the intervals from labour +an air full of passion and tenderness. The marble amphitheatre +gave sonority to his high voice. Each time Nature would have seemed +incomplete had it lacked the human song. + + + + +ARMENIAN FOLK-SONGS. + + +Obscure in their origin, and for the most part having at first had no +such auxiliary as written record to aid their preservation, the single +fact of the existence of folk-songs may in general suffice to proclaim +them the true articulate voice of some sentiment or feeling, common to +the large bulk of the people whence they emanate. It is plain that the +fittest only can survive--only such as are truly germane to those who +say or sing them. A herdsman or tiller of the soil strings together +a few verses embodying some simple thought which came into his head +whilst he looked at the green fields or the blue skies, or it may +be as he acted in a humble way as village poet-laureate. One or two +friends get them by heart, and possibly sing them at the fair in +the next hamlet: if they hit, others catch them up, and so the song +travels for miles and miles, and may live out generations. If not, the +effusion of our poetical cowherd dies away quite silently--not much to +his distress, for had its fate been more propitious its author would +probably have been very little the wiser. One celebrated poet, and I +think but one, has in our own times begun his career in like manner +with the unknown folk-singer. The songs of Sandor Petoefi were popular +over the breadth of the Hungarian Puszta before ever they appeared in +print; and those who know him, know how faithfully he breathes forth +the soul of the Magyar race. In a certain sense it is true that every +real poet is the spokesman of his people. No two works, for instance, +are so characteristic of their respective countries as the _Divina +Commedia_ and _Faust_. Still, the hands of genius idealise what they +touch; the great poet personifies rather than reflects his people, +and if he serves them as representative, it is in an august, imperial +fashion within the Senate House of Fame, outside whose doors the +multitude hustles and seethes. When we want to see this multitude as +in a mirror, to judge its common instincts and impulses that go very +far to cast the nation in the type which makes it what it is, it is a +safer and surer plan to search out its own spontaneous and untutored +songs than to consult the master work attached to immortal names. + +How far the individuality of a race is decided or modified by +the natural phenomena in which it is placed is a nice point for +discussion, and one not to be disposed of by off-hand generalities. +In what consists the sympathetic link, sometimes weak and scarcely +perceptible, at others visibly strong, between man and nature? +Why does the emigrated mountaineer, settled in comfort, ease, +and prosperity in some great metropolis, wake up one day with the +knowledge that he must begone to the wooden chalet with the threat of +the avalanche above and the menace of the flood below--or he must die? +Is it force of early association, habit, or fancy? Why is the wearied +town-tied brain-worker sensible of a nostalgia hardly less poignant +when he calls to mind how the fires of day kindled across some scene +of snow or sea with which his eyes were once familiar? Is it nothing +more than the return of a long ago experienced admiration? I think +that neither physicist nor psychologist--and both have a right to be +heard in the matter--would answer that the cause of these sensations +was to be thus shortly defined. Again ask the artist what the Athenian +owed to the purity and proportion of the lines of Grecian landscape, +what the Italian stole from the glow and glory of meridional light +and colour--what the Teuton learnt from the ascending spires of Alpine +ice? Was it that they saw and copied? Or rather, that Nature's spirit, +vibrating through the pulses of their being, moulded into form the +half-divine visions of master-sculptor, painter, architect? + +It does not, however, require to go deeper than the surface of +things in order to understand that a peoples' songs must be largely +influenced by the accidents of natural phenomena, and especially where +climate and physical conformation are such as must perforce stir and +stimulate the imaginative faculties of the masses. We have an instance +to the point in the ballads of the "mountainous island" bounded by +seas and plains, which the natives call Hayasdan and we Armenia. The +wondering emotion aroused by a first descent from the Alps into Italy +is well known; to not a few of the mightiest of northern poets this +journey has acted like a charm, a revelation, an awakening to +fuller consciousness. In Armenia, the incantation of a like natural +antithesis is worked by the advent of its every returning spring: a +sluggard of a season that sleeps on soundly till near midsummer, but +comes forth at last fully clothed in the gorgeous raiment of a king. +In days gone by the Armenian spring was dedicated to the goddess +Anahid, and as it broke over the land the whole people joined in +joyful celebration of the feast of Varthavar or "Rose-blossoms," +which since Christian times has been transformed into the three days' +festival of the Transfiguration. Beautiful is the face of the country +when the tardy sun begins to make up for lost time, as though his very +life depended on it; shooting down his beams with fiery force through +the rarefied ether, melting away the snows, and ripening all at once +the grain and grapes, the wild fig, apricot and olive, mulberry and +pomegranate. What wonder that the Armenian loves the revivifying lamp +of day, that he turns the dying man towards it, and will not willingly +commit his dead to the earth if some bright rays do not fall into the +open grave! At the sun's reveille there is a general resurrection of +all the buried winter population--women and children, cows and sheep, +pink-eyed lemmings, black-eyed caraguz, and little kangaroo-shaped +jerboas. Out, too, from their winter lairs come wolf and bear, hyena +and tiger, leopard and wild boar. The stork returns to his nest on the +broad chimney-pot, and this is what the peasant tells him of all that +has happened in his absence: + + Welcome, Stork! + Thou Stork, welcome; + Thou hast brought us the sign of spring, + Thou hast made our heart gay. + Descend, O Stork! + Descend, O Stork, upon our roof, + Make thy nest upon our ash-tree. + I will tell thee my thousand sorrows, + The sorrows of my heart, the thousand sorrows, + Stork, when thou didst go away, + When thou didst go away from our tree, + Withering winds did blow, + They dried up our smiling flowers. + The brilliant sky was obscured, + That brilliant sky was cloudy: + From above they were breaking the snow in pieces: + Winter approached, the destroyer of flowers. + Beginning from the rock of Varac, + Beginning from that rock of Varac, + The snow descended and covered all; + In our green meadow it was cold. + Stork, our little garden, + Our little garden was surrounded with snow; + Our green rose trees + Withered with the snow and the cold. + +But now the rose trees in the garden are green again, and out abroad +wild flowers enamel the earth. Down pour the torrents of melted snow +off Mount Ararat, down crash the avalanches of ice and stones +let loose by the sun's might; wherever an inch of soil or rock is +uncovered it becomes a carpet of blossom. High up, even to 13,000 feet +above the sea-level, the deep violet aster, the saxifrage, and crocus, +and ranunculus, and all our old Alpine acquaintances, form a dainty +morsel for the teeth, or a carpet for the foot, of swift capricorn +or not less agile wild sheep. A little lower, amidst patches of yet +frozen snow, hyacinths scent the air, yellow squills and blue anemones +peep out, clumps of golden iris cluster between the rocks. There, too, +is the "Fountain's Blood," or "Blood of the Seven Brothers," as the +Turk would say, with its crimson, leafless stalk and lily-like bloom, +the reddest of all red flowers. Upon the trees comes the sweet white +_kasbe_, a kind of manna much relished by the inhabitants. Amongst the +grass grow the Stars of Bethlehem, to remind us, as tradition has it, +that hard by on Ararat--beyond question the great centre of Chaldean +Star-worship--the wise men were appointed to watch for the appearance +of a sign in the heavens, and that thence they started in quest of +the place "where the young child lay." Tulips also abound; if we +may credit the legend, they had their origin in the Armenian town +of Erzeroom, springing from the life-blood of Ferdad when he threw +himself from the rocks in despair at a false alarm of the death of his +beloved Shireen. + +Erzeroom is by common consent in these parts the very site of the +Garden of Eden. For many centuries, affirms the Moslem, the flowers +of Paradise might yet be seen blossoming round the source of the +Euphrates not far from the town. But, alas! when the great Persian +King Khosref Purveez, the rival of the above-mentioned Ferdad, was +encamped in that neighbourhood, he was rash enough to spurn a message +from the young Prophet Mohammed, offering him protection if he +would embrace the faith of Islam. What booted the protection of an +insignificant sectary to him? thought the Shah-in-Shah, and tossed the +letter into the Euphrates. But Nature, horrified at the sacrilegious +deed, dried up her flowers and fruits, and even parched the sources +of the river itself; the last relic of Eden became a waste. There is a +plaintive Armenian elegy composed in the person of Adam sitting at +the gate of Paradise, and beholding Cherubim and Seraphim entering the +Garden of which he once was king, "yea, like unto a powerful king!" +The poet puts into Adam's mouth a new line of defence; he did not eat +of the fruit, he says, until after he had witnessed its fatal effects +upon Eve, when, seeing her despoiled of all her glory, he was touched +with pity, and tasted the immortal fruit in the hope that the Creator +contemplating them both in the same wretched plight might with +paternal love take compassion on both. But vain was the hope; "the +Lord cursed the serpent and Eve, and I was enslaved between them." "O +Seraphim!" cries the exiled father of mankind: + + When ye enter Eden, shut not the gate of Paradise; place me + standing at the gate; I will look in a moment, and then bring + me back. + + Ah! I remember ye, O flowers and sweet-swelling fountains. Ah! + I remember ye O birds, sweet-singing--and ye, O beasts: + + Ye who enjoy Paradise, come and weep over your king; ye who + are in Paradise planted by God, elected from the earth of + every kind and sort. + +High above the hardiest saxifrage tower the three thousand feet of +everlasting snows that crown Mount Ararat. The Armenians call it +Massis or "Mother of the World," and old geographers held that it was +the centre of the earth, an hypothesis supported by various ingenious +calculations. The Persians have their own set of legends about it; +they say that Ararat was the cradle of the human race, and that at one +time it afforded pasture up to the apex of its dome; but upon man's +expulsion from Eden, Ahriman the serpent doomed the whole country to +a ten months' winter. As to the semi-scriptural traditions gathered +round the mountain, there is no end to them. "And the ark rested +in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the +mountains of Ararat," so says the Bible, and it is an article of faith +with the Armenian peasant that it is still somewhere up at the top, +only not visible. He is extremely loth to believe that anybody has +actually attained the summit. Parrot's famous ascent was long regarded +as the merest fable. At the foot of Ararat was a village named +Argoory, or "he planted the vine," where Noah's vineyard is pointed +out to this day, though the village itself was destroyed in 1840, when +the mountain woke up from its long slumbers and rolled down its side a +stream of boiling lava; but we are told that, owing to the sins of the +world, the vines no longer bear fruit. Close at hand is Manard, "the +mother lies here," alluding to the burial-place of Noah's wife, and +yonder is Eravan or "Visible," the first dry land which Noah perceived +as the waters receded. Armenian choniclers relate that when after +leaving the ark the descendants of Noah dispersed to different +quarters, one amongst them, by name Haig, the great-grandson of +Japhet, settled with his family in Mesopotamia, where he probably took +part in the building of the Tower of Babel. Later, however, upon Belus +acquiring dominion over the land, Haig found his rule so irksome to +himself and his clan that they migrated back in a body of 300 persons +to Armenia, much to the displeasure of Belus, who summoned them to +return, and when they refused, despatched a large army to coerce them +into obedience. Haig collected his men on the shores of Van, and thus +sagaciously addressed them: + + When we meet with the army of Belus, let us attempt to draw + near where he lies surrounded by his warriors; either we shall + be killed, and our camp equipments and baggage will fall into + his hands, or, making a show of the strength of our arm, we + shall defeat his army, and victory will be ours. + +These tactics proved completely successful, and Belus fell mortally +wounded by an arrow from Haig's bow. Having in this way disposed of +his enemies, the patriarch was able before he died to consolidate +Hayasdan into a goodly kingdom, which he left to the authority of his +son Armenag. + +After the reign of Haig the thread of Armenian annals continues +without break or hitch; it must be admitted that no people, not even +the Jews, boast a history which "begins with the beginning" in a more +thorough way, nor does the work of any chronicler proceed in a more +methodical and circumstantial manner than that of Moses of Khoren, the +Herodotus of Armenia. As is well known, Moses, writing in the fifth +century, founded his chronicle upon a work undertaken about five +hundred years before by one Marabas Cattina, a Syrian, at the request +of the great Armenian monarch Vagshaishag. Marabas stated that his +record was based upon a manuscript he had discovered in the archives +of Nineveh which bore the indorsement, "This book, containing the +annals of ancient history, was translated from the Chaldean into +Greek, by order of Alexander the Great." Whatever may be the precise +amount of credence to which the Chronicle of Moses is entitled, +all will agree that it narrates the story of a high-spirited and +intelligent people whom the alternating domination of Greek and +Persian could not cower into relinquishing the substance of their +liberties, and whose efforts, in the main successful, on behalf of +their cherished independence, were never more vigorous than at times +when their triumph seemed farthest off. For nearly a thousand years +after the date of Moses of Khoren, his people maintained their +autonomy, and whether we look before or after the flight of the last +Armenian king before the soldiers of the Crescent, we must acknowledge +that few nations have fought more valiantly for their political +rights, whilst yet fewer have suffered more severely for their +fidelity to their faith. It is the pride of the Armenians that theirs +was the first country which adopted the Christian religion; it may +well be their pride also, that they kept their Christianity in +the teeth of persecutions which can only find a parallel in those +undergone by the Hebrew race. + +Armenia is naturally rich in early Christian legends, of which the +most curious is perhaps that of the correspondence alleged to have +occurred between Our Lord and Abgar, king of Hayasdan. The latter, +it is said, having sent messengers to transact some business with the +Roman generals quartered in Palestine, received on their return such +accounts of the miracles performed by Jesus of Nazareth as convinced +him either that Christ was God come down upon the earth, or that +he was the son of God. Suffering from a grave malady, and hearing, +moreover, that the Jews had set their hearts on doing despite to the +Prophet who had risen in their midst, Abgar wrote a letter beseeching +Christ to come to his capital and cure him of his sickness. "My city +is indeed small," this letter naively concludes, "but it is sufficient +to contain us both." The king also sent a painter to Jerusalem, so +that if Our Lord could not come to Edessa he might at least possess +his portrait. The painter was one day endeavouring to fulfil his +mission when he was observed by Christ, who passing a handkerchief +over his face, gave it to the Armenian impressed with the likeness of +his features. The response to Abgar's letter was written by St Thomas, +who said, on behalf of his Divine Master, that his work lay elsewhere +than in Armenia, but that after his Ascension he would send an Apostle +to enlighten the people of that country. This correspondence, though +now not accepted as authentic out of Armenia, was mentioned by some +of the earliest Church historians, and it is asserted that one of the +letters has been found written on papyrus in an Egyptian tomb. + +Christianity seems to have made some way in Armenia in the second +century, but to what extent is unknown. What is certain is, that +in the third century, St Gregory the Illuminator, after having been +tortured in twelve different ways by King Tiridates for refusing +to worship the goddess Anahid, and kept at the bottom of a well for +fourteen years, was taken out of it in consequence of a vision of the +king's sister, and converted that monarch and all his subjects along +with him. St Gregory is held in boundless reverence by the Armenians; +he is almost looked upon as a divine viceroy, as will be seen from the +following canzonette which Armenian children are taught to sing: + + The light appears, the light appears! + The light is good: + The sparrow is on the tree, + The hen is on the perch, + The sleep of lazy men is a year, + Workman, rise and begin thy work! + The gates of heaven are opened, + The throne of gold is erected, + Christ is sitting on it; + The Illuminator is standing, + He has taken the golden pen, + He has written great and small. + Sinners are weeping, + The just are rejoicing. + +The poet of the people nowhere occupies himself with casting about for +a fine subject; he writes of what he feels and of what he sees. +The Armenian peasant sees the snow in winter; in summer he sees +the flowers and the birds--only birds and flowers are to him the +pleasanter sight, so he sings more about them. He rarely composes +any verse without a flower or a bird being mentioned in it; all his +similes are ornithological or botanical, and by them he expresses +the tenderest emotions of his heart. There is a pathos, a simplicity +really exquisite in the conception of some of these little +bird-and-flower pieces, as, for example, in the subjoined "Lament of a +Mother" over her dead babe: + + I gaze and weep, mother of my boy, + I say alas and woe is me wretched! + What will become of wretched me, + I have seen my golden son dead! + They seized that fragrant rose + Of my breast, and my soul fainted away; + They let my beautiful golden dove + Fly away, and my heart was wounded. + That falcon Death seized + My dear and sweet-voiced turtle dove and wounded me. + They took my sweet-toned little lark + And flew away through the skies! + Before my eyes they sent the hail + On my flowering green pomegranate, + My rosy apple on the tree, + Which gave fragrance among the leaves. + They shook my flourishing beautiful almond tree, + And left me without fruit; + Beating it they threw it on the ground + And trod it under foot into the earth of the grave. + What will become of wretched me! + Many sorrows surrounded me. + O, my God, receive the soul of my little one + And place him at rest in the bright heaven! + +The birds of Armenia are countless in their number and variety, from +vulture to wren; there are so many of them that a man (it is said +poetically) may ride for miles and miles and never see the ground, +which they entirely cover, except over the small space from which +they fly up with a deafening whizz to make a passage for his horse. At +times the plains have the appearance of being dyed rose-colour through +the swarms of the gorgeous red goose which congregate upon them, +whilst here and there a whitish spot is formed by a troop of his +grey-coated relatives. It seems that the Armenian has found out why +it was the wild goose and the tame one separated from each other. Once +upon a time, when all were wild and free, one goose said to another on +the eve of a journey, "Mind you are ready, my friend, for, Inshallah +(please God), I set out to-morrow morning." "And so will I," he +profanely replied, "whether it pleases God or not." Sure enough next +morning both geese were up betimes, and the religious one spread out +his wings and sailed off lightly towards the distant land. But, lo! +when the impious goose tried to do likewise, he flapped and flapped +and could not stir from the ground. So a countryman caught him, and he +and his children for ever fell into slavery. + +The partridge is a great favourite of the Armenian, who does not tire +of inventing lyrics in its honour. Here is a specimen: + + The sun beats from the mountain's top, + Pretty, pretty: + The partridge comes from her nest; + She was saluted by the flowers, + She flew and came from the mountain's top. + Ah! pretty, pretty, + Ah! dear little partridge! + + When I hear the voice of the partridge + I break my fast on the house-top: + The partridge comes chirping + And swinging from the mountain's side. + Ah! pretty, pretty, + Ah! dear little partridge! + + Thy nest is enamelled with flowers, + With basilico, narcissus, and water-lily: + Thy place is full of dew, + Thou delightest in the fragrant odour. + Ah! pretty, pretty, + Ah! dear little partridge! + + Thy feathers are soft, + Thy neck is long, thy beak little, + The colour of thy wing is variegated: + Thou art sweeter than the dove. + Ah! pretty, pretty, + Ah! dear little partridge! + + When the little partridge descends from the tree, + And with his sweet voice chirps, + He cheers all the world, + He draws the heart from the sea of blood. + Ah! pretty, pretty, + Ah! dear little partridge. + + All the birds call thee blessed, + They come with thee in flocks, + They come around thee chirping: + In truth there is not one like thee. + Ah! pretty, pretty, + Ah! beautiful little partridge! + +Another song gives the piteous plaint of an unhappy partridge who was +snared and eaten. "Like St Gregory, they let me down into a deep +well; then they took me up and sat round a table, and they cut me into +little pieces, like St James the Intercised." The crane, who, with +the stork, brings the promise of summer on his wing, receives a warm +welcome, and when the Armenian sees a crane in some foreign country he +will say to him:-- + + Crane, whence dost thou come? I am the servant of thy voice. + Crane, hast thou not news from our country? Hasten not to thy + flock; thou wilt arrive soon enough! Crane, hast thou not news + from our country? + + I have left my possessions and vineyard and come hither. How + often do I sigh; it seems that my soul is taken from me. + Crane, stay a little, thy voice is in my soul. Crane, hast + thou not news from our country? My God, I ask of thee grace + and favour, the heart of the pilgrim is wounded, his lungs are + consumed; the bread he eats is bitter, the water he drinks is + tasteless. Crane, hast thou not news from our country? + + Thou comest from Bagdad, and goest to the frontiers. I will + write a little letter and give it to thee. God will be the + witness over thee; thou wilt carry it and give it to my dear + ones. + + I have put in my letter that I am here, that I have never even + for a single day been happy. O, my dear ones, I am always + anxious for you! Crane, hast thou not news from our country? + + The autumn is near, and thou art ready to go: thou hast + joined a large flock: thou hast not answered me, and thou art + flown! Crane, go from our country and fly far away! + +The nameless author of these lines has had Dante's thought: + + Tu proverai si come sa di sale + Lo pane altrui ... + +It is strange that the Armenians should be at once one of the most +scattered peoples on the face of the earth, and one of the most +passionately devoted to their fatherland. + +It should not be forgotten, when reading these Armenian bird-lays, +that an old belief yet survives in that country that the souls of the +blessed dead fly down from heaven, in the shape of beautiful birds, +and perching in the branches of the trees, look fondly at their dear +ones on earth as they pass beneath. When the peasant sees the birds +fluttering above overhead in the wood he will on no account molest +them, but says to his boy, "That is your dear mother, your little +brother, your sister--be a good child, or it will fly away and never +look at you again with its sweet little eyes." + +The clear cool streams and vast treacherous salt lakes of Armenia +are not without their laureates. Thus sings the bard of a mountain +rivulet: + + "Down from yon distant mountain + The water flows through the village, Ha! + A dark boy comes forth, + And washing his hands and face, + Washing, yes washing, + And turning to the water, asked, Ha! + Water, from what mountain dost thou come? + O my cool and sweet water! Ha! + I came from that mountain, + Where the old and new snow lie one on the other. + Water, to what river dost thou go? + O my cool and sweet water! Ha! + I go to that river + Where the bunches of violets abound. Ha! + Water, to what vineyard dost thou go? + O my cool and sweet water! Ha! + I go to that vineyard + Where the vine-dresser is within! Ha! + Water, what plant dost thou water? + O my cool and sweet water! Ha! + I water that plant + Whose roots give food to the lamb, + The roots give food to the lamb, + Where there are the apple tree and the anemone. + Water, to what garden dost thou go? + O my cool and sweet water! Ha! + I go into that garden + Where there is the sweet song of the nightingale! Ha! + Water, into what fountain dost thou go? + O my cool and sweet little water! + I go to that fountain + Where thy love comes and drinks. + I go to meet her and kiss her chin, + And satiate myself with her love. + +The dwellers on the shores of Van--the largest lake in Armenia, which +is situated between 5000 and 6000 feet above the sea, and covers more +than 400 square miles--are celebrated for possessing the poetic gift +in a pre-eminent degree. Their district is fertile and picturesque, +so picturesque that when Semiramis passed that way she employed 12,000 +workmen and 600 architects to build her a city on the banks of the +lake, which was named Aghthamar, and which she thereafter made her +summer residence. The business that brought Semiramis into Armenia +was a strange romance. Ara, eighth patriarch of Hayasdan, was famed +through all the East for his surpassing beauty, and the Assyrian queen +hearing that he was the fairest to look upon of all mortal men, sent +him a proposal of marriage; but he, staunch to the faith in the one +true God, which he believed had been transmitted to him from Noah, +would have nothing to say to the offer of the idolatrous ruler. +Semiramis, greatly incensed, advanced with her army into the heart of +Armenia, and defeated the forces of the Patriarch; but bitter were the +fruits of the victory, for Ara, instead of being taken alive, as +she had commanded, was struck down at the head of his men, and his +beautiful form, stiffened by death, was laid at the queen's feet. +Semiramis was plunged in the wildest despair; she endeavoured to bring +him to life by magic; that failing, she had his body embalmed and +placed in a golden coffin, which was set in her chamber; no one was +allowed to call him dead, and she spoke of him as her beloved consort. +A spot is pointed out to the traveller bearing the name of Ara Seni, +"Ara is sacrificed." + +The favourite theme of the men of Van is, of course, the treacherous +element on which the lot of most of them is cast. One of their songs +gives the legend of the "Old Man and the Ship." Our Lord, as an old +man with a white beard, cried sweetly to the sailors to take him into +the ship. The sailors answer that the ship is freighted by a merchant, +and the passage-money is great. "Go away, white-bearded old man," they +say. But our Lord pays the money and comes into the ship. Presently +a gale blows up and the sailors are exceeding wroth, for they imagine +the strange passenger has brought them ill-luck. They ask, "Whence +didst them come, O sinful man? Thou art lost, and thou hast lost us!" +"I a sinner!" replies the Lord, "give me the ship, and go you to sweet +sleep." He made the sign of the cross with his right hand, with his +left he steered the helm. It was not yet mid-day when the ship safely +reached the shore. + + Brothers, arise from your sweet sleep, from your sweet sleep + and your sad dreams. Fall at the feet of Jesus; here is our + Lord, here is our ship. + +"Sweet sleep and sad dreams"--he must have been a true poet who +thus crystallised the sense of poor humanity's unrest, even in its +profoundest repose. The whole little story strikes one as full of +delicate suggestiveness. + +One more sample of the style of the Armenian "Lake-school." + +ON ONE WHO WAS SHIPWRECKED ON THE LAKE OF VAN. + + We sailed in the ship from Aghthamar, + We directed our ship towards Avan; + When we arrived before Vosdan + We saw the dark sun of the dark day. + + Dull clouds covered the sky, + Obscuring at once stars and moon; + The winds blew fiercely, + And took from my eyes land and shore. + + Thundered the heaven, thundered the earth, + The waters of the blue sea arose; + On every side the heavens shot forth fire; + Black terror invaded my heart. + + There is the sky, but the earth is not seen, + There is the earth, but the sun is not seen; + The waves come like mountains + And open before me a deep abyss. + + O sea, if thou lovest thy God, + Have pity on me, forlorn and wretched; + Take not from me my sweet sun, + And betray me not to flinty-hearted Death. + + Pity, O sea, O terrible sea! + Give me not up to the cold winds; + My tears implore thee + And the thousand sorrows of my heart.... + + The savage sea has no pity! + It hears not the plaintive voice of my broken heart; + The blood freezes in my veins, + Black night descends upon my eyes.... + + Go tell to my mother + To sit and weep for her darkened son; + That John was the prey of the sea, + The sun of the young man is set! + +Summer, with its flowers, and warmth, and wealth, never stays long +enough in Armenia for it to become a common ordinary thing. It is a +beautiful wonder-time, a brief, splendid nature-fair, which vanishes +like a dream before the first astonishment and delight are worn into +indifference. The season when "the nightingale sings to the rose at +dewy dawn" departs swiftly, and envious winter strangles autumn in its +birth. + +What a winter, too! a winter which despotically governs the complete +economy of the people's system of life. Let us take a peep into an +Armenian interior on a December evening. Three months the snow has +been in possession of mountain and valley; for more than four months +more it will remain. Abroad it is light enough, though night has +fallen; for the moon shines down in wonderful brightness upon the +ice-bound earth. On the hill-slope various little unevennesses are +discernible, jutting out from the snow like mushrooms. In one part the +ground is cut away perpendicularly for a few feet; this is the front +of the homestead, the body of which lies burrowed in the slope of the +hill. When the house was made the floor was dug out some five feet +underground, while the ceiling beams rose three or four feet above it; +but all the dug-out soil was thrown about the roof and back and side +walls, and thus the whole is now embedded in the hillock. The roof was +neatly turfed over when the house was finished, so that in summer the +lambs and children play upon it, and not unfrequently, in the great +heats, the family sleep there--"at the moon's inn." What look like +mushrooms are in reality the broad-topped chimneys, on which the +summer storks build their nests. The homestead has but one entrance; +a large front door which leads through a long dark passage to a second +door that swings-to after you, and is hung with a rough red-dyed +sheepskin. This door opens upon the entrance-hall, whence you mount +half-a-dozen steps to a raised platform, under which the house dogs +are located. On two sides the platform is bounded by solid stone +walls, from which are suspended saddles, guns, pistols, and one or two +pictures representing the deeds of some Persian hero, and bought of +Persian hawkers. On the other two sides an open woodwork fence divides +it from a vast stable. Nearest the grating are fastened the horses +of the clan-chief; next are the donkeys, then the cows; sheep and +chickens find places where they can. The breath of these animals +materially contributes to the warmth of the house, which is at times +almost like an oven, even in the coldest weather. A clear hot fire +burns on the hearth; the fuel used is tezek, a preparation of cow-dung +pressed into a substance resembling peat turf. By day the habitation +is obscurely lighted through a small aperture in the roof glazed with +oiled silk, and supplemented by a sort of funnel, the wide opening +downwards. Now, in the evening, the oil burning in a simple iron lamp +over the hearth, affords a dim illumination. + +The platform above described is the salemlik, or hall of reception. It +contains no chairs, but divans richly draped with Koordish stuffs; the +floor is carpeted with tekeke, a kind of grey felt. To the right of +the hearth sits the head of the family, a venerable old man, whose +word is incontrovertible law to every member of his house. He is also +Al Sakal, or "white beard" of the village, a dignity conferred on +him by the unanimous voice of his neighbours, and constituting him +intermediary in all transactions with government. When important +matters are at stake, he meets the elders of the surrounding hamlets, +who, resolved into committee, form the Commune. This ancient usage +bears witness to the essentially patriarchal and democratic basis of +Armenian society. + +Our family party consists of three dozen persons, the representatives +of four generations. The young married women come in and out from +directing the preparations of the supper. Nothing is to be seen of +their faces except their lustrous eyes (Armenian eyes are famous for +their brilliancy), a tightly-fitting veil enclosing the rest of their +features. Without this covering they do not by any chance appear even +in the house; it is said they wear it also at night. One of them is +a bride; her dress is rich and striking--a close-fitting bodice, +fastening at the neck with silver clasps, full trousers of +rose-coloured silk gathered in at the ankles by a fillet of silver, +the feet bare, a silver girdle of curious workmanship loosely +encircling the waist, and a long padded garment open down the front +which hangs from the shoulders. Poor little bride! She has not uttered +a single word save when alone with her husband since she pronounced +the marriage vow. She may not hope to do so till after the birth of +her first-born child; then she will talk to her nursling, after a +while to her mother-in-law, sometime later she may converse with her +own mother, and by-and-by, in a subdued whisper, with the young girls +of the house. During the first year of her married life she may not +go out of the house except twice to church. Her disciplinary education +will not be complete for six years, after which she will enjoy +comparative liberty, but never in her life must she open her lips to +a person of the stronger sex not related to her. Turn from the silent +little bride to that bevy of young girls, merry and playful as the +kittens they are fondling--silky-haired snowballs, of a breed peculiar +to the neighbourhood of Van, their tails dyed pink with henna like the +tail of the Shah's steed. The girls are laughing and chatting together +without restraint--most probably about their love affairs, for they +are free to dispose of their hands as they choose. And they may walk +about unveiled, and show off their pretty faces and long raven plaits +to the fullest advantage. + +Suddenly a knocking is heard outside; the dogs yell from under the +platform; the Whitebeard says whoever be the wanderer he shall have +bed and board, and he orders fresh tezek to be thrown on the fire; for +to-night it is bitter cold out abroad--were a man to stand still five +minutes, he would freeze in his shoes. One of the sons descends the +steps, pushes aside the sheep-skin, and leads the traveller in. +This one says he is the minstrel. What joy in the family! The blind +minstrel, who will sing the most exciting ballads and tell the most +marvellous tales. He is welcomed by all; only the young bride steals +out of the room--she may not remain in a stranger's presence. The +lively girls want to hear a story at once; but the Whitebeard says the +guest must first have rest and refreshment. But while they are waiting +for the meal to be laid out, the blind minstrel relates something of +his recent travels, which in itself is almost as good as a fairy tale. +He has just arrived from Persia, whither he will soon return; for he +has only come back to the snows of Armenia to breathe the air of home +for a little. Did he go to Teheran? No; to say the truth, he deemed it +wiser to keep at a discreet distance from that capital. Such a thing +had been heard of ere now as the Shah putting under requisition any +skilful musicians who came in his way to teach their art to the fair +ones of the harem; so that occasionally it was unpleasantly difficult +to get out of Teheran when once you were in it. Still he was by no +means without interesting news. In a certain part of Persia he had +met another blind master-singer, with whom he strove for the prize of +minstrelsy. Both were entertained by a great Persian prince. When +the day came they were led out upon an open grass-plot and seated one +facing the other. The prince took up his position, and five thousand +people made a circle round the competitors. Then the grand brain-fight +began; the rivals contended in song and verse, riddle and repartee. +Now one starts an acrostic on the prince's name, in which each side +takes alternate letters; then the other versifies some sacred passage, +which his opponent must catch up when he breaks off. The ball is kept +flying to and fro with unflagging zeal; the crowd is rapturous in its +plaudits. But at length our minstrel's adversary pauses, hesitates, +fails to seize the drift of his rival's latest sally, and answers at +random. A shout proclaims him beaten. The triumphant bard is led to +where he stands, and taking his lyre from him breaks it into atoms. +The vanquished retires discomfited to the obscurity of his native +village, where haply his humble talents will not be despised. The +victor is robed in the prince's mantle, and taken to the highest seat +in the banqueting-hall. + +This is what the minstrel has to tell as he warms his hands over the +fire while the young married women serve the supper. A rush-mat is +placed upon the low round board, over that the table-cloth; then a +large tray is set in the middle, with the viands arranged on it in +metal dishes: onion soup, salted salmon-trout from the blue Gokschai, +hard-boiled eggs shelled and sliced, oil made from Kunjut seeds, which +does instead of butter; pilau, a dish resembling porridge; mutton +stewed with quinces, leeks, and various raw and preserved roots, cream +cheese, sour milk, dried apricots, and stoned raisins, form the bill +of fair. A can of golden wine is set out: there is plenty more in the +goatskins should it be wanted. The provisions are completed by an +item more important in Armenia than with us--bread. The flour-cake +or _losh_, a yard long and thin as paper, which is placed before each +guest, answers for plate, knives, forks, napkin, all of which are +absent. The Whitebeard says grace and the Lord's Prayer, everyone +crossing himself. The company wipe their mouths with a _losh_, and +proceed to help themselves with it to anything that tempts their fancy +on the middle tray. Some make a promiscuous sandwich of fish, mutton, +and leeks wrapped up in a piece of _losh_; others twist the _losh_ +into the shape of a spoon and ladle out the sour milk, swallowing +both together. The members of the family watch the minstrel's least +gesture, so as to anticipate his wishes; one after the other they +claim the privilege of waiting on him. When the meal is done, a young +housewife gently washes the guest's head and feet, and the whole party +adjourn to the chimney-corner. The evening flies mirthfully away, +listening to the minstrel's tales and ballads, these latter being +mostly in Tartar, the Provencal of the eastern troubadour. Finally, +the honoured visitor is conducted to his room, the "minstrel's +chamber," which, in every well-ordered Armenian household, is always +kept ready. + +Our little picture may be taken as the faithful reproduction of no +very extraordinary scene. Of ballad-singers such as the one here +introduced there are numbers in Armenia, where that "sixth sense," +music, is the recognised vocation of the blind. Those who are +proficient travel within a very wide area, and are everywhere received +with the highest consideration. + +In the East, the ballad-singer and the story-teller are just where +they were centuries ago. At Constantinople, the story-teller sits +down on his mat in the public place or at the _cafe_; listeners gather +round; he begins his story in a conversational tone, varying his voice +according to the characters; and soon both himself and his hearers are +as far away in the wondrous mazes of the "Arabian Nights" as if Europe +were still trembling before the sword of the Caliph. + +With regard to the unique marriage customs of Armenia, I ought to say +that they are asserted to result in the happiest unions. The general +idea upon which they rest seems to be derived from a series of +conclusions logical enough if you grant the premisses--indeed, +curiously more like some pen and paper scheme evolved out of the inner +consciousness of a German professor than a working system of +actual life. The prevailing custom in the East, as in some European +countries, is for the young girl to know nothing whatever of her +intended husband; only in the one case this is followed by total +seclusion after marriage, and in the other by complete emancipation. +In Armenia, on the contrary, the young girl makes her own choice, and +love-matches are not uncommon; but the choice once made and ratified +by the priest, the order of things is so arranged as to cause her +husband to become the woman's absorbing thought, his society her sole +solace, his pleasure the whole business of her life. For the rest she +is treated with much solicitude; even the peasant will not let his +wife do out-door work. + +Moses of Khoren gives the history of a wedding that took place about +one hundred years after Christ. In those days the tribes of the Alans, +in league with the mountaineers of the Caucasus and a part of the +people of Georgia, descended upon Armenia in considerable numbers. +Ardashes, the Armenian king, assembled his troops and advanced against +them. In a battle fought upon the confines of the two nations, the +Alans gave way, and having crossed the Cyrus, encamped on the northern +bank, the river dividing the contending forces. The son of the King of +the Alans had been taken prisoner and was conducted to Ardashes. His +father offered to conclude a peace on such conditions as Ardashes +might exact and under promise, guaranteed by a solemn oath, that the +Alans would attempt no further incursions on Armenian territory. As +Ardashes refused to surrender the young prince, the sister of the +youth ran to the edge of the river and climbing upon a lofty hillock, +caused these words to be addressed to the enemy's camp by the mouth +of interpreters: "Hear me, valorous Ardashes, conqueror of the brave +Alans; grant unto me the surrender of this young man--unto me, the +maiden with beautiful eyes. It is not worthy of a hero in order to +satisfy a desire for vengeance, to take the life of the sons of heroes +or to hold them in bondage and keep up an endless feud between two +nations." Ardashes, having heard these words, approached the river. He +saw the beautiful Sathinig, listened to her wise counsels, and fell +in love with her. Then, having called Sumpad, an aged warrior who +had watched over his childhood, he laid bare the wish of his heart to +marry the princess, make a treaty of amity with her nation and send +back the prince in peace. Sumpad, having approved of these projects, +sent to ask the King of the Alans for the hand of Sathinig. "What!" +replied her father, "will the valorous King Ardashes have ever +treasure enough to offer me in return for the noble damsel of the +Alans?" + +A popular song, carefully preserved by Moses, celebrates the marriage +of Ardashes and Sathinig:-- + + The valiant King Ardashes, astride of a sable charger, + Drew forth a thong of leather, garnished with golden rings: + And quick as fast-flying eagle he crossed the flowing river + And the crimson leather thong, garnished with rings of gold, + Cast he about the body of the Virgin of the Alans, + Clasping in painful embrace the maiden's tender form: + Even so he drew her swiftly to his encampment. + +Once again Ardashes appears in the people's poetry. He is no longer +the triumphant victor in love and war; the hour of his death draws +near. "Oh!" says the dying king, "who will give me back the smoke of +my hearth, and the joyous New Year's morning, and the spring of the +deer, and the lightness of the roe?" Then his mind wanders away to the +ruling passion: "We sounded the trumpets; after the manner of kings we +beat the drums." + +The Armenian princes were in the habit, when they married, of throwing +pieces of money from the threshold of their palace, whilst the royal +brides scattered pearls about the nuptial chamber. To this custom +allusion is made in two lines which used to be sung as a sort of +marriage chaunt:-- + + A rain of gold fell at the wedding of Ardashes, + A rain of pearls fell on the nuptials of Sathinig. + +Armenian nuptial songs, like all other folk-epithalamiums, so far as I +am aware, seem to point to an early state of society when the girl was +simply carried off by her marauding lover by fraud or force. Exulting +in what relates to the bridegroom, the favourite song on this subject +is profoundly melancholy as concerns the bride. The mother was cajoled +with a pack of linen, the father with a cup of wine, the brother +with a pair of boots, the little sister with a finger of antimony--so +complains the dismal ditty of a new bride. There is great pathos in +the words in which she begs her mother not to sweep the sand off the +little plank, so that the slight trace of her girl's footsteps may not +be effaced. + +Marriage is called in Armenian, "The Imposition of the Crown," from +the practice of crowning bride and bridegroom with fresh, white +flowers. I remember how, in one of the last marriages celebrated in +the little Armenian church in the Rue Monsieur (which was closed a +few years ago, when the Mekhitarist property in Paris was sold), this +ceremony was omitted by particular request of the bridegroom, a rising +French Diplomatist, who did not wish to wear a wreath of roses. The +Armenian marriage formulae are extremely explicit. The priest, taking +the right hand of the bride, and placing it in that of the bridegroom, +says: "According to the Divine order God gave to our ancestors, I give +thee now this wife in subjection. Wilt thou be her master?" To which +the answer is, "Through the help of God, I will." The priest then asks +the woman: "Wilt thou be obedient to him?" She answers: "I am obedient +according to the order of God." The interrogations are repeated three +times, and three times responded to. + +An Armenian author, M. Ermine, published at Moscow in 1850 a treatise +on the historical and popular songs of ancient Armenia. + +Of popular songs current in more recent times there was not, till +lately, a single specimen within reach of the public, though it was +confidently surmised that such must exist. The Mekhitarist monks have +taken the lead in this as in every other branch of Armenian research, +and my examples are quoted from a small collection issued by their +press at Venice. I am not sure that I have chosen those that are +intrinsically the best, but think that those which figure in these +pages are amongst the most characteristic of their authors and origin. +The larger portion of these songs are printed from manuscripts in the +library of San Lazzaro; the date of their composition is thought +to vary from the end of the thirteenth to the end of the eighteenth +century. The language in which they are written is the vulgar +tongue of Armenia, but in several instances it attains a very close +approximation to the classical Armenian. + +It may not be amiss if I conclude this sketch with a brief account +of the remarkable order of the Mekhitarists, which is so intimately +related with all that bears on the subject of Armenian literature. +Those who are well acquainted with it will not object to hear the +history of this order recapitulated; while I believe that many who +have visited the Convent of San Lazzaro have yet but vague notions +regarding the work and aims of its inmates. It is to be conjectured +that, as a matter of fact, the majority of Englishmen go to San +Lazzaro rather in the spirit of a Byron-pilgrimage than from any +definite interest in the convent; and without doubt were its only +attraction its association with the English poet it would still be +worth a visit. Byron's connection with San Lazzaro was not one of the +least interesting episodes of his life; and it is pleasant to remember +the tranquil hours he spent in the society of the learned monks, and +the fascination exercised over him by their sterling and unpretentious +merit. "The neatness, the comfort, the gentleness, the unaffected +devotion of the brethren of the order," he wrote, "are well fitted to +strike the man of the world with the conviction that there is 'Another +and a better even in this life.'" The desire to present himself with +an excuse for frequent intercourse with the brothers was probably at +the bottom of Byron's sudden discovery that his mind "wanted something +craggy to break upon, and that Armenian was just the thing to torture +it into attention." He says it was the most difficult thing to be +found in Venice by way of an amusement, and describes the Armenian +character as a very "Waterloo of an alphabet." The origin of this +character is exceedingly curious, it being the only alphabet known +to have been the work of a single man, with the exception of the +Georgian, and now obsolete Caucasian Albanian. St Mesrop, an Armenian, +invented all the three about A.D. 406. Byron informs Moore, with some +elation, of the fate that befell a French professorship of Armenian, +which had then been recently instituted: "Twenty pupils presented +themselves on Monday morning, full of noble ardour, ingenuous youth, +and impregnable industry. They persevered with a courage worthy of the +nation, and of universal conquest till Thursday, then _fifteen_ out +of the _twenty_ succumbed to the six-and-twentieth letter of the +alphabet." The poet himself mastered all thirty-three letters, and a +good deal more besides, under the superintendence of the librarian, +Padre Paschal Aucher, a man who combined great learning with much +knowledge of the world. As the result of these studies we have a +translation into Scriptural English of two apocryphal epistles of St +Paul, and an Anglo-Armenian grammar, of which, with characteristic +liberality, Byron defrayed the cost of publication. + +The order was founded by Varthabed Mekhitar, who was born at Sebaste, +in Asia Minor, in 1676. Mekhitar was one of those men to whom it comes +quite naturally to go forth with David's sling and stone against the +Philistine and his host. He could have been scarcely more than twenty +years of age when fearlessly and steadfastly he set himself to the +gigantic task of raising his country out of the stagnant slough of +ignorance in which he saw it sunk. He was then a candidate for holy +orders, studying in an Armenian convent. + +The monks he found no less ignorant than the rest of the population; +those to whom he broached his ideas greeted them with derision, and +this did not fail to turn to cruel persecution when he began to preach +against certain prejudices which appeared to him to keep the Armenians +from conforming with the Latin Church--a union he earnestly desired. +Mekhitar now went to Constantinople, where he set on foot a small +monastic society; presently he moved to Modon, in the Morea, then +under the rule of Venice, but before he had been there long, the place +was seized by the Turks. A few of the monks, with their head, managed +to escape to Venice; the others were taken prisoners, and sold into +a temporary slavery. At Venice, in 1717, the Signory made over to +the fugitives in perpetuity a small barren island in the Lagune, once +tenanted by the Benedictines, who had there established a hospital for +lepers, but which, since the disappearance of that disease, had been +entirely uninhabited. Mekhitar immediately organised a printing +press, and began making translations of standard works, which were +disseminated wherever Armenians were to be found, that is to say, +all over the East. When he died in 1747, the work of the society was +already placed on a solid foundation; but it received considerable +development and extension from the hands of the third abbot-general, +Count Stephen Aconzkover, Archbishop of Sinnia, by birth a member of +an Armenian colony in Hungary, who sought admittance into the order, +and lived in the retirement of San Lazzaro for sixty-seven years. +He was a poet, a scholar of no mean attainments, and the author of +a universal geography in twelve volumes. The Society is now +self-supporting, large numbers of its publications being sold in +Persia, and India, and at Constantinople. These publications consist +of numerous translations and of reproductions of the great part of +Armenian literature. Many works have been printed from MSS. which are +collected by emissaries sent out from San Lazzaro to travel over the +plains and valleys of Armenia for the purpose of rescuing the literary +relics which are widely scattered, and are in constant danger of loss +or destruction, and at the same time to distribute Armenian versions +of the Bible. Another of the undertakings of the convent is a school +exclusively for the education of Armenian boys. About one hundred +boys receive free instruction in the two colleges at Venice. What this +order have effected, both towards the enlightenment of their country +and in keeping alive the sentiment of Armenian nationality, is simply +incalculable. In their self-imposed exile they have nobly carried out +the precept of an Armenian folk-poet: + + Forget not our Armenian nation, + And always assist and protect it. + Always keep in thy mind + To be useful to thy fatherland. + +On my first visit I passed a long summer morning in examining all +the points of interest about the monastery--the house and printing +presses, the library with its beautiful Pali papyrus of the Buddhist +ordination service, and its illuminated manuscripts, the minaretted +chapel, and the silent little Campo Santo, under the direction of +the most courteous and accomplished of cicerones, Padre Giacomo, +Dr Issaverdenz: a name signifying "Jesus-given." I saw the bright, +intelligent band of scholars: "of these," said my conductor, "five or +six will remain with us." I was shown the page of the visitor's book +inscribed with Byron's signature in English and in Armenian. Later +entries form a long roll of royal and notable names. The little museum +contains Daniel Manin's tricolor scarf of office, given to the monks +by the son of that devoted patriot. Queen Margherita does not fail to +pay San Lazzaro a yearly visit, and has lately accepted the dedication +of a book of Armenian church music. + +During this tour of inspection, various topics were discussed: the +tendencies of modern thought, the future of the church, with +other matters of a more personal nature--and upon each my guide's +observations displayed a singularly intellectual and tolerant attitude +of mind, together with a way of looking at things and speaking of +people in which "sweetness and light" were felicitously apparent. It +was difficult to tear oneself away from the open window in Byron's +little study. The day was one of those matchless Venetian days, when +the heat is tempered by a breeze just fresh enough to agitate the +awning of your gondola; and the Molo and Riva, and Fortune's golden +ball on the Dogana, the white San Giorgio Maggiore, the ships eastward +bound, the billowy line of the mountains of Vicenza against the +horizon, lie steeped in a bath of sunshine. But the outlook from the +convent window is not upon these. Beneath are the green berceaux of +a small vineyard, a little garden gay in its tangle of purple +convolvulus, a pomegranate lifting its laden boughs towards us--to +remind the Armenians of the "flowering pomegranates" of their beloved +country. Beyond the vineyard stretches the aquamarine surface of the +lagune--then the interminable reach of Lido--after that the ethereal +blue of the Adriatic melting away into the sky. Such is the scene +which till they die the good monks will have under their eyes. Perhaps +they are rather to be envied than compassionated; for it is manifest +that for them, duty--to use the eloquent expression of an English +divine--has become transfigured into happiness. "I shall stay here +whilst I live," Dr Issaverdenz said, "and I am happy--quite happy!" + + + + +VENETIAN FOLK-SONGS. + + +To the idealised vision that goes along with hereditary culture +a large town may seem an impressive spectacle. For Wordsworth, +worshipper of nature though he was, earth had not anything to show +more fair than London from Westminster Bridge, and Victor Hugo found +endless inspiration on the top of a Parisian omnibus. As shrines of +art, as foci of historic memories, even simply as vast aggregates of +human beings working out the tragi-comedy of life, great cities have +furnished the key-note to much fine poetry. But it is different +with the letterless masses. The student of literature, who turns to +folk-songs in search of a new enjoyment, will meet with little to +attract him in urban rhymes; if there are many that present points +of antiquarian interest, there are few that have any kind of poetic +worth. The people's poetry grows not out of an ideal world of +association and aspiration, but from the springs of their life. They +cannot see with their minds as well as with their eyes. What they do +see in most great towns is the monotonous ugliness which surrounds +their homes and their labour. Then again, it is a well-known fact that +with the people loss of individuality means loss of the power of +song; and where there is density of population there is generally a +uniformity as featureless as that of pebbles on the sea beach. +Still to the rule that folk-poesy is not a thing of town growth one +exception has to be made. Venice, unique under every aspect, has songs +which, if not of the highest, are unquestionably of a high order. The +generalising influences at play in great political centres have hardly +affected the inhabitants of the city which for a thousand years of +independence was a body politic complete in itself. Nor has Venetian +common life lacked those elements of beauty without whose presence the +popular muse is dumb. The very industries of the Venetians were +arts, and when they were young and spiritually teachable, their chief +bread-winning work of every day was Venice--her ducal chapel, her +campanile, her palaces of marble and porphyry. In the process of +making her the delight of after ages, they attended an excellent +school of poetry. + +The gondolier contemporary with Byron was correctly described as +songless. At a date closely coinciding with the overthrow of Venetian +freedom, the boatmen left off waking the echoes of the Grand Canal, +except by those cries of warning which, no one can quite say why, so +thrill and move the hearer. It was no rare thing to find among the +Italians of the Lombardo-Venetian provinces the old pathetic instinct +of keeping silence before the stranger. I recollect a story told me +by one of them. When he was a boy, Antonio--that was his name--had to +make a journey with two young Austrian officers. They took notice of +the lad, who was sprightly and good-looking, and by and by they asked +him to sing. "Canta, canta, il piccolo," said they; "sing us the songs +of Italy." He refused. They insisted, and, coming to a tavern, they +gave him wine, which sent the blood to his head. So at last he said, +"Very well, I will sing you the songs of Italy." What he sang was one +of the most furiously anti-Austrian songs of '48. "Ah! taci, taci il +piccolo!" cried the officers, but the "piccolo" would not be quiet +until he had sung the whole revolutionary repertory. The Austrians +knew how to appreciate the boy's spirit, for they pressed on him a ten +franc piece at parting. + +To return to Venice. In the year 1819 an English traveller asked for +a song of a man who was reported to have once chanted Tasso _alla +barcaruolo_; the old gondolier shook his head. "In times like these," +he said, "he had no heart to sing." Foreign visitors had to fall back +on the beautiful German music, at the sound of which Venetians ran +out of the Piazza, lest they might be seduced by its hated sweetness. +Meanwhile the people went on singing in their own quarters, and away +from the chance of ministering to their masters' amusement. It is +even probable that the moral casemate to which they fled favoured the +preservation of their old ways, that of poetising included. Instead of +aiming at something novel and modern, the Venetian wished to be like +what his fathers were when the flags on St Mark's staffs were not +yellow and black. So, like his fathers, he made songs and sang songs, +of which a good collection has been formed, partly in past years, +and partly since the black-and-yellow standard has given place, +not, indeed, to the conquered emblems of the Greek isles, but to the +colours of Italy, reconquered for herself. + +Venetian folk-poesy begins at the cradle. The baby Venetian, like +most other babies, is assured that he is the most perfect of created +beings. Here and there, underlying the baby nonsense, is a dash of +pathos. "Would you weep if I were dead?" a mother asks, and the child +is made to answer, "How could I help weeping for my own mamma, who +loves me so in her heart?" A child is told that if he asks his mother, +who is standing by the door, "What are you doing there?" she will +reply, "I am waiting for thy father; I wait and wait, and do not see +him coming; I think I shall die thus waiting." The little Venetian has +the failings of baby-kind all the world over; he cries and he laughs +when he ought to be fast asleep. His mother tells him that he was born +to live in Paradise; she is sure that the angels would rejoice in her +darling's beauty. "Sleep well, for thy mother sits near thee," she +sings, "and if by chance I go away, God will watch thee when I am +gone." + +A christening is regarded in Venice as an event of much social as +well as religious importance. By canon law the bonds of relationship +established by godfatherhood count for the same as those of blood, for +which reason the Venetian nobles used to choose a person of inferior +rank to stand sponsor for their children, thus escaping the creation +of ties prohibitive of marriage between persons of their own class. In +this case the material responsibilities of the sponsor were slight--it +was his part to take presents, and not to make them. By way of +acknowledging the new connection, the child's father sent the +godfather a marchpane, that cake of mystic origin which is still +honoured and eaten from Nuremberg to Malaga. With the poor, another +order of things is in force. The _compare de l'anelo_--the person +who acted as groomsman at the marriage--is chosen as sponsor to the +first-born child. His duties begin even before the christening. When +he hears of the child's birth, he gets a piece of meat, a fowl, and +two new-laid eggs, packs them in a basket, and despatches them to +the young mother. Eight days after the birth comes the baptism. On +returning from the church, the sponsor, now called _compare de +San Zuane_, visits the mother, before whom he displays his +presents--twelve or fifteen lire for herself; for the baby a pair of +earrings, if it be a girl; and if a boy, a pair of boy's earrings, +or a single ornament to be worn in the right ear. Henceforth the +godfather is the child's natural guardian next to its parents; and +should they die, he is expected to provide for it. Should the child +die, he must buy the _zogia_ (the "joy"), a wreath of flowers now set +on the coffins of dead infants, but formerly placed on their heads +when they were carried to the grave-isle in full sight of the people. +This last custom led to even more care being given to the toilet of +dead children than what might seem required by decency and affection. +To dress a dead child badly was considered shameful. Tradition tells +of what happened to a woman who was so miserly that she made her +little girl a winding-sheet of rags and tatters. When the night of +the dead came round and all the ghosts went in procession, the injured +babe, instead of going with the rest, tapped at its mother's door and +cried, "Mamma, do you see me? I cannot go in procession because I +am all ragged." Every year on the night of the dead the baby girl +returned to make the same reproach. + +Venetian children say before they go to bed: + + Bona sera ai vivi, + E riposo ai poveri morti; + Bon viagio ai naveganti + E bona note ai tuti quanti. + +There is a sort of touching simplicity in this; and somehow the wish +of peace to the "poor dead" recalls a line of Baudelaire's-- + + Les morts, les pauvres morts, ont de grandes douleurs. + +But as a whole, the rhymes of the Venetian nursery are not +interesting, save from their extreme resemblance to the nursery rhymes +of England, France, or any other European country. They need not, +therefore, detain us. + +Twilight is of an Eastern brevity on the Adriatic shore, both in +nature and in life. The child of yesterday is the man of to-day, and +as soon as the young Venetian discovers that he has a heart, he takes +pains to lose it to a _Tosa_ proportionately youthful. The Venetian +and Provencal word _Tosa_ signifies maiden, though whether the +famous Cima Tosa is thus a sister to the Jungfrau is not sure, some +authorities believing it to bear the more prosaic designation +of baldheaded ("Tonsurata"). Our young Venetian may perhaps be +unacquainted with the girl he has marked out for preference. In any +case he walks up and down or rows up and down assiduously under her +window. One night he will sing to a slow, languorous air--possibly an +operatic air, but so altered as to be not easy of recognition--"I wish +all good to all in this house, to father and to mother and as many as +there be; and to Marieta who is my beloved, she whom you have in +your house." The name of the singer is most likely Nane, for Nane and +Marieta are the commonest names in Venice, which is explained by +the impression that persons so called cannot be bewitched, a serious +advantage in a place where the Black Art is by no means extinct. The +maiden long remembers the night when first her rest was disturbed +by some such greeting as the above. She has rendered account of her +feelings: + + Ah! how mine eyes are weighed in slumber deep! + Now all my life it seems has gone to sleep; + But if a lover passes by the door, + Then seems it this my life will sleep no more. + +It does not do to appropriate a serenade with too much precipitation. +Don Quixote gave it as his experience that no woman would believe that +a poem was written expressly for her unless it made an acrostic on her +name spelt out in full. Venetian damsels proceed with less caution: +hence now and then a sad disappointment. A girl who starts up all +pit-a-pat at the twanging of a guitar may be doomed to hear the cruel +sentence pronounced in Lord Houghton's pretty lyric: + + "I am passing--Preme--but I stay not for you! + Preme--not for you!" + +Even more unkind are the literal words of the Venetian: "If I pass +this way and sing as I pass, think not, fair one, that it is for +you--it is for another love, whose beauty surpasses yours!" + +A brother or a friend occasionally undertakes the serenading. He +is not paid like the professional Trovador whom the Valencian lover +engages to act as his interpreter. He has no reward in view but empty +thanks, and it is scarcely surprising if on damp nights he is inclined +to fall into a rather querulous vein. "My song is meant for the +_Morosa_ of my companion," says one of these accommodating minstrels. +"If only I knew where she was! But he told me that she was somewhere +in here. The rain is wetting me to the skin!" Another exclaims more +cheerfully, "Beautiful angel, if it pleases God, you will become my +sister-in-law!" + +After the singing of the preliminary songs, Nane seeks a hint of the +effect produced on the beloved Marieta. As she comes out of church, +he makes her a most respectful bow, and if it be returned ever so +slightly, he musters up courage, and asks in so many words whether +she will have him. Marieta reflects for about three days; then she +communicates her answer by sign or song. If she does not want him, she +shuts herself up in the house and will not look out for a moment. +Nane begs her to show her face at the window: "Come, oh! come! If thou +comest not 'tis a sign that thou lovest me not; draw my heart out of +all these pangs." Marieta, if she is quite decided, sings back from +behind the half-closed shutters, "You pass this way, and you pass in +vain: in vain you wear out shoes and soles; expect no fair words from +me." It may be that she confesses to not knowing her own mind: "I +should like to be married, but I know not to whom: when Nane passes, I +long to say 'Yes;' when Toni passes, I am fain to look kindly at him; +when Bepi passes, I wish to cry, God bless you!" Or again, it may be +that her heart is not hers to give: + + Wouldst thou my love? For love I have no heart; + I had it once, and gave it once away; + To my first love I gave it on a day ... + Wouldst thou my love? For love I have no heart. + +In the event of the girl intimating that she is disposed to listen to +her _Moroso_ if all goes well, he turns to her parents and formally +asks permission to pay his addresses to their daughter. That +permission is, of course, not always granted. If the parents have +thoughts of a wealthier match, the poor serenader finds himself +unceremoniously sent about his business. A sad state of things ensues. +Marieta steals many a sorrowful glance at the despised Nane, who, on +his side, vents his indignation on the authors of her being in terms +much wanting in respect. "When I behold thee so impassioned," he +cries, "I curse those who have caused this grief; I curse thy papa and +thy mamma, who will not let us make love." No idea is here implied +of dispensing with the parental fiat; the same cannot be said of the +following observations: "When I pass this house, my heart aches. The +girl wills me well, her people will me ill; her people will not hear +of it, nor, indeed, will mine. So we have to make love secretly. But +that cannot really be done. He who wishes for a girl, goes and asks +for her--out of politeness. He who wants to have her, carries her +off." It would seem that the maiden has been known to be the first to +incite rebellion: + + Do, my beloved, as other lovers do, + Go to my father, and ask leave to woo; + And if my father to reply is loth, + Come back to me, for thou hast got my troth. +When the parents have no _prima facie_ objection to the youth, they +set about inquiring whether he bears a good character, and whether +the girl has a real liking for him. These two points cleared up +satisfactorily, they still defer their final answer for some weeks or +months, to make a trial of the suitor and to let the young people get +better acquainted. The lover, borne up by hope, but not yet sure of +his prize, calls to his aid the most effective songs in his repertory. +The last thing at night Marieta hears:-- + + Sleep thou, most fair, in all security, + For I have made me guardian of thy gate, + Safe shalt thou be, for I will watch and wait; + Sleep thou, most fair, in all security. + +The first thing in the morning she is greeted thus: + + Art thou awake, O fairest, dearest, best? + Raise thy blond head and bid thy slumbers fly; + This is the hour thy lover passes by, + Throw him a kiss, and then return to rest. + +If she has any lurking doubts of Nane's constancy she receives the +assurance, "One of these days I will surely make thee my bride--be not +so pensive, fairest angel!" If, on the other hand, Nane lacks complete +confidence in her affection, he appeals to her in words resembling I +know not what Eastern love-song: "Oh, how many steps I have taken to +have thee, and how many more I would take to gain thee! I have taken +so many, many steps that I think thou wilt not forsake me." + +The time of probation over, the girl's parents give a feast, to which +the youth and his parents are invited. He brings with him, as a first +offering, a small ring ornamented with a turquoise or a cornelian. +Being now the acknowledged lover, he may come and openly pay his court +every Sunday. On Saturday Marieta says to herself, "_Ancuo xe sabo, +doman xe festa_--to-morrow is fete day, and to-morrow I expect Nane!" +Then she pictures how he will come "dressed for the _festa_ with a +little flower in his hand;" and her heart beats with impatience. +If, after all, by some chance--who knows? by some faithlessness +perhaps--he fails to appear, what grief, what tears! Marieta's first +thought when she rises on Sunday morning is this: "No one works to-day +for it is _festa_; I pray you come betimes, dearest love!" Then comes +the second thought: "If he does not come betimes, it is a sign that he +is near to death; if later I do not see him, it is a sign that he is +dead." The day passes, evening is here--no Nane! "Vespers sound and +my love comes not; either he is dead, or" (the third and bitterest +thought of all) "a love-thief has stolen him from me!" + +Some little while after the lover has been formally accepted, he +presents the maiden with a plain gold ring called _el segno_, and a +second dinner or supper takes place at her parent's house, answering +to the German betrothal feast; henceforth he is the _sposo_ and she +the _novizza_, and, as in Germany, people look on the pair as very +little less than wedded. The new bride gives the bridegroom a silk +handkerchief, to which allusion is made in a verse running, "What is +that handkerchief you are wearing? Did you steal it or borrow it? I +neither stole it nor borrowed it; my _Morosa_ tied it round my neck." +At Easter the _sposo_ gives a cake and a couple of bottles of Cyprus +or Malaga; at Christmas a box of almond sweetmeats and a little jug +of _mostarda_ (a Venetian _specialite_ composed of quinces dressed in +honey and mustard); at the feast of St Martin, sweet chestnuts; at the +feast of St Mark, _el bocolo_--that is, a rosebud, emblematical of the +opening year. The lover may also employ his generosity on New Year's +day, on the girl's name-day, and on other days not specified, taking +in the whole 365. Some maidens show a decided taste for homage +in kind. "My lover bids me sing, and to please him I will do it," +observes one girl, thus far displaying only the most disinterested +amiability. But presently she reveals her motives: "He has a ring with +a white stone; when I have sung he will give it to me." A less sordid +damsel asks only for a bunch of flowers; it shall be paid for with a +kiss, she says. Certain things there are which may be neither given +nor taken by lovers who would not recklessly tempt fate. Combs are +placed under the ban, for they may be made to serve the purposes of +witchcraft; saintly images and church-books, for they have to do +with trouble and repentance; scissors, for scissors stand for evil +speaking; and needles, for it is the nature of needles to prick. + +Whether through the unwise exchange of these prohibited articles, or +from other causes, it does sometimes happen that the betrothed lovers +who have been hailed by everybody as _novizza_ and _sposo_ yet manage +to fall out beyond any hopes of falling in again. If it is the youth's +fault that the match is broken off, all his presents remain in the +girl's undisputed possession; if the girl is to blame, she must send +back the _segno_ and all else that she has received. It is said that +in some districts of Venetia the young man keeps an accurate account +of whatever he spends on behalf of his betrothed, and in the case of +her growing tired of him, she has to pay double the sum total, besides +defraying the loss incurred by the hours he has sacrificed to her, and +the boots he has worn out in the course of his visits. + +It is more usual, as well as more satisfactory, for the betrothal +to be followed in due time by marriage. After the _segno_ has been +"passed," the _sposo_ sings a new song. "When," asks he, "will be the +day whereon to thy mamma I shall say 'Madona;' to thy papa 'Missier;' +and to thee, darling, 'Wife'?" "Madona" is still the ordinary term for +mother-in-law at Venice; in Tuscan songs the word is also used in that +sense, though it has fallen out of common parlance. Wherever it is +to be found, it points to the days when the house-mother exercised an +unchallenged authority over all members of the family. Even now the +mother-in-law of Italian folk-songs is a formidable personage; to say +the truth, there is no scant measure of self-congratulation when she +happens not to exist. "Oh! Dio del siel, mandeme un ziovenin senza +madona!" is the heartfelt prayer of the Venetian girl. + +If the youth thinks of the wedding day as the occasion of forming new +ties--above all that dearest tie which will give him his _anzola bela_ +for his own--the maiden dreams of it as the _zornada santa_; the day +when she will kneel at the altar and receive the solemn benediction of +the church upon entering into a new station of life. "Ah! when shall +come to pass that holy day, when the priest will say to me, 'Are you +content?' when he shall bless me with the holy water--ah! when shall +it come to pass?" + +It has been noticed that the institution of marriage is not regarded +in a very favourable light by the majority of folk-poets, but Venetian +rhymers as a rule take an encouraging view of it. "He who has a wife," +sings a poet of Chioggia, "lives right merrily _co la sua cara sposa +in compagnia_." Warning voices are not, however, wanting to tell the +maiden that wedded life is not all roses: "You would never want to be +married, my dear, if you knew what it was like," says one such; +while another mutters, "Reflect, girls, reflect, before ye wed these +gallants; on the Ponte di Rialto bird cages are sold." + +The marriage generally comes off on a Sunday. Who weds on Monday +goes mad; Tuesday will bring a bad end; Wednesday is a day good for +nothing; Thursday all manner of witches are abroad; Friday leads to +early death; and, as to Saturday, you must not choose that, _parche de +sabo piove_, "because on Saturday it rains!" + +The bride has two toilets--one for the church, one for the wedding +dinner. At the church she wears a black veil, at the feast she appears +crowned with flowers. After she is dressed and before the bridegroom +arrives, the young girl goes to her father's room and kneeling down +before him, she prays with tears in her eyes to be forgiven whatever +grief she may have caused him. He grants her his pardon and gives her +his blessing. In the early dawn the wedding party go to church either +on foot or in gondolas, for it is customary for the marriage knot to +be tied at the conclusion of the first mass. When the right moment +comes the priest puts the _vera_, or wedding ring, on the tip of the +bride's finger, and the bridegroom pushes it down into its proper +place. If the _vera_ hitches, it is a frightfully bad omen. When once +it is safely adjusted, the best man steps forward and restores to +the bride's middle finger the little ring which formed the lover's +earliest gift; for this reason he is called _compare de l'anelo_, a +style and title he will one day exchange for that of _compare de San +Zuane_. + +At the end of the service the bride returns to her father's house, +where she remains quietly till it is time to get ready for dinner. As +the clock strikes four, the entire wedding party, with the parents +of bride and bridegroom and a host of friends and relations, start in +gondolas for the inn at which the repast is to take place. The whole +population of the _calle_ or _campo_ is there to see their departure, +and to admire or criticise, as the case may be. After dinner, when +everyone has tasted the good wine and enjoyed the good fare, the feast +breaks up with cries of _Viva la novizza!_ followed by songs, stories, +laughter, and much flirtation between the girls and boys, who make the +most of the freedom of intercourse conceded to them in honour of +the day. Then the music begins, the table is whisked away, and the +assembled guests join lustily in the dance; the women perhaps, singing +at intervals, "Enota, enota, enio!" a burden borne over to Venice +from the Grecian shore. The romance is finished; Marieta and Nane are +married, the _zornada santa_ wanes to its close, the tired dancers +accompany the bride to the threshold of her new home, and so adieu! + +Before leaving the subject of Venetian love-songs it may be as well to +glance at a few points characteristic of the popular mind which it has +not been convenient to touch upon in following the Venetian youth and +maiden from the _prima radice_ of their love to its consecration at +the altar. What, for instance, does the Venetian singer say of poverty +and riches?--for there is no surer test of character than the way +of regarding money and the lack of it. It is taken pretty well for +granted at Venice as elsewhere, that inequality of fortune is a bar to +matrimony. The poor girl says to her better-to-do lover, "Thou passest +this way sad and grieving, thou thinkest to speak to my father, and +on thy finger thou dost carry a little ring. But thy thought does not +fall in with my thought, and thy thought is not worth a gazette. Thou +art rich and I am a poor little one!" Here the girl puts all faith in +the good intentions of her suitor: it is not his fault if her poverty +divides them; it is the nature of things, against which there is no +appeal. But there is more than one song that betrays the suspicion +that if a girl grows poor her lover will be only too eager and ready +to desert her. "My lady mother has always told me that she who falls +into poverty loses her lover; loses friend and loses hope. The purse +does not sing when there is no coin in it." Still, on the whole, a +more high-minded view prevails. "Do not look to my being a poor man," +says one lover, + + Che povata no guasta gentilissa, + +--"for poverty does not spoil or prevent gentle manners." A girl +sings, "All tell me that I am poor, the world's honour is my riches; I +am poor, I am of fair fame; poor both of us, let us make love." One is +reminded of "how the good wife taught her daughter" in the old English +poem of the fifteenth century: + + I pray the, my dere childe, loke thou bere the so well + That alle men may seyen thou art so trewe as stele; + Gode name is golde worth, my leve childe! + +A brave little Venetian maiden cries: "How many there are who desire +fortune! and I, poor little thing, desire it not. This is the fortune +I desire, to wed a youth of twenty-one years." One lover pines for +riches, but only that he may offer them to his beloved: "Fair Marieta, +I wish to make my fortune, to go where the Turk has his cradle, and +work myself nearly to death, so that afterwards I may come back to +thee, my fair one, and marry thee." Finally, a town youth says that if +his country love has but a milk-pail for her dowry, what matters? + + De dota la me da quel viso belo! + +The Venetian displays no marked enthusiasm for fair hair, +notwithstanding the fame of Giorgione's sunset heads and the +traditional expedients by which Venetian ladies of past times +sought to bring their dark locks into conformity with that painter's +favourite hue. In Venetian songs there is nothing about the "golden +spun silk" of Sicily; if a Venetian folk-poet does speak of fair hair, +he calls it by the common-place generic term of blond. The available +evidence goes rather to show that in his own heart he prefers a +brunette. "My lady mother always told me that I should never be +enamoured of white roses," says a sententious young man; "she told +me that I should love the little mulberries, which are sweeter than +honey." "Cara mora," _mora_, or mulberry, meaning brunette, is +an ordinary caressing term. Two frank young people carry on this +dialogue: "Will you come to me, fair maid?" "No; I will not come, for +I am fair." "If you are fair, I am no less so; if you are the rose, I +am the spotless lily." Beauty, therefore, is valued, especially by +the possessors of it. But the Venetian admits the possibility of that +which Keats found so hard to comprehend--the love of the plain. A +girl says, and it is a pretty saying, "Se no so bela, ghe piaso al +mio amore" ("If I am not fair, I please my beloved"). A soldier, +whose _morosa_ dies, does not weep for her beauty, for she was not +beautiful; nor for her riches, for she was not rich; he weeps for her +sweet manners and conversation--it was that that made him love her. +The universal weakness for a little flattery from the hand of the +portrait-painter is expressed in a sprightly little song: + + What does it matter if I am not fair, + Who have a lover, who a painter is? + He will portray me like a star, I wis; + What does it matter if I am not fair? + +We hear a good deal of lovers' quarrels, and of the transitoriness of +love. "Oh! God! how the sky is overcast! It seems about to rain, and +then it passes; so is it with a man in love; he loves a fair woman, +and then he leaves her." That is her version of the affair. He has +not anything complimentary to say: "If I get out of this squall alive, +never more shall woman in the world befool me. I have been befooled +upon a pledge of sacred faith: mad is the man who believes in women." +Another man says, with more serious bitterness: "What time have I not +lost in loving you! Had I lost it in saying so many prayers, I should +have found favour before God, and my mother would have blessed me." A +matter-of-fact girl remarks, "No one will grow thin on your account, +nor will any one die on mine." When her lover says that he has sent +her his heart in a basket, she replies that she sends back both basket +and heart, being in want of neither; and if he should really happen to +die, she unfeelingly meditates, "My love is dead, and I have not wept; +I had thought to suffer more torment. A Pope dies, another is made; +not otherwise do I weep for my love." + +Certain vocations are looked upon with suspicion: + + Sailor's trade--at sea to die! + Merchant's trade--that's bankruptcy; + Gambler's trade in cursing ends, + Thief's trade to the gallows sends. + +But in spite of the second line about "l'arte del mercante," a girl +does not much mind marrying a merchant or shopkeeper; nay, it is +sometimes her avowed ambition: + + I want no fisher with a fishy smell, + A market gardener would not suit me well; + Nor yet a mariner who sails the sea: + A fine flour-merchant is the man for me. + +A miller seems to think that he stands a good chance: "Come to the +window, Columbine! I am that miller who brought thee, the other +evening, the pure white flour." Shoemakers are in very bad odour: "I +calegheri ga na trista fama." Fishermen are considered poor penniless +folk, and she who weds a sailor, does so at her peril: + + L'amor del mariner no dura un 'ora, + La dove che lu el va, lu s' inamora. + +And even if the sailor's troth can be trusted, is it not his trade "at +sea to die"? But the young girl will not be persuaded. "All say to me, +'Beauty, do not take the mariner, for he will make thee die;' if he +make me die, so must it be; I will wed him, for he is my soul." And +when he is gone, she sings: "My soul, as thou art beyond the port, +send me word if thou art alive or dead, if the waters of the sea have +taken thee?" She returns sadly to her work, the work of all Venetian +maidens: + + My love is far and far away from me, + I am at home, and he has gone to sea; + He is at sea, and he has sails to spread, + I am at home, and I have beads to thread. + +The boatman's love can afford to sing in a lighter strain; there is +not the shadow of interminable voyages upon her. "I go out on the +balcony, I see Venice, and I see my joy, who starts; I go out on the +balcony, I see the sea, and I see my love, who rows." Another song is +perhaps a statement of fact, though it sounds like a poetic fancy: + + To-night their boats must seek the sea, + One night his boat will linger yet; + They bear a freight of wood, and he + A freight of rose and violet. + +Who forgets the coming into Venice in the early morning light of the +boats laden with fresh flowers and fruit? + +Isaac d'Israeli states that the fishermen's wives of the Lido, +particularly those of the districts of Malamocca and Pelestrina (its +extreme end), sat along the shore in the evenings while the men were +out fishing, and sang stanzas from Tasso and other songs at the +pitch of their voices, going on till each one could distinguish the +responses of her own husband in the distance. + +At first sight the songs of the various Italian provinces appear to be +greatly alike, but at first sight only. Under further examination they +display essential differences, and even the songs which travel all +over Italy almost always receive some distinctive touch of local +colour in the districts where they obtain naturalisation. The Venetian +poet has as strongly marked an identity as any of his fellows. Not +to speak of his having invented the four-lined song known as the +"Vilota," the quality of his work unmistakably reflects his peculiar +idiosyncracies. An Italian writer has said, "nella parola e nello +scritto ognuno imita se stesso;" and the Venetian "imitates himself" +faithfully enough in his verses. He has a well-developed sense of +humour, and his finer wit discerns less objectionable paths than +those of parody and burlesque, for which the Sicilian shows so fatal +a leaning. He is often in a mood of half-playful cynicism; if his +paramount theme is love, he is yet fully inclined to have a laugh at +the expense of the whole race of lovers: + + A feast I will prepare for love to eat, + Non-suited suitors I will ask to dine; + They shall have pain and sorrow for their meat, + They shall have tears and sobs to drink for wine; + And sighs shall be the servitors most fit + To wait at table where the lovers sit. + +As compared with the Tuscan, the Venetian is a confirmed egotist. +While the former well-nigh effaces his individual personality out +of his hymns of adoration, the latter is apt to talk so much of his +private feelings, his wishes, his disappointments, that the idol +stands in danger of being forgotten. There is, indeed, a single +song--the song of one of the despised mariners--which combines +the sweet humility of Tuscan lyrics with a glow and fervour truly +Venetian--possibly its author was in reality some Istriot seaman, for +the _canti popolari_ of Istria are known to partake of both styles. +Anyhow, it may figure here, justified by what seems to me its own +excellence of conception: + + Fair art thou born, but love is not for me; + A sailor's calling sends me forth to sea. + I do desire to paint thee on my sail, + And o'er the briny deep I'd carry thee. + They ask, What ensign? when the boat they hail-- + For woman's love I bear this effigy; + For woman's love, for love of maiden fair; + If her I may not love, I love forswear! + +When he is most in earnest and most excited, the Venetian is still +homely--he has none of the Sicilian's luxuriant imagination. I may +call to mind a remark of Edgar Poe's to the effect that passion +demands a homeliness of expression. Passionate the Venetian poet +certainly is. Never a man was readier to "dare e'en death" at the +behest of his mistress-- + + Wouldst have me die? Then I'll no longer live. + Grant unto me for sepulchre thy bed, + Make me straightway a pillow of thy head, + And with thy mouth one kiss, beloved one, give. + +At Chioggia, where still in the summer evenings _Orlando Furioso_ is +read in the public places, and where artists go in quest of the old +Venetian type, they sing a yet more impassioned little song. + + Oh, Morning Star, I ask of thee this grace, + This only grace I ask of thee, and pray: + The water where thou hast washed thy breast and face, + In kindly pity throw it not away. + Give it to me for medicine; I will take + A draught before I sleep and when I wake; + And if this medicine shall not make me whole, + To earth my body, and to hell my soul! + +It must be added that Venetian folk-poesy lacks the innate sympathy +with all beautiful natural things which pervades the poesy of the +Apennines. This is in part the result of outward conditions: nature, +though splendid, is unvaried at Venice. The temperament of the +Venetian poet explains the rest. If he alludes to the _bel seren con +tante stelle_, it is only to say that "it would be just the night to +run away with somebody"--to which assertion he tacks the disreputable +rider, "he who carries off girls is not called a thief, he is called +an enamoured young man." + +Even in the most lovely and the most poetic of cities you cannot +breathe the pure air of the hills. The Venetian is without the intense +refinement of the Tuscan mountaineer, as he is without his love of +natural beauty. The Tuscan but rarely mentions the beloved one's +name--he respects it as the Eastern mystic respects the name of +the Deity; the Venetian sings it out for the edification of all the +boatmen of the canal. The Tuscan has come to regard a kiss as a thing +too sacred to talk about; the Venetian has as few scruples on the +subject as the poet of Sirmio. Nevertheless, it should be recognised +that a not very blameable unreservedness of speech is the most serious +charge to be brought against all save a small minority of Venetian +singers. I believe that the able and conscientious collector, Signor +Bernoni, has exercised but slight censorship over the mass of songs he +has placed on record, notwithstanding which the number of those that +can be accused of an immoral tendency is extremely limited. Whence it +is to be inferred that the looseness of manners prevailing amongst the +higher classes at Venice in the decadence of the Republic at no time +became general in the lower and sounder strata of society. + +At the beginning of this century, songs that were called Venetian +ballads were very popular in London drawing-rooms. That they were sung +with more effect before those who had never heard them in their own +country than before those who had, will be easily believed. A charming +letter-writer of that time described the contrast made by the gay or +impassioned strain of the poetry to "the stucco face of the statue who +doles it forth;" whilst in Venice, he added, it is seconded by all the +nice inflections of voice, grace of gesture, play of features, that +distinguish Venetian women. One of the Venetian songs which gained +most popularity abroad was the story of the damsel who drops her ring +into the sea, and of the fisherman who fishes it up, refusing all +other reward than a kiss: + + Oh! pescator dell 'onda, + Findelin, + Vieni pescar in qua! + Colla bella sua barca + Colla bella se ne va + Findelin! lin, la! + +But this song is not peculiarly Venetian; it is sung everywhere on the +Adriatic and Mediterranean coasts. And the version used was in pure +Italian. Judged as poetry, the existing Venetian ballads take a +lower place than the _Vilote_. They are often not much removed from +doggerel, as may be shown by a lamentable history which confusedly +suggests Enoch Arden with the moral of "Tue-la:" + + "Who is that knocking at my gates? + Who is that knocking at my door?" + "A London captain 'tis who waits, + Your very humble servitor." + In deshabille the fair one ran, + Straightway the door she opened wide: + "Tell me, my fair one, if you can, + Where does your husband now abide?" + "My husband he has gone to France, + Pray heaven that back he may not come;" + --Just then the fair one gave a glance, + It was her spouse arrived at home! + "Forgive, forgive," the fair one cried, + "Forgive if I have done amiss;" + "There is no pardon," he replied, + For women who have sinned like this." + Her head fell off at the first blow, + The first blow wielded by his sword; + So does just Heaven its anger show + Against the wife who wrongs her lord. + +Venetian songs will serve as a guide to the character, but scarcely +to the opinions, of the Venetians. The long struggle with Austria has +left no other trace than a handful of rough verses dating from the +Siege--mere strings of _Evvivas_ to the dictator and the army. It may +be argued that the fact is not exceptional, that like the _Fratelli +d'ltalia_ of Goffredo Mameli, the war-songs of the Italian movement +were all composed for the people and not by them. Still there have +been genuine folk-poets who have discoursed after their fashion of +_Italia libera_. The Tuscan peasants sang as they stored the olives of +1859-- + + L'amore l'ho in Piamonte, + Bandiera tricolor! + +There is not in Venetian songs an allusion to the national cause so +naively, so caressingly expressive as this. It cannot be that the +Venetian _popolano_ did not care; whenever his love of country was +put to the test, it was found in no way wanting. Was it that to his +positive turn of mind there appeared to be an absence of connection +between politics and poetry? Looking back to the songs of an earlier +period, we find the same habit of ignoring public events. A rhyme, +answering the purpose of our "Ride a cock horse," contains the sole +reference to the wars of Venice with the Porte-- + + Andemo a la guera + Per mare e per tera, + E cataremo i Turchi, + Li mazzaremo tuti, &c. + +In the proverbs, if not in the songs, a somewhat stronger impress +remains of the independent attitude assumed by the Republic in its +dealings with the Vatican. The Venetians denied Papal infallibility +by anticipation in the saying, "The Pope and the countryman know more +than the Pope alone;" and in one line of a nursery ditty, "El Papa no +xe Re," they quietly abolished the temporal power. When Paul V. +laid the city under an interdict, the citizens made answer, "Prima +Veneziani e poi cristiani," a proverb that survives to this day. +"Venetians first" was the first article of faith of these men, or +rather it was to them a vital instinct. Their patriotism was a kind of +magnificent _amour propre_. No modern nation has felt a pride of +state so absorbing, so convinced, so transcendent: a pride which lives +incarnate in the forms and faces of the Venetian senators who look +serenely down on us from the walls of the Art Gallery out of the +company of kings, of saints, of angels, and of such as are higher than +the angels. + +A chance word or phrase now and then accidentally carries us back to +Republican times and institutions. The expression, "Thy thought is not +worth a _gazeta_," occurring in a love-song cited above, reminds us +that the term gazette is derived from a Venetian coin of that name, +value three-quarters of a farthing, which was the fee charged for the +privilege of hearing read aloud the earliest venture in journalism, a +manuscript news-sheet issued once a month at Venice in the sixteenth +century. The figure of speech, "We must have fifty-seven," meaning, +"we are entering on a serious business," has its origin in the +fifty-seven votes necessary to the passing of any weighty measure +in the Venetian Senate. The Venetian adapter of Moliere's favourite +ditty, in lieu of preferring his sweetheart to the "bonne ville de +Paris," prefers her to "the Mint, the Arsenal, and the Bucentaur." +Every one is familiar with the quaint description of the outward +glories of St Mark's Square: + + In St Mark's Place three standards you descry, + And chargers four that seem about to fly; + There is a time-piece which appears a tower, + And there are twelve black men who strike the hour. + +Social prejudices creep in where politics are almost excluded. A group +of _Vilote_ relates to the feud--old as Venice--between the islanders +of San Nicolo and the islanders of Castello, the two sections of the +town east of the Grand Canal, in the first of which stands St Mark's, +in the last the arsenal. The best account of the two factions is +embodied in an ancient poem celebrating the fight that rendered +memorable St Simon's Day, 1521. The anonymous writer tells his tale +with an impartiality that might be envied by greater historians, and +he ends by putting a canto of peaceable advice into the mouth of a +dying champion, who urges his countrymen to dwell in harmony and love +one another as brothers. Are they not made of the same flesh and bone, +children alike of St Mark and his State? + + Tuti a la fin no semio patrioti, + Cresciu in sti campi, ste cale e cantoni? + +The counsel was not taken, and the old rivalry continued unabated, +fostered up to a certain point by the Republic, which saw in it, +amongst other things, a check on the power of the patricians. The +two sides represented the aristocratic and democratic elements of +the population: the Castellani had wealth and birth and fine palaces, +their upper classes monopolised the high offices of State, their lower +classes worked in the arsenal, served as pilots to the men-of-war, and +acted as rowers in the Bucentaur. The better-to-do Nicoloti came off +with a share of the secondary employs, whilst the larger portion of +the San Nicolo folk were poor fishermen. But their sense of personal +dignity was intense. They had a doge of their own, usually an old +sailor, who on high days and holidays sat beside the "renowned prince, +the Duke of Venice." This doge, or _Gastaldo dei Nicoloti_, was +answerable for the conduct of his people, of whom he was at once +superior and equal. "Ti voghi el dose et mi vogo col dose" ("You row +the doge, I row with the doge"), a Nicoloto would say to his rival. +It is easy to see how the party spirit engendered by the old feud +produced a sentiment of independence in even the poorest members +of the community, and how it thus became of great service to the +Republic. Its principal drawback was that of leading to hard blows, +the last occasion of its doing so being St Simon's Day, 1817, when a +fierce local outbreak was severely suppressed by the Austrians. Since +then the contending forces have agreed to dwell in harmony; whether +they love one another as brothers is not so clear. There are songs +still sung in which mutual recrimination takes the form of too strong +language for ears polite. "If a Nicoloto is born, a Count is born; if +a Castellan is born--set up the gallows," is the mildest dictum of a +son of San Nicolo, to which his neighbour replies, "When a Castellan +is born, a god is born; when a Nicoloto is born, a brigand is born." +The feud lingers on even in the matter of love. "Who is that youth who +passes so often?" inquires a girl; "if it be a Castellan, bid him be +off; if it be a Nicoloto, bid him come in." + +On the night of the Redeemer (in July) still takes place what was +perhaps one of the most ancient of Venetian customs. A fantastic +illumination, a bridge of boats, a people's ball, a prize-giving to +the best gondolas, a promiscuous wandering about the public gardens, +these form some of the features of the festival. But its most +remarkable point is the expedition to the Lido at three o'clock in the +morning to see the dawn. As the sun rises from his cradle of eastern +gold, he is greeted by the shout of thousands. Many of the youths leap +into the water and disport themselves like wild creatures of the sea. + +A word in conclusion as to the dialect in which Venetian songs are +composed. The earliest specimen extant consists in the distich-- + + Lom po far e die in pensar + E vega quelo che li po inchiontrar, + +which is to be read on the facade of St Mark's, opposite the ducal +palace. The meaning is, Look before you leap--an adage well suited +to the people who had the reputation of being the most prudent in the +world. This inscription belongs to the twelfth century. There used to +be a song sung at Ascension-tide on the occasion of the marriage of +the doge with the Adriatic, of which the signification of the words +was lost and only the sound preserved. It is a pity that it was never +written out phonetically; for modern scholars would probably have +proved equal to the task of interpreting it, even as they have given +us the secret of the runes on the neck of the Greek lion at the +arsenal. We owe to Dante a line of early Venetian--one of those +tantalising fragments of dialect poems in his posthumous work, _De +Vulgari Eloquentia_--fragments perhaps jotted down with the intention +of copying the full stanzas had he lived to finish the treatise. +Students have long been puzzled by Dante's judgment on the Venetian +dialect, which he said was so harsh that it made the conversation of +a woman resemble that of a man. The greatest master of the Italian +tongue was ruthless in his condemnation of its less perfect forms, +to the knowledge of which he was all the same indebted in no slight +degree. But it must not be overlooked that the question in Dante's day +was whether Italy should have a language or whether the nation should +go on oscillating between Latin and _patois_. For reasons patriotic +and political quite as much as literary, Dante's heart was set on the +adoption of one "illustrious, cardinal, aulic and polite" speech by +the country at large, and to that end he contributed incalculably, +though less by his treatise than by his poem. The involuntary hatred +of _patois_ as an outward sign of disunion has reappeared again in +some of those who in our own time have done and suffered most for +united Italy. Thus I once heard Signor Benedetto Cairoli say: "When +we were children, our mother would on no account let us speak anything +but good Italian." It is possible that Dante's strong feeling on the +subject made him unjust. It is also possible that the Venetian and the +other dialects have undergone a radical change, though this is not so +likely as may at first be supposed. A piece of nonsense written in the +seventeenth century gives an admirable idea of what the popular idiom +was then and is now: + + Mi son tanto inamorao + In dona Nina mia vesina + Che me da gran disciplina, + Che me vedo desparao. + Gnao bao, bao gnao, + Mi son tanto inamorao! + + Mi me sento tanti afani + (Tuti i porto per so amore!) + Che par proprio che sia cani + Ch'al mi cor fazza brusore; + Che da tute quante l'ore + Mi me sento passionao. + Gnao bao, bao gnao, + Mi son tanto inamorao! + +In most respects Venetian would approach closely to standard Italian +were it not for the pronunciation; yet to the uneducated Venetian, +Italian sounds very strange. A maid-servant who had picked up a few +purely Italian words, was found to be under the delusion that she had +been learning English. The Venetian is unable to detect a foreigner by +his accent. An English traveller had been talking for some while to a +woman of Burano, when she asked in all seriousness, "Are you a Roman?" +A deficiency of grammar, a richness in expressive colloquialisms, and +the possession of certain terms of Greek origin, constitute the main +features of the Venetian dialect as it is known to us. It was used by +the Republic in the affairs of state, and it was generally understood +throughout Italy, because, as Evelyn records, all the world repaired +to Venice "to see the folly and madnesse of the Carnevall." With the +exception of Dante, every one seems to have been struck by its merits, +of which the chief, to modern ears, are vivacity and an exceeding +softness. It can boast of much elegant lettered poetry, as well as of +Goldoni's best comedies. To the reading of the latter when a child, +Alfieri traced his particular partiality for "the jargon of the +lagunes." Byron declared that its _naivete_ was always pleasant in +the mouth of a woman, and George Sand mentions it approvingly as "ce +gentil parler Venitien, fait a ce qu'il me semble pour la bouche des +enfants." + + + + +SICILIAN FOLK-SONG. + + +L'Isola del Fuoco--the Isle of Fire, as Dante named it--is singularly +rich in poetic associations. Acis, the sweet wood-born stream, +Galatea, the calm of the summer sea, and how many more flower-children +of a world which had not learned to "look before and after," of a +people who deified nature and naturalised deity, and felt at one with +both, send us thence across the ages the fragrance of their immortal +youth. Our mind's magic lantern shows us Sappho and Alcaeus welcomed +in Sicily as guests, Pindar writing his Sicilian Odes, the mighty +AEschylus, burdened always perhaps with a sorrow--untainted by fretful +anger--because of that slight, sprung from the enthusiasm for the +younger poet, the heat of politics, we know not what, which drove him +forth from Athens: yet withal solaced by the homage paid to his grey +hairs, and not ill-content to die + + On the bank of Gela productive of corn. + +To Sicily we trace the germs of Greek comedy, and the addition of the +epode to the strophe and anti-strophe. We remember the story of how, +when the greatness of Athens had gone to wreck off Syracuse, a few +of the starving slaves in the _latomiae_ were told they were free men, +thanks to their ability to recite passages from Euripides; we remember +also that new story, narrated in English verse, of the adventure which +befell the Rhodian maid Balaustion, on these Sicilian shores, and of +the good stead stood her by the knowledge of _Alcestis_. We think +of Sicily as the birth-place of the Idyllists, the soil which bore +through them an aftermath of Grecian song thick with blossom as the +last autumn yield of Alpine meads. Then by a strange transformation +scene we get a glimpse of Arabian Kasides hymning the beauties of the +Conca d'Oro, and as these disappear, arise the forms of the poets of +whom Petrarch says-- + + ... i Sicilian! + Che fur gia primi + +--those wonderful poet discoverers, more wonderful as discoverers than +as poets, who found out that a new music was to be made in a tongue, +not Latin, nor yet Provencal--a tongue which had grown into life under +the double foster-fathership of Arabian culture and Norman rule, the +_lingua cortigiana_ of the palaces of Palermo, the "common speech" of +Dante. When we recollect how the earliest written essays in Italian +were composed in what once was styled Sicilian, it seems a trifle +unfair for the practical adaptator--in this case as often happens in +the case of individuals--to have so completely borne away the glory +from the original inventor as to cause the latter to be all but +forgotten. We now hear only of the "sweet Tuscan tongue," and even +the pure pronunciation of educated Sicilians is not admitted without +a comment of surprise. But whilst the people of Tuscany quickly +assimilated the _lingua cortigiana_ and made it their own, the people +of Sicily stuck fast to their old wild-flower language, and left +ungathered the gigantic lily nurtured in Palermitan hot-houses and +carried by the great Florentine into heaven and hell. They continued +speaking, not the Sicilian we call Italian, but the Sicilian we call +patois--the Sicilian of the folk-songs. The study of Italic dialects +is one by no means ill-calculated to repay the trouble bestowed +upon it, and that from a point of view not connected with their +philological aspect. How far, or it may be I should say, how soon they +will die out, in presence of the political unity of the country, and +of the general modern tendency towards the adoption of standard forms +of language, it is not quite easy to decide. Were we not aware of the +astonishing rapidity with which dialects, like some other things, may +give way when once the least breach is opened, we might suppose +that those of Italy were good for many hundred years. Even the +upper classes have not yet abandoned them: it is said that there +are deputies at Monte Citorio who find the flow of their ideas sadly +baulked by the parliamentary etiquette which expects them to be +delivered in Italian. And the country-people are still so strongly +attached to their respective idioms as to incline them to believe +that they are the "real right thing," to the disadvantage of all +competitors. Not long ago, a Lombard peasant-woman employed as nurse +to a neuralgic Sicilian gentleman who spoke as correctly as any +Tuscan, assured a third person with whom she chatted in her own +dialect--it was at a bath establishment--that her patient did not know +a single word of Italian! But it is reported that in some parts of +Italy the peasants are beginning to forget their songs; and when +a generation or two has lived through the aera of facile +inter-communication that makes Reggio but two or three days' journey +from Turin, when every full-grown man has served his term of military +service in districts far removed from his home, the vitality of the +various dialects will be put to a severe test. Come when it may, the +change will have in it much that is desirable for Italy: of this there +can be no question; nor can it be disputed that as a whole standard +Italian offers a more complete and plastic medium of expression than +Venetian, or Neapolitan, or Sicilian. Nevertheless, in the mouth of +the people the local dialects have a charm which standard Italian has +not--a charm that consists in clothing their thought after a +fashion which, like the national peasant costumes, has an essential +suitability to the purpose it is used for, and while wanting neither +grace nor richness, suggests no comparisons that can reflect upon it +unfavourably. The naive ditty of a poet of Termini or Partinico is +too much a thing _sui generis_ for it to suffer by contrast with the +faultless finish of a sonnet in _Vita di Madonna Laura_. + +Sicily is notoriously richer in songs than any province of the +mainland; Vigo collected 5000, and the number of those since written +down seems almost incredible. It has even been conjectured that Sicily +was the original fountain-head of Italian popular poetry, and that it +is still the source of the greater part of the songs which circulate +through Italy.[A] Songs that rhyme imperfectly in the Tuscan version +have been found correct when put into Sicilian, a fact which points +to the island as their first home. Dr Pitre, however, deprecates +such speculations as premature, and when so distinguished and so +conscientious an investigator bids us suspend our judgment, we can do +no better than to obey. What can be stated with confidence is, that +popular songs are inveterate travellers, and fly from place to place, +no one knows how, at much the same electrical rate as news spreads +amongst the people--a phenomenon of which the more we convince +ourselves that the only explanation is the commonplace one that lies +on the surface, the more amazing and even mysterious does it appear. + + [Footnote A: "Noi crediamo ... che il Canto popolare italiano + sia nativo di Sicilia. Ne con questo intendiamo asserire che + le plebi delle altre provincie sieno prive di poetica facolta, + e che non vi sieno poesie popolari sorte in altre regioni + italiane, ed ivi cresciute e di la diramate attorno. Ma + crediamo che, nella maggior parte des casi, il Canto abbia per + patria di origine l'Isola, e per patria di adozione la + Toscana: che, nato con veste di dialetto in Sicilia, in + Toscana abbia assunto forma illustre e comune, e con siffatta + veste novella sia migrato nelle altre provincie."--_La Poesia + Popolare Italiana: Studj di Alessandro d'Ancona_, p. 285.] + +As regards the date of the origin of folk-songs in Sicily, the boldest +guess possibly comes nearest the truth, and this takes us back to a +time before Theocritus. Cautious students rest satisfied with adducing +undoubted evidence of their existence as early as the twelfth century, +in the reign of William II., whose court was famed for "good speakers +in rhyme of _every condition_." Moreover, it is certain that Sicilian +songs had begun to travel orally and in writing to the Continent +considerably before the invention of printing; and it is not unlikely +that many _canzuni_ now current in the island could lay claim to an +antiquity of at least six or seven hundred years. Folk-songs change +much less than might at first sight be expected in the course of their +transmission from father to son, from century to century; and some +among the songs still popular in Sicily have been discovered written +down in old manuscripts in a form almost identical to that in which +they are sung to-day. Although the methodical collection of folk-songs +is a thing but recently undertaken, the fact of there being such songs +in Sicily was long ago perfectly well known. An English traveller +writing in the last century remarks, that "the whole nation are poets, +even the peasants, and a man stands a poor chance for a mistress that +is not capable of celebrating her." He goes on to say, that happily in +the matter of serenades the obligations of a chivalrous lover are not +so onerous as they were in the days of the Spaniards, when a fair +dame would frown upon the most devoted swain who had not a cold in his +head--the presumed proof of his having dutifully spent the night "with +the heavens for his house, the stars for his shelter, the damp earth +for his mattress, and for pillow a harsh thistle"--to borrow the exact +words of a folk-poet. + +One class of folk-songs may be fairly trusted to speak for themselves +as to the date of their composition, namely, that which deals with +historical facts and personages. Until lately the songs of Italy were +believed, with the exception of Piedmont, to be of an exclusively +lyrical character; but fresh researches, and, above all, the +unremitting and enthusiastic efforts of Signor Salvatore +Salomone-Marino, have brought to light a goodly quantity of Sicilian +songs in which the Greek, Arabian, Norman, and Angevin denominations +all come in for their share of commemoration. And that the authors +of these songs spoke of the present, not of the past, is a natural +inference, when actual observation certifies that such is the +invariable custom of living folk-poets. For the people events soon +pass into a misty perspective, and the folk-poet is a sort of people's +journalist; he makes his song as the contributor to a newspaper writes +his leading article, about the matter uppermost for the moment in +men's minds, whether it be important or trivial. In 1860 he sang +of "the bringers of the tricolor," the "milli famusi guirreri," and +"Aribaldi lu libiraturi." In 1868 he joked over the grand innovation +by which "the poor folk of the piazza were sent to Paradise in a fine +coach," _i.e._, the substitution, by order of the municipality of +Palermo, of first, second, and third class funeral cars in lieu of the +old system of bearers. In 1870 he was very curious about the eclipse +which had been predicted. "We shall see if God confirms this news that +the learned tell us, of the war there is going to be between the moon +and the sun," says he, discreetly careful not to tie himself down to +too much faith or too much distrust. Then, when the eclipse has +duly taken place, his admiration knows no bounds. "What heads--what +beautiful minds God gives these learned men!" he cries; "what grace +is granted to man that he can read even the thoughts of God!" The +Franco-German war inspired a great many poets, who displayed, at all +events in the first stages of the struggle, a strong predilection for +the German side. All these songs long survive the period of the events +they allude to, and help materially to keep their memory alive; but +for a new song to be composed on an incident ten years old, would +simply argue that its author was not a folk-poet at all, in the strict +sense of the word. The great majority of the historical songs are +short, detached pieces, bearing no relation to each other; but now and +then we come upon a group of stanzas which suggest the idea of their +having once formed part of a consecutive whole; and in one instance, +that of the historical legend of the Baronessa di Carini, the +assembled fragments approach the proportions of a popular epic. But +it is doubtful whether this poem--for so we may call it--is thoroughly +popular in origin, though the people have completely adopted it, and +account it "the most beautiful and most dolorous of all the histories +and songs," thinking all the more of it in consequence of the profound +secrecy with which it has been preserved out of fear of provoking +the wrath of a powerful Sicilian family, very roughly handled by its +author. + +Of religious songs there are a vast number in Sicily, and the stock is +perpetually fed by the pious rhyme tournaments held in celebration of +notable saints' days at the village fairs. On such occasions the image +or relics of the saints are exhibited in the public square, and +the competitors, the assembled poetic talent of the neighbourhood, +proceed, one after the other, to improvise verses in his honour. If +they succeed in gaining the suffrage of their audience, which may +amount to five or six thousand persons, they go home liberally +rewarded. Along with these saintly eulogiums may be mentioned a style +of composition more ancient than edifying--the Sicilian parodies. +A pious or complimentary song is travestied into a piece of coarse +abuse, or a sample of that unblushing, astounding irreverence which +sometimes startles the most hardened sceptic, travelling in countries +where the empire of Catholicism has been least shaken--in Tyrol, +for instance, and in Spain. We cannot be sure whether the Sicilian +parodist deliberately intends to be profane, or is only indifferent as +to what weapons he uses in his eagerness to cast ridicule upon a rival +versifier--the last hypothesis seems to me to be the most plausible; +but it takes nothing from the significance of his profanity as it +stands. It is pleasant to turn from these several sections of Sicilian +verse, which, though valuable in helping us to know the people from +whom they spring, for the most part have but small merits when judged +as poetry, to the stream of genuine song which flows side by side with +them: a stream, fresh, clear, pure: a poesy always true in its artless +art, generally bright and ingenious in its imagery, sometimes tersely +felicitous in its expression. In his love lyrics, and but rarely save +in them, the Sicilian _popolano_ rises from the rhymester to the poet. + +The most characteristic forms of the love-songs of Sicily are those of +the _ciuri_, called in Tuscany _stornelli_, and the _canzuni_, called +in Tuscany _rispetti_. The _ciuri_ (flowers) are couplets or triplets +beginning with the name of a flower, with which the other line +or lines should rhyme. They abound throughout the island, and +notwithstanding the poor estimation in which the peasants hold them, +and the difficulty of persuading them that they are worth putting +on record, a very dainty compliment--just the thing to figure on +a valentine--may often be found compressed into their diminutive +compass. To turn such airy nothings into a language foreign and +uncongenial to them, is like manipulating a soap-bubble: the bubble +vanishes, and we have only a little soapy water left in the hollow +of our hand: a simile which unhappily is not far from holding good of +attempts at translating any species of Italian popular poetry. It +is true that in _Fra Lippo Lippi_ there are two or three charming +imitations of the _stornello_; but, then, Mr Browning is the poet who, +of all others, has got most inside of the Italian mind. Here is an +_aubade_, which will give a notion of the unsubstantial stuff the +_ciuri_ are made of: + + Rosa marina, + Lucinu l'alba e la stidda Diana: + Lu cantu e fattu, addui, duci Rusina. + +"Rose of the sea, the dawn and the star Diana are shining: the song is +done, farewell sweet Rosina." + +One of these flower-poets, invoking the Violet by way of heading, +tells his love that "all men who look on her forget their sorrows;" +another takes his oath that she outrivals sun, and moon, and stars. +"Jasmine of Araby," cries a third, "when thou art not near, I am +consumed by rage." A fourth says, "White floweret, before thy door I +make a great weeping." A fifth, night and day, bewails his evil fate. +A sixth observes that he has been singing for five hours, but that +he might just as well sing to the wind. A seventh feels the thorns +of jealousy. An eighth asks, "Who knows if Rosa will not listen to +another lover?" A ninth exclaims, + + Flower of the night, + Whoever wills me ill shall die to-night! + +With which ominous sentiment I will leave the _ciuri_, and pass on +to the yet more interesting _canzuni_: little poems, usually in eight +lines, of which there are so many thousand graceful specimens that it +is embarrassing to have to make a selection. + +Despite the wide gulf which separates lettered from illiterate poetry, +it is curious to note the not unfrequent coincidence between the +thought of the ignorant peasant bard and that of cultured poets. In +particular, we are now and then reminded of the pretty conceits of +Herrick, and also of the blithe paganism, the happy unconsciousness +that "Pan is dead," which lay in the nature of that most incongruous +of country parsons. Thus we find a parallel to "Gather ye Rosebuds:" + + Sweet, let us pick the fresh and opening rose, + Which doth each charm of form and hue display: + Hard by the margent of yon font it blows, + Mid guarding thorns and many a tufted spray; + And in yourself while springtide freshly glows, + Dear heart, with some sweet bloom my love repay: + Soon winter comes, all flowers to nip and close, + Nor love itself can hinder time's decay. + +No poet is more determined to deal out his compliments in a liberal, +open-handed way than is the Sicilian. While the Venetians and the +Tuscans are content with claiming seven distinctive beauties for +the object of their affection, the Sicilian boldly asserts that his +_bedda_ possesses no less than thirty-three _biddizzi_. In the same +manner, when he is about sending his salutations, he sends them +without stint: + + Many the stars that sparkle in the sky, + Many the grains of sand and pebbles small; + And in the ocean's plains the finny fry + And leaves that flourish in the woods and fall, + Countless earth's human hordes that live and die, + The flowers that wake to life at April's call, + And all the fruits the summer heats supply-- + My greetings sent to thee out-number all. + +On some rare occasions the incident which suggested the song may be +gathered from the lips of the person who recites it. In one case we +are told that a certain sailor, on his return from a long voyage, +hastened to the house of his betrothed, to bid her prepare for the +wedding. But he was met by the mother-in-law elect, who told him to go +his way, for his love was dead--the truth being that she had meanwhile +married a shoemaker. One fine day the disconsolate sailor had the not +unmixed gratification of seeing her alive and well, looking out of her +husband's house, and that night he sang her a reproachful serenade, +inquiring wherefore she had hidden from him, that though dead to him +she lived for another? This deceived mariner must have been a +rather exceptional individual, for although there are baker-poets, +carpenter-poets, waggoner-poets, poets in short of almost every branch +of labour and humble trade, a sailor-poet is not often to be heard of. +Dr Pitre remarks that sailors pick up foreign songs in their voyages, +mostly English and American, and come home inclined to look down upon +the folk-songs and singers of their native land. + +The serenades and aubades are among the most delicate and elegant of +all the _canzuni d'amuri_; this is one, which contains a favourite +fancy of peasant lovers: + + Life of my life, who art my spirit and soul, + By no suspicions be nor doubts oppressed, + Love me, and scorn false jealousy's control-- + I not a thousand hearts have in my breast, + I had but one, and gave to thee the whole. + Come then and see, if thou the truth wouldst test, + Instead of my own heart, my love, my soul, + Thou wilt thine image find within my breast! + +Another poet treats somewhat the same idea in a drolly realistic way-- + + Last night I dreamt we both were dead, + And, love! beside each other laid. + Doctors and Surgeons filled the place + To make autopsy of the case-- + Knives, scissors, saws, with eager zest + Of each laid open wide the breast:-- + Dumfounded then was every one, + Yours held two hearts, but mine had none! + +The _canzuni_ differ very much as to adherence to the strict laws of +rhyme and metre; more often than not assonants are readily accepted in +place of rhymes, and their entire absence has been thought to cast a +suspicion of education on the author of a song. One truly illiterate +living folk-poet was, however, heard severely to criticise some of the +printed _canzuni_ which were read aloud to him, on just this ground of +irregularity of metre and rhyme. His name is Salvatore Calafiore, and +he was employed a few years ago in a foundry at Palermo, where he was +known among the workmen as "the poet." Being very poor, and having a +young wife and family to support, he bethought himself of appealing to +the proprietor of the foundry for a rise of wages, but the expedient +was hazardous: those who made complaints ran a great chance of getting +nothing by it save dismissal. So he offered up his petition in a +little poem to this effect: "As the poor little hungry serpent comes +out of its hole in search of food, heeding not the risk of being +crushed, thus Calafiore, timorous and hard-pressed, O most just sir, +asks of you help!" Calafiore was once asked what he knew about the +classical characters whose names he introduced into his poems: he +answered that some one had told him of them who knew little more of +them than he did. He added that "Jove was God of heaven, Apollo god of +music, Venus the planet of love, Cicero a good orator." On the whole, +the folk-poets are not very lavish in mythological allusion; when they +do make it, it is ordinarily fairly appropriate. "Wherever thou dost +place thy feet," runs a Borgetto _canzuna_, "carnations and roses, +and a thousand divers flowers, are born. My beautiful one, the goddess +Venus has promised thee seven and twenty things--new gardens, new +heavens, new songs of birds in the spot where thou dost take thy +rest." The Siren is one of the ancient myths most in favour: at +Partinico they sing: + + Within her sea-girt home the Siren dwells + And lures the spell-bound sailor with her lay, + Amid the shoals the fated bark compels + Or holds upon the reef a willing prey, + None ever 'scape her toils, while sinks and swells + Her rhythmic chant at close and break of day-- + Thou, Maiden, art the Siren of the sea, + Who with thy songs dost hold and fetter me. + +It is rarely indeed that we can trace a couple of these lyrics to the +same brain--we may not say "to the same hand," for the folk-poet's +hand is taken up with striking the anvil or guiding the plough; to +more intellectual uses he does not put it--yet expressing as they do +emotions which are not only the same at bottom, but are here felt and +regarded in precisely the same way, there results so much unity of +design and execution, that, as we read, unawares the songs weave +themselves into slight pastoral idylls--typical peasant romances in +which real _contadini_ speak to us of the new life wrought in them +by love. Even the repeated mention of the Sicilian diminutives of +the names of Salvatore and Rosina helps the illusion that a thread of +personal identity connects together many of the fugitive _canzuni_. +Thus we are tempted to imagine Turiddu and Rusidda as a pair of lovers +dwelling in the sunny Conca d'Oro--he "so sweet and beautiful a youth, +that God himself must surely have fashioned him"--a youth with "black +and laughing eyes, and a little mouth from whence drops honey:" she a +maiden of + + ... quattordicianni, + L'occhi cilestri e li capiddi biunni-- + +"fourteen years, celestial eyes, blonde hair;" to see her long tresses +"shining like gold spun by the angels," one would think "that she +had just fallen out of Paradise." "She is fairer than the foam of the +sea"-- + + "My little Rose in January born, + Born in the month of cold and drifted snow, + Its whiteness stays thy beauty to adorn, + Nought than thy velvet skin more white can show. + Thou art the star that shines, tho' bright the morn, + And casts on all around a silver glow." + +But Rusidda's mother will have nothing to say to poor Turiddu; he +complains, "Ah! God, what grief to have a tongue and not to be able to +speak; to see her and dare not make any sign! Ah, God in heaven, and +Virgin Mary, tell me what I am to do? I look at her, she looks at me, +neither I nor she can say a word!" Then an idea strikes him; he gets a +friend to take her a message: "When we pass each other in the street, +we must not let the folk see that we are in love, but you will lower +your eyes and I will lower my head; this shall be our way of saluting +one another. Every saint has his day, we must await ours." Encouraged +by this stratagem, Turiddu grows bold, and one dark night, when none +can see who it is, he serenades his "little Rose:" + + "Sleep, sleep, my hope, yea sleep, nor be afraid, + Sleep, sleep, my hope, in confidence serene, + For if we both in the same scales be weighed, + But little difference will be found between. + Have you for me unfeigned love displayed, + My love for you shall greater still be seen. + If we could both in the same scales be weighed, + But small the difference would be found between." + +He does not think the song nearly good enough for her: "I know not +what song I can sing that is worthy of you," he says: he wishes he +were "a goldfinch or a nightingale, and had no equal for singing;" or, +better still, he would fain "have an angel come and sing her a song +that had never before been heard of out Paradise," for in Paradise +alone can a song be found appropriate to her. One day (it is Rusidda's +fete-day), Turiddu makes a little poem, and says in it: "All in roses +would I be clad, for I am in love with roses; I would have palaces +and little houses of roses, and a ship with roses decked, and a little +staircase all of roses, which I the fortunate one would ascend; but +ere I go up it, I wish to say to you, my darling, that for you I +languish." He watches her go to church: "how beautiful she is! Her air +is that of a noble lady!" The mother lingers behind with her gossips, +and Turiddu whispers to Rusidda, "All but the crown you look like a +queen." She answers: "If there rode hither a king with his crown who +said, 'I should like to place it on your head,' I should say this +little word, 'I want Turiddu, I want no crown.'" Turiddu tells her he +is sick from melancholy: "it is a sickness which the doctors cannot +cure, and you and I both suffer from it. It will only go away the day +we go to church together." + +But there seems no prospect of their getting married; Turiddu sends +his love four sighs, "e tutti quattru suspiri d'amuri:" + + "Four sighs I breathe and send thee, + Which from my heart love forces; + Health with the first attend thee, + The next our love discourses; + The third a kiss comes stealing; + The fourth before thee kneeling; + And all hard fate accusing + Thee to my sight refusing." + +And now he has to go upon a long journey; but before he starts he +contrives one meeting with Rusidda. "Though I shall no longer see +you, we yet may hope, for death is the only real parting," he says. "I +would have you constant, firm, and faithful; I would have you faithful +even unto death." She answers, "If I should die, still would my spirit +stay with you." A year passes; on Rusidda's _festa_ a letter arrives +from Turiddu: "Go, letter mine, written in my blood, go to my dear +delight; happy paper! you will touch the white hand of my love. I am +far away, and cannot speak to her; paper, do you speak for me." + +At last Turiddu returns--but where is Rusidda? "Ye stars that are in +the infinite heavens, give me news of my love!" + +Through the night "he wanders like the moon," he wanders seeking his +love. In his path he encounters Brown Death. "Seek her no more," says +this one; "I have her under the sod. If you do not believe me, my fine +fellow, go to San Francesco, and take up the stone of the sepulchre: +there you will find her." ... Alas! "love begins with sweetness and +ends in bitterness." + +The Sicilian's "Beautiful ideal" would seem to be the white rose +rather than the red, in accordance, perhaps, with the rule that makes +the uncommon always the most prized; or it may be, from a perception +of that touch of the unearthly, that pale radiance which gives the +fair Southerner a look of closer kinship with the pensive Madonna +gazing out of her aureole in the wayside shrine, than with the dark +damsels of the more predominant type. Some such angelical association +attached to golden heads has possibly disposed the Sicilian +folk-poet towards thinking too little of the national black eyes and +olive-carnation colouring. Not that brunettes are wholly without +their singers; one of these has even the courage to say that since his +_bedda_ is brown and the moon is white, it is plain that the moon must +leave the field vanquished. One dark beauty of Termini shows that she +is quite equal to standing up for herself. "You say that I am black?" +she cries, "and what of that? Black writing looks well on white paper, +black spices are worth more than white curds, and while dusky wine +is drunk in a glass goblet, the snow melts away unregarded in the +ditch."[1] But the apologetic, albeit spirited tone of this protest, +indicates pretty clearly that the popular voice gives the palm to +milk-white and snowy faced maidens; the possessors of _capiddi biunni_ +and _capidduzzi d'oru_ have no need to defend their charms, a hundred +canzuni proclaim them irresistible. "Before everything I am enamoured +of thy blonde tresses," says one lyrist. The luxuriant hair of the +Sicilian women is proverbial. A story is told how, when once Palermo +was about to surrender to the Saracens because there were no more +bowstrings in the town, an abundant supply was suddenly produced by +the patriotic dames cutting off their long locks and turning them to +this purpose. The deed so inspired the Palermitan warriors that they +speedily drove the enemy back, and the siege was raised. A gallant +poet adds: "The hair of our ladies is still employed in the same +office, but now it discharges no other shafts but those of Cupid, and +the only cords it forms are cords of love." + +In the early morning, almost all the year round the women may be +seen sitting before their doors undoing and doing up again this long +abundant hair. The chief part of their domestic work they perform out +in the sunshine; one thing only, but that the most important of all, +has to be done in the house--the never finished task of weaving the +clothes of the family. From earliest girlhood to past middle age the +Sicilian women spend many hours every day at the loom. A woman +of eighty, Rosa Cataldi of Borgetto, made the noble boast to +Salomone-Marino: "I have clothed with stuff woven by my hands from +fourteen to fifty years, myself, my brothers, my children, and their +children." A girl who cannot, or will not, weave is not likely to +find a husband. As they ply the shuttle, the women hardly cease from +singing, and many, and excellent also, are the songs composed in +praise of the active workers. The girl, not yet affianced, who is +weaving perhaps her modest marriage clothes, may hear, coming up from +the street, the first avowal of love: + + Ciuri d'aranci. + Bedda, tu tessi e tessennu mi vinci; + Bedda, tu canti, e lu me' cori chianci. + +It has been said that love begins with sweetness and ends in +bitterness. What a fine world it would be were Brown Death the only +agent in the bitter end of love! It is not so. Rusidda, who dies, is +possibly more fortunate than Rusidda who is married. When bride +and bridegroom return from the marriage rite, the husband sometimes +solemnly strikes his wife in presence of the assembled guests as a +sign of his henceforth unlimited authority. The symbol has but too +great appropriateness. Even in what may be called a happy marriage, +there is a formality akin to estrangement, once the knot is tied. +Husband and wife say "voi" to each other, talking to a third person, +they speak of one another as "he" and "she," as "mio cristiano," and +"mia cristiana," never as "my husband" and "my wife." The wife sits +down to table with the husband, but she scrupulously waits for him to +begin first, and takes tiny mouthfuls as if she were ashamed of eating +before him. Then, if the husband be out of humour, or if he thinks +that the wife does not work hard enough (an "enough" which can +never be reached), the nuptial blow is repeated in sad and miserable +earnest. The woman will not even weep; she bears all in silence, +saying meekly afterwards, "We women are always in the wrong, the +husband is the husband, he has a right even to kill us since we live +by him." These things have been recorded by one who loves the Sicilian +peasant, and who has defended him against many unfounded charges. A +hard case it would be for wedded Rusidda if she had not her songs and +the sun to console her. + +All the _canzuni_ that have been quoted are, so far as can be judged, +of strictly popular origin, nor is there any sign of continental +derivation in their wording or shape. Several, however, are the +common property of most of the Italian provinces. There is a charming +Vicentine version of "The Siren," and the "Four Sighs" makes its +appearance in Tuscany under a dress of pure Italian. Has Sicily, +then, a right to the honour of their invention? There is a +strong presumption that it has. On the other hand, there are some +Sicilianized songs of plainly foreign birth, which shows that if the +island gave much to the peninsula, it has had at least something back +in return. There is a third category, comprising the songs of the +Lombard colonies of Piazza and San Fratello, which have a purely +accidental connection with Sicily. The founders of this community were +Lombards or Longobards, who were attracted to Sicily somewhere in +the eleventh century, either by the fine climate and the demand for +soldiers of fortune, or by the marriage of Adelaide of Monferrato with +Count Roger of Hauteville. But what is far more curious than how or +why they came, is the circumstance of the extraordinary isolation in +which they seem to have lived, and their preservation to this day of +a dialect analogous with that spoken at Monferrato. In this dialect +there exist a good many songs, but a full collection of them has yet +to be made. + +Besides the _ciuri_ and _canzuni_, there is another style of +love-song, very highly esteemed by the Sicilian peasantry, and that +is the _aria_. When a peasant youth serenades his _'nnamurata_ with an +_aria_, he pays her by common consent the most consummate compliment +that lies in his power. The _arii_ are songs of four or more +stanzas--a form which is not so germane to the Sicilian folk-poet as +that of the _canzuna_; and, although he does use it occasionally, +it may be suspected that he more often adapts a lettered or foreign +_aria_ than composes a new one. An aria is nothing unless sung to a +guitar accompaniment, and is heard to great advantage when performed +by the barbers, who are in the habit of whiling away their idle hours +with that instrument. The Sicilian (lettered) poet, Giovanni Meli, +has written some admirable _arii_, many of which have become popular +songs. + +Meli's name is as oddly yoked with the title of _abate_ as Herrick's +with the designation of clergyman. He does not seem, as a matter of +fact, to have ever been an _abate_ at all. Once, when dining with a +person influential at court, his host inquired why he did not ask to +be appointed to a rich benefice then vacant. "Because," he replied, "I +am not a priest." And it appeared that when a young man he had adopted +the clerical habit for no other reason than that he intended to +practise medicine, and wished to gain access to convents, and to make +himself acceptable to the nuns. It was not an uncommon thing to do. +The public generally dubbed him with the ecclesiastical title. Not +long before his death, in 1815, he actually assumed the lesser orders, +and in true Sicilian fashion, wrote some verses to his powerful friend +to beg him to get him preferment, but he died too soon after to profit +by the result. The Sicilians are very proud of Meli. It is for them +alone probably to find much pleasure in his occasional odes--to others +their noble sentiments will be rather suggestive of the _sinfonia +eroica_ played on a flute; but the charm and lightness of his +Anacreontic poems must be recognised by all who care for poetry. He +had a nice feeling for nature too, as is shown in a sonnet of rare +beauty: + + Ye gentle hills, with intercepting vales, + Ye rocks with musk and clinging ivy dight; + Ye sparkling falls of water, silvery pale, + Still meres, and brooks that babble in the light; + Deep chasms, wooded steeps that heaven assail, + Unfruitful rushes, broom with blossoms bright, + And ancient trunks, encased in gnarled mail, + And caves adorned with crystal stalactite; + Thou solitary bird of plaintive song, + Echo that all dost hear, and then repeat, + Frail vines upheld by stately elms and strong, + And silent mist, and shade, and dim retreat; + Welcome me! tranquil scenes for which I long-- + The friend of haunts where peace and quiet meet. + +I must not omit to say a word about a class of songs which, in +Sicily as elsewhere, affords the most curious illustration of the +universality of certain branches of folk-lore--I mean the nursery +rhymes. One instance of this will serve for all. Sicilian nurses play +a sort of game on the babies' features, which consists in lightly +touching nose, mouth, eyes, &c., giving a caressing slap to the chin, +and repeating at the same time-- + + Varvaruttedu, + Vucca d'aneddu, + Nasu affilatu, + Occhi di stiddi, + Frunti quatrata, + E te' cca 'na timpulata! + +Now this rhyme has not only its counterpart in the local dialect of +every Italian province, but also in most European languages. In France +they have it: + + Beau front, + Petits yeux, + Nez cancan, + Bouche d'argent, + Menton fleuri, + Chichirichi. + +We find a similar doggerel in Germany, and in England, as most people +know, there are at least two versions, one being-- + + Eye winker, + Tom Tinker, + Nose dropper. + Mouth eater, + Chinchopper, + Chinchopper. + +Of more intrinsic interest than this ubiquitous old nurse's nonsense +are the Sicilian cradle songs, in some of which there may also +be traced a family likeness with the corresponding songs of other +nations. As soon as the little Sicilian gets up in the morning he is +made to say-- + + While I lay in my bed five saints stood by; + Three at the head, two at the foot--in the midst was Jesus Christ. + +The Greek-speaking peasants of Terra d'Otranto have a song somewhat +after the same plan: + + I lay me down to sleep in my little bed; I lay me down to + sleep with my Mamma Mary: the Mamma Mary goes hence and leaves + me Christ to keep me company. + +Very tender is the four-line Sicilian hushaby, in which the proud +mother says-- + + How beautiful my son is in his swaddling clothes; just think + what he will be when he is big! Sleep, my babe, for the angel + passes: he takes from thee heaviness, and he leaves thee + slumber. + +There is in Vigo's collection a lullaby so exquisite in its blended +echoes from the cradle and the grave that it makes one wish for two +great masters in the pathos of childish things, such as Blake and +Schumann, to translate and set it to music. It is called "The Widow." + + Sweet, my child, in slumber lie, + Father's dead, is dead and gone. + Sleep then, sleep, my little son, + Sleep, my son, and lullaby. + + Thou for kisses dost not cry, + Which thy cheeks he heaped upon. + Sleep then, sleep, my pretty one, + Sleep, my child, and lullaby. + + We are lonely, thou and I, + And with grief and fear I faint. + Sleep then, sleep, my little saint, + Sleep, my child, and lullaby. + + Why dost weep? No father nigh. + Ah, my God! tears break his rest. + Darling, nestle to my breast, + Sleep, my child, and lullaby. + +Very scant information is to be had regarding the Sicilian folk-poets +of the past; with one exception their names and personalities have +almost wholly slipped out of the memory of the people, and that +exception is full three parts a myth. If you ask a Sicilian popolano +who was the chief and master of all rustic poets, he will promptly +answer, "Pietro Fullone;" and he will tell you a string of stories +about the poetic quarry-workman, dissolute in youth, devout in +old age, whose fame was as great as his fortune was small, and who +addressed a troop of admiring strangers who had travelled to Palermo +to visit him, and were surprised to find him in rags, in the following +dignified strain: + + Beneath these pilgrim weeds so coarse and worn + A heart may still be found of priceless worth. + The rose is ever coupled to the thorn. + The spotless lily springs from blackest earth. + Rubies and precious stones are only born + Amidst the rugged rocks, uncouth and swarth. + Then wonder not though till the end I wear + Nought but this pilgrim raiment poor and bare. + +Unfortunately nothing is more sure than that the real Pietro Fullone, +who lived in the 17th century, and published some volumes of poetry, +mostly religious, had as little to do with this legendary Fullone as +can well be imagined. It is credible that he may have begun life as +a quarry workman and ignorant poet, as tradition reports; but it is +neither credible that a tithe of the _canzuna_ attributed to him +are by the same author as the writer of the printed and distinctly +lettered poems which bear his name, nor that the bulk of the anecdotes +which profess to relate to him have any other foundation than that of +popular fiction. But though we hear but little, and cannot trust the +little we hear, of the folk-poet of times gone by, for us to +become intimately acquainted with him, we have only to go to his +representative, who lives and poetizes at the present moment. In +this or that Sicilian hamlet there is a man known by the name of "the +Poet," or perhaps "the Goldfinch." He is completely illiterate and +belongs to the poorest class; he is a blacksmith, a fisherman, or +a tiller of the soil. If he has the gift of improvisation, his +fellow-villagers have the satisfaction of hearing him applauded by the +Great Public--the dwellers in all the surrounding hamlets assembled at +the fair on St John's Eve. Or it may be he is of a meditative turn of +mind, and makes his poetry leisurely as he lies full length under +the lemon-trees taking his noontide rest. Should you pass by, it is +unlikely he will give himself the trouble of lifting his eyes: He +could not say the alphabet to save his life; but the beautiful earth +and skies and sea which he has looked on every day since he was born +have taught him some things not learnt in school. The little poem he +has made in his head is indeed a humble sort of poetry, but it is not +unworthy of the praise it gets from the neighbours who come dropping +into his cottage door, uninvited, but sure of a friendly welcome next +Sunday after mass, their errand being to find out if the rumour is +true that "the Goldfinch" has invented a fresh _canzuna_? + +Such is the peasant poet of to-day; such he was five hundred or a +thousand years ago. He presents a not unlovely picture of a stage in +civilisation which is not ours. To-morrow it will not be his either; +he will learn to read and write; he will taste the fruit of the Tree +of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as it grows in our great centres +of intellectual activity; he will begin to "look before and after." +Still, he will do all this in his own way, not in our way, and so much +of his childhood having clung to him in youth, it follows that his +youth will not wholly depart from him in manhood. Through all the +wonderfully mixed vicissitudes of his country the Sicilian has +preserved an unique continuity of spiritual life; Christianity +itself brought him to the brink of no moral cataclysm like that which +engulfed the Norseman when he forsook Odin and Thor for the White +Christ. It may therefore be anticipated that the new epoch he is +entering upon will modify, not change his character. That he has +remained outside of it so long, is due rather to the conditions under +which he has lived than to the man; for the Sicilian grasps new ideas +with an almost alarming rapidity when once he gets hold of them; +of all quick Italians he is the quickest of apprehension. This very +intelligence of his, called into action by the lawlessness of his +rulers and by ages of political tyranny and social oppression, has +enabled him to accomplish that systemization of crime which at one +time bred the Society of the Blessed Pauls, and now is manifested in +the Mafia. You cannot do any business harmless or harmful, you +cannot buy or sell, beg or steal, without feeling the hand of an +unacknowledged but ever present power which decides for you what you +are to do, and levies a tax on whatever profit you may get out of +the transaction. If a costermonger sells a melon for less than the +established price, his fellows consider that they are only executing +the laws of their real masters when they make him pay for his temerity +with his life. The wife of an English naval officer went with her maid +to the market at Palermo, and asked the price of a fish which, it was +stated, cost two francs. She passed on to another stall where a fish +of the same sort was offered her for 1.50. She said she would buy it, +and took out of her purse a note for five _lire_, which she gave the +vendor to change. Meanwhile, unobserved, the first man had come up +behind them, and no sooner was the bargain concluded, than he whipped +a knife out of his pocket, and in a moment more would have plunged it +in the second man's breast, had not the lady pushed back his arm, +and cried by some sudden inspiration, "Wait, he has not given me my +change!" No imaginable words would have served their purpose so well; +the man dropped the knife, burst out laughing, and exclaimed: "Che +coraggio!" The brave Englishwoman nearly fainted when she returned +home. Her husband asked what was the matter, to which she answered: "I +have saved a man's life, and I have no idea how I did it." + +Something has been done to lessen the hereditary evil, but the cure +has yet to come. It behoves the Sicilians of a near future to stamp +out this plague spot on the face of their beautiful island, and thus +allow it to garner the full harvest of prosperity lying in its mineral +wealth and in the incomparable fertility of its soil. That it is only +too probable that the people will lose their lyre in proportion as +they learn their letters is a poor reason for us to bid them stand +still while the world moves on; human progress is rarely achieved +without some sacrifices--the one sacrifice we may not make, whatever +be the apparent gain, is that of truth and the pursuit of it. + + [Footnote 1: So Virgil: + + "Alba ligustra cadunt, vaccinia nigra leguntur." + ] + + + + +GREEK SONGS OF CALABRIA. + + +That the connecting link between Calabria and Greece was at one time +completely cut in two, is an assumption which is commonly made, but +it is scarcely a proved fact. What happened to the Italian Greeks on +their surrender to Rome? In a few instances they certainly disappeared +with extreme rapidity. Aristoxenus, the peripatetic musician, relates +of the Poseidonians--"whose fate it was, having been originally Greek, +to be barbarised, becoming Tuscans or Romans," that they still met to +keep one annual festival, at which, after commemorating their ancient +customs, they wept together over their lost nationality. This is +the pathetic record of men who could not hope. In a little while, +Poseidonia was an obscure Roman town famous only for its beautiful +roses. But the process of "barbarisation" was not everywhere so swift. +Along the coast-line from Rhegium to Tarentum, Magna Graecia, in the +strict use of the term, the people are known to have clung so long +to their old language and their old conditions of life that it is at +least open to doubt if they were not clinging to them still when it +came to be again a habit with Greeks to seek an Italian home. In the +ninth and tenth centuries the tide of Byzantine supremacy swept into +Calabria from Constantinople, only, however, to subside almost as +suddenly as it advanced. Once more history well-nigh loses sight of +the Greeks of Italy. Yet at a moment of critical importance to modern +learning their existence was honourably felt. Petrarch's friend and +master, Barlaam, who carried the forgotten knowledge of Homer across +the Alps, was by birth a Calabrian. In Barlaam's day there were large +communities of Greeks both in Calabria and in Terra d'Otranto. A +steady decrease from then till now has brought their numbers down to +about 22,800 souls in all. These few survivors speak a language which +is substantially the same as modern Greek, with the exceptions that it +is naturally affected by the surrounding Italic dialects and that it +contains hardly a Turkish or a Sclavonic word. Their precise origin is +still a subject of conjecture. Soon after Niebuhr had hailed them as +Magna Graecians pure and simple, they were pronounced offhand to be +quite recent immigrants; then the date of their arrival was assigned +to the reign of the first or second Basil; and lastly there is a +growing tendency to push it back still further and even to admit that +some strain of the blood of the original colonists may have entered +into the elements of their descent. On the whole, it seems easier to +believe that though their idiom was divided from the Romaic, it yet +underwent much the same series of modifications, than to suppose them +to have been in Greece when the language of that country was saturated +with Sclavonic phrases, which have only been partly weeded out within +the last thirty years. + +Henry Swinburne visited the Greek settlements in 1780 or thereabouts, +but like most of his contemporaries he mixes up the Greek with the +Albanians, of whom there are considerable colonies in Calabria, dating +from the death of Skanderbeg. Even in this century a German savant +was assured at Naples that the so-called Greeks were one and all +Albanians. The confusion is not taken as a compliment. No one has +stayed in the Hellenic kingdom without noticing the pride that goes +along with the name of Greek--a pride which it is excusable to smile +at, but which yet has both its touching and its practical aspect, for +it has remade a nation. The Greeks of Southern Italy have always had +their share of a like feeling. "We are not ashamed of our race, +Greeks we are, and we glory in it," wrote De Ferraris, a Greek born +at Galatone in 1444, and the words would be warmly endorsed by the +enlightened citizens of Bova and Ammendolea, who quarrel as to which +of the two places gave birth to Praxiteles. The letterless classes do +not understand the grounds of the Magna Graecian pretensions, but they +too have a vague pleasure in calling themselves Greek and a vague idea +of superiority over their "Latin" fellow-countrymen. "Wake up," sings +the peasant of Martignano in Terra d'Otranto, "wake up early to hear a +Grecian lay, so that the Latins may not learn it." + + Fsunna, fsunna, na cusi ena sonetto + Grico, na mi to matun i Latini. + +Bova is the chief place in Calabria where Greek survives. The +inhabitants call it "Vua," or simply "Hora." The word "hora," _the +city_, is applied by the Greeks of Terra d'Otranto to that part of +their hamlets which an Englishman would call "the old village." It is +not generally known that "city" is used in an identical sense by old +country-folks in the English Eastern counties. The Bovesi make a third +of the whole Greek-speaking population of Calabria, and Bova has the +dignity of being an episcopal seat, though its bishop has moved his +residence to the Marina, a sort of seaside suburb, five miles distant +from the town. Thirty years ago the ecclesiastical authorities were +already agitating for the transfer, but the people opposed it till the +completion of the railway to Reggio and the opening of a station at +the Marina di Bova settled the case against them. The cathedral, the +four or five lesser churches, the citadel, even the Ghetto, all tell +of the unwritten age of Bova's prosperity. Old street-names perpetuate +the memory of the familiar spirits of the place; the Lamiae who lived +in a particular quarter, the _Fullitto_ who frequented the lane under +the cathedral wall. Ignoring Praxiteles, the poorer Bovesi set faith +in a tradition that their ancestors dwelt on the coast, and that it +was in consequence of Saracenic incursions that they abandoned their +homes and built a town on the crags of Aspromonte near the lofty +pastures to which herds of cattle (_bovi_) were driven in the summer. +The name of Bova would thus be accounted for, and its site bears out +the idea that it was chosen as a refuge. The little Greek city hangs +in air. To more than one traveller toiling up to it by the old Reggio +route it has seemed suggestive of an optical delusion. There is +refreshment to be had on the way: a feast for the sight in pink and +white flowers of gigantic oleanders; a feast for the taste in the +sweet and perfumed fruit of the wild vine. Still it is disturbing +to see your destination suspended above your head at a distance that +seems to get longer instead of shorter. Some comfort may be got from +hearing Greek spoken at Ammendolea, itself an eyrie, and again at +Condufuri. A last, long, resolute effort brings you, in spite of your +forebodings, to Bova, real as far as stones and fountains, men and +women, and lightly-clothed children can make it; yet still half a +dream, you think, when you sit on the terrace at sunset and look +across the blue Ionian to the outline, unbroken from base to crown, of +"Snowy AEtna, nurse of endless frost, the prop of heaven." + +There is plenty of activity among the Greeks of Calabria Ultra. Many +of them contrive to get a livelihood out of the chase; game of +every sort abounds, and wolves are not extinct. In the mountaineers' +cottages, which shelter a remarkable range of animals, an infant wolf +sometimes lies down with a tame sheep; whilst on the table hops a +domesticated eagle, taken when young from its nest in defiance of +the stones dropped upon the robber by the outraged parent-birds. The +peasants till the soil, sow corn, plant vegetables, harvest the olives +and grapes, gather the prickly pears, make cheese, tend cattle, and +are wise in the care of hives. It is a kind of wisdom of which their +race has ever had the secret. The Greek Calabrians love bees as they +were loved by the idyllic poets. "Ehi tin cardia to melissa" ("he has +the heart of a bee"), is said of a kindly and helpful man. Sicilian +Hybla cannot have yielded more excellent honey than Bova and +Ammendolea. It is sad to think of, but it is stated on good authority +that the people of those lofty cities quarrel over their honey as much +as about Praxiteles. Somehow envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness +find a way into the best of real idylls. You may live at the top of +a mountain and cordially detest your neighbour. The folk of Condufuri +greet the folk of Bova as Vutani dogs, which is answered by the +epithet of Spesi-spasu, all the more disagreeable because nobody knows +what it means. In Terra d'Otranto the dwellers in the various Greek +hamlets call each other thieves, asses, simpletons, and necromancers. +The Italian peasants are inclined to class Greeks and Albanians alike +in the category of "Turchi," and though the word Turk, as used by +Italians, in some cases simply means foreign, it is a questionable +term to apply to individuals. The Greeks, with curious scorn, are +content to fling back the charge of Latin blood. + +When the day's work is done, comes the frugal evening meal; a dish of +_ricotta_, a glass of wine and snow. Wine is cheap in Calabria, where +the finest variety is of a white sweet kind called _Greco_; and the +heights of Aspromonte provide a supply of frozen snow, which is a +necessary rather than a luxury in this climate. About the hour of +Avemmaria the bagpipers approach. In the mountains the flocks +follow the wild notes of the "Zampogna" or "Ceramedda," unerringly +distinguishing the music of their own shepherd. A visit from the +Zampognari to hill-town, or village sets all the world on the alert. +There is gossiping, and dancing, and the singing of songs, in which +expression takes the place of air. Two young men sing together, +without accompaniment, or one sings alone, accompanied by bagpipe, +violin, and guitar. So the evening passes by, till the moon rises and +turns the brief, early darkness into a more glorified day. The little +hum of human sound dies in the silence of the hills; only perhaps a +single clear, sweet voice prolongs the monotone of love. + +The Italian complimentary alphabet is unknown to the Greek poets. The +person whom they address is not apostrophised as Beauty or Beloved, +or star, or angel, or _Fior eterno_, or _Delicatella mia_. They do not +carry about ready for use a pocketful of poetic-sugared rose-leaves, +nor have they the art of making each word serve as an act of homage or +a caress. It is true that "caxedda," a word that occurs frequently in +their songs, has been resolved by etymologists into "pupil of my eye;" +but for the people it means simply "maiden." The Greek Calabrian gives +one the impression of rarely saying a thing because it is a pretty +thing to say. If he treats a fanciful idea, he presents it, as it +were, in the rough. Take for instance the following:-- + + Oh! were I earth, and thou didst tread on me, + Or of thy shoe the sole, this too were sweet! + Or were I just the dress that covers thee, + So might I fall entangling round thy feet. + Were I the crock, and thou didst strike on me, + And we two stooped to catch the waters fleet; + Or were I just the dress that covers thee, + So without me thou couldst not cross the street. + +Here the fancy is the mere servant of the thought behind it. The lover +does not figure himself as the fly on the cheek of his mistress, or +the flower on her breast. There is no intrinsic prettiness in the +common earth or the common water-vessel, in the sole of a worn shoe, +or in a workaday gown. + +It cannot be pretended that the Greek is so advanced in untaught +culture as some of his Italian brothers; in fact there are specimens +of the _Sonetto Grico_ which are so bald and prosaic that the "Latins" +might not be at much pains to learn them even were they sung at +noonday. The Titianesque glow which illuminates the plain materials +of Venetian song must not be looked for. What will be found +in Graeco-Calabrian poesy is a strong appearance of sincerity, +supplemented at times by an almost startling revelation of tender and +chivalrous feeling. To these Greek poets of Calabria love is another +name for self-sacrifice. "I marvel how so fair a face can have a heart +so tyrannous, in that thou bearest thyself so haughtily towards me, +while for thee I take no rest; and thou dost as thou wilt, because +I love thee--if needs be that I should pour out my blood with all my +heart for thee, I will do it." This is love which discerns in its own +depths the cause of its defeat. A reproach suggestive of Heine in +its mocking bitterness changes in less than a moment to a cry of +despairing entreaty-- + + I know you love me not, say what you may, + I'll not believe, no, no, my faithless one; + With all the rest I see you laugh and play, + 'Tis only I, I only whom you shun. + Ah, could I follow where you lead the way: + The obstinate thoughts upon your traces run + Make me a feint of love, though you have none, + For I must think upon you night and day. + +The scene is easily pictured: the bravery of words at meeting, all the +just displeasure of many a day bursting forth; then the cessation of +anger in the beloved presence and the final unconditional surrender. A +lighter mood succeeds, but love's royal clemency is still the text: + + Say, little girl, what have I done to thee, + What have I done to thee that thou art dumb? + Oft wouldst thou seek me once, such friends were we, + But now thou goest away whene'er I come. + If thou hast missed in aught, why quick, confess it, + For thee this heart will all, yes all, forgive; + If miss be mine, contrive that I should guess it; + And soon the thing shall finish, as I live! + +The dutiful lover rings all the changes on humble remonstrance: + + I go where I may see thee all alone, + So I may kneel before thee on the ground, + And ask of thee how is it that unknown + Unto thy heart is every prick and wound? + Canst thou not see that e'en my breath is flown, + Thinking of thee while still the days go round? + If thou wouldst not that I should quickly die, + Love only me and bid the rest good-bye. + +He might as well speak to the winds or to the stones, and he admits +as much. "Whensoever I pass I sing to make thee glad; if I do not come +for a few hours I send thee a greeting with my eyes. But thou dost act +the deaf and likewise the dumb: pity thou hast none for my tears." +If he fails to fulfil his prophecy of dying outright, at any rate he +falls into the old age of youth, which arrives as soon as the bank of +hope breaks: + + Come night, come day, one only thought have I, + Which graven on my heart must ever stay; + Grey grows my hair and dismal age draws nigh, + Wilt thou not cease the tyrant's part to play? + Thou seem'st a very Turk for cruelty, + Of Barbary a very Turk I say; + I know not why thy love thou dost deny, + Or why with hate my love thou dost repay. + +This may be compared with a song taken down from the mouth of a +peasant near Reggio, an amusing illustration of the kind of thing in +favour with Calabrian herdsmen:-- + + Angelical thou art and not terrene, + Who dost kings' wives excel in loveliness! + Thou art a pearl, or Grecian Helen, I ween, + For whom Troy town was brought to sore distress; + Thine are the locks which graced the Magdalene, + Lucrece of Rome did scarce thy worth possess: + If thou art pitiless to me, oh, my Queen, + No Christian thou, a Turk, and nothing less! + +A glance at the daughter of Greek Calabria will throw some light on +the plaints of her devoted suitors. The name she bears = _Dihatera_, +brings directly to mind the Sanskrit _Duhita_; and the vocation of the +Graeco-Calabrian girl is often as purely pastoral as that of the Aryan +milkmaid who stood sponsor for so large a part of maidenhood in +Asia and in Europe. She is sent out into the hills to keep sheep; a +circumstance not ignored by the shepherd lad who sits in the shade and +trills on his treble reed. Ewe's milk is as much esteemed as in the +days of Theocritus; it forms the staple of the inevitable _ricotta_. +In the house the Greek damsel never has her hands idle. She knows how +to make the mysterious cakes and comfits, for which the stranger is +bound to have as large an appetite in Calabria as in the isles of +Greece. A light heart lightens her work, whatever it be. "You sit on +the doorstep and laugh as you wind the reels, then you go to the +loom, _e ecinda magna travudia travudia_" ("and sing those beautiful +songs"). So says the ill-starred poet, who discovers to his cost that +it is just this inexhaustible merriment that lends a sharp edge to +maiden cruelty. "I have loved you since you were a little thing, never +can you leave my heart; you bound me with a light chain; my mind +and your mind were one. Now,"--such is the melancholy outcome of it +all--"now you are a perfect little fox to me, while you will join in +any frolic with the others." The fair tyrant develops an originality +of thought which surprises her best friends: "Ever since you were +beloved, you have always an idea and an opinion!" It is beyond human +power to account for her caprices: "You are like a fay in the rainbow, +showing not one colour, but a thousand." When trouble comes to her as +it comes to all--when she has a slight experience of the pain she +is so ready to inflict--she does not meekly bow her head and suffer. +"Manamu," cries a girl who seems to have been neglected for some one +of higher stature. "Mother mine, I have got a little letter, and all +sorts of despair. _She_ is tall, and _I_ am little, and I have not the +power to tear her in pieces!"--as she has probably torn the sheet of +paper which brought the unwelcome intelligence. She goes on to say +that she will put up a vow in a chapel, so as to be enabled to do +some personal, but not clearly explained damage to the cause of her +misfortunes. There is nothing new under the sun; the word "anathema" +originally meant a votive offering: one of those execratory tablets, +deposited in the sacred places, by means of which the ancient Greeks +committed their enemies to the wrath of the Infernal Goddesses. Mr +Newton has shown that it was the gentler sex which availed itself, by +far the most earnestly, of the privilege. Most likely our Lady of Hate +in Brittany would have the same tale to tell. Impotence seeks strange +ways to compass its revenge. + +In some extremities the lover has recourse, not indeed to anathemas, +but to irony. "I am not a reed," he protests, "that where you bend me +I should go; nor am I a leaf, that you should move me with a breath." +Then, after observing that poison has been poured on his fevered +vitals, he exclaims, "Give your love to others, and just see if they +will love you as I do!" One poet has arrived at the conclusion that +all the women of a particular street in Bova are hopelessly false: +"Did you ever see a shepherd wolf, or a fox minding chickens, or a pig +planting lettuces, or an ox, as sacristan, snuffing out tapers with +his horns? As soon will you find a woman of Cuveddi who keeps her +faith." Another begins his song with sympathy, but ends by uttering a +somewhat severe warning: + + Alas, alas! my heart it bleeds to see + How now thou goest along disconsolate; + And in thy sorrow I no help can be-- + My own poor heart is in a piteous state. + Come with sweet words--ah! come and doctor me, + And lift from off my heart this dolorous weight. + If thou come not, then none can pardon thee: + Go not to Rome for shrift; it is too late. + +The Calabrian Greek has more than his share of the pangs of unrequited +love; that it is so he assures us with an iteration that must prove +convincing. Still, some balm is left in Gilead. Even at Bova there +are maidens who do not think it essential to their dignity to act the +_role_ of Eunica. The poorest herdsman, the humblest shepherd, has a +chance of getting listened to; a poor, bare chance perhaps, but one +which unlocks the door to as much of happiness as there is in the +world. At least the accepted lover in the mountains of Calabria would +be unwilling to admit that there exists a greater felicity than his. +If he goes without shoes, still "love is enough:" + + Little I murmur against my load of woe-- + Our love will never fail, nor yet decline; + For to behold thy form contents me so, + To see thee laugh with those red lips of thine. + Dost thou say not a word when past I go? + This of thy love for me is most sure sign; + Our love will no decline or failing know + Till in the sky the sun shall cease to shine. + +Karro, the day-labourer (to whom we will give the credit of inventing +this song), would not, if he could, put one jot of his burden on +Filomena of the Red Lips. Provided she laughs, he is sufficiently +blest. It so happens that Filomena is his master's granddaughter; +hence, alas! the need of silence as the sign of love. The wealthy old +peasant has sworn that the child of his dead son shall never wed a +penniless lad, who might have starved last winter if he had not given +him work to do, out of sheer charity. Karro comes to a desperate +resolution: he will go down to Reggio and make his fortune. When he +thinks it over, he feels quite confident of success: other folks have +brought back lots of money to Bova out of the great world, and why +should not he? In the early morning he calls Filomena to bid her a +cheerful farewell: + + Come hither! run! thy friend must go away; + Come with a kiss--the time is flying fast. + Sure am I thou thy word wilt not betray, + And for remembrance' sake my heart thou hast. + Weep not because I leave thee for a day-- + Nay, do not weep, for it will soon be past; + And, I advise thee, heed not if they say, + "Journeys like this long years are wont to last." + +Down at Reggio, Karro makes much poetry, and, were it not for his +defective education, one might think that he had been studying Byron: + + If I am forced far from thine eyes to go, + Doubt not, ah! never doubt my constancy; + The very truth I tell, if thou wouldst know-- + Distance makes stronger my fidelity. + On my sure faith how shouldst thou not rely? + How think through distance I can faithless grow? + Remember how I loved thee, and reply + If distance love like mine can overthrow. + +The fact is that he has not found fortune-making quite so quick a +business as he had hoped. To the sun he says, when it rises, "O Sun! +thou that travellest from east to west, if thou shouldst see her whom +I love, greet her from me, and see if she shall laugh. If she asks how +I fare, tell her that many are my ills; if she asks not this of thee, +never can I be consoled." One day, in the market place, he meets a +friend of his, Toto Sgro, who has come from Bova with wine to sell. +Here is an opportunity of safely sending a _sonetto_ to the red-lipped +Filomena. The public letter-writer is resorted to. This functionary +gets out the stock of deep pink paper which is kept expressly in the +intention of enamoured clients, and says gravely "Proceed." "An imme +larga an' du lucchiu tu dicussu," begins Karro. "Pray use a tongue +known to Christians," interposes the scribe. Toto Sgro, who is +present, remarks in Greek that such insolence should be punished; but +Karro counsels peace, and racks his brains for a poem in the Calabrese +dialect. Most of the men of Bova can poetize in two languages. The +poem, which is produced after a moderate amount of labour, turns +chiefly on the idle talk of mischief-makers, who are sure to insinuate +that the absent are in the wrong. "The tongue of people is evil +speaking; it murmurs more than the water of the stream; it babbles +more than the water of the sea. But what ill can folks say of us if we +love each other? I love thee eternally. Love me, Filomena, and think +nothing about it." + + Amame, Filomena, e nu' pensare! + +Towards spring-time, Karro goes to Scilla to help in the sword-fish +taking; it is a bad year, and the venture does not succeed. He nearly +loses courage--fate seems so thoroughly against him. Just then he +hears a piece of news: at the _osteria_ there is an _Inglese_ who has +set his mind on the possession of a live wolf cub. "Mad, quite mad, +like all _Inglesi_," is the comment of the inhabitants of Scilla. +"Who ever heard of taking a live wolf?" Karro, as a mountaineer, sees +matters in a different light. Forthwith he has an interview with the +Englishman; then he vanishes from the scene for two months. "Poveru +giuvinetto," says the host at the inn, "he has been caught by an +old wolf instead of catching a young one!" At the end of the time, +however, Karro limps up to the door with an injured leg, and hardly +a rag left to cover him; but carrying on his back a sack holding two +wolf cubs, unhurt and tame as kittens. The gratified _Inglese_ gives a +bountiful reward; he is not the first of his race who has acted as the +_deus ex machina_ of a love-play on an Italian stage. Nothing remains +to be done but for Karro to hasten back to Bova. Yet a kind of +uneasiness mixes with his joy. What has Filomena been doing and +thinking all this while! He holds his heart in suspense at the sight +of her beauty: + + In all the world fair women met my gaze, + But none I saw who could with thee compare; + I saw the dames whom most the Rhegians praise, + And by the thought of thee they seemed not fair. + When thou art dressed to take the morning air + The sun stands still in wonder and amaze; + If thou shouldst scorn thy love of other days, + I go a wanderer, I know not where. + +The story ends well. Filomena proves as faithful as she is fair; +Karro's leg is quickly cured, and the old man gives his consent to the +marriage--nay more, feeble as he is now, he is glad to hand over the +whole management of the farm to his son-in-law. Thus the young couple +start in life with the three inestimable blessings which a Greek poet +reckons as representing the sum total of human prosperity: a full +granary, a dairy-house to make cheese in, and a fine pig. + +In collections of Tuscan and Sicilian songs it is common to find a +goodly number placed under the heading "Delle loro bellezze." The +Greek songs of Calabria that exactly answer to this description +are few. A new Zeuxis might successfully paint an unseen Tuscan or +Sicilian girl--local Anacreons by the score would give him the needful +details: the colour of the hair and eyes, the height, complexion, +breadth of shoulders, smallness of waist; nor would they forget to +mention the nobility of pose and carriage, _il leggiadro portamento +altero_, which is the crowning gift of women south of the Alps. It can +be recognized at once that the poets of Sicily and Tuscany have not +merely a vague admiration for beauty in general; they have an innate +artistic perception of what goes to constitute the particular form +of beauty before their eyes. Poorer in words and ideas, the Greek +Calabrian hardly knows what to say of his beloved, except that she is +_dulce ridentem_, "sweetly-laughing," and that she has small red lips, +between which he is sure that she must carry honey-- + + To meli ferri s' ettunda hilucia ... + +He seems scarcely to notice whether she is fair or dark. Fortunately +it is not impossible to fill in the blank spaces in the picture. The +old Greek stamp has left a deep impression at home and abroad. Where +there were Greeks there are still men and women whose features are +cut, not moulded, and who have a peculiar symmetry of form, which is +not less characteristic though it has been less discussed. A friend +of mine, who accompanied the Expedition of the Thousand, was struck +by the conformity of the standard of proportion to be observed in the +women of certain country districts in Sicily with the rule followed in +Greek sculpture; it is a pity that the subject is not taken in hand +by some one who has more time to give to it than a volunteer on the +march. I have said "men _or_ women," for it is a strange fact that the +heritage of Greek beauty seems to fall to only one sex at a time. At +Athens and in Cyprus young men may be seen who would have done credit +to the gymnasia, but never a handsome girl; whilst at Arles, in +Sicily, and in Greek Calabria the women are easily first in the race. +The typical Graeco-Calabrian maiden has soft light hair, a fairness of +skin which no summer heats can stain, and the straight outline of a +statue. There is another pattern of beauty in Calabria: low forehead, +straight, strongly-marked eyebrows, dark, blue, serious eyes, lithe +figure, elastic step. Place beside the women of the last type a man +dyed copper-colour, with black, lank locks, and the startled look of +a wild animal. The Greeks have many dark faces, and many ugly faces, +too; for that matter, uncompromising plainness was always amongst the +possibilities of an Hellenic physiognomy. But the beautiful dark girl +and her lank-locked companion do not belong to them. Whom they do +belong to is an open question; perhaps to those early Brettians who +dwelt in the forest of the Syla, despised by the Greeks as savages, +and docketed by the Romans, without rhyme or reason, as the +descendants of escaped criminals. Calabria offers an inviting field +to the ethnologist. It is probable that the juxtaposition of various +races has not led in any commensurate degree to a mixture of +blood. Each commune is a unit perpetually reformed out of the same +constituents. Till lately intermarriage was carried to such a pitch +that it was rare to meet with a man in a village who was not closely +related to every other inhabitant of it. + +The Greeks of Terra d'Otranto bear a strong physical resemblance to +the Greeks of Calabria Ultra. It is fifty or sixty years since the +Hon. R. Keppel Craven remarked a "striking regularity of feature and +beauty of complexion" in the women of Martano and Calimera. At Martano +they have a pretty song in praise of some incomparable maid: + + My Sun, where art thou going? Stay to see + How passing beautiful is she I love. + My Sun, that round and round the world dost move, + Hast thou seen any beautiful as she? + My Sun, that hast the whole world travelled round, + One beautiful as she thou hast not found! + +Next to his lady's laughter, the South Italian Greek worships the sun. +It is the only feature in nature to which he pays much heed. In common +with other forms of modern Greek the Calabrian possesses the beautiful +periphrase for sunset, _o iglio vasileggui_ ([Greek: ho helios +basileuei]). Language, which is altogether a kind of poetry, has not +anything more profoundly poetic. There is a brisk, lively ring in the +"Sun up!" of the American Far West; but an intellectual Atlantic flows +between it and the Greek ascription of kingship, of heroship, to the +Day-giver at the end of his course-- + + Wie herrlich die Sonne dort untergeht, + So stirbt ein Held! Anbetungswuerdig! + +When we were young, were not our hearts stirred to their inmost depths +by this? + +The love-songs of Bova include one composed by a young man who had the +ill-luck to get into prison. "Remember," he says, "the words I spoke +to thee when we were seated on the grass; for the love of Christ, +remember them, so as not to make my life a torment. Think not that I +shall stay in here for ever; already I have completed one day. But if +it should happen that thou art forgetful of my words, beyond a doubt +this prison awaits me!" The singer seems to wish it to be inferred +that his line of conduct in the given case will be such as to entitle +him to board and lodging at the expense of the state for the rest of +his days. In times still recent, prisoners at Bova could see and be +seen, and hear and be heard, through the bars. Thus the incarcerated +lover had not to wait long for an answer, which must have greatly +relieved his mind: "The words that thou didst say to me on the tender +grass, I remember them--I forget them not. I would not have thee +say them over again; but be sure I love thee. Night and day I go to +church, and of Christ I ask this grace: 'My Christ, make short the +hours--bring to me him whom I love!'" + +The Greeks have a crafty proverb, "If they see me I laugh; but if not, +I rob and run." A Graeco-Italic word[1], _maheri_, or "poignard," has +been suggested as the origin of _Mafia_, the name of one of the two +great organisations for crime which poison the social atmosphere of +southern Italy. The way of looking upon an experience of the penalties +of the law, not as a retribution or a disgrace, but as a simple +mischance, still prevails in the provinces of the ex-kingdom of +Naples. "The prisons," says a Calabrian poet, "are made for honest +men." Yet the people of Calabria are rather to be charged with a +confusion of moral sense than with a completely debased morality. What +has been said of the modern Greek could with equal truth be said of +them, whether Greeks or otherwise: put them upon their point of honour +and they may be highly trusted. At a date when, in Sicily, no one +went unarmed, it was the habit in Calabria to leave doors and windows +unfastened during an absence of weeks or months; and it is still +remembered how, after the great earthquake of 1783, five Calabrians +who happened to be at Naples brought back to the treasury 200 ducats +(received by them out of the royal bounty) on learning, through +private sources, that their homesteads were safe. The sort of honesty +here involved is not so common as it might be, even under the best of +social conditions. + +In that year of catastrophe--1783--it is more than possible that some +of the Greek-speaking communities were swallowed up, leaving no trace +behind. Calabria was the theatre of a series of awful transformation +scenes; heroism and depravity took strange forms, and men intent on +pillage were as ready to rush into the tottering buildings as men +intent on rescue. A horrid rejoicing kept pace with terror and +despair. In contrast to all this was the surprising calmness +with which in some cases the ordeal was faced. At Oppido, a place +originally Greek, a pretty young woman, aged nineteen years, was +immured for thirty hours, and shortly after her husband had extricated +her she became a mother. Dolomieu asked what had been her thoughts in +her living tomb; to which she simply answered, "I waited." The Prince +of Scilla and four thousand people were swept into the sea by a single +volcanic wave. Only the mountains stood firm. Bova, piled against the +rock like a child's card-city, suffered no harm, whilst the most solid +structures on the shore and in the plain were pitched about as ships +in a storm. Still, in the popular belief the whole mischief was brewed +deep down in the innermost heart of Aspromonte. It may be that +the theory grew out of the immemorial dread inspired by the Bitter +Mount--a dread which seems in a way prophetic of the dark shadow it +was fated to cast across the fair page of Italian redemption. + +A thousand years ago every nook and cranny in the Calabrian mountains +had its Greek hermit. Now and then one of these anchorites descended +to the towns, and preached to flocks of penitents in the Greek idiom, +which was understood by all. Under Byzantine rule the people generally +adhered to the Greek rite; nor was it without the imposition of the +heavy hand of Rome that they were finally brought to renounce it. As +late as the sixteenth century the liturgies were performed in Greek +at Rossano, and perhaps much later in the hill-towns, where there +are women who still treasure up scraps of Greek prayers. Greek, in an +older sense than any attached to the ritual of the Eastern Church, is +the train of thought marked out in this line from a folk-song of Bova: +"O Juro pu en chi jerusia" ("The Lord who hath not age"). The Italian +imagines the Creator as an old man; witness, to take only one example, +the frescoes on the walls of the Pisan Campo Santo. A Tuscan +proverb, which means no evil, though it would not very well bear +translating--"Lascia fare a Dio che e Santo Vecchio"--shows how +in this, as in other respects, Italian art is but the concrete +presentation of Italian popular sentiment. The grander idea of "a +Divine power which grows not old" seems very like an exotic in Italy. +Without yielding too much to the weakness of seeking analogies, +one other coincidence may be mentioned in passing. The Greek mother +soothes her crying child by telling him that "the wild doves drink at +the _holy sea_." This "ago Thalassia" recalls the [Greek: hals dia] of +the greatest folk-poet who ever lived. _Thalassia_ is now replaced +in ordinary conversation by the Italian _mare_; indeed, in Terra +d'Otranto it is currently supposed to be the proper name of a saint. +The next step would naturally lead to the establishment of a cult of +St Thalassia; and this may have been the kind of way in which were +established a good many of those cults that pass for evidences of +nature-worship. + +The language of the Graeco-Calabrian songs, mixed though it is with +numberless Calabrese corruptions, is still far more Greek than the +actual spoken tongue. So it always happens; poetry, whether the +highest or the lowest, is the shrine in which the purer forms +of speech are preserved. The Greeks of Calabria are at present +bi-lingual, reminding one of Horace's "Canusini more bilinguis." It +is a comparatively new state of things. Henry Swinburne says that the +women he saw knew only Greek or "Albanese," as he calls it, which, he +adds, "they pronounce with great sweetness of accent." The advance +of Calabrese is attended by the decline of Greek, and a systematic +examination of the latter has not been undertaken a moment too soon. +The good work, begun by Domenico Comparetti and Giuseppe Morosi, is +being completed by professor Astorre Pellegrini, who has published one +volume of _Studi sui dialetti Greco-Calabro di Bova_, which will be +followed in due course by a second instalment. I am glad to be able +to record my own debt to this excellent and most courteous scholar. +He informs me that he hopes to finish his researches by a thorough +inspection of the stones and mural tablets in Calabrian graveyards. +The dead have elsewhere told so much about the living that the best +results are to be anticipated. + +It need scarcely be said that the leavings of the past in the southern +extremity of Italy are not confined to the narrow space where a Greek +idiom is spoken. There is not even warrant for supposing them to lie +chiefly within that area. The talisman which the hunter or brigand +wears next to his heart, believing that it renders him invulnerable; +the bagpipe which calls the sheep in the hills, and which the wild +herds of swine follow docilely over the marshes; the faggot which the +youth throws upon his mother's threshold before he crosses it +after the day's toil; the kick, aimed against the house door, which +signifies the last summons of the debtor; the shout of "Barca!" raised +by boys who lie in wait to get the first glimpse of the returning +fishing fleet, expecting largess for the publication of the good +news; the chaff showered down by vine-dressers upon bashful maids +and country lads going home from market; the abuse of strangers who +venture into the vineyards at the vintage season--these are among the +things of the young world that may be sought in Calabria. + +Other things there are to take the mind back to the time when the +coins the peasant turns up with his hoe were fresh from the mint at +Locri, and when the mildest of philosophies was first-- + + ... dimly taught + In old Crotona; + +wild flowers as sweet as those that made Persephone forsake the plain +of Enna; maidens as fair as the five beautiful virgins after whom +Zeuxis painted his _Helen_; grasshoppers as loudly chirping as +the "cricket" that saved the prize to Eunomus; and, high in the +transparent air, the stars at which Pythagoras gazed straining his +ears to catch their eternal harmonies. + + [Footnote 1: In classical Greek, [Greek: machaira].] + + + + +FOLK SONGS OF PROVENCE. + + +On a day in the late autumn it happened to me to be standing at a +window looking down into an untidy back street at Avignon. It was a +way of getting through the hours between a busy morning and a busy +evening--hours which did not seem inclined to go. If ever man be +tempted to upbraid the slowness of the flight of time, it is surely +in the vacant intervals of travel. The prospect at the window could +hardly be called enlivening; by-and-by, however, the dulness of +the outlook was lessened a little. The sounds of a powerful and not +unmusical voice came along the street; people hastened to their doors, +and in a minute or so a young lame man made his appearance. He was +singing Provencal songs. Here was the last of the troubadours! + +If it needed some imagination to see in this humble minstrel the +representative of the courtly adepts in the gay science, still his +relationship to them was not purely fanciful. The itinerant singer +used to be the troubadour of the poor. No doubt his more illustrious +brother grudged him the name. "I am astonished," said Giraud Riquier +to Alfonso of Aragon, "that folks confound the troubadours with +those ignorant and uncouth persons who, as soon as they can play some +screeching instrument, go through the streets asking alms and singing +before a vile rabble;" and Alfonso answered that in future the noble +appellation of "joglaria" should be granted no longer to mountebanks +who went about with dancing dogs, goats, monkeys, or puppets, +imitating the song of birds, or for a meagre pittance singing before +people of base extraction, but that they should be called "bufos," +as in Lombardy. Giraud Riquier was not benevolently inclined when he +embodied in verse his protest and the King's endorsement of it; yet +his words now lend an ancient dignity to the class they were meant +to bring into contempt. The lame young man at Avignon had no dancing +dogs, nor did he mimic the song of birds--an art still practised +with wonderful skill in Italy.[1] He helped out his entertainment by +another device, one suitable to an age which reads; he sold printed +songs, and he presented "letters." If you bought two sous' worth of +songs you were entitled to a "letter." It has to be explained that +"letters" form a kind of fortune-telling, very popular in Provence. A +number of small scraps of paper are attached to a ring; you pull off +one at hazard, and on it you find a full account of the fate reserved +to you. Nothing more simple. As to the songs, loose sheets containing +four or five of them are to be had for fifteen centimes. I have seen +on the quay at Marseilles an open bookstall, where four thousand of +these songs are advertised for sale. Some are in Provencal, some in +French; many are interlarded with prose sentences, in which case +they are called "cansounetto eme parla." Formerly the same style of +composition bore the name of _cantefable_. The subjects chosen are +comic, or sentimental, or patriotic, or, again, simply local. There +is, for example, a dialogue between a proprietor and a lodger. +"Workman, why are you always grumbling?" asks the "moussu," who speaks +French, as do angels and upper-class people generally in Provencal +songs. "If your old quarters are to be pulled down, a fine new one +will be built instead. Ere long the town of Marseilles will become a +paradise, and the universe will exclaim, 'What a marvel! Fine palaces +replace miserable hovels!'" For all that, replies the workman in +Provencal patois, the abandonment of his old quarter costs a pang to +a child _deis Carmes_ (an old part of Marseilles, standing where the +Greek town stood). It was full of attraction to him. There his father +lived before him; there his friends had grown with him to manhood; +there he had brought up his children, and lived content. The +proprietor argues that it was far less clean than could be +wished--there was too much insectivorous activity in it. He tells the +workman that he can find a lodging, after all not very expensive, in +some brand-new building outside the town; the railway will bring +him to his work. Unconvinced, the workman returns to his refrain, +"Regreterai toujour moun vieil Marsio." If the rhymes are bad, if the +subject is prosaic, we have here at least the force of a fact +pregnant with social danger. Is it only at Marseilles that the grand +improvements of modern days mean, for the man who lives by his labour, +the break-up of his home, the destruction of his household gods, the +dispersion of all that sweetened and hallowed his poverty? The songs +usually bear an author's name; but the authors of the original pieces, +though they may enjoy a solid popularity in Provence, are rarely known +to a wider fame. One of them, M. Marius Feraud, whose address I hold +in my hands, will be happy to compose songs or romances for marriages, +baptisms, and other such events, either in Provencal or in French, +introducing any surname and Christian name indicated, and arranging +the metre so as to suit the favourite tune of the person who orders +the poem. + +Street ditties occupy an intermediate place between literate and +illiterate poesy. Once the repertory of the itinerant _bufo_ was drawn +from a source which might be called popular without qualifying the +term. With the pilgrim and the roving apprentice he was a chief agent +in the diffusion of ballads. Even now he has a right to be remembered +in any account of the songs of Provence; but, having given him +mention, we must leave the streets to go to the well-heads of popular +inspiration--the straggling village, the isolated farm, the cottage +alone on the byeway. + +When in the present century there was a revival of Provencal +literature, after a suspension of some five hundred years, the poets +who devoted their not mean gifts to this labour of love discerned, +with true insight, that the only Provencal who was still thoroughly +alive was the peasant. Through the long lapse of time in the progress +of which Provence had lost its very name--becoming a thing of French +departments--the peasant, it was discovered, had not changed much; +acting on which discovery, the new Provencal school produced two works +of a value that could not have been reached had it been attempted +either to give an archaic dress to the ideas and interests of the +modern world, or to galvanise the dry bones of mediaeval romance into a +dubious animation. These works are _Mireio_ and _Margarido_. Mistral, +with the idealising touch of the imaginative artist, paints the +Provence of the valley of the Rhone, whilst Marius Trussy photographs +the ruder and wilder Provence of mountain and torrent. Taken together, +the two poems perfectly illustrate the _Wahrheit und Dichtung_ of the +life of the people whose songs we have to study. + +Since there is record of them the Provencals have danced and sung. +They may be said to have furnished songs and dances to all France, and +even to lands far beyond the border of France. A French critic relates +how, when he was young, he went night after night to a certain +theatre in Paris to see a dance performed by a company of English +pantomimists. The dancers gradually stripped a staff, or may-pole, +of its many-coloured ribbons, which became in their hands a sort +of moving kaleidoscope. This, that he thought at the time to be an +exclusively English invention, was the old Provencal dance of the +_olivette_. In the Carnival season dances of an analogous kind are +still performed, here and there; by bands of young men, who march in +appropriate costume from place to place, led by their harlequin and by +a player on the _galooube_, the little pipe which should be considered +the national instrument of Provence. Harlequin improvises couplets +in a sarcastic vein, and the crowd of spectators is not slow to +apply each sally to some well-known person; whence it comes that Ash +Wednesday carries a sense of relief to many worthy individuals. May +brings with it more dances and milder songs. Young men plant a tree, +with a nosegay atop, before their sweethearts' doors, and then go +singing-- + + Lou premier jour de mai, + O Diou d'eime! + Quand tout se renouvelo + Rossignolet! + Quand tout se renouvelo. + +The great business of the month is sheep-shearing, a labour celebrated +in a special song. "When the month of May comes, the shearers come: +they shear by night, they shear by day; for a month, and a fortnight, +and three weeks they shear the wool of these white sheep." When the +shearers go, the washers come; when the washers go, the carders come; +then come the spinners, the weavers, the buyers, and the ragmen who +gather up the bits. Across the nonsense of which it is composed the +ditty reflects the old excitement caused in the lonely homesteads by +the annual visit of the plyers of these several trades, who turned +everything upside down and brought strange news of the world. At +harvest there was, and there is yet, a great gathering at the larger +farms. Troops of labourers assemble to do the needful work. Sometimes, +after the evening meal, a curious song called the "Reapers' Grace" +is sung before the men go to rest. It has two parts: the first is a +variation on the first chapter of Genesis. Adam and _nouestro maire +Evo_ are put into the Garden of Eden. Adam is forbidden to eat of the +fruit of life; he eats thereof, and the day of his death is foretold +him. He will be buried under a palm, a cypress, and an olive, and out +of the wood of the olive the Cross will be made. The second part, sung +to a quick, lively air, is an expression of goodwill to the master and +the mistress of the farm, every verse ending, "Adorem devotoment +Jesu eme Mario." A few years ago the harvest led on naturally to +the vintage. It is not so now. The vines of Provence, excellent +in themselves, though never turned to the same account as those +of Burgundy or Bordeaux, have been almost completely ruined by the +phylloxera. The Provencal was satisfied if his wine was good enough to +suit his own taste and that of his neighbours; thus he had not laid +by wealth to support him in the evil day that has come. "Is there no +help?" I asked of a man of the poorer class. "Only rain, much rain, +can do good," he answered, "and," he added, "we have not had a drop +for four months." The national disaster has been borne with the finest +fortitude, but in Provence at least there seems to be small faith in +any method of grappling with it. The vines, they say, are spoilt by +the attempt to submit them to an artificial deluge; so one after the +other, the peasant roots them up, and tries to plant cabbages or what +not. Three hundred years back the Provencals would have known what +measures to take: the offending insect would have been prosecuted. +Between 1545 and 1596 there was a run of these remarkable trials +at Arles. In 1565 the Arlesiens asked for the expulsion of the +grasshoppers. The case came before the Tribunal de l'Officialite, and +Maitre Marin was assigned to the insects as counsel. He defended his +clients with much zeal. Since the accused had been created, he argued +that they were justified in eating what was necessary to them. The +opposite counsel cited the serpent in the Garden of Eden, and sundry +other animals mentioned in Scripture, as having incurred severe +penalties. The grasshoppers got the worst of it, and were ordered to +quit the territory, with a threat of anathematizatiom from the altar, +to be repeated till the last of them had obeyed the sentence of the +honourable court. + +One night in the winter of 1819 there was a frost which, had it been a +few times repeated, would have done as final mischief to the olives +as the phylloxera has done to the vines. The terror of that night is +remembered still. Corn, vine, and olive--these were the gifts of the +Greek to Provence, and the third is the most precious of all. The +olive has here an Eastern importance; the Provencals would see a +living truth in the story of how the trees said unto it, "Reign thou +over us." In the flowering season the slightest sharpness in the air +sends half the rural population bare-foot upon a pilgrimage to the +nearest St Briggitte or St Rossoline. The olive harvest is the +supreme event of the year. It has its song too. In the warm days of St +Martin's summer, says the late Damase Arbaud, some worker in the olive +woods will begin to sing of a sudden-- + + Ai rescountrat ma mio--diluns. + +It is a mere nonsense song respecting the meeting of a lover and his +lass on every day of the week, she being each day on her way to buy +provisions, and he giving her the invariable advice that she had +better come back, because it is raining. Were it the rarest poetry the +effect could be hardly more beautiful than it is. When the first voice +has sung, "I met my love ..." ascending slowly from a low note, the +whole group of olive-gatherers take it up, then the next, and again +the next, till the country-side is made all musical by the swell and +fall of sound sent forth from every grey coppice; and even long after +the nearer singers have ceased, others unseen in the distance still +raise the high-pitched call, "Come back, my love, come back! ... come +back!" + +On the first of November it is customary in Provence for families +to meet and dine. The fruits of the earth are garnered, the year's +business is over and done. The year has brought perhaps new faces into +the family; very likely it has taken old faces away. Towards evening +the bells begin to toll for the vigil of the feast of All Souls. Tears +come into the eyes of the older guests, and the children are hurried +off to bed. Why should they be present at this letting loose of grief? +To induce them to retire with good grace, they are allowed to take +with them what is left of the dessert--chestnuts, or grapes, or figs. +The child puts a portion of his spoils at the bottom of his bed for +the _armettes_: so are called the spirits of the dead who are still in +a state of relation with the living, not being yet finally translated +into their future abode. Children are told that if they are good the +_armettes_ will kiss them this night; if they are naughty, they will +scratch their little feet. + +The Provencal religious songs, poor though they are from a literary +point of view, yet possess more points of interest than can be +commonly looked for in folk-songs which treat of religion. They +contain frequent allusions to beliefs that have to be sought either +in the earliest apocryphal writings of the Christian aera, or in the +lately unearthed records of rabbinical tradition. Various of them +have regard to what is still, as M. Lentheric says, "one of the great +popular emotions of the South of France"--the reputed presence there +of Mary Magdalene. M. Lentheric is convinced that certain Jewish +Christians, flying from persecution at home, did come to Provence +(between the ports of which and the East there was constant +communication) a short time after the Crucifixion. He is further +inclined to give credit to the impression that Mary Magdalene and her +companions were among these fugitives. I will not go into the reasons +that have been urged against the story by English and German scholars; +it is enough for us that it is a popular credence of very ancient +origin. One side issue of it is particularly worth noting. A little +servant girl named Sara is supposed to have accompanied the Jewish +emigrants, and her the gypsies of Provence have adopted as their +patroness. Once a year they pay their respects to her tomb at Saintes +Maries de la Mer. This is almost the only case in which the gypsy race +has shown any disposition to identify itself with a religious cultus. +The fairy legend of Tarascon is another offshoot from the main +tradition. "Have you seen the Tarasque?" I was asked in the course +of a saunter through that town one cold morning between the hours +of seven and eight. It seemed that the original animal was kept in a +stall. To stimulate my anxiety to make its acquaintance I was handed +the portrait of a beast, half hedgehog, half hippopotamus, out of +whose somewhat human jaw dangled the legs of a small boy. Later I +heard the story from the lips of the sister of the landlord at the +primitive little inn; much did it gain from the vivacious grace of the +narrator, in whom there is as surely proof positive of a Greek descent +as can be seen in any of the more famous daughters of Arles. "When +the friends of our Lord landed in Provence, St Mary Magdalene went +to Sainte Baume, St Lazarus to Marseilles, and St Martha came here to +Tarascon. Now there was a terrible monster called the Tarasque, which +was desolating all the country round and carrying off all the young +children to eat. When St Martha was told of the straits the folks were +in, she went out to meet the monster with a piece of red ribbon in her +hand. Soon it came, snorting fire out of its nostrils; but the saint +threw the red ribbon over its neck, and lo! it grew quite still and +quiet, and followed her back into the town as if it had been a good +dog. To keep the memory of this marvel, we at Tarascon have a wooden +Tarasque, which we take round the town at Whitsuntide with much +rejoicing. About once in twenty years there is a very grand _fete_ +indeed, and people come from far, far off. I have--naturally--seen +this grand celebration only once." A gleam of coquetry lit up the +long eyes: our friend clearly did not wish to be supposed to have an +experience ranging over too long a period. Then she went on, "You must +know that at Beaucaire, just there across the Rhone, the folks have +been always ready to die of jealousy of our Tarasque. Once upon a +time they thought they would have one as well as we; so they made the +biggest Tarasque that ever had been dreamt of. How proud they were! +But, alas! when the day came to take it round the town, it was found +that it would not come out of the door of the workshop! Ah! those dear +Beaucairos!" This I believe to be a pure fable, like the rest; to the +good people of Tarascon it appears the most pleasing part of the whole +story. My informant added, with a merry laugh, "There came this way +an Englishman--a very sceptical Englishman. When he heard about the +difficulty of the Beaucairos he asked, 'Why did they not have recourse +to St Martha?'" + +As I have strayed into personal reminiscence, the record of one other +item of conversation will perhaps be allowed. That same morning I went +to breakfast at the house of a Provencal friend to meet the ablest +exponent of political positivism, the Radical deputy for Montmartre. +Over our host's strawberries (strawberries never end at Tarascon) I +imparted my newly acquired knowledge. When it came to the point of +saying that certain elderly persons were credibly stated to have +preserved a lively faith in the authenticity of the legend, M. +Clemenceau listened with a look of such unmistakable concern that I +said, half amused, "You do not believe much in poetry?" The answer +was characteristic. "Yes, I believe in it much; but is it necessary +to poetry that the people should credit such absurdities?" Is it +necessary? Possibly Marius Trussy, who inveighs so passionately +against "lou progre," would say that it is. Anyhow the Tarasques of +the world are doomed; whether they will be without successors is a +different question. Some one has said that mankind has always lived +upon illusions, and always will, the essential thing being to change +the nature of these illusions from time to time, so as to bring them +into harmony with the spirit of the age. + +Provencal folk-songs have but few analogies with the literature which +heedlessly, though beyond recall, has been named Provencal. The poetry +of the Miejour was a literary orchid of the fabulous sort that has +neither root nor fruit. A chance stanza, addressed to some high-born +Blancoflour, finds its way occasionally into the popular verse of +Provence with the marks of lettered authorship still clinging to it; +but further than this the resemblance does not go. The love poets of +the people make use of a flower language, which is supposed to be a +legacy of the Moors. Thyme accompanies a declaration; the violet means +doubt or uneasiness; rosemary signifies complaint; nettles announce a +quarrel. The course of true love nowhere flows less smoothly than +in old Provence. As soon as a country girl is suspected of having a +liking for some youth, she is set upon by her family as if she were +guilty of a monstrous crime. A microscopic distinction of rank, a +divergence in politics, or a deficiency of money will be snatched +as the excuse for putting the lover under the ban of absolute +proscription. From the inexplicable obstacles placed in the way of +lovers it follows that a large proportion of Provencal marriages +are the result of an elopement. The expedient never fails; Provencal +parents do not lock up their runaway daughters in convents where no +one can get at them. The delinquents are married as fast as possible. +What is more, no evil is thought or spoken of them. To make assurance +doubly sure, a curious formality is observed. The girl calls upon two +persons, secretly convened for the purpose, to bear witness that she +carries off her lover, who afterwards protests that his part in the +comedy was purely passive. In less than twenty years the same drama +is enacted with Margarido, the daughter, in the _role_ of Mario the +mother. + + L'herbo que grio + Toujours reverdilho; + L'herbo d'amour + Reverdilho toujours. + +The plant of love grows where there are young hearts; but how comes +it that middle-aged hearts turn inevitably to cast iron? There is one +song which has the right to be accepted as the typical love-song of +Provence. Mistral adapted it to his own use, and it figures in his +poem as the "Chanson de Majali." My translation follows as closely +as may be after the popular version which is sung from the Comtat +Venaissin to the Var: + + Margaret! my first love, + Do not say me nay! + A morning music thou must have, + A waking roundelay. + --Your waking music irks me, + And irk me all who play; + If this goes on much longer + I'll drown myself one day. + --If this goes on much longer, + And thou wilt drown one day, + Why, then a swimmer I will be, + And save thee sans delay. + --If then a swimmer thou wilt be, + And save me sans delay, + Then I will be an eel, and slip + From 'twixt thy hands away. + --If thou wilt be an eel, and slip + From 'twixt my hands away, + Why, I will be the fisherman + Whom all the fish obey. + --If thou wilt be the fisherman + Whom all the fish obey, + Then I will be the tender grass + That yonder turns to hay. + --If thou wilt be the tender grass + That yonder turns to hay, + Why, then a mower I will be, + And mow thee in the may. + --If thou a mower then wilt be, + And mow me in the may, + I, as a little hare, will go + In yonder wood to stray. + --If thou a little hare wilt go + In yonder wood to stray, + Then will I come, a hunter bold, + And have thee as my prey. + --If thou wilt come a hunter bold + To have me as thy prey, + Then I will be the endive small + In yonder garden gay. + --If thou wilt be the endive small + In yonder garden gay, + Then I will be the falling dew, + And fall on thee alway. + --If thou wilt be the falling dew, + And fall on me alway, + Then I will be the white, white rose + On yonder thorny spray. + --If thou wilt be the white, white rose + On yonder thorny spray, + Then I will be the honey bee, + And kiss thee all the day. + --If thou wilt be the honey bee, + And kiss me all the day, + Then I will be in yonder heaven + The star of brightest ray. + --If thou wilt be in yonder heaven + The star of brighest ray, + Then I will be the dawn, and we + Shall meet at break of day. + --If thou wilt be the dawn, so we + May meet at break of day, + Then I will be a nun professed, + A nun of orders grey. + --If thou wilt be a nun professed, + A nun of orders grey, + Then I will be the prior, and thou + To me thy sins must say. + --If thou wilt be the prior, and I + To thee my sins must say, + Then will I sleep among the dead, + While the sisters weep and pray. + --If thou wilt sleep among the dead, + While the sisters weep and pray, + Then I will be the holy earth + That on thee they shall lay. + --If thou wilt be the holy earth + That on me they shall lay-- + Well--since some gallant I must have, + I will not say thee nay. + +A distinguished French scholar thought that he heard in this an echo +of Anacreon's ode [Greek: k' eus koren]. The inference suggested is +too hazardous for acceptance; yet that in some sort the song may date +from Greek Provence would seem to be the opinion even of cautious +critics. Thus we are led to look back to those associations which, +without giving a personal or political splendour such as that attached +to Magna Graecia, lend nevertheless to Provencal memories the exquisite +charm, the "_bouquet_" (if the word does not sound absurd) of all +things Greek. The legend of Greek beginnings in Provence will bear +being once more told. Four hundred and ninety years before Christ a +little fleet of Greek fortune-seekers left Phocaea, in Asia Minor, and +put into a small creek on the Provencal coast, the port of the future +Marseilles. As soon as they had disembarked, deeming it to be of +importance to them to stand well with the people of the land, they +sent to the king of the tribes inhabiting those shores an ambassador +bearing gifts and overtures of friendly intercourse. When the +ambassador reached Arles, Nann, the king, was giving a great feast +to his warriors, from among whom his daughter Gyptis was that day to +choose a husband. The young Greek entered the banqueting-hall and +sat down at the king's board. When the feasting was over, fair-haired +Gyptis, the royal maiden, rose from her seat and went straightway to +the strange guest; then, lifting in her hands the cup of espousal, +she offered it to his lips. He drank, and Provence became the bride of +Greece. + +The children of that marriage left behind them a graveyard to tell +their history. Desecrated and despoiled though it is, still the +great Arlesian cemetery bears unique witness as well to the civilised +prosperity of the Provencal Greeks as to their decline under the +influences which formed the modern Provence. Irreverence towards the +dead--a comparatively new human characteristic--can nowhere be more +fully observed than in the _Elysii Campi_ of Arles. The love of +destruction has been doing its worst there for some centuries. To any +king coming to the town the townsfolk would make a gift of a priceless +treasure stolen from their dead ancestors, while the peasant who +wanted a cattle trough, or the mason in need of a door lintel, went +unrebuked and carried off what thing suited him. Not even the halo of +Christian romance could save the Alyscamps. The legend is well known. +St Trefume, man or myth, summoned the bishops of Gaul and Provence to +the consecration of this burial-ground. When they were assembled and +the rite was to be performed, each one shrank from taking on himself +so high an office; then Christ appeared in their midst and made the +sign of the cross over the sleeping-place of the pagan dead. Out +of the countless stories of the meeting of the new faith and the +old--stories too often of a nascent or an expiring fanaticism, there +is not one which breathes a gentler spirit. It was long believed, that +the devil had little power with the dead that lay in Arles. Hence +the multitude of sepulchres which Dante saw _ove 'l Rodano stagna_. +Princes and archbishops and an innumerable host of minor folks left +instructions that they might be buried in the Alyscamps. A simple mode +of transport was adopted by the population of the higher Rhone valley. +The body, bound to a raft or bier, was committed to the current of the +river, with a sum of money called the "drue de mourtalage" attached +to it. These silent travellers always reached their destination in +safety, persons appointed to the task being in readiness to receive +them. The sea water washed the limits of the cemetery in the days of +the Greeks, who looked across the dark, calm surface of the immense +lagune and thought of dying as of embarkation upon a voyage--not the +last voyage of the body down the river of life, but the first voyage +of the soul over the sea of death--and they wished their dead [Greek: +euploi]. + +The Greek traces that exist in the living people of Provence are +few, but distinct. There is, in the first place, the type of beauty +particularly associated with the women of Arles. As a rule, the +Provencal woman is not beautiful; nor is she very willing to admit +that her Arlesian sisters are one whit more beautiful than she. The +secret of their fame is interpreted by her in the stereotyped remark, +"C'est la coiffe!" But the coif of Arles, picturesque though it is in +its stern simplicity, could not change an ugly face into a pretty one, +and the wearers of it are well entitled to the honour they claim as +their birthright. Scarcely due attention has been paid to the good +looks of the older and even of the aged women; I have not seen their +equals save among a face of quite another type, the Teutonic amazons +of the Val Mastalone. In countries where the sun is fire, if youth +does not always mean beauty, beauty means almost always youth. M. +Lentheric thinks that he detects a second clear trace of the Greeks +in the horn wrestling practised all over the dried-up lagune which the +fork of the Rhone below Arles forms into an island. Astride of their +wild white steeds, the horsemen drive one of the superb black bulls of +the Camargue towards a group of young men on foot, who, catching him +by his horns, wrestle with him till he is forced to bend the knee and +bite the dust. The amusement is dangerous, but it is not brutal. The +horses escape unhurt, so does the bull; the risk is for the men alone, +and it is a risk voluntarily and eagerly run. So popular is the +sport that it is difficult to prevent children from joining in it. In +Thessaly it was called [Greek: keratisis], and the bull in the act of +submission is represented on a large number of Massaliote and other +coins. + +Marseilles, which has lost the art and the type of Greece, has kept +the Greek temperament. It is no more French than Naples is Italian: +both are Greek towns, though the characteristics that prove them such +have been somewhat differentiated by unlike external conditions. Still +they have points in common which are many and strong. Marsalia can +match in _emeutes_ the proverbial _quattordici rebellioni_ of "loyal" +Parthenope; and quickness of intelligence, love of display, mobility +of feeling, together with an astounding vitality, belong as much +to Marseillais as to Neapolitan. The people of Marseilles, the most +thriftless in France, have thriven three thousand years, and are +thriving now, in spite of the readiness of each small middle-class +family to lay out a half-year's savings on a breakfast at Roubion's; +in spite of the alacrity with which each working man sacrifices a +week's wages in order to "demonstrate" in favour of, or still better +against, no matter whom or what. Nowhere is there a more overweening +local pride. "Paris," say the Marseillais, "would be a fine town if it +had our _Cannebiere_." Nowhere, as has been made lamentably plain, +are the hatreds of race and caste and politics more fierce or more +ruthless. Even with her own citizens Marseilles is stern; only after +protest does she grant a monument to Adolphe Thiers--himself just +a Greek Massaliote thrown into the French political arena. There is +reason to think that Greek was a spoken tongue at Marseilles at least +as late as the sixth century A.D. The Sanjanen, the fisherman of St +John's Quarter, has still a whole vocabulary of purely Greek terms +incidental to his calling. The Greek character of the speech of the +Marseillais sailors was noticed by the Abbe Papon, who attributed +to the same source the peculiar prosody and intonation of the +street cries of Marseilles. The Provencal historian remarks, with an +acuteness rare in the age in which he wrote (the early part of the +last century), "I draw my examples from the people, because it is with +them that we must seek the precious remains of ancient manners and +usages. Amongst the great, amongst people of the world, one sees only +the imprint of fashion, and fashion never stands still." + +The Sanjanens are credited with the authorship of this cynical little +song: + + Fisher, fishing in the sea, + Fish my mistress up for me. + + Fish her up before she drowns, + Thou shalt have four hundred crowns. + + Fish her for me dead and cold, + Thou shalt have my all in gold. + +The romantic ballads of Provence are of an importance which demands, +properly speaking, a separate study. Provence was, beyond a doubt, +one of the main sources of the ballad literature of France, Spain, and +Italy. That certain still existing Provencal ballads passed over into +Piedmont as early as the thirteenth century is the opinion of Count +Nigra, the Italian diplomatist, not the least of whose distinguished +services to his country has been the support he was one of the first +to give to the cause of popular research. In all these songs the +plot goes for everything, the poetry for little or nothing; I shall +therefore best economise my space by giving a rough outline of the +stories of two or three of them. "Fluranco" is a characteristic +specimen. Fluranco, "la flour d'aquest pays," was married when she was +a little thing, and her husband at once went away to the wars. Monday +they were wed, Tuesday he was gone. At the end of seven years the +knight comes back, knocks at the door, and asks for Fluranco. His +mother says that she is no longer here; they sent her to fetch water, +and the Moors, the Saracen Moors, carried her off. "Where did they +take her to?" "They took her a hundred leagues away." The knight makes +a ship of gold and silver; he sails and sails without seeing aught but +the washer-women washing fine linen. At last he asks of them: "Tell +me whose tower is that, and to whom that castle belongs." "It is the +castle of the Saracen Moor." "How can I get into it?" "Dress yourself +as a poor pilgrim, and ask alms in Christ's name." In this way he +gains admittance, and Fluranco (she it is) bids the servant set the +table for the "poor pilgrim." When the knight is seated at table, +Fluranco begins to laugh. "What are you laughing at, Madamo?" She +confesses that she knows who he is. They collect a quantity of fine +gold; then they go the stable, and she mounts the russet horse and he +mounts the grey. Just as they are crossing the bridge the Moor sees +them. "Seven years," he cries, "I have clothed thee in fine damask, +seven years I have given thee morocco shoes, seven years I have laid +thee in fine linen, seven years I have kept thee--for one of my sons!" +The carelessness or cruelty of a stepmother (the head-wife of Asiatic +tales) is a prolific central idea in Provencal romance. While the +husband was engaged in distant adventures--tournaments, feudal wars, +or crusading expeditions--the wife, who was often little more than a +child, remained at the mercy of the occasionally unamiable dowager who +ruled the masterless _chateau_. The case of cruelty is exemplified +in the story of Guilhem de Beauvoire, who has to leave his child-wife +five weeks after marriage. "I counsel you, mother," he says as he sets +out, "to put her to do no kind of work: neither to fetch water, nor +to spin, nor yet to knead bread. Send her to mass, and give her good +dinners, and let her go out walking with other ladies." At the end of +five weeks the mother put the young wife to keep swine. The swine girl +went up to the mountain top and sang and sang. Guilhem de Beauvoire, +who was beyond the sea, said to his page, "Does it not seem as though +my wife were singing?" He travels at all speed over mountain and sea +till he comes to his home, where no man knows him. On the way he meets +the swine girl, and from her he hears that she has to eat only that +which is rejected of the swine. At the house he is welcomed as an +honoured guest; supper is laid for him, and he asks that the swine +girl whom he has seen may come and sup with him. When she sits down +beside him the swine girl bursts into tears. "Why do you weep, swine +girl?" "For seven years I have not supped at table!" Then in the +bitterness of yet another outrage to which the vile woman subjects +her, she cries aloud, "Oh! Guilhem de Beauvoire, who art beyond +the sea, God help thee! Verily thy cruel mother has abandoned me!" +Secretly Guilhem tells her who he is, and in proof of it shows her the +ring she gave him. In the morning the mother calls the swine girl to +go after her pigs. "If you were not my mother," says Guilhem, "I would +have you hung; as you are my mother, I will wall you up between two +walls." + +The antiquity of the ballads of _Fluranco_ and _Guilhem de Beauvoire_ +is shown by the fact that they plainly belong to a time when such work +as fetching water or making bread was regarded as amongst the likely +employments of noble ladies--though, from excess of indulgence, +Guilhem did not wish his wife to be set even to these light tasks. A +ballad, probably of about the same date, treats the case of a man who, +through the weakness which is the cause of half the crimes, becomes +the agent of his mother's guilt. The tragedy is unfolded with almost +the sublime laconicism of the _Divina Commedia_. Francoiso was married +when she was so young that she did not know how to do the service, and +the cruel mother was always saying to her son that Francoiso must die. +One day, after the young wife had laid the table, and had set thereon +the wine and the bread, and the fresh water, her husband said to her, +"My Francoiso, is there not anyone, no friend, who shall protect thy +life?" "I have my mother and my father, and you, who are my husband, +very well will you protect my life." Then, as they sit at meat, he +takes a knife and kills her; and he lifts her in his arms and kisses +her, and lays her under the flower of the jessamine, and he goes to +his mother and says, "My mother, your greatest wish is fulfilled: I +have killed Francoiso." + +The genuine Provencal does not shrink from violence. Old inhabitants +still tell tales of the savage brigandage of the Esterel, of the +horrors of the _Terreur blanche_. Mild manners and social amenities +have never been characteristic of fair Provence. Even now the peasant +cannot disentangle his thoughts without a volley of oaths--harmless +indeed, for the most part (except those which are borrowed from +the _franciots_), but in sound terrific. Yet if it be true that the +character of a nation is asserted in its songs, it must be owned that +the songs of Provence speak favourably for the Provencal people. They +say that they are a people who have a steady and abiding sympathy +with honest men and virtuous women. They say further that rough and +ruthless though they may be when their blood is stirred, yet have they +a pitiful heart. The Provencal singer is slow to utterly condemn; +he grasps the saving inconsistencies of human nature; he makes the +murderer lay his victim "souto lou flour dou jaussemin:" under the +white jessamine flower, cherished beyond all flowers in Provence, +which has a strange passion for white things--white horses, white +dogs, white sheep, white doves, and the fair white hand of woman. Many +songs deal directly with almsgivings, the ritual of pity. To no part +of the Bible is there more frequent reference than to the parable of +the rich man and Lazarus; no neocatholic legend has been more gladly +accepted than the story in which some tattered beggar proves to +be Christ--a story, by the by, that holds in it the essence of the +Christian faith. If a Greek saw a beautiful unknown youth playing his +pipe beside some babbling stream, he believed him to be a god; the +Christian of the early ages recognised Christ in each mendicant +in loathsome rags, in each leper succoured at the risk of mortal +infection. + +The Provencal tongue is not a mixture (as is too often said) of +Italian and French; nor is physical Provence a less fair Italy or a +fairer France. A land wildly convulsed in its storms, mysteriously +breathless in its calms; a garden here, a desert there; a land of +translucent inlets and red porphyry hills; before all, a land of the +illimitable grey of olive and limestone--this is Provence. Anyone +finding himself of a sudden where the Provencal olives raise their +dwarf heads with a weary look of eternity to the rainless heaven, +would say that the dominant feature in the landscape was its exceeding +seriousness. Sometimes on the coast the prevailing note changes from +grey to blue; the blanched rocks catch the colour of the sea, and not +the sky only, but dry fine air close around seems of a blueness so +intense as to make the senses swim. Better suited to a Nature thus +made up of crude discords and subtle harmonies is the old Provencal +speech, howsoever corrupt, than the exquisite French of Parisian +_salons_. But the language goes and the songs go too. Damase Arbaud +relates how, when he went on a long journey to speak with a man +reported to have cognisance of much traditional matter, he met, +issuing from the house door, not the man, but his coffin. The fact +is typical; the old order of things passes away: _nouastei diou se'n +van_. + + [Footnote 1: I am told that the peasants of the country round + Moscow have a natural gift for imitating birds, and that they + intersperse the singing of their own sad songs with this sweet + carolling.] + + + + +THE WHITE PATERNOSTER. + + +In a paper published under the head of "Chaucer's Night Spell" in the +Folk-lore Record (part i. p. 145), Mr Thoms drew attention to four +lines spoken by the carpenter in Chaucer's _Miller's Tale_: + + Lord Jhesu Crist, and seynte Benedyht + Blesse this hous from every wikked wight, + Fro nyghtes verray, the White Paternostre + When wonestow now, seynte Petres soster. + +("Verray" is commonly supposed to mean night-mare, but Mr Thoms +referred it to "Werra," a Sclavonic deity.) + +Mention of the White Paternoster occurs again in White's _Way to the +True Church_ (1624): + + White Paternoster, Saint Peter's brother, + What hast i' th t'one hand? white booke leaves, + What hast i' th t'other hand? heaven gate keyes. + Open heaven gates, and streike (shut) hell gates: + And let every crysome child creepe to its own mother. + White Paternoster, Amen. + +A reading of the formula is preserved in the _Enchiridion Papae +Leonis_, a book translated into French soon after its first appearance +in Latin at Rome in 1502: + + Au soir, m'allant coucher, je trouvis trois anges a mon lit + couches, un aux pieds, deux au chevet, la bonne Vierge Marie + du milieu, qui me dit que je me couchis, que rien ne doutis. + Le bon Dieu est mon Pere, la bonne Vierge est ma mere, les + trois vierges sont mes s[oe]urs. La chemise ou Dieu fut ne, + mon corps en est enveloppe; la croix Sainte Marguerite a ma + poitrine est ecrite; madame d'en va sur les champs a Dieu + pleurant, rencontrit Monsieur Saint Jean. Monsieur Saint Jean, + d'ou venez vous? Je viens d' _Ave Salus_. Vous n'avez pas vu + le bon Dieu; si est, il est dans l'arbre de la croix, les + pieds pendans, les mains clouans, un petit chapeau d'epine + blanche sur la tete. + + Qui la dira trois fois au soir, trois fois au matin, gagnera + le Paradis a la fin. + +Curious as are the above citations, they only go a little way towards +filling up the blanks in the history of this waif from the fabric +of early Christian popular lore. A search of some years has yielded +evidence that the White Paternoster is still a part of the living +traditional matter of at least five European countries. Most persons +are familiar with the English version which runs thus: + + Four corners to my bed, + Four angels round my head, + One to watch, one to pray, + And two to bear my soul away. + +A second English variant was set on record by Aubrey, and may also be +read in Ady's "Candle in the Dark" (1655): + + Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, + Bless the bed that I lye on; + And blessed guardian angel keep + Me safe from danger while I sleep. + +Halliwell suggests that the two last lines were imitated from the +following in Bishop Ken's Evening Hymn: + + Let my blest guardian, while I sleep, + His watchful station near me keep. +But if there was any imitation in the case, it was the bishop who +copied from the folk-rhymer, not the folk-rhymer from the bishop. + +The thought of the coming of death in sleep, is expressed in a prayer +that may be sometimes seen inscribed at the head and foot of the bed +in Norwegian homesteads: + +HEAD. + + Here is my bed and sleeping place; + God, let me sleep in peace + And blithe open my eyes + And go to work. + +FOOT. + + Go into thy bed, take thee a slumber, + Reflect now on the last hour; + Reflect now, + That thou mayest take thy last slumber. + +Analogous in spirit is a quatrain that has been known to me since +childhood, but which I do not remember to have seen in print: + + I lay me down to rest me, + And pray the Lord to bless me. + If I should sleep no more to wake + I pray the Lord my soul to take. + +The _Petite Patenotre Blanche_ lingers in France in a variety of +shapes. One version was written down as late as 1872 from the mouth of +an old woman named Catherine Bastien, an inhabitant of the department +of the Loire. It was afterwards communicated to _Melusine_. + + Jesu m'endort, + Si je trepasse, mande mon corps, + Si je trepasse, mande mon ame, + Si je vis, mande mon esprit. + (Je) prends les anges pour mes amis, + Le bon Dieu pour mon pere, + La Sainte Vierge pour ma mere, + Saint Louis de Gonzague, + Aux quatre coins de ma chambre, + Aux quatre coins be mon lit; + Preservez moi de l'ennemi, + Seigneur, a l'heure de ma mort. + +Quenot, in his _Statistique de la Charante_ (1818), gives the +subjoined: + + Dieu l'a faite, je la dit; + J'ai trouve quatre anges couches dans mon lit; + Deux a la tete, deux aux pieds, + Et le bon Dieu aux milieu. + De quoi puis-je avoir peur? + Le bon Dieu est mon pere, + La Vierge ma mere, + Les saints mes freres, + Les saints mes s[oe]urs; + Le bon Dieu m'a dit: + Leve-toi, couche-toi, + Ne crains rien; le feu, l'orage, et la tempete + Ne peuvent rien contre toi. + Saint Jean, Saint Marc, Saint Luc, et St Matthieu, + Qui mettez les ames en repos, + Mettez-y la mienne si Dieu veut. + +In Provence many a worthy country woman repeats each night this +_preiro doou soir_:-- + + Au liech de Diou + Me couche iou, + Sept anges n'en trouve iou, + Tres es peds, + Quatre au capet (caput--head); + La Buoeno Mero es au mitan + Uno roso blanco a la man. + +The white rose borne by the Good Mother is a pretty and characteristic +interpolation peculiar to flower-loving Provence. In the conclusion +of the prayer the _Boueno Mero_ tells whosoever recites it to have no +fear of dog or wolf, or wandering storm or running water, or shining +fire, or any evil folk. M. Damase Arbaud got together a number of +other devotional fragments that may be regarded as offshoots from the +parent stem. St Joseph, "Nourricier de Diou," is asked to preserve the +supplicant from sudden death, "et de l'infer et de ses flammos." +St Ann, "mero-grand de Jesus Christ," is prayed to teach the way to +Paradise. To St Denis a very practical petition is addressed: + + Grand Sant Danis de Franco, + Gardetz me moun bouen sens, ma boueno remembranco. + +Another verse points distinctly to a desire for protection against +witchcraft. The Provencals, by the bye, are of opinion that the +_Angelus_ was instituted to scare away any ill-conditioned spirits +that might be tempted out by the approach of night. + +In Germany the guardian saints are dispensed with, but the angels are +retained in force. I am indebted to Mr C. G. Leland for a translation +of the most popular German even-song: + + Fourteen angels in a band + Every night around me stand. + Two to my left hand, + Two to my right, + Who watch me ever + By day and night. + Two at my head, + Two at my feet, + To guard my slumber + Soft and sweet; + Two to wake me + At break of day, + When night and darkness + Pass away; + Two to cover me + Warm and nice, + And two to lead me + To Paradise. + +Passing on to Italy we find an embarrassing abundance of folk-prayers +framed after the self-same model. The repose of the Venetian is under +the charge of the Perfect Angel, the Angel of God, St Bartholomew, the +Blessed Mother, St Elizabeth, the Four Evangelists, and St John the +Baptist. Venetian children are taught to say: "I go to bed, I know not +if I shall arise. Thou, Lord, who knowest, keep good watch over me. +Before my soul separates from my body, give me help and good comfort. +In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, so be it. +Bless my heart and my soul!" The Venetians also have a "Paternoster +pichenin," and a "Paternoster grande," both of which are, in their +existing form, little else than nonsense. The native of the Marches +goes to his rest accompanied by our Lord, the Madonna, the Four +Evangelists, _l'Angelo perfetto_, four greater angels, and three +others--one at the foot, one at the head, one in the middle. The +Tuscan, like the German, has only angels around him: of these he has +seven--one at the head, one at the foot, two at the sides, one to +cover him, one to watch him, and one to bear him to Paradise. The +Sicilian says: "I lay me down in this bed, with Jesus on my breast. I +sleep and he watches. In this bed where I am laid, five saints I find: +two at the head, two at the feet, in the middle is St Michael." + +Perhaps the best expression of the belief in the divine guardians of +sleep is that given to it by an ancient Sardinian poet:-- + + Su letto meo est de battor cantones, + Et battor anghelos si bie ponen; + Duos in pes, et duos in cabitta, + Nostra Segnora a costazu m'ista. + E a me narat: Dormi e reposa, + No hapas paura de mala cosa, + No hapas paura de mala fine. + S' Anghelu Serafine, + S' Anghelu Biancu, + S' Ispiridu Santu, + Sa Vigine Maria, + Tote siant in cumpagnia mea. + Anghelu de Deu, + Custodio meo, + Custa nott' illuminame! + Guarda e difende a me + Ca eo mi incommando a tie. + + My bed has four corners and four angels standing by it. Two at + the foot and two at the head; our Lady is beside me. And to me + she says, "Sleep and repose; have no fear of evil things; have + no fear of an evil end." The angel Serafine, the angel + Blanche, the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary--all are here to + keep me company. Angel of God, thou my guardian, illuminate me + this night. Watch and defend me, for I commend myself to thee. + +A Spanish verse, so near to this that it would be needless to give it +a separate translation, was sent by a friend who at that time was in +the Royal College of Santa Ysabel at Madrid: + + Quatro pirondelitas + Tiene mi cama; + Quatro angelitos + Me la acompana. + La madre de dios + Esta enmedio, + Dicendome: + Duerme y reposa, + Que no te sucedera + Ninguna mala cosa. + + Amen. + +In harmony with the leading idea of the White Paternoster, the +recumbent figures of the Archbishops in Canterbury Cathedral have +angels kneeling at each corner of their altar tombs. It is worth +remarking, too, how certain English lettered compositions have become +truly popular through the fact of their introducing the same idea. +A former Dean of Canterbury once asked an old woman, who lived alone +without chick or child, whether she said her prayers? "Oh! yes," was +the reply, "I say every night of my life, + + "Hush, my babe, lie still in slumber, + Holy angels guard thy bed!" + +The White Paternoster itself, in the form of "Matthew, Mark, Luke, +John," was, till lately, a not uncommon evening prayer in the +agricultural parts of Kent. At present the orthodox night and morning +prayers of the people in Catholic countries are the Lord's Prayer, +_Credo_ and _Ave Maria_, but to these, as has been seen, the White +Paternoster is often added, and at the date of the Reformation--when +the "Hail Mary" had scarcely come into general use--it is probable +that it was rarely omitted. Prayers that partake of the nature of +charms, have always been popular, and people have ever indulged in +odd, little roundabout devices to increase the efficacy of even the +most sacred words. Boccaccio, for instance, speaks of "the Paternoster +of San Giuliano," which seems to have been a Paternoster said for +the repose of the souls of the father and mother of St Julian, in +gratitude for which attention, the Saint was bound to give a good +night's lodging. It remains to be asked, why the White Paternoster is +called white? In the actual state of our knowledge, the reason is not +apparent; but possibly the term is to be taken simply in an +apologetic sense, as when applied to a stated form of dealing with +the supernatural. White charms had a recognised place in popular +extra-belief. It was sweet to be able to compel the invisible powers +to do what you would, and yet to feel secure from uncomfortable +consequences. Of course, in such a case, the thing willed must be of +an innocent nature. The Breton who begs vengeance of St Yves, knows +tolerably well that what he is doing is very black indeed, even though +the saint were ten times a saint. Topsy-turvy as may be his moral +perceptions, he would not call this procedure a "white charm." He +has, however, white charms of his own, one of which was described with +great spirit by Auguste Brizeux, the Breton poet who wove many of the +wild superstitions of his country into picturesque verse. Brizeux' +poems are not very well known either in France or out of it, but they +should be dear to students of folk-lore. The following is a version of +"La Poussiere Sainte:" + + Sweeping an ancient chapel through the night + (A ruin now), built 'neath a rocky height, + The aged Coulm's old wife was muttering, + As if some secret strange abroad to fling. + + "I brave, thee tempest, and will do alone + What by my grand-dame in her youth was done, + When at her beck (of Leon's land, the pride), + The ocean, lion-headed, curbed its tide. + + "Sweep, sweep, my broom, until my charm uprears + A force more strong than sighs, more strong than tears: + Charm loved of heaven, which forces wind and wave, + Though fierce and mad, our children's lives to save. + + "My angel knows, a Christian true am I; + No Pagan, nor in league with sorcery. + Hence I dispense to the four winds of God, + To quell their rage, dust from the holy sod. + + "Sweep on my broom; by virtues such as these + Oft through the air I scattered swarms of bees. + And you, old Coulm, to-morrow shall be prest, + You, and my children three, against my breast." + + In Enn-Tell's port meanwhile, the pier along + Pressed forward, mute, dismayed, the anxious throng. + And as the billows howl, the lightnings flash, + And skies, lead-black, to earth seem like to dash; + Neighbours clasped hand to hand, and each one prayed, + Through superstition, speechless, while afraid. + Still as the port a sail did safely reach, + All shouting hurried forward to the beach: + "Father, is't you? Speak, father is it true?" + Others, "Hast seen my son?" "My brother, you?" + "Brave man, the truth, whate'er has happened, say, + Am I a widow?" Night in such dismay + Dragged 'neath a sky without a moon or star. + Thank God! Meanwhile all boats in safety are, + And every hearth is blazing--all save one, + The Columban's. But that was void and lone. + But you, Coulm's wife, still battle with the storm, + Fixed on the rocks, your task you still perform,-- + You cast, towards east, towards west, and towards the north, + And towards the south, your incantations forth. + + "Go, holy dust, 'gainst all the winds that fly. + No sorceress, but a Christian true am I. + By the lamp's light, when I the fire had lit, + In God's own house, my hands collected it. + + "You from the statues of the saints I swept, + And silken flags, still on the pillars kept, + And the dark tombs, of those whose sons neglect, + But you, with your white winding-sheet protect. + + "Go, holy dust! To stem the winds depart! + Born beneath Christian feet, thou glorious art: + When from the porch, I to the altar sped, + I seemed upon some heavenly path to tread. + + "On you the deacons and the priests have trod, + Pilgrims who live, forefathers 'neath the sod; + Wood flowers, sweet grains of incense, saintly bones; + By dawn you will restore my spouse and sons." + + She ceased her charm; and from the chapel then + She saw approach four bare-foot fishermen. + The aged dame in tears fell on her knees + And cried, "I knew they would escape the seas!" + Then cleansing sand and sea-weed o'er them spread, + With happy lips she kissed each cherished head. + + + + +THE DIFFUSION OF BALLADS. + +I.--LORD RONALD IN ITALY. + + +Several causes have combined to give the professional minstrel a more +tenacious hold on life in Italy than in France or Germany or England. +One of them is, that Italian culture has always been less dependent +on education--or what the English poor call "book-learning"--than the +culture of those countries. + +To this day you may count upon finding a blind ballad-singer in every +Italian city. The connection of blindness with popular songs is a +noteworthy thing. It is not, perhaps, a great exaggeration to say +that, had there been no blind folks in the world, there would have +been few ballads. Who knows, indeed, but that Homer would not have +earned his bread by bread-making instead of by enchanting the children +and wise men of all after-ages, had he not been "one who followed +a guide"? Every one remembers how it was the singing of a "blinde +crowder, with no rougher voice than rude style," that moved the heroic +heart of Sidney more than the blare of trumpets. Every one may not +know that in the East of Europe and in Armenia, "blinde crowders" +still wander from village to village, carrying, wheresoever they go, +the songs of a former day and the news of the latest hour; +acting, after a fashion, as professors of history and "special +correspondents," and keeping alive the sentiment of nationality +under circumstances in which, except for their agency, it must almost +without a doubt have expired. + +When the Austrians occupied Trebinje in the Herzegovina, they forbade +the playing of the "guzla," the little stringed instrument which +accompanies the ballads; but the ballads will not be forgotten. +Proscription does not kill a song. What kills it sometimes, if it have +a political sense, is the fulfilment of the hopes it expresses; then +it may die a natural death. I hunted all over Naples for some one who +could sing a song which every Neapolitan, man and boy, hummed through +the year when the Redshirts brought freedom: _Camicia rossa, camicia +ardente_. It seemed that there was not one who still knew it. Just as +I was on the point of giving up the search, a blind man was produced +out of a tavern at Posilippo; a poor creature in threadbare clothes, +holding a wretched violin. He sang the words with spirit and pathos; +he is old, however, and perhaps the knowledge of them will not survive +him. + +Our present business is not with songs of a national or local +interest, but with those which can hardly be said to belong to any +country in particular. And, first of all, we have to go back to a +certain _Camillo, detto il Bianchino cieco fiorentino_, who sang +ballads at Verona in the year 1629, and who had printed for the +greater diffusion of his fame a sort of rhymed advertisement +containing the first few lines of some twenty songs that belonged to +his repertory. Last but one of these samples stands the following: + + "Dov' andastu jersera, + Figlioul mio ricco, savio e gentil; + Dov' andastu jersera?" + +"When I come to look at it," adds Camillo, "this is too long; it ought +to have been the first to be sung"--alluding, of course, to the song, +not to the sample. + +Later in the same century, the ballad mentioned above had the honour +of being cited before a more polite audience than that which was +probably in the habit of listening to the blind Florentine. On +the 24th of September 1656, Canon Lorenzo Panciatichi reminded +his fellow-academicians of the Crusca of what he called "a fine +observation" that had been made regarding the song: + + "Dov' andastu a cena figlioul mio + Ricco, savio, e gentile?" + +The observation (continued the Canon) turned on the answer the son +makes to the mother when she asks him what his sweetheart gave him for +supper. "She gave me," says the son, "_un' anguilla arrosto cotta +nel pentolin dell' olio_." The idea of a roasted eel cooked in an oil +pipkin offended the academical sense of the fitness of things; it had +therefore been proposed to say instead that the eel was hashed: + + "Madonna Madre, + Il cuore sta male, + Per un anguilla in guazzetto." + +Had we nothing to guide us beyond these fragments, there could be no +question but that in this Italian ballad we might safely recognise +one of the most spirited pieces in the whole range of popular +literature--the song of Lord Ronald, otherwise Rowlande, or Randal, or +"Billy, my son:" + + "O where hae ye been, Lord Ronald, my son? + O where hae ye been, my handsome young man?" + "I hae been to the wood; mother, make my bed soon, + For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain would lie down." + + "Where gat ye your dinner, Lord Ronald, my son? + Where gat ye your dinner, my handsome young man?" + "I dined wi' my love; mother, make my bed soon, + For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain would lie down." + + "What gat ye to dinner, Lord Ronald, my son? + What gat ye to dinner, my handsome young man?" + "I gat eels boil'd in broo; mother, make my bed soon, + For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain would lie down." + + "And where are your bloodhounds, Lord Ronald, my son? + And where are your bloodhounds, my handsome young man?" + "O they swell'd and they died; mother, make my bed soon, + For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain would lie down." + + "O I fear ye are poison'd, Lord Ronald, my son! + O I fear ye are poison'd, my handsome young man!" + "O yes, I am poison'd! mother, make my bed soon, + For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain would lie down." + +This version, which I quote from Mr Allingham's _Ballad Book_ (1864), +ends here; so does that given by Sir Walter Scott in the _Border +Minstrelsy_. There is, however, another version which goes on: + + "What will ye leave to your father, Lord Ronald, my son? + What will ye leave to your father, my handsome young man?" + "Baith my houses and land; mither, mak' my bed sune + For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie doun." + + "What will ye leave to your brither, Lord Ronald, my son? + What will ye leave to your brither, my handsome young man?" + "My horse and my saddle; mither, mak' my bed sune, + For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie doun." + + "What will ye leave to your sister, Lord Ronald, my son? + What will ye leave to your sister, my handsome young man?" + "Baith my gold box and rings; mither, mak' my bed sune, + For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie doun." + + "What will ye leave to your true love, Lord Ronald, my son? + What will ye leave to your true love, my handsome young man?" + "The tow and the halter, for to hang on yon tree, + And let her hang there for the poisoning o' me." + +Lord Ronald has already been met with, though somewhat disguised, both +in Germany and in Sweden, but his appearance two hundred and fifty +years ago at Verona has a peculiar interest attached to it. That +England shares most of her songs with the Northern nations is a fact +familiar to all; but, unless I am mistaken, this is almost the first +time of discovering a purely popular British ballad in an Italian +dress. + +It so happens that to the fragments quoted by Camillo and the Canon +can be added the complete story as sung at the present date in +Tuscany, Venetia, and Lombardy. Professor d'Ancona has taken pains to +collate the slightly different texts, because few Italian folk-songs +now extant can be traced even as far back as the seventeenth century. +The learned Professor, whose great antiquarian services are well +known, does not seem to be aware that the song has currency out of +Italy. The best version is one set down from word of mouth in the +district of Como, and of this I subjoin a literal rendering: + + "Where were you yester eve? + My son, beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + Where were you yester eve?" + "I with my love abode; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + I with my love abode; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + "What supper gave she you? + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + What supper gave she you?" + "I supped on roasted eel; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + I supped on roasted eel; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + "And did you eat it all? + My son, beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + And did you eat it all?" + "Only the half I eat; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + Only the half I eat; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + "Where went the other half? + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + Where went the other half?" + "I gave it to the dog; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + I gave it to the dog; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die?" + + "What did you with the dog? + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + What did you with the dog?" + "It died upon the way; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + It died upon the way; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + "Poisoned it must have been! + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + Poisoned it must have been!" + "Quick for the doctor send; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + Quick for the doctor send; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die. + + "Wherefore the doctor call? + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + Wherefore the doctor call?" + "That he may visit me; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + That he may visit me; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + * * * * * + + "Quick for the parson send; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + Quick for the parson send; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + "Wherefore the parson call? + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + Wherefore the parson call?" + "So that I may confess; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + So that I may confess; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + * * * * * + + "Send for the notary; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + Send for the notary; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + "Why call the notary? + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + Why call the notary?" + "To make my testament; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + To make my testament; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + "What to your mother leave? + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + What to your mother leave?" + "To her my palace goes; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + To her my palace goes; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + "What to your brothers leave? + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + What to your brothers leave?" + "To them the coach and team; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + To them the coach and team; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + "What to your sisters leave? + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + What to your sisters leave?" + "A dower to marry them; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + A dower to marry them; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + "What to your servants leave? + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + What to your servants leave?" + "The road to go to Mass; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + The road to go to Mass; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + "What leave you to your tomb? + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + What leave you to your tomb?" + "Masses seven score and ten; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + Masses seven score and ten; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + + "What leave you to your love? + My son beloved, blooming, and gentle bred, + What leave you to your love?" + "The tree to hang her on; + O lady mother, my heart is very sick: + The tree to hang her on; + Alas, alas, that I should have to die." + +At first sight it would seem that the supreme dramatic element of the +English song--the circumstance that the mother does not know, but only +suspects, with increasing conviction, the presence of foul play--is +weakened in the Lombard ballad by the refrain, "Alas, alas, that I +should have to die." But a little more reflection will show that this +is essentially of the nature of an _aside_. In many instances the +office of the burden in old ballads resembles that of the chorus in +a Greek play: it is designed to suggest to the audience a clue to the +events enacting which is not possessed by the _dramatis personae_--at +least not by all of them. + +In the northern songs, Lord Ronald is a murdered child: a character +in which he likewise figures in the Scotch lay of "The Croodlin Doo." +This is the Swedish variant: + + "Where hast thou been so long, my little daughter?" + "I have been to B[oe]nne to see my brother; + Alas! how I suffer." + + "What gave they thee to eat, my little daughter?" + "Roast eel and pepper, my step-mother. + Alas! how I suffer." + + "What didst thou do with the bones, my little daughter?" + "I threw them to the dogs, my step-mother. + Alas! how I suffer." + + "What happened to the dogs, my little daughter?" + "Their bodies went to pieces, my step-mother. + Alas! how I suffer." + + "What dost thou wish for thy father, my little daughter?" + "Good grain in the grange, my step-mother. + Alas! how I suffer." + + "What dost thou wish for thy brother, my little daughter?" + "A big ship to sail in, my step-mother. + Alas! how I suffer." + + "What dost thou wish for thy sister, my little daughter?" + "Coffers and caskets of gold, my step-mother. + Alas! how I suffer." + + "What dost thou wish for thy step-mother, my little daughter?" + "The chains of hell, step-mother. + Alas! how I suffer." + + "What dost thou wish for thy nurse, my little daughter?" + "The same hell, my nurse. + Alas! how I suffer." + +A point connected with the diffusion of ballads is the extraordinarily +wide adoption of certain conventional forms. One of these is the form +of testamentary instructions by means of which the plot of a song is +worked up to its climax. It reappears in the "Cruel Brother"--which, I +suppose, is altogether to be regarded as of the Roland type: + + "O what would ye leave to your father, dear?" + _With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay._ + "The milk-white steed that brought me here," + _As the primrose spreads so sweetly._ + + "What would ye give to your mother, dear?" + _With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay._ + "My wedding shift which I do wear," + _As the primrose spreads so sweetly._ + + "But she must wash it very clean," + _With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay_, + "For my heart's blood sticks in every seam," + _As the primrose spreads so sweetly_. + + "What would ye give to your sister Anne?" + _With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay._ + "My gay gold ring and my feathered fan," + _As the primrose spreads so sweetly_. + + "What would ye give to your brother John?" + _With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay._ + "A rope and a gallows to hang him on!" + _As the primrose spreads so sweetly_. + + "What would ye give to your brother John's wife?" + _With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay._ + "Grief and sorrow to end her life!" + _As the primrose spreads so sweetly_. + + "What would ye give to your own true lover?" + _With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay._ + "My dying kiss, and my love for ever!" + _As the primrose spreads so sweetly_. + +The Portuguese ballad of "Helena," which has not much in common with +"Lord Roland"--except that it is a story of treachery--is brought into +relation with it by its bequests. Helena is a blameless wife whom a +cruel mother-in-law first encourages to pay a visit to her parents, +and then represents to her husband as having run away from him in +his absence. No sooner has he returned from his journey than he rides +irate after his wife. When he arrives he is met by the news that a son +is born to him, but unappeased he orders the young mother to rise +from her bed and follow him. She obeys, saying that in a well-ordered +marriage it is the husband who commands; only, before she goes, she +kisses her son and bids her mother tell him of these kisses when he +grows up. Then her husband takes her to a high mountain, where the +agony of death comes upon her. The husband asks: "To whom leavest thou +thy jewels?" She answers: "To my sister; if thou wilt permit it." +"To whom leavest thou thy cross and the stones of thy necklace?" "The +cross I leave to my mother; surely she will pray for me; she will +not care to have the stones, thou canst keep them--if to another thou +givest them, better than I, let her adorn herself with them." "Thy +substance, to whom leavest thou?" "To thee, my husband; God grant it +may profit thee." "To whom leavest thou thy son, that he may be well +brought up?" "To thy mother, and may it please God that he should make +himself loved of her." "Not to that dog," cries the husband, his eyes +at last opened, "she might well kill him. Leave him rather to thy +mother, who will bring him up well; she will know how to wash him with +her tears, and she will take the coif from her head to swaddle him." + +A strange, wild Roumanian song, translated by Mr C. F. Keary +(_Nineteenth Century_, No. lxviii.), closes with a list of "gifts" of +the same character: + + "But mother, oh mother, say how + Shall I speak, and what name call him now?" + "My beloved, my step-son, + My heart's love, my cherished one." + "And her, O my mother, what word + Shall I give her, what name?" + "My step-daughter, abhorred, + The whole world's shame." + "Then, my mother, what shall I take him? + What gift shall I make him?" + "A handkerchief fine, little daughter, + Bread of white wheat for thy loved one to eat, + And a glass of wine, my daughter." + "And what shall I take _her_, little mother, + + What gift shall I make _her_?" + "A kerchief of thorns, little daughter; + A loaf of black bread for her whom he wed, + And a cup of poison, my daughter." + +Before parting with "Lord Ronald" it should be noticed that the song +clearly travelled in song-shape, not simply as a popular tradition; +and that its different adaptators have been still more faithful to the +shape than to the substance. It is not so easy to decide whether the +victim was originally a child or a lover, whether the north or the +south has preserved the more correct version. Some crime of the middle +ages may have been the foundation of the ballad; on the other hand +it is conceivable that it formed part of the enormous accumulation of +literary odds and ends brought to Europe from the east, by pilgrims +and crusaders. Stories that, as we know them, seem distinctly +mediaeval, such as Boccaccio's "Falcon," have been traced to India. +If a collection were made of the ballads now sung by no more widely +extended class than the three thousand ballad singers inscribed in the +last census of the North-Western Provinces and Oude, what a priceless +boon would not be conferred upon the student of comparative folk-lore! +We cannot arrive at a certainty even in regard to the minor question +of whether Lord Ronald made his appearance first in England or in +Italy. The English and Italian songs bear a closer affinity to +each other than is possessed by either towards the Swedish variant. +Supposing the one to be directly derived from the other--a supposition +which in this case does not seem improbable--the Italian was most +likely the original. There was a steady migration into England of +Italian literature, literate and probably also illiterate, from the +thirteenth to the sixteenth century. The English ballad-singers may +have been as much on the look-out for a new, orally communicated song +from foreign parts, as Chaucer was for a poem of Petrarch's or a tale +of Boccaccio's. + + +II.--THE THEFT OF A SHROUD. + +The ballad with which we have now to deal has had probably as wide a +currency as that of "Lord Ronald." The student of folk-lore recognises +at once, in its evident fitness for local adaptation, its simple yet +terrifying motive, and the logical march of its events, the elements +that give a popular song a free pass among the peoples. + +M. Allegre took down from word of mouth and communicated to the late +Damase Arbaud a Provencal version, which runs as follows: + + His scarlet cape the Prior donned, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + His scarlet cape the Prior donned, + And all the souls in Paradise + With joy and triumph fill the skies. + + His sable cape the Prior donned, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + His sable cape the Prior donned, + And all the spirits of the dead + Fast tears within the graveyard shed. + + Now, Ringer, to the belfry speed, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Now, Ringer, to the belfry speed, + Ring loud, to-night thy ringing tolls + An office for the dead men's souls. + + Ring loud the bell of good St John: + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Ring loud the bell of good St John: + Pray all, for the poor dead; aye pray, + Kind folks, for spirits passed away. + + Soon as the midnight hour strikes, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Soon as the midnight hour strikes, + The pale moon sheds around her light, + And all the graveyard waxeth white. + + What seest thou, Ringer, in the close? + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + What seest thou, Ringer, in the close? + "I see the dead men wake and sit + Each one by his deserted pit." + + Full thousands seven and hundreds five, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Full thousands seven and hundreds five, + Each on his grave's edge, yawning wide, + His dead man's wrappings lays aside. + + Then leave they their white winding-sheets, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Then leave they their white winding-sheets, + And walk, accomplishing their doom, + In sad procession from the tomb. + + Full one thousand and hundreds five, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Full one thousand and hundreds five, + And each one falls upon his knees + Soon as the holy cross he sees. + + Full one thousand and hundreds five, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Full one thousand and hundreds five + Arrest their footsteps, weeping sore + When they have reached their children's door. + + Full one thousand and hundreds five, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Full one thousand and hundreds five + Turn them aside and, listening, stay + Whene'er they hear some kind soul pray. + + Full one thousand and hundreds five, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Full one thousand and hundreds five, + Who stand apart and groan bereft, + Seeing for them no friends are left. + + But soon as ever the white cock stirs, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + But soon as ever the white cock stirs, + They take again their cerements white, + And in their hands a torch alight. + + But soon as ever the red cock crows, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + But soon as ever the red cock crows, + All sing the Holy Passion song, + And in procession march along. + + But soon as the gilded cock doth shine, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + But soon as the gilded cock doth shine, + Their hands and their two arms they cross, + And each descends into his foss. + + 'Tis now the dead men's second night, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Tis now the dead men's second night: + Peter, go up to ring; nor dread + If thou shouldst chance to see the dead. + + "The dead, the dead, they fright me not," + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + "The dead, the dead, they fright me not, + --Yet prayers are due for the dead, I ween, + And due respect should they be seen." + + When next the midnight hour strikes, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + When next the midnight hour strikes, + The graves gape wide and ghastly show + The dead who issue from below. + + Three diverse ways they pass along, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Three diverse ways they pass along, + Nought seen but wan white skeletons + Weeping, nought heard but sighs and moans. + + Down from the belfry Peter came, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Down from the belfry Peter came, + While still the bell of good St John + Gave forth its sound: barin, baron. + + He carried off a dead man's shroud, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + He carried off a dead man's shroud; + At once it seemed no longer night, + The holy close was all alight. + + The holy Cross that midmost stands, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + The holy Cross that midmost stands + Grew red as though with blood 'twas dyed, + And all the altars loudly sighed. + + Now, when the dead regained the close, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Now, when the dead regained the close + --The Holy Passion sung again-- + They passed along in solemn train. + + Then he who found his cerements gone, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Then he who found his cerements gone, + From out the graveyard gazed and signed + His winding-sheet should be resigned. + + But Peter every entrance closed, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + But Peter every entrance closed + With locks and bolts, approach defies, + Then looks at him--but keeps the prize! + + He with his arm, and with his hand, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + He with his arm, and with his hand, + Made signs in vain, two times or three, + And then the belfry entered he. + + A noise is mounting up the stair, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + A noise is mounting up the stair, + The bolts are shattered, and the door + Is burst and dashed upon the floor. + + The Ringer trembled with dismay, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + The Ringer trembled with dismay, + And still the bell of good St John + For ever swung: barin, baron. + + At the first stroke of Angelus, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + At the first stroke of Angelus + The skeleton broke all his bones, + Falling to earth upon the stones. + + Peter upon his bed was laid, + Ding dong, dong ding dong! + Peter upon his bed was laid, + Confessed his sin, repenting sore, + Lingered three days, then lived no more. + +It will be seen that, in this ballad, which is locally called "Lou +Jour des Mouerts," the officiating priest assumes red vestments in +the morning, and changes them in the course of the day for black. +The vestments appropriate to the evening of All Saints' Day are still +black (it being the Vigil of All Souls'), but in the morning the +colour worn is white or gold. An explanation, however, is at hand. The +feast of All Saints had its beginning in the dedication of the Roman +Pantheon by Boniface IV., in the year 607, to _S. Maria ad Martyres_, +and red ornaments were naturally chosen for a day set apart especially +to the commemoration of martyrdom. These were only discarded when the +feast came to have a more general character, and there is evidence +of their retention here and there in French churches till a date as +advanced as the fifteenth century. Thus, we gain incidentally some +notion of the age of the song. + +Not long after giving a first reading to the Provencal ballad of the +Shroud-theft, I became convinced of its substantial identity with a +poem whose author holds quite another rank to that of the nameless +folk-poet. Goethe's "Todten Tanz" tends less to edification than "Lou +jour des Mouerts;" nor has it, I venture to think, an equal power. +We miss the pathetic picture of the companies of sad ghosts; these +kneeling before the wayside crosses; these lingering by their +children's thresholds; these listening to the prayers of the pious +on their behalf; these others weeping, _en vesent que n'ant plus +d'amics_. But the divergence of treatment cannot hide the fact that +the two ballads are made out of one tale. + + THE DANCE OF DEATH. + + The watcher looks down in the dead of the night + On graves in trim order gleaming; + The moon steeps the world all around in her light-- + 'Tis clear as if noon were beaming. + One grave gaped apart, then another began; + Here forth steps a woman, and there steps a man, + White winding-sheets trailing behind them. + + On sport they determine, nor pause they for long, + All feel for the measure advancing; + The rich and the poor, the old and the young; + But winding-sheets hinder the dancing. + Since sense of decorum no longer impedes, + They hasten to shake themselves free of their weeds, + And tombstones are quickly beshrouded. + + Then legs kick about and are lifted in air, + Strange gesture and antic repeating; + The bones crack and rattle, and crash here and there, + As if to keep time they were beating. + The sight fills the watcher with mirth 'stead of fear, + And the sly one, the Tempter, speaks low in his ear: + "Now go and a winding-sheet plunder!" + + The hint he soon followed, the deed it was done, + Then behind the church-door he sought shelter; + The moon in her splendour unceasingly shone, + And still dance the dead helter-skelter. + At last, one by one, they all cease from the play, + And, wrapt in the winding-sheets, hasten away, + Beneath the turf silently sinking. + + One only still staggers and stumbles along, + The grave edges groping and feeling; + 'Tis no brother ghost who has done him the wrong; + Now his scent shows the place of concealing. + The church-door he shakes, but his strength is represt; + 'Tis well for the watcher the portals are blest + By crosses resplendent protected. + + His shirt he must have, upon this he is bent, + No time has he now for reflection; + Each sculpture of Gothic some holding has lent, + He scales and he climbs each projection. + Dread vengeance o'ertakes him, 'tis up with the spy! + From arch unto arch draws the skeleton nigh, + Like lengthy-legged horrible spider. + + The watcher turns pale, and he trembles full sore, + The shroud to return he beseeches; + But a claw (it is done, he is living no more), + A claw to the shroud barely reaches. + The moonlight grows faint; it strikes one by the clock; + A thunderclap burst with a terrible shock; + To earth falls the skeleton shattered. + +It needed but small penetration to guess that Goethe had neither seen +nor heard of the Provencal song. It seemed, therefore, certain that +a version of the Shroud-theft must exist in Germany, or near it--an +inference I found to be correct on consulting that excellent work, +Goethe's _Gedichte erlaeutert von Heinrich Viehoff_ (Stuttgart, 1870). +So far as the title and the incident of the dancing are concerned, +Goethe apparently had recourse to a popular story given in Appel's +_Book of Spectres_, where it is related how, when the guards of the +tower looked out at midnight, they saw Master Willibert rise from his +grave in the moonshine, seat himself on a high tombstone, and begin to +perform on his pocket pipe. Then several other tombs opened, and the +dead came forth and danced cheerily over the mounds of the graves. The +white shrouds fluttered round their dried-up limbs, and their bones +clattered and shook till the clock struck one, when each returned +into his narrow house, and the piper put his pipe under his arm +and followed their example. The part of the ballad which has to do +directly with the Shroud-theft is based upon oral traditions collected +by the poet during his sojourn at Teplitz, in Bohemia, in the summer +of 1813. Viehoff has ascertained that there are also traces of the +legend in Silesia, Moravia, and Tyrol. In these countries the story +would seem to be oftenest told in prose; but Viehoff prints a rhymed +rendering of the variant localised in Tyrol, where the events are +supposed to have occurred at the village of Burgeis: + + The twelve night strokes have ceased to sound, + The watchman of Burgeis looks around, + The country all in moonlight sleeps; + Standing the belfry tower beneath + The tombstones, with their wreaths of death, + The wan moon's ghastly pallor steeps. + + "Does the young mother in child-birth dead + Rise in her shroud from her lonely bed, + For the sake of the child she has left behind? + To mock them (they say) makes the dead ones grieve, + Let's see if I cannot her work relieve, + Or she no end to her toil may find." + + So spake he, when something, with movement slow, + Stirs in the deep-dug grave below, + And in its trailing shroud comes out; + And the little garments that infants have + It hangs and stretches on gate and grave, + On rail and trellis, the yard about. + + The rest of the buried in sleep repose, + That nothing of waking or trouble knows, + For the woman the sleep of the grave is killed; + Her leaden sleep, each midnight hour, + Flees, and her limbs regain their power, + And she hastes as to tend her new-born child. + + All with rash spite the watchman views, + And with cruel laughter the form pursues, + As he leans from the belfrey's narrow height, + And in sinful scorn on the tower rails + Linen and sheets and bands he trails, + Mocking her acts in the moon's wan light. + + Lo, with swift steps, foreboding doom, + From the churchyard's edge o'er grave and tomb + The ghost to the tower wends its ways; + And climbs and glides, ne'er fearing fall, + Up by the ledges, the lofty wall, + Fixing the sinner with fearful gaze. + + The watcher grows pale, and with hasty hand, + Tears from the tower the shrouds and bands; + Vainly! That threatening grin draws nigh! + With a trembling hand he tolls the hour, + And the skeleton down from the belfry-tower, + Shattered and crumbling, falls from high. + +This story overlaps the great cycle of popular belief which treats +of the help given by a dead mother to her bereaved child. They say +in Germany, when the sheets are ruffled in the bed of a motherless +infant, that the mother has lain beside it and suckled it. Kindred +superstitions stretch through the world. The sin of the Burgeis +watchman is that of heartless malice, but it stops short of actual +robbery, which is perhaps the reason why he escapes with his life, +having the presence of mind to toll forth the first hour of day, +when-- + + Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, + The extravagant and erring spirit hies + To his confine. + +The prose legends which bear upon one or another point in the +Shroud-theft, are both numerous and important. Joseph Mace, a +cabin-boy of Saint Cast, in Upper Brittany, related the following to +the able collector of Breton folk-lore, M. Paul Sebillot. There was a +young man who went to see a young girl; his parents begged him not to +go again to her, but he replied: "Mind your own business and leave me +to mind mine." One evening he invited two or three of his comrades to +accompany him, and as they passed by a stile they saw a woman standing +there, dressed all in white. "I'll take off her coif," said the youth. +"No," said the others, "let her alone." But he went straight up to +her and carried off her coif--there only remained the little skullcap +underneath, but he did not see her face. He went with the others to +his sweetheart, and showed her the coif. "Ah!" said he, "as I came +here I met a woman all in white, and I carried off her coif." "Give +me the coif," replied his sweetheart; "I will put it away in my +wardrobe." Next evening he started again to see the girl, and on +reaching the stile he saw a woman in white like the one of the day +before, but this one had no head. "Dear me," he said to himself, "it +is the same as yesterday; still I did not think I had pulled off her +head." When he went in to his sweetheart, she said, "I wore to-day +the coif you gave me; you can't think how nice I look in it!" "Give it +back to me, I beg of you," said the young man. She gave it back, and +when he got home he told his mother the whole story. "Ah, my poor +lad," she said, "you have kept sorry company. I told you some ill +would befall you." He went to bed, but in the night his mother heard +sighs coming from the bed of her son. She woke her good man and said, +"Listen; one would say someone was moaning." She went to her son's +bed and found him bathed in sweat. "What is the matter with you?" +she asked. "Ah, my mother, I had a weight of more than three hundred +pounds on my body; it stifled me, I could bear it no longer." Next day +the youth went to confession, and he told all to the curate. "My boy," +said the priest, "the person you saw was a woman who came from the +grave to do penance; it was your dead sister." "What can I do?" asked +the young man. "You must go and take her back her coif, and set it +on the neck on the side to which it leans." "Ah! sir, I should never +dare, I should die of fright!" Still he went that evening to the +stile, where he saw the woman who was dressed in white and had no +head; he set the coif just on the side the neck leant to; all at once +a head showed itself inside it, and a voice said, "Ah! my brother, you +hindered me from doing penance; to-morrow you will come and help me +to finish it." The young man went back to bed, but next day he did not +get up when the others did, and when they went to his bed he was dead. + +At Saint Suliac a young man saw three young girls kneeling in the +cemetery. He took the cap off one of them, saying that he would not +give it back till she came to embrace him. Next day, instead of the +cap he found a death's head. At midnight he carried it back, holding +in his arms a new-born infant. The death's head became once more a +cap, the woman disappeared, and the young man, thanks to the child, +suffered no harm. + +In a third Breton legend a child commits the theft, but without any +consciousness of wrong-doing. A little girl picked up a small bone in +a graveyard and took it away to amuse herself with it. In the evening, +when she returned home, she heard a voice saying: + + Give me back my bone! + Give me back my bone! + +"What's that?" asked the mother. + +"Perhaps it is because of a bone I picked up in the cemetery." + +"Well, it must be given back." + +The little girl opened the door and threw the bone into the court, but +the voice went on saying: + + Give me back my bone! + Give me back my bone! + +"Maybe it is the bone of a dead man; take the candle, go into the +court and give it back to him." + +It is most unfortunate to possess a human bone, even by accident. +It establishes unholy relations between the possessor and the spirit +world which render him defenceless against spells and enchantments. A +late chaplain to the forces in Mauritius told me that the witches, +or rather wizards, who have it all their own way in that island, +contrived, after a course of preparatory persecution, to +surreptitiously introduce into his house the little finger of a child. +He could not think what to do with it: at last he consulted a friend, +a Catholic priest, who advised him to burn it, which was done. We all +know "the finger of birth-strangled babe" in the witches' cauldron in +_Macbeth_; but it is somewhat surprising to find a similar "charm for +powerful trouble" in current use in a British colony. + +A Corsican legend, reported by M. Frederic Ortoli, should have a place +here. On the Day of the Dead a certain man had to go to Sartena to +sell chestnuts. Overnight he filled his panniers, so as to be ready to +start with the first gleam of daylight. The only thing left for him to +do was to go and get his horse, which was out at pasture not far from +the village. So he went to bed, but hardly had he lain down when a +fearful storm broke over the house. Cries and curses echoed all round: +"Cursed be thou! cursed be thy wife! cursed be thy children!" The +wretched man grew cold with fear; he got quite close to his wife, who +asked: "Did you put the water outside the window?" "Sangu di Cristu!" +cried the man, "I forgot!" He rose at once to put vessels filled with +water on the balcony. The dead--whose vigil it was--were in fact come, +and finding no water either to drink or to wash and purify their sins +in, they had made a frightful noise and hurled maledictions against +him who had forgotten their wants. The poor man went to bed again, but +the storm continued, though the cursing and blaspheming had ceased. + +Towards three in the morning the man wished to get up, "Stay," said +his wife, "do not go." + +"No, go I must." + +"The weather is so bad, the wind so high; some mischief will come to +you." + +"Never mind; keep me no more." + +And so saying the husband went out to find his horse. He had barely +reached the crossway when by the path from Giufari, he saw, marching +towards him, the _squadra d'Arrozza_--the Dead Battalion. Each dead +man held a taper, and chanted the _Miserere_. + +The poor peasant was as if petrified; his blood stood still in his +veins, and he could not utter a word. Meanwhile the troop surrounded +him, and he who was at its head offered him the taper he was carrying. +"Take hold!" he said, and the poor wretch took it. + +Then the most dreadful groans and cries were heard. "Woe! woe! woe! Be +accursed, be accursed, be accursed." + +The villager soon came to himself, but oh! horrid sight! in his hand +was the arm of a little child. It was that, and not a taper, that the +dead had given him. He tried to get rid of it, but every effort proved +fruitless. In despair, he went to the priest, and told him all about +it. "Men should never take what spirits offer them," said the priest, +"it is always a snare they set for us; but now that the mischief is +done, let us see how best we can repair it." + +"What must I do?" + +"For three successive nights the Dead Battalion will come under your +windows at the same hour as when you met it: some will cry, some +will sob, others will curse you, and ask persistently for the little +child's arm; the bells of all the churches will set to tolling the +funeral knell, but have no fear. At first you must not throw them the +arm--only on the third day may you get rid of it, and this is how. +Get ready a lot of hot ashes; then when the dead come and begin to cry +and groan, throw them a part. That will make them furious; they will +wish to attack your house--you will let them in, but when all the +spectres are inside, suddenly throw at them what is left of the hot +ashes with the child's arm along with it. The dead will take it away, +and you will be saved." + +Everything happened just as the priest said; for three nights cries, +groans, and imprecations surrounded the man's house, while the bells +tolled the death-knell. It was only by throwing hot ashes on the +ghosts that he got rid of the child's arm. Not long after, he died. +"Woe be to him who forgets to give drink to the dead." + +The Dead Battalion, or Confraternity of Ghosts, walk abroad dressed as +penitents, with hoods over their heads. The solitary night traveller +sees them from time to time, defiling down the mountain gorges; they +invariably try to make him accept some object, not to be recognised +in the dark--but beware, lest you accept! If some important person +is about to die, they come out to receive his soul into their dread +brotherhood. + +Ghost stories are common in Corsica. What wilder tale could be desired +than that of the girl, betrayed by her lover to wed a richer bride, +who returns thrice, and lies down between man and wife--twice she +vanishes at cock-crow, the third time she clasps her betrayer in her +chilly arms, saying, "Thou art mine, O beloved! mine thou wilt be +forever, we part no more." While she speaks he breathes his last +breath. + +The dead, when assembled in numbers, and when not employed in +rehearsing the business or calling of their former lives, are usually +engaged either in dancing or in going through some sort of religious +exercise. On this point there is a conformity of evidence. A spectre's +mass is a very common superstition. On All Soul's Eve an old woman +went to pray in the now ruined church of St Martin, at Bonn. Priests +were performing the service, and there was a large congregation, but +by and by the old woman became convinced that she was the only living +mortal in the church. She wished to get away, but she could not; just +as Mass was ending, however, her deceased husband whispered to her +that now was the time to fly for her life. She ran to the door, but +she stopped for one moment at the spot in the aisle where two of her +children were buried, just to say, "Peace be unto them." The door +swung open and closed after her: a bit of her cloak was shut in, so +that she had to leave it behind. Soon after she sickened and died; the +neighbours said it must be because a piece of her clothes had remained +in the possession of the dead. + +The dance of the dead sometimes takes the form not of an amusement but +of a doom. One of the most curious instances of this is embodied in a +Rhineland legend, which has the advantage of giving names, dates, and +full particulars. In the 14th century, Freiherr von Metternich placed +his daughter Ida in a convent on the island of Oberwoerth, in order +to separate her from her lover, one Gerbert, to whom she was secretly +betrothed. A year later the maiden lay sick in the nunnery, attended +by an aged lay sister. "Alas!" she said, "I die unwed though a +betrothed wife." "Heaven forefend!" cried her companion, "then you +would be doomed to dance the death-dance." The old sister went on to +explain that betrothed maidens who die without having either married +or taken religious vows, are condemned to dance on a grassless spot +in the middle of the island, there being but one chance of escape--the +coming of a lover, no matter whether the original betrothed or +another, with whom the whole company dances round and round till +he dies; then the youngest of the ghosts makes him her own, and may +henceforth rest in her grave. The old nun's gossip does not delay +(possibly it hastens) the hapless Ida's departure, and Gerbert, +who hears of her illness on the shores of the Boden See, arrives at +Coblentz only to have tidings of her death. He rows over to Oberwoerth: +it is midnight in midwinter. Under the moonlight dance the unwed +brides, veiled and in flowing robes; Gerbert thinks he sees Ida +amongst them. He joins in the dance; fast and furious it becomes, to +the sound of a wild, unearthly music. At last the clock strikes, and +the ghosts vanish--only one, as it goes, seems to stoop and kiss the +youth, who sinks to the ground. There the gardener finds him on +the morrow, and in spite of all the care bestowed upon him by the +sisterhood he dies before sundown. + +In China they are more practical. In the natural course of things the +spirit of an engaged girl would certainly haunt her lover, but there +is a way to prevent it, and that way he takes. He must go to the house +where she died, step over the coffin containing her body, and carry +home a pair of her shoes. Then he is safe. + +A story may be added which comes from a Dutch source. The gravedigger +happened to have a fever on All Saints' Day. "Is it not unlucky?" he +said to a friend who came to see him, "I am ill, and must go to-night +in the cold and snow to dig a grave." "Oh, I'll do that for you," said +the gossip. "That's a little service." So it was agreed. The gossip +took a spade and a pick-axe, and cheered himself with a glass at the +alehouse; then, by half-past eleven, the work was done. As he +was going away from the churchyard he saw a procession of white +friars--they went round the close, each with a taper in his hand. When +they passed the gossip, they threw down the tapers, and the last flung +him a big ball of wax with two wicks. The gossip laughed quite loudly: +all this wax would sell for a pretty sum! He picked up the tapers and +hid them under his bed. Next day was All Souls'. The gossip went to +bed betimes, but he could not get to sleep, and as twelve struck he +heard three knocks. He jumped up and opened the door--there stood all +the white monks, only they had no tapers! The gossip fell back on his +bed from fright, and the monks marched into the room and stood all +round him. Then their white robes dropped off, and, only to think of +it! they were all skeletons! But no skeleton was complete; one lacked +an arm, another a leg, another a backbone, and one had no head. +Somehow the cloth in which the gossip had wrapped the wax came out +from under the bed and fell open; instead of tapers it was full of +bones. The skeletons now called out for their missing members: "Give +me my rib," "Give me my backbone," and so on. The gossip gave back all +the pieces, and put the skull on the right shoulders--it was what he +had mistaken for a ball of wax. The moment the owner of the head had +got it back he snatched a violin which was hanging against the wall, +and told the gossip to begin to play forthwith, he himself extending +his arms in the right position to conduct the music. All the skeletons +danced, making a fearful clatter, and the gossip dared not leave off +fiddling till the morning came and the monks put on their clothes and +went away. The gossip and his wife did not say one word of what had +happened till their last hour, when they thought it wisest to tell +their confessor. + +Mr Benjamin Thorpe saw a link between the above legend, of which he +gave a translation in his "Northern Mythology," and the Netherlandish +proverb, "Let no one take a bone from the churchyard: the dead +will torment him till he return it." Its general analogy with our +Shroud-theft does not admit of doubt, though the proceedings of the +expropriator of wax lights are more easily accounted for than +are those of the Shroud-thief. Peter of Provence either stole the +winding-sheet out of sheer mischief, or he took it to enable him +to see sights not lawfully visible to mortal eyes. In any case a +well-worn shroud could scarcely enrich the thief, while the wax used +for ecclesiastical candles was, and is still, a distinctly marketable +commodity. A stranger who goes into a church at Florence in the +dusk of the evening, when a funeral ceremony is in the course of +performance, is surprised to see men and boys dodging the footsteps of +the brethren of the _Misericordia_, and stooping at every turn to the +pavement; if he asks what is the object of their peculiar antics, he +will hear that it is to collect + + The droppings of the wax to sell again. + +The industry is time-honoured in Italy. At Naples in the last century, +the wax-men flourished exceedingly by reason of a usage described by +Henry Swinburne. Candidates for holy orders who had not money enough +to pay the fees, were in the habit of letting themselves out to attend +funerals, so that they might be able to lay by the sum needful. But as +they were often indisposed to fulfil the duties thus undertaken, they +dressed up the city vagrants in their clothes and sent them to pray +and sing instead of them. These latter made their account out of the +transaction by having a friend near, who held a paper bag, into which +they made the tapers waste plenteously. Other devices for improving +the trade were common at that date in the Neapolitan kingdom. Once, +when an archbishop was to be buried, and four hundred genuine friars +were in attendance, suddenly a mad bull was let loose amongst them, +whereupon they dropped their wax lights, and the thieves, who had laid +the plot, picked them up. At another great funeral, each assistant +was respectfully asked for his taper by an individual dressed like +a sacristan; the tapers were then extinguished and quietly carried +away--only afterwards it was discovered that the supposed sacristans +belonged to a gang of thieves. The Shroud-theft is a product of the +peculiar fascination exercised by the human skeleton upon the mediaeval +fancy. The part played by the skeleton in the early art and early +fiction of the Christian aera is one of large importance; the horrible, +the grotesque, the pathetic, the humorous--all are grouped round the +bare remnants of humanity. The skeleton, figuring as Death, still +looks at you from the _facades_ of the village churches in the north +of Italy and the Trentino--sometimes alone, sometimes with other stray +members of the _Danse Macabre_; carrying generally an inscription to +this purport: + + Giunge la morte plena de egualeza, + Sole ve voglio e non vostra richeza. + Digna mi son de portar corona, + E che signoresi ogni persona. + +The _Danse Macabre_ itself is a subject which is well nigh +exhaustless. The secret of its immense popularity can be read in the +lines just quoted: it proclaimed equality. "Nous mourrons tous," said +the French preacher--then, catching the eye of the king, he politely +substituted "_presque_ tous." Now there is no "presque" in the Dance +of Death. Whether painted by Holbein's brush, or by that of any humble +artist of the Italian valleys, the moral is the same: grand lady and +milkmaid, monarch and herdsman, all have to go. Who shall fathom the +grim comfort there was in this vivid, this highly intelligible showing +forth of the indisputable fact? It was a foretaste of the declaration +of the rights of man. Professor Pellegrini, who has added an +instructive monograph to the literature of the _Danse Macabre_, +mentions that on the way to the cemetery of Galliate a wall bears the +guiding inscription: "Via al vero comunismo!" + +The old custom of way-side ossuaries contributed no doubt towards +keeping strongly before the people the symbol and image of the great +King. I have often reflected on the effect, certainly if unconsciously +felt, of the constant and unveiled presence of the dead. I remember +once passing one of the still standing chapels through the gratings +of which may be seen neatly ranged rows of human bones, as I was +descending late one night a mountain in Lombardy. The moon fell +through the bars upon the village ancestors; one old man went by along +the narrow way, and said gravely as he went the two words: "E +tardi!" It was a scene which always comes back to me when I study the +literature of the skeleton. + + + + +SONGS FOR THE RITE OF MAY. + + +One of the first of living painters has pointed to the old English +custom of carrying about flowers on May Day as a sign that, in the +Middle Ages, artistic sensibility and a pleasure in natural beauty +were not dead among the common people of England. Nothing can be truer +than this way of judging the observance of the Rite of May. Whatever +might be the foolishness that it led to here and there, its origin lay +always in pure satisfaction at the returned glory of the earth; in the +wish to establish a link that could be seen and felt--if only that +of holding a green bough or of wearing a daffodil crown--between +the children of men and the new and beautiful growth of nature. The +sentiment is the same everywhere, but the manner of its expression +varies. In warmer lands it finds a vent long before the coming of +May. March, in fact, rather than May, seems to have been chosen as the +typical spring month in ancient Greece and Rome; and when we see the +almond-trees blooming down towards Ponte Molle in the earliest week in +February, even March strikes us as a little late for the beginning +of the spring festival. A few icicles next morning on the Trevi, act, +however, as a corrective to our ideas. In a famous passage Ovid tells +the reason why the Romans kept holiday on the first of March: "The +ice being broken up, winter at last yields, and the snow melts away, +conquered by the sun's gentle warmth; the leaves come back to the +trees that were stripped by the cold, the sap-filled bud swells with +the tender twig, and the fertile grass, that long lay unseen, finds +hidden passages and uplifts itself in the air. Now is the field +fruitful, now is the time of the birth of cattle, now the bird +prepares its house and home in the bough." (_Fastorum_, lib. iii.) + +March day is still kept in Greece by bands of youngsters who go +from house to house in the hopes of getting little gifts of fruit or +cheese. They take with them a wooden swallow which they spin round to +the song: + + The swallow speeds her flight + O'er the sea-foam white, + And then a-singing she doth slake her wing. + "March, March, my delight, + And February wan and wet, + For all thy snow and rain thou yet + Hast a perfume of the spring." + +Or perhaps to the following variant, given by Mr Lewis Sergeant in +_New Greece_: + + She is here, she is here, + The swallow that brings us the beautiful year; + Open wide the door, + We are children again, we are old no more. + +These little swallow-songs are worth the attention of the Folk-Lore +student, since they are of a greater antiquity than can be proved on +written evidence in the case, so far as I know, of any other folk-song +still current. More than two thousand years ago they existed in the +form quoted from Theognis by Athenaeus as "an excellent song sung by +the children of Rhodes." + + The swallow comes! She comes, she brings + Glad days and hours upon her wings. + See on her back + Her plumes are black, + But all below + As white as snow. + Then from your well-stored house with haste, + Bring sweet cakes of dainty taste, + Bring a flagon full of wine, + Wheaten meal bring, white and fine; + And a platter load with cheese, + Eggs and porridge add--for these + Will the swallow not decline. + Now shall we go, or gifts receive! + Give, or ne'er your house we leave, + Till we the door or lintel break, + Or your little wife we take; + She so light, small toil will make. + But whate'er ye bring us forth, + Let the gift be one of worth. + Ope, ope your door, to greet the swallow then, + For we are only boys, not bearded men. + +In AEgina the children's prattle runs: "March is come, sing, ye hills +and ye flowers and little birds! Say, say, little swallow, where hast +thou passed? where hast thou halted?" And in Corfu: "Little swallow, +my joyous one, joyous my swallow; thou that comest from the desert, +what good things bringest thou? Health, joy, and red eggs." Yet +another version of the swallow song deals in scant compliments to the +month of March, which was welcomed so gladly at its first coming: + + From the Black Sea the swallow comes, + She o'er the waves has sped, + And she has built herself a nest + And resting there she said: + "Thou February cold and wet, + And snowy March and drear, + Soft April heralds its approach, + And soon it will be here. + The little birds begin to sing, + Trees don their green array, + Hens in the yard begin to cluck, + And store of eggs to lay. + The herds their winter shelter leave + For mountain-side and top; + The goats begin to sport and skip, + And early buds to crop; + Beasts, birds, and men all give themselves + To joy and merry heart, + And ice and snow and northern winds + Are melted and depart. + Foul February, snowy March, + Fair April will not tarry. + Hence, February! March, begone! + Away the winter carry!" + +When they leave off singing, the children cry "Pritz! Pritz!" +imitating the sound of the rapid flight of a bird. Longfellow +translated a curious Stork-carol sung in spring-time by the Hungarian +boys on the islands of the Danube: + + Stork! Stork! Poor Stork! + Why is thy foot so bloody? + A Turkish boy hath torn it, + Hungarian boy will heal it, + With fiddle, fife, and drum. + +Before the sun was up on May-day morning, the people of Edinburgh +assembled at Arthur's Seat to "meet the dew." May-dew was thought to +possess all kinds of virtues. English girls went into the fields at +dawn to wash their faces in it, in order to procure a good complexion. +Pepys speaks of his wife going to Woolwich for a little change of air, +and to gather the May-dew. In Croatia, the women get from the woods +flowers and grasses which they throw into water taken from under a +mill-wheel, and next morning they bathe in the water, imagining that +thus the new strength of Nature enters into them. There is said to +also exist a singular rain-custom in Croatia. When a drought threatens +to injure the crops, a young girl, generally a gipsy, dresses herself +entirely in flowers and grasses, in which primitive raiment she is +conducted through the village by her companions, who sing to the skies +for mercy. In Greece, too, there are many songs and ceremonies in +connection with a desire for the rain, which never comes during the +whole pitiless summer. + +If there be a part of the world where spring plays the laggard, it is +certainly the upper valley of the Inn. Nevertheless the children +of the Engadine trudge forth bravely over the snow, shaking their +cow-bells and singing lustily: + + Chalanda Mars, chaland'Avrigl + Lasche las vachias our d'nuilg. + +Were the cows to leave their stables as is here enjoined, they would +not find a blade of grass to eat--but that does not matter. The +children have probably sung that song ever since their forefathers +came up to the mountains; came up in all likelihood from sunny +Tuscany. The Engadine lads, after doing justice to their March-day +fare, set out for the boundaries of their commune, where they are met +by another band of boys, with whom they contend in various trials +of strength, which sometimes end in hand-to-hand fights. This may be +analogous to the old English usage of beating the younger generation +once a year at the village boundaries in order to impress on them a +lasting idea of local geography. By the Lake of Poschiavo it is the +custom to "call after the grass"--"chiamar l'erba"--on March-day. + +In the end, as has been seen, March gets an ill-word from the Greek +folk-singer, who is not more constant in his praise of April. It is +the old fatality which makes the Better the Enemy of the Good. + + May is coming, May is coming, comes the month so blithe and gay; + April truly has its flowers, but all roses bloom in May; + April, thou accurst one, vanish! Sweet May-month I long to see; + May fills all the world with flowers, May will give my love to me. + +May is pre-eminently the bridal month in Greece; a strange +contradiction to the prejudice against May marriages that prevails +in most parts of Europe. "Marry in May, rue for aye." The Romans have +been held responsible for this superstition. They kept their festival +of the dead during May, and while it lasted other forms of worship +were suspended. To contract marriage would have been to defy the +fates. Traces of a spring feast of souls survive in France, where, on +Palm Sunday, _Paques fleuries_ as it is called, it is customary to set +the first fresh flowers of the year upon the graves. Nor is it by any +means uninteresting to note that in one great empire far outside of +the Roman world the _fete des morts_ is assigned not to the quiet +close of the year but to the delightful spring. The Chinese festival +of Clear Weather which falls in April is the chosen time for +worshipping at the family tombs. + +The marriage of Mary Queen of Scots and James Bothwell was celebrated +on the 16th of May; an unknown hand wrote upon the gate of Holyrood +Palace Ovid's warning: + + Si te proverbia tangunt, + Mense malas Maio nubere vulgus ait. + +Of English songs treating of that "observance" or "rite" of May to +which Chaucer and Shakespeare bear witness, there are unfortunately +few. The old nursery rhyme: + + Here we go a-piping, + First in spring and then in May, + +tells the usual story of house-to-house visiting and expected largess. +In Devonshire, children used to take round a richly-dressed doll; such +a doll is still borne in triumph by the children of Great Missenden, +Bucks, where a doggerel is sung, of which these are the concluding +verses: + + A branch of May I have you brought, + And at your door I stand; + 'Tis but a spray that's well put out + By the works of the mighty Lord's hand. + + If you have got no strong beer, + We'll be content with small; + And take the goodwill of your house, + And give good thanks for all. + + God bless the master of this house, + The mistress also; + Likewise the little children + That round the table go. + + My song is done, I must be gone, + No longer can I stay; + God bless you all, both great and small, + And send you a joyful May. + +The poets of Great Missenden not being prolific, the two middle +stanzas are used at Christmas as well as on May-day. + +May-poles were prohibited by the Long Parliament of 1644, being +denounced as a "heathenish vanity generally abused to superstition and +wickedness." A long while before, the Roman Floralia, the feast when +people carried green boughs and wore fresh garlands, had been put +down for somewhat the same reasons. With regard to May-poles I am not +inclined to think too harshly of them. They died hard: an old Essex +man told me on his death-bed of how when he was a lad the young folks +danced regularly round the May-pole on May-day, and in his opinion it +was a good time. It was a time, he went on to say, when the country +was a different thing; twice a day the postillion's horn sounded down +the village street, the Woolpack Inn was often full even to the attics +in its pretty gabled roof, all sorts of persons of quality fell out +of the clouds, or to speak exactly, emerged from the London coach. +The life of the place seemed to be gone, said my friend, and yet "the +place" is in the very highest state of modern prosperity. + +The parade of sweeps in bowers of greenery lingered on rather longer +in England than May-poles. It is stated to have originated in this +way. Edward Wortley Montagu (born about 1714), who later was destined +to win celebrity by still stranger freaks, escaped when a boy from +Westminster School and borrowed the clothes of a chimney sweep, +in whose trade he became an adept. A long search resulted in his +discovery and restoration to his parents on May 1; in recollection +of which event Mrs Elizabeth Montagu is said to have instituted +the May-day feast given by her for many years to the London +chimney-sweepers. + +In the country west of Glasgow it is still remembered how once the +houses were adorned with flowers and branches on the first of May, +and in some parts of Ireland they still plant a May-tree or May-bush +before the door of the farmhouse, throwing it at sundown into a +bonfire. The lighting of fires was not an uncommon feature of May-day +observance, but it is a practice which seems to me to have strayed +into that connection from its proper place in the great festival of +the summer solstice on St John's Eve. Among people of English speech, +May-day customs are little more than a cheerful memory. Herrick wrote: + + Wash, dress, be brief in praying, + Few beads are best when once we go a-maying. + +People neglect their "beads" or the equivalents now from other +motives. + +May night is the German Walpurgis-nacht. The witches ride up to the +Brocken on magpies' tails, not a magpie can be seen for the next +twenty-four hours--they are all gone and they have not had time to +return. The witches dance on the Brocken till they have danced away +the winter's snow. May-brides and May-kings are still to be heard of +in Germany, and children run about on May-day with buttercups or +with a twist of bread, a _Bretzel_, decked with ribbons, or holding +imprisoned may-flies, which they let loose whilst they sing: + + Maikaeferchen fliege, + Dein Vater ist in kriege, + Deine Mutter ist in Pommerland, + Pommerland ist abgebrannt, + Maikaeferchen fliege. + +May chafer must fly away home, his father is at the wars, his mother +is in Pomerania, Pomerania is all burnt. May chafer in short is the +brother of our ladybird. Dr Karl Blind is of opinion that "Pommerland" +is a later interpolation for "Holler-land"--the land of Freya--Holda, +the Teutonic Aphrodite; and he and other German students of mythology +see in the conflagration an allusion to the final end and doom of the +kingdom of the gods. It is pointed out that the ladybird was Freya's +messenger, whose business it was to call the unborn from their +tranquil sojourn amongst celestial flowers, into the storms of human +existence. There is an airy May chafer song in Alsace--Teutonic in +tradition, though French in tongue: + + Avril, tu t'en vas, + Car Mai vient la-bas, + Pour balayer ta figure + De pluie, aussi de froidure. + Hanneton, vole! + Hanneton, vole! + + Au firmament bleu + Ton nid est en feu, + Les Turcs avec leur epee + Viennent tuer ta couvee. + Hanneton, vole! + Hanneton, vole! + +Dr Blind recollects taking part, as a boy, in an extremely curious +children's drama, which is still played in some places in the open +air. It is an allegory of the expulsion of winter, who is killed and +burnt, and of the arrival of summer, who comes decked with flowers and +garlands. The children repeat: + + Now have we chased death away, + And we bring the summer weather; + Summer dear and eke the May, + And the flowers all together: + Bringing summer we are come, + Summer tide and sunshine home. + +With this may be compared an account given by Olaus Magnus, a Swedish +writer of the fifteenth century, of how May Day was celebrated in +his time. "A number of youths on horseback were drawn up in two lines +facing each other, the one party representing 'Winter' and the other +'Summer.' The leader of the former was clad in wild beasts' skins, +and he and his men were armed with snow-balls and pieces of ice. +The commander of the latter--'Maj Greve,' or Count May--was, on the +contrary, decorated with leaves and flowers, and his followers had +for weapons branches of the birch or linden tree, which, having been +previously steeped in water, were then in leaf. At a given signal, a +sham fight ensued between the opposing forces. If the season was cold +and backward, 'Winter' and his party were impetuous in their attack, +and in the beginning the advantage was supposed to rest with them; +but if the weather was genial, and the spring had fairly set in, 'Maj +Greve' and his men carried all before them. Under any circumstances, +however, the umpire always declared the victory to rest with 'Summer.' +The winter party then strewed ashes on the ground, and a joyous +banquet terminated the game." Mr L. Lloyd, author of "Peasant Life +in Sweden" (1870), records some lines sung by Swedish children when +collecting provisions for the _Maj gille_ or May feast, which recall +the "Swallow-song": + + "Best loves from Mr and Mrs Magpie, + From all their eggs and all their fry, + O give them alms, if ever so small, + Else hens and chickens and eggs and all, + A prey to 'Piet' will surely fall." + +The Swedes raise their _Maj st[)a]ng_ or May-pole, not on May, but +on St John's Eve, a change due, I suspect, to the exigencies of the +climate. + +German _Mailieder_ are one very much like the other; they are full of +the simple gladness of children who have been shut up in houses, and +who now can run about in the sunny air. I came across the following in +Switzerland: + + "Alles neu macht der Mai, + Macht die Seele frisch und frei. + Lasst dans Haus! + Kommt hinaus! + Windet einen Strauss! + + "Rings erglaenzet Sonnenschein, + Dustend pranget Flur und Hain. + Voegel-sang, + Lust'ger Klang + Toent den Wald entlang." + +In Lorraine girls dressed in white go from village to village +stringing off couplets, in which the inhabitants are turned into +somewhat unmerciful ridicule. The girls of this place enlighten the +people of that as to their small failings, and so _vice versa_. All +the winter the village poets harvest the jokes made by one community +at the expense of another, in order to shape them into a consecutive +whole for recital on May Day. The girls are rewarded for their part in +the business by small coin, cakes and fruit. The May-songs of Lorraine +are termed "Trimazos," from the fact that they are always sung to the +refrain, + + "O Trimazot, c'at lo Maye; + O mi-Maye! + C'at lo joli mois de Maye, + C'at lo Trimazot." + +The derivation of _Trimazo_ is uncertain; someone suggested that _Tri_ +stands for three, and _mazo_ for maidens; but I think _mazo_ is more +likely to be connected with the Italian _mazzo_, "nosegay." The word +is known outside Lorraine: at Islettes children say: + + "Trimazot! en nous allant + Nous pormenes eddans les champs + Nous y ons trouve les bles si grands + Les Aubepin' en fleurissant." + +They beg for money to buy a taper for the Virgin's altar; for it +must not be forgotten that the month of May is the month of Mary. +The villagers add a little flour to their pious offering, so that the +children may make cakes. Elsewhere in Champagne young girls collect +the taper money; they cunningly appeal to the tenderness of the young +mother by bringing to her mind the hour "when she takes her pretty +child up in the morning and lays him to sleep at night." There was +a day on which the girls of the neighbourhood of Remiremont used to +way-lay every youth they met on the road to the church of Dommartin +and insist on sticking a sprig of rosemary or laurel in his cap, +saying, "We have found a fine gentleman, God give him joy and health; +take the May, the pretty May!" The fine gentleman was requested to +give "what he liked" for the dear Virgin's sake. In the department of +the Jura there are May-brides, and in Bresse they have a May-queen who +is attended by a youth, selected for the purpose, and by a little +boy who carries a green bough ornamented with ribands. She heads the +village girls and boys, who walk as in a marriage procession, and who +receive eggs, wine, or money. A song still sung in Burgundy recalls +the prae-revolutionary aera and the respect inspired by the seigneurial +woods:-- + + "Le voila venu le joli mois, + Laissez bourgeonner le bois; + Le voila venu le joli mois, + Le joli bois bourgeonne. + Il faut laisser bourgeonner le bois, + Le bois du gentilhomme." + +The young peasants of Poitou betake themselves to the door of each +homestead before the dawn of the May morning and summon the mistress +of the house to waken her daughters:-- + + "For we are come before hath come the day + To sing the coming of the month of May." + +But they do not ask the damsels to stand there listening to +compliments; "Go to the hen-roost," they say, "and get eighteen, or +still better, twenty new laid eggs." If the eggs cannot be had, they +can bring money, only let them make haste, as day-break is near and +the road is long. By way of acknowledgment the spokesman adds a sort +of "And your petitioners will ever pray;" they will pray for the +purse which held the money and for the hen that laid the eggs. If St +Nicholas only hears them that hen will eat the fox, instead of the fox +eating the hen. The gift is seemly. Now the dwellers in the homestead +may go back to their beds and bar doors and windows; "as for us, we go +through all the night singing at the arrival of sweet spring." + +The antiquary in search of May-songs will turn to the Motets and +Pastorals of that six-hundred-year-old Comic Opera "Li gieus de +Robin et de Marion." Its origin was not illiterate, but in Adam de la +Halle's time and country poets who had some letters and poets who +had none did not stand so widely apart. The May month, the summer +sweetness, the lilies of the valley, the green meadows--these +constituted pretty well the whole idea which the French rustic had +formed to himself of what poetry was. It cannot be denied that he +came to use these things occasionally as mere commonplaces, a tendency +which increased as time wore on. But he has his better moods, and +some of his ditties are not wanting in elegance. Here is an old song +preserved in Burgundy: + + Voici venu le mois des fleurs + Des chansons et des senteurs; + Le mois qui tout enchante + Le mois de douce attente. + Le buisson reprend ses couleurs + Au bois l'oiseau chante. + + Il est venu sans mes amours + One j'attends, helas, toujours; + Tandis que l'oiseau chante + Et que le mai l' on plante + Seule en ces bois que je parcours + Seule je me lamente. + +In the France of the sixteenth century, the planting of the May took a +literary turn. At Lyons, for instance, the printers were in the habit +of setting up what was called "Le Mai des Imprimeurs" before the door +of some distinguished person. The members of the illustrious Lombard +house of Trivulzi, who between them held the government of Lyons +for more than twenty-five years, were on several occasions chosen as +recipients of the May-day compliment. "Le Grand Trivulce," marshal of +France, was a great patron of literature, and the encouragement of the +liberal arts grew to be a tradition in the family. In 1529 Theodore +de Trivulce had a May planted in his honour bearing a poetical address +from the pen of Clement Marot, and Pompone de Trivulce received a like +distinction in 1535, when Etienne Dolet wrote for the occasion an +ode in the purest Latin, which may be read in Mr R. C. Christie's +biography of its author. + +Giulio Cesare Croce, the famous ballad-singer of Bologna (born 1550), +wrote a "Canzonetta vaga in lode del bel mese di maggio et delle +regine o contesse che si fanno quel giorno in Bologna," and in 1622, a +small book was published at Bologna, entitled: "Ragionamenti piacevoli +intorno alle contesse di maggio; piantar il maggio; nozze che si +fanno in maggio." The author, Vincenzo Giacchiroli, observes: "These +countesses, according to what I have read, the Florentines call Dukes +of May--perhaps because there they have real dukes." The first of May, +he continues, the young girls select one from among them and set her +on a high seat or throne in some public street, adorned and surrounded +with greenery, and with such flowers as the season affords. To +this maiden, in semblance like the goddess Flora, they compel every +passer-by to give something, either by catching him by his clothes, or +by holding a cord across the street to intercept him, singing at the +same time, "Alla contessa, alla contessa!" They who pass, therefore, +throw into a plate or receptacle prepared for the purpose, money, or +flowers, or what not, for the new countess. In some places it was the +custom to kiss the countess; "neither," adds the author, "is this +to be condemned, since so were wont to do the ancients as a sign of +honour." + +Regarding a similar usage at Mantua, Merlinus Coccaius (Folengo) +wrote: + + "Accidit una dies qua Mantua tota bagordat + Prima dies mensis Maii quo quisque piantat + Per stradas ramos frondosos nomine mazzos." &c. + +Exactly the same practice lingers in Spain. In the town of Almeria, +improvised temples are raised at the street corners and gateways, +where, on an altar covered with damask or other rich stuff, a girl +decked with flowers is seated, whilst around her in a circle stand +other girls, also crowned with flowers, who hold hands, and intone, +like a Greek chorus-- + + "Un cuartito para la Maya, + Que no tiene manto ni saya." + +"A penny for the May who has neither mantle nor petticoat." + +Lorenzo de' Medici says in one of his ballads: + + Se tu vuo' appiccare un maio. + A qualcuna che tu ami.... + +In his day "Singing the May" was almost a trade; the country folk +flocked into Florence with their May trees and rustic instruments and +took toll of the citizens. The custom continues along the Ligurian +coast. At Spezia I saw the boys come round on May-day piping and +singing, and led by one, taller than the rest, who carried an Italian +flag covered with garlands. The name of the master of the house before +which they halt is introduced into a song that begins: + + Siam venuti a cantar maggio, + Al Signore ---- + Come ogn' anno usar si suole, + Nella stagion di primavera. + +Since Chaucer, who loved so dearly the "May Kalendes" and the "See of +the day," no one has celebrated them with a more ingenuous charm than +the country lads of the island of Sardinia, who sing "May, May, be +thou welcome, with all Sun and Love; with the Flower and with the +Soul, and with the Marguerite." A Tuscan and a Pisan _Rispetto_ may be +taken as representative of Italian May-song: + + 'Twas in the Calends of the month of May, + I went into the garden for a flower, + A wild bird there I saw upon a spray, + Singing of love with skilled melodious power. + O little bird, who dost from Florence speed + Teach me whence loving doth at first proceed? + Love has its birth in music and in songs + Its end, alas! to tears and grief belongs. + + Era di maggio, se ben mi ricordo + Quando c'incominciammo a ben volere + Eran fiorite le rose dell'orto, + E le ciliege diventavan nere; + Ciliege nere e pere moscatelle, + Siete il trionfo delle donne belle + Ciliege nere e pere moscatate. + Siete il trionfo delle innamorate + Ciliege nere e pere moscatine. + Siete il trionfo delle piu belline. + +The child's or lover's play of words in this last baffles all attempt +at translation: it is not sense but sweetness, not poetry but music. +It is as much without rule or study or conventionality as the song of +birds when in Italian phrase, _fanno primavera_. + +In the Province of Brescia the Thursday of Mid-Lent is kept by what +is called "Burning the old women." A doll made of straw or rags, +representing the oldest woman, is hung outside the window; or, if in +a street, suspended from a cord passed from one side to the other. +Everyone makes the tour of town or village to see _le Vecchie_ who at +sundown are consigned to the flames, generally with a distaff placed +in their hands. It is a picturesque sight at Salo, when the bonfires +blaze at different heights up the hills, casting long reflections +across the clear lake-water. The sacrifice is consummated--but what +sacrifice? I was at first disposed to simply consider the "old woman" +as a type of winter, but I am informed that by those who have studied +relics of the same usage in other lands, she is held to be a relative +of the "harvest-man" or growth-genius, who must be either appeased or +destroyed. Yet a third interpretation occurs to me, which I offer for +what it is worth. Might not the _Vecchia_ be the husk which must be +cast off before the miracle of new birth is accomplished? "The seed +that thou sowest shall not quicken unless it die." Hardly any idea has +furnished so much occasion for symbolism as this, that life is death, +and death is life. + +Professor d'Ancona believes, that to the custom of keeping May by +singing from house to house and collecting largess of eggs or fruit or +cheese, may be traced the dramatic representations, which, under the +name of _Maggi_, can still be witnessed in certain districts of the +Tuscan Hills and of the plain of Pisa. These May-plays are performed +any Sunday in Spring, just after Mass; the men, women, and children, +hastening from the church-door to the roughly-built theatre which has +the sky for roof, the grey olives and purple hills for background. +The verses of the play (it is always in verse) are sung to a sort of +monotonous but elastic chant, in nearly every case unaccompanied +by instruments. No one can do more than guess when that chant was +composed; it may have been five hundred years ago and it may have been +much more. Grief or joy, love and hate, all are expressed upon the +same notes. It is possible that some such recitative was used in the +Greek drama. A play that was not sung would not seem a play to +the Tuscan contadino. The characters are acted by men or boys, the +peasants not liking their wives and daughters to perform in public. +A considerable number of _Maggi_ exist in print or in MS. carefully +copied for the convenience of the actors. The subjects range from +King David to Count Ugolino, from the siege of Troy to the French +Revolution. They seem for most part modern compositions, cast in a +form which was probably invented before the age of Dante. + + + + +THE IDEA OF FATE IN SOUTHERN TRADITIONS. + + +In the early world of Greece and Italy, the beliefs relating to +Fate had a vital and penetrative force which belonged only to them. +"Nothing," says Sophocles, "is so terrible to man as Fate." It was the +shadow cast down the broad sunlight of the roofless Hellenic life. All +Greece, its gods and men, bowed at that word which Victor Hugo saw, +or imagined that he saw, graven on a pillar of Notre Dame: [Greek: +Ananke]. Necessity alone of the supernatural powers was not made by +man in his own image. It had no sacred grove, for in the whole world +there was no place where to escape from it, no peculiar sect of +votaries, for all were bound equally to obey; it could not be bought +off with riches nor withstood by valour; no man worshipped it, many +groaned under its dispensation; but by all it was vaguely felt to be +the instrument of a pure justice. If they did not, with Herder, call +Fate's law "Eternal Truth," yet their idea of necessity carried these +men nearer than did any other of their speculative guesses to the idea +of a morally-governed universe. + +The belief in one Fate had its train of accessorial beliefs. The +Parcae and the Erinnyes figured as dark angels of Destiny. Then, in +response to the double needs of superstition and materialism, the +impersonal Fate itself took the form of the Greek Tyche, and of that +Fortuna, who, in Rome alone, had no less than eight temples. There +were some indeed who saw in Fortune nothing else than the old _dira +necessitas_; but to the popular mind, she was nearer to chance than to +necessity; she dealt out the favourable accident which goes further +to secure success than do the subtlest combinations of men. The Romans +did not only demand of a military leader that he should have talent, +foresight, energy; they asked, was he _felix_--happy, fortunate? Since +human life was seen to be, on the whole, but a sorry business, +and since it was also seen that the prosperous were not always the +meritorious, the inference followed that Fortune was capricious, +changeable, and, if not immoral, at least unmoral. With this character +she came down to the Middle Ages, having contrived to outlive the +whole Roman pantheon. + +So Dante found her, and inquired of his guide who and what she might +really be? + + Maestro, dissi lui, or mi di' anche: + Questa Fortuna di che tu mi tocche, + Che e, che i ben del mondo ha si tra branche? + +Dante had no wish to level the spiritual windmills that lay in his +path: he left them standing, only seeking a proper reason for their +being there. Therefore he did not answer himself in the words of the +Tuscan proverb: "Chi crede in sorte, non crede in Dio;" but, on the +contrary, tried to prove that the two beliefs might be perfectly +reconciled. "He whose knowledge transcends all things" (is the reply) +"fashioned the heavens, and gave unto them a controlling force in such +wise that each part shines upon each, distributing equally the +light. Also to worldly splendours he ordained a general minister, and +captain, who should timely change the tide of vain prosperity from +race to race and from blood to blood. Why these prevail, and those +languish, according to her ruling, is hidden, like the snake in the +grass; your knowledge has in her no counterpart; she provides, +judges, and pursues her governance, as do theirs the other gods. Her +permutations have no truce, necessity makes her swift; for he is swift +in coming who would have his turn. This is she who is upbraided +even by those who should praise her, giving her blame wrongfully and +ill-repute; but she continues blessed, and hearkens not; glad among +the other primal creatures, she revolves her sphere, and being +blessed, rejoices." + +The peasants, the _pagani_ of Italy, did not give their name for +nothing to the entire system of antiquity. They were its last, its +most faithful adherents, and to this day their inmost being is +watered from the springs of the antique. They have preserved old-world +thoughts as they have preserved old-world pots and pans. In the +isolated Tuscan farm you will be lighted to your bed by a woman +carrying an oil lamp identical in form with those buried in Etruscan +tombs; on the Neapolitan hill-side a girl will give you to drink +out of a jar not to be distinguished from the amphorae of Pompeii. A +stranger hunting in the campagna may often hear himself addressed with +the "Tu" of Roman simplicity. The living Italian people are the most +interesting of classical remains. Even their religion has helped +to perpetuate practices older than Italy. How is it possible, for +instance, to see the humble shrine by vineyard or maize field, +with its posy of flowers and its wreath of box hung before the mild +countenance of some local saint, without remembering what the chorus +says to Admetus: "Deem not, O king, of the tomb of thy wife as of +the vulgar departed; rather let it be kept in religious veneration, +a cynosure for the way-faring man. And as one climbs the slanting +pathway, these will be the words he utters: 'This was she who erewhile +laid down her life for her husband; now she is a saint for evermore. +Hail, blessed spirit, befriend and aid us!' Such the words that will +be spoken." + +Can it be doubted that the Catholic honour of the dead--nay, even the +cult of the Virgin, which crept so mysteriously into the exercise +of Christian worship--had birth, not in the councils of priests and +schoolmen, but in the all-unconscious grafting by the people of Italy +of the new faith upon an older stock? + +With this persistency of thought, observable in outward trifles, as in +the deepest yearnings of the soul, it would be strange if the Italian +mind had ceased to occupy itself with the old wonder about fate. The +folk-lore of the country will show the mould into which the ancient +speculations have been cast, and in how far these have undergone +change, whether in the sense of assimilating new theories or in that +of reverting to a still earlier order of ideas. + +They tell at Venice the story of a husbandman who had set his heart +on finding _one who was just_ to be sponsor to his new-born child. He +took the babe in his arms and went forth into the public ways to seek +_El Giusto_. He walked and walked and met a man (who was our Lord) and +to him he said, "I have got this son to christen, but I do not wish +to give him to any one who is not just. Are you just?" To him the Lord +replied, "But I do not know if I am just." Then the husbandman went +a little further and met a woman (who was the Madonna), and to her he +said, "I have this son to christen, but I only wish to give him to one +who is just. Are you just?" "I know not," said the Madonna; "but go a +little further and you will meet one who is just." After that, he went +a little further, and met another woman who was Death. "I have been +sent to you," he said, "for they say you are just. I have a child to +christen, and I do not wish to give him except to one who is just. +Are you just?" "Why, yes; I think I am just," said Death; "but let us +christen the babe and afterwards I will show you if I am just." So +the boy was christened, and then this woman led the husbandman into a +long, long room where there were an immense number of lighted lamps. +"Gossip," said the man, who marvelled at seeing so many lamps, "what +is the meaning of all these lights?" Said Death: "These are the lights +of all the souls that are in the world. Would you like just to see, +Gossip? That is yours, and that is your son's." And the husbandman, +who saw that his lamp was going out, said, "And when there is no more +oil, Gossip?" "Then," replied Death, "one has to come to me, for I +am Death." "Oh! for charity," said the husbandman, "do let me pour a +little of the oil out of my son's lamp into mine!" "No, no, Gossip," +said Death, "I don't go in for that sort of thing. A just one you +wished to meet, and a just one you have found. And now, go you to your +house and put your affairs in order, for I am waiting for you."[1] + +In this parable, we see a severe fatalism, which is still more +oriental than antique. + + ... God gives each man one life, like a lamp, then gives + That lamp due measure of oil.... + +The Mahomedans say that there are trees in heaven on each of whose +leaves is the name of a human being, and whenever one of these leaves +withers and falls, the man whose name it bears dies with it. The +conception of human life as of something bound up and incorporated +with an object seemingly foreign, lies at the very root of elementary +beliefs. In an Indian tale the life of a boy resides in a gold +necklace which is in the heart of a fish; in another a woman's life is +contained in a bird: when the bird is killed, the woman must perish. +In a third a prince plants a tree before he goes on a journey, saying +as he does so, "This tree is my life. When you see the tree green and +fresh, then know that it is well with me. When you see the tree fade +in some parts, then know that I am in an ill case. When you see the +whole tree fade, then know that I am dead and gone." + +According to a legend of wide extension--it is known from Esthonia to +the Pyrenees--all men were once aware of the hour of their death. But +one day Christ went by and saw a man raising a hedge of straw. "That +hedge will last but for a short while," He said; to which the man +answered, "It will be good for as long as I live; that it should last +longer, matters not;" and forthwith Christ ordained that no man should +thereafter know when he should die. + +The southern populations of Italy cling to the idea that from the +moment of a man's birth his future lot is decided, whether for good +or evil hap, and that he has but little power of altering or modifying +the irrevocable sentence. There are lucky and unlucky days to be born +on; lucky and unlucky circumstances attendant on an entry into the +world, which affect all stages of the subsequent career. He who is +born on the last day of the year, will always arrive late. It is very +unfortunate to be born when there is no moon. Anciently the moon was +taken as symbol both of Fortune, and of Hecate, goddess of Magic. +The Calabrian children have a song: "Moon, holy moon, send me good +fortune; thou shining, and I content, lustrous thou, I fortunate." +Also at Cagliari, in Sardinia, they sing: "Moon, my moon, give me +luck; give me money, so I may amuse myself; give it soon, so I may buy +sweetmeats." The changing phases of the moon doubtless contributed to +its identification with fortune; "Wind, women, and fortune," runs the +Basque proverb, "change like the moon." But yet more, its influence +over terrestrial phenomena, always mysterious to the ignorant observer +and by him readily magnified to any extent, served to connect it with +whatever occult, unaccountable power was uppermost in people's minds. + +In Italy, nothing is done without consulting the _Lunario_. All kinds +of roots and seeds must be planted with the new moon, or they will +bear no produce. Timber must be cut down with the old moon, or it will +quickly rot. These rules and many more are usually followed; and it +is reported as a matter of fact, that their infringement brings the +looked-for results. In the Neapolitan province, old women go to the +graveyards by night and count the tombs illuminated by the moonlight; +the sum total gives them a "number" for the lottery. The extraordinary +vagaries of superstition kept alive by the public lotteries are of +almost endless variety and complexity. No well-known man dies without +thousands of the poorest Neapolitans racking their brains with abtruse +calculations on the dates of his birth, death, and so on, in the hope +of discovering a lucky number. Fortune, chance (what, after all, shall +it be called?) sometimes strangely favours these pagan devices. When +Pio Nono died, the losses of the Italian exchequer were enormous; and +in January 1884, the numbers staked on the occasion of the death of +the patriot De Sanctis, produced winnings to the amount of over two +million francs. During the last cholera epidemic, the daily rate of +mortality was eagerly studied with a view to happy combinations. Even +in North Italy such things are not unknown. At Venice, when a notable +Englishman died some years ago in a hotel, the number of his room was +played next day by half the population. Domestic servants are among +the most inveterate gamblers; they all have their cabalistic books, +and a large part of their earnings goes to the insatiable "lotto." + +The feeling of helplessness in the hands of Fate is strongest in those +countries where there is the least control over Nature. The relations +between man and Nature affect not only the social life, but also the +theology and politics of whole races of men. A learned Armenian who +lives at Venice, came to London for a week in June to see some English +friends. It rained every day, and when he left Dover, the white +cliffs were enveloped in impenetrable fog. "I asked myself" (he wrote, +describing his experiences) "how it was possible that a great nation +should exist behind all that vapour?" It was suggested to him that +in the continual but, in the long run, victorious struggle with an +ungenial climate might lie the secret of the development of that great +nation. Different are the lands where the soil yields its increase +almost without the labour of man, till one fine day the whole is +swallowed up by flood or earthquake. + +The songs of luck, or rather of ill-luck, nearly all come from the +Calabrias. There are hundreds of variations upon the monotonous +theme of predestined misery. "In my mother's womb I began to have no +fortune; my swaddling clothes were woven of melancholy; when we +went to church, the woman who carried me died upon the way, and the +godfather who held me at the font said, 'Misfortunate art thou born, +my daughter!'" Here is another: "Hapless was I born, and with a +darkened moon; never did a fair day dawn for me. Habited in weeds, and +attended by cruel fortune, I sail upon a sea of grief and trouble." Or +this: "Wretched am I, for against me conspired heaven and fortune and +destiny; and the four elements decreed that never should I prosper: +earth would engulf me; air took away my breath; water flowed with my +tears; fire burnt this poor heart." Again: "I was created under an +ill-star; never had I an hour's content. By my friends I saw myself +forsaken, and chased away by my mistress. The heavens moved against +me, the stars, the planets, and fortune; if there is no better lot +for me, open thou earth and give me sepulchre!" The luckless wretch +imagines that the sea, even where it was deepest, dried up at his +birth; and the spring dried up for that year, and all the flowers that +were in the world dried up; and the birds went singing: "I am the most +luckless wight on earth!" Human friendship is a delusion: "I was the +friend of all, and a true friend--for my friends I reckoned life as +little." But he is not served so by others: "Wretched is he who trusts +in fortune; sad is he who hopes in human friendship! Every friend +abandons thee at need, and walks afar from thy sorrow." No good can +come to him who is born for ill: "When I was born, it was at sea, +amongst Turks and Moors. A gipsy asked to tell my fortune; 'Dig,' she +said, 'and thou shalt find a great treasure.' I took the spade in my +hand to dig, but I found neither silver nor gold. Traitress gipsy who +deceived me! Who is born afflicted, dies disconsolate." + +So continues the long tale of woe; childish in part, but withal tragic +by other force of iteration. This song of Nardo may be taken as its +epitome: + + The heavens were overcast when I was born; + No luck for me, no, luckless and forlorn, + E'en from my cradle, all forlorn was I; + No luck for me, no, grief for ever nigh. + I loved--my love was paid by fraud and scorn; + No luck for me, no, luckless and forlorn. + The stars and moon were darkened in the sky, + No luck for me, no, naught but misery! + +The Calabrians have a house-spirit called the _Auguriellu_, who +appears generally dressed as a little monk, and who has his post +especially by babies' cradles: he is thought to be one of the less +erring fallen angels, and is harmless and even beneficent if kindly +treated. The "house-women" (_Donne di casa_) of Sicily are also in the +habit of watching the sleep of infants. But in no part of Italy does +there seem to be any distinct recollection of the Parcae. In Greece, +on the other hand, the three dread sisters are still honoured by +propitiatory rites, and they figure frequently in the folk-lore of +Bulgaria and Albania. A Bulgarian song shows them weaving the destiny +of the infant Saviour. In M. Auguste Dozon's collection of Albanian +stories, there is one called "The sold child," which bears directly on +the survival of the Parcae. "There was an old man and woman who had no +children" (so runs the tale). "At last at the end of I do not know how +many years, God gave them a son, and their joy was without bounds that +the Lord had thus remembered them. Two nights had passed since the +birth, and the third drew nigh, when the Three Women would come to +assign the child his destiny. + +"That night it was raining so frightfully that nobody dared put his +nose out of doors, lest he should be carried away by the waters and +drowned. Nevertheless, who should arrive through the rain but a Pasha, +who asked the old man for a night's lodging. The latter, seeing that +it was a person of importance, was very glad; he put him in the place +of honour at the hearth, lit a large fire, gave him to eat what he +could find; and putting aside certain objects, which he set in a +corner, he made room for the Pasha's horse--for this house was only +half covered in, a part of the roof was missing. + +"The Pasha, when he was warmed and refreshed, had nothing more to do +but to go to sleep; but how can one let himself go to sleep when he +has I know not how many thousand piastres about him? + +"That night, as we have said already, the Three Women were to come and +apportion the child his destiny. They came, sure enough, and sat down +by the fire. The Pasha, at the sight of that, was in a great fright, +but he kept quiet, and did not make the least sound. + +"Let us leave the Pasha and busy ourselves with these women. The first +of the three said, 'This child will not live long; he will die early.' +The second said, replying to her who had just spoken, 'This child +will live many years, and then he will die by the hand of his father.' +Finally the third spoke as follows: 'My friends, what are you talking +about? This child will live sufficiently long to kill the Pasha you +see there, rob him of his authority, and marry his daughter.'" + +How the Pasha froze with fear when he heard that sentence, how he +persuaded the old man to let him have the child under pretence of +adopting him, how he endeavoured by every means, but vainly, to put +him out of the way, and how, in the end, he fell into an ambush he +had prepared for his predestined successor, must be read in M. Dozon's +entertaining pages. Though not precisely stated, it would seem that +the mistaken predictions of the two first women arose rather from a +misinterpretation of the future than from complete ignorance. The +boy but narrowly escaped the evils they threatened. In Scandinavian +traditions a disagreement among the Norns is not uncommon. In one +case, two Norns assign to a newborn child long life and happiness, but +the third and youngest decrees that he shall only live while a lighted +taper burns. The eldest Norn snatches the taper, puts it out, and +gives it to the child's mother, not to be kindled till the last day of +his life. + +In India it is the deity Bidhata-Purusha who forecasts the events of +each man's life, writing them succinctly on the forehead of the child +six days after birth. The apportionment of good and evil fortune +belongs to Lakshmi and Sani. Once they fell out in heaven, and Sani, +the giver of ill, said that he ranked higher than the beneficent +Lakshmi. The gods and goddesses were equally ranged on either side, +so the two disputants decided to refer the case to a just mortal. To +which end they approached a wise and wealthy man called Sribatsa. Now +Sribatsa means "the child of Fortune," Sri being one of the names of +Lakshmi. Sribatsa did not know what to do lest he should give offence +to one or the other of the celestial powers. At last he set out two +stools without saying a word; one was silver, and on that he bade Sani +sit; the other was gold, and to that he conducted Lakshmi. But Sani +was furious at having only the silver stool, so he swore that he would +cast his evil eye upon Sribatsa for three years, "and I should like to +see how you fare at the end of that time," he added. When he was gone, +Lakshmi said: "My child, do not fear; I'll befriend you." Needless to +say that after the three trial years were passed, Sribatsa became far +more prosperous than he had ever been before. + +Among the Parsis, a tray with writing materials including a sheet of +blank paper is placed by the mother's bed on the night of the sixth +day. The goddess who rules human destiny traces upon the paper the +course of the child's future, which henceforth cannot be changed, +though the writing is invisible to mortal eyes. + +In Calabria there is a plant called "Fortune's Grass," which is +suspended to the beams of the ceiling: if the leaves turn upwards, +Fortune is sure to follow; if downwards, things may be expected to go +wrong. The oracle is chiefly consulted on Ascension Day, when it is +asked to tell the secrets confided to it by Christ when He walked upon +the earth. + +Auguries, portents, charms, waxen images, votive offerings, the evil +eye and its antidotes, happy "finds," such as horseshoes, four-leaved +shamrocks, and two-tailed lizards: these, and an infinite number of +kindred superstitions, are closely linked with what may be called +the Science of Luck. Fortune and Hecate come into no mere chance +contiguity when they meet in the moon. For the rest, there is hardly +any popular belief that has not points of contact with magic, and that +is not in some sort made the more comprehensible by looking at the +premises on which magical rites rest. Magic is the power admitted to +exist among all classes not so very long ago, of entering by certain +processes into relation with invisible powers. For modern convenience +it was distinguished into black magic, and natural, and white--the +latter name being given when the intention of the operant was only +good or allowable, and when the powers invoked were only such as +might be supposed, whether great or small, to be working in good +understanding with the Creator. The reason of existence of all magic, +which runs up into unfathomable antiquity, lies in the maxim of the +ancient sages, Egyptian, Hebrew, Platonist, that all things visible +and sensible are but types of things or beings immediately above +them, and have their origin in such. Hence, in magical rites, black +or white, men used and offered to the unseen powers those words or +actions or substances which were conceived to be in correspondence +with their character or nature, employing withal certain secret +traditional man[oe]uvres. The lowest surviving form is fetish; +sacrifice also had a similar source; so had the Mosaic prescriptions, +in which only innocent rites and pure substances were to be employed. +Whereas the most horrible practices and repulsive substances have +always been associated with witches, necromancers, &c., who are +reported to have put their wills at the absolute disposal of the +infernal and malevolent powers who work in direct counter-action of +the decrees and providence of the Deity. Hence the renunciation of +baptism, treading on holy things, the significant act of saying the +Lord's Prayer backwards, _i.e._, in the opposite intention to that of +the author. This is the consummate sin of _pacti_, or, as it is said, +"selling the soul," and is the very opposite of divine magic or the +way of the typical saint: "Present yourselves a living sacrifice (not +a dead carcase) in body, soul, and spirit." To persons in the last +condition unusual effects have been ascribed, as it was believed that +those who had put themselves at the absolute disposal of the malignant +powers were also enabled to effect singular things, on the wrong side, +indeed, and very inferior in order, so long as the agreement held +good. + +The most sensible definition of magic is "an effect sought to be +produced by antecedents obviously inadequate in themselves." Certain +words, gestures, practices, have been recognised on the tradition of +ancient experience to have certain remedial or other properties or +consequents, and they are used in all simplicity by persons who can +find no other reason than that they are thought to succeed. + +One of the most remarkable of early ideas still current about human +destiny is that which pictures each man coupled with a personal and +individualised fate. This fate may be beneficent or maleficent, a +guardian angel or a possessive fiend; or it may, in appearance at +least, combine both functions. The belief in a personal fate was +deeply rooted among the Greeks and Romans, and proved especially +acceptable to the Platonists. Socrates' daemon comes to mind: but in +that case the analogy is not clear, because the inward voice to +which the name of daemon was afterwards given, was rather a personal +conscience than a personal fate--a difference that involves the whole +question of the responsibility of man. But the evil genii of Dion the +Syracusan and of Brutus were plainly "personal fates." Dion's evil +genius appeared to him when he was sitting alone in the portico before +his house one evening; it had the form of a gigantic woman, like one +of the furies as they were represented on the stage, sweeping the +floor with a broom. It did not speak, but the apparition was followed +by the death of Dion's son, who jumped in a fit of childish passion +from the house-top, and soon after, Dion himself was assassinated. +Brutus' daemon was, as every-one knows, a monstrous spectre that seemed +to be standing beside him in his tent one night, a little while before +he left Asia, and which, on being questioned, said to him, "I am thy +evil genius, Brutus, thou wilt see me at Philippi." + +We catch sight again of the personal fate in the relations of +Antony with the young Octavius. Antony had in his house an Egyptian +astrologer, who advised him by all means to keep away from the young +man, "for your genius," he said, "is in fear of his; when it is alone +its port is erect and fearless, when his approaches it, it is dejected +and depressed." There were circumstances, says Plutarch, that carried +out this view, for in every kind of play, whether they cast lots or +cast the die, Antony was still the loser; in their cock fights and +quail fights, it was still "Caesar's cock and Caesar's quail." + +In ancient Norse and Teutonic traditions, where Salida, or Frau Saelde, +takes the place of Fortuna, we find indications of the personal fate, +both kindly and unkindly. The fate appeared to its human turn chiefly +in the hour of death, that is, in the hour of parting company. +Sometimes it was attached not to one person, but to a whole family, +passing on from one to another, as in the case of the not yet extinct +superstition of the White Lady of the Hohenzollerns. + +In a very old German story, quoted by Jacob Grimm, a poor knight is +shown, eating his frugal meal in a wood, who on looking up, sees +a monstrous creature among the boughs which cries, "I am thy +_ungeluecke_!" The knight asks his "ill-luck" to share his meal, and +when it comes down, catches it, and shuts it up in a hollow oak. +Someone, who wishes to do him an ill-turn, lets out the _ungeluecke_; +but instead of reverting to the knight, it jumps on the back of its +evil-minded deliverer. + +In the Sicilian story of "Feledico and Epomata," one of those +collected by Frauelein Laura Gonzenbach,[2] a childless king and queen +desire to have children. One day they see a soothsayer going by: they +call him in, and he says that the queen will bear a son, but that he +will die when he is eighteen years of age. The grief of the royal pair +is extreme, and they ask the soothsayer for advice what to do. He can +only suggest that they should shut the child up in a tower till the +unlucky hour be past, after which his fate will have no more power +over him. This is accordingly done, and the child sees no one in the +tower but the nurse and a lady of the court, whom he believes to be +his mother. One day, when the lady has gone to make her report to the +queen, the boy hears his fate crying to him in his sleep, and asking +why he stays shut up there, when his real father and mother are king +and queen and live in a fine castle? He makes inquiries, and at first +is pacified by evasive answers, but after three visits of his fate, +who always utters the same words, he insists on going to the castle +and seeing his father and mother. "His fate has found him out, there +is no good in resisting it," says the queen. However, by the agency +of Epomata, the beautiful daughter of an enchantress, who had conveyed +the prince to her castle, and had provided for his execution on the +very day ordained by his fate, Feledico tides over the fatal moment +and attains a good old age. + +Hahn states that the Greek name of [Greek: Moirai] is given by the +Albanians to what I have called personal fates, as well as to the +Parcae; but the Turkish designation of _Bakht_, meaning a sort of +protecting spirit, seems to be in more common use. The Albanian +story-teller mentions a negress who is in want of some sequins, and +who says, "Go and find my fortune (_Bakht_), but first make her a +cake, and when you offer it to her, ask her for a few gold pieces." + + +A like propitiatory offering of food to one's personal fate forms a +feature of a second Sicilian story which is so important in all its +bearings on the subject in hand, that it would not do to abridge it. +Here it is, therefore, in its entirety. + + There was a certain merchant who was so rich that he had + treasures which not even the king possessed. In his audience + chamber there were three beautiful arm-chairs, one of silver, + one of gold, and one of diamonds. This merchant had an only + daughter of the name of Caterina, who was fairer than the sun. + One day Caterina sat alone in her room, when suddenly the door + opened of itself, and there entered a tall and beautiful lady, + who held a wheel in her hands. "Caterina," said she, "when + would you like best to enjoy your life? in youth, or in age?" + Caterina gazed at her in amazement, and could not get over her + stupor. The beautiful lady asked again, "Caterina, when do you + wish to enjoy your life in youth or in age?" Then Caterina + thought, "If I say in youth, I shall have to suffer in age; + hence I prefer to enjoy my life in age, and in youth I must + get on as the Lord wills." So she said, "In age." "Be it unto + you according to your desire," said the beautiful lady, who + gave a turn to her wheel, and disappeared. This tall and + beautiful lady was poor Caterina's fate. After a few days her + father received the sudden news that several of his ships had + gone down in a storm; again, after a few days, other of his + ships met with the same fate, and to make a long story short, + a month had not gone by before he saw himself despoiled of all + his wealth. He had to sell everything, and remained poor and + miserable, and finally he fell ill and died. Thus poor + Caterina was left alone in the world, and no one would give + her a home. Then she thought, "I will go to another city and + will seek a place as serving-maid." She wandered a long way + till she reached another city. As she passed down the street, + she saw at a window a worthy-looking lady, who questioned her. + "Where are you going, all alone, fair girl?" "Oh! noble lady, + I am a poor girl, and I would willingly go into service to + earn my bread. Could you, by chance, employ me?" The worthy + lady engaged her, and Caterina served her faithfully. After a + few days the lady said one evening, "Caterina, I am going out, + and shall lock the house-door." "Very well," said Caterina, + and when her mistress was gone, she took her work and began to + sew. Suddenly the door opened, and her fate came in. "So!" + cried this one, "you are here, Caterina, and you think that I + shall leave you in peace!" With these words, she ran to the + cupboards and turned out the linen and clothes of Caterina's + mistress, and threw them all about the room. Caterina thought, + "When my mistress returns and finds everything in such a + state, she will kill me!" And out of fear she broke open the + door and fled. But her fate made all the things right again, + and gathered them up and put them in their places. When the + mistress came home, she called Caterina, but she could not + find her anywhere. She thought she must have robbed her, but + when she looked at her cupboards, she saw that nothing was + missing. She wondered greatly, but Caterina never came + back--she ran and ran till she reached another city, when, as + she passed along the street, she saw once more a lady at a + window, who asked her, "Where are you going, all alone, fair + girl?" "Ah! noble lady, I am a poor girl, and I wish to find a + place so as to earn my bread. Could you take me?" The lady + took her into her service, and Caterina thought now to remain + in peace. Only a few days had passed, when one evening, when + the lady was out, Caterina's fate appeared again, and spoke + hard words to her, saying, "So you are here, are you? and you + think to escape from me?" Then she scattered whatever she + could lay hands on, and poor Caterina once more fled out of + fright. + + To be brief, poor Caterina had to lead this terrible life for + seven years, flying from city to city in search of a place. + Whenever she entered service, after a few days her fate always + appeared and disordered her mistress' things, and so the poor + girl had to fly. As soon as she was gone, however, her fate + repaired all the damage that had been done. At last, after + seven years, it seemed as if the unhappy Caterina's fate was + weary of persecuting her. One day she arrived in a city where + she saw a lady at a window, who said, "Where go you, all + alone, fair girl?" "Ah! noble lady, I am a poor girl, and + willingly would I enter service to earn my bread; could you + employ me?" The lady replied, "I will take you, but every day + you will have to do me a certain service, and I am not sure + that you have the strength." "Tell me what it is," said + Caterina, "and if I can, I will do it." "Do you see that high + mountain?" said the lady; "every morning you will have to + carry up to the top a baker's tray of new bread, and then you + must cry aloud, 'O fate of my mistress!' three times repeated. + My fate will appear and will receive the bread." "I will do it + willingly," said Caterina, and thereupon the lady engaged her. + With this lady Caterina stayed many years, and every morning + she carried the tray of fresh bread up the mountain, and after + she had cried three times, "O fate of my mistress!" there + appeared a beautiful, stately lady, who received the bread. + Caterina often wept, thinking how she, who was once so rich, + had now to work like any poor girl, and one day her mistress + asked her, "Why are you always crying?" Caterina told her how + ill things had gone with her, and her mistress said, "You + know, Caterina, when you take the bread up the mountain + to-morrow? Well, do you beg my fate to try and persuade yours + to leave you in peace. Perhaps this may do some good." The + advice pleased poor Caterina, and the following morning when + she carried up the bread, she told her mistress' fate of the + sore straits she was in, and said, "O fate of my mistress, + pray ask my fate no longer to torment me." "Ah! poor girl," + the fate answered, "your fate is covered with a sevenfold + covering, and that is why she cannot hear you. But to-morrow + when you come, I will lead you to her." When Caterina had gone + home, her mistress' fate went to her fate, and said, "Dear + sister, why are you not tired of persecuting poor Caterina? + Let her once again see happy days." The fate replied, + "To-morrow bring her to me; I will give her something that + will supply all her needs." The next morning, when Caterina + brought the bread, her mistress' fate conducted her to her own + fate, who was covered with a sevenfold covering. The fate gave + her a skein of silk, and said, "Take care of it, it will be of + use to you." After she had returned home, Caterina said to her + mistress, "My fate has made me a present of a skein of silk; + what ought I to do with it?" "It is not worth three grains of + corn," said the mistress. "Keep it, all the same; who knows + what it may be good for?" + + After some time, it happened that the young king was about to + take a wife, and, therefore, he had himself made some new + clothes. But when the tailor was going to make up one fine + piece of stuff, he could not anywhere find silk of the same + colour with which to sew it. The king had it cried through the + land, that whosoever had silk of the right colour was to bring + it to court, and would be well paid for his pains. "Caterina," + said her mistress, "your skein of silk is of that colour; take + it to the king and he will make you a fine present." Caterina + put on her best gown, and went to court, and when she came + before the king, she was so beautiful that he could not take + his eyes off her. "Royal Majesty," she said, "I have brought a + skein of silk of the colour you could not find." "Royal + majesty," cried one of the ministers, "we should give her the + weight of her silk in gold." The king agreed, and the scales + were brought in. On one side the king placed the skein of + silk, and on the other a gold piece. Now, what do you think + happened? The silk was always the heaviest, no matter how many + gold pieces the king placed in the balance. Then he ordered a + larger pair of scales, and he put all his treasure to the one + side, but the silk remained the heaviest. Then he took his + gold crown off his head and set it with the other treasure, + and upon that the two scales became even. + + "Where did you get this silk?" asked the king. "Royal Majesty, + my mistress gave it to me." "That is not possible," cried the + king. "If you do not tell me the truth I will have your head + cut off!" Caterina related all that had happened to her since + the time when she was a rich maiden. At Court there was a very + wise lady, who said: "Caterina, you have suffered much, but + now you will see happy days, and since the gold crown made the + balance even, it is a sign that you will live to be a queen." + "She shall be a queen," cried the king, "I will make her a + queen! Caterina and no other shall be my bride." And so it + was. The king sent to his bride to say that he no longer + wanted her, and married the fair Caterina, who, after much + suffering in youth, enjoyed her age in full prosperity, living + happy and content, whereof we have assured testimony. + +The most suggestive passages in this ingenious story are those which +refer to the relative positions of a man and his fate, and of one fate +to another. On these points something further is to be gleaned from +an Indian, a Servian, and a Spanish tale, all having a family likeness +amongst themselves, and a strong affinity with our story. The Indian +variant is one of the collection due to the youthful energies of Miss +Maive Stokes, whose book of "Indian Fairy Tales" is a model of +what such a book ought to be. The Servian tale is to be found in +Karadschitsch's "Volksmaerschen der Serben;" the Spanish in Fernan +Caballero's "Cuentos y Poesias Populares Andaluses." The chief +characteristics of the personal fates, as they appear in folk-lore, +may be briefly summarised. In the first place, they know each other, +and are acquainted up to a given point with one another's secrets. +Thus, in the Servian story, a man who goes to seek his fate is +commissioned by persons he meets on the road to ask it questions +touching their own private concerns. A rich householder wants to know +why his servants are always hungry, however much food he gives them +to eat, and why "his aged, miserable father and mother do not die?" +A farmer would have him ask why his cattle perish; and a river, whose +waters bear him across, is anxious to know why no living thing dwells +in it. The fate gives a satisfactory answer to each inquiry. + +The fates exercise a certain influence, one over the other, and hence +over the destinies of the people in their charge. Caterina's mistress' +fate intercedes for her with her own fate. The attention of the fates +is not always fixed on the persons under them: they may be prevented +from hearing by fortuitous circumstances, such as the "seven coverings +or veils" of Caterina's fate, or they may be asleep, or absent from +home. Their home, by the by, is invariably placed in a spot very +difficult to get at. In the Spanish variant, the palace of Fortune is +raised "where our Lord cried three times and was not heard"--it is up +a rock so steep that not even a goat can climb it, and the sunbeams +lose their footing when trying to reach the top. A personal fate is +propitiated by suitable offerings, or, if obdurate, it may be brought +to reason by a well-timed punishment. The Indian beats his fate-stone, +just as the Ostyak beats his fetish if it does not behave well and +bring him sport. The Sicilian story gives no hint of this alternative, +but it is one strictly in harmony with the Italian way of thinking, +whether ancient or modern. Statius' declaration: + + Fataque, et injustos rabidis pulsare querelis + Caelicolas solamen erat ... + +was frequently put into practice, as when, upon the death of +Germanicus, the Roman populace cast stones at the temples, and the +altars were levelled to the ground, and the Lares thrown into the +street. Again, Augustus took revenge on Neptune for the loss of his +fleet, by not allowing his image to be carried in the procession of +the Circensian games. It is on record that at Florence, in 1498, a +ruined gamester pelted the image of the Virgin with horse dung. Luca +Landucci, who tells the story, says that the Florentines were shocked; +but in the southern kingdom the incident would have passed without +much notice. The Neapolitans have hardly now left off heaping +torrents of abuse on San Gennaro if he fails to perform the miracle +of liquefaction quick enough. Probably every country could furnish an +illustration. In the grand procession of St Leonhard, the Bavarians +used from time to time to drop the Saint into the river, as a sort of +gentle warning. + +The physical presentment of the personal fate differs considerably. +According to the Indian account, "the fates are stones, some standing, +and others lying on the ground." It has been said that this looks like +a relic of stock and stone worship: which is true if it can be said +unreservedly that anyone ever worshipped a stock or a stone. +The lowest stage of fetish worship only indicates a diseased +spiritualism--a mental state in which there is no hedge between the +real and the imagined. No savage ever supposed that his fetish was a +simple three-cornered stone and nothing more. If one could guess +the thoughts of the pigeon mentioned by Mr Romanes as worshipping a +gingerbeer bottle, it would be surely seen that this pigeon +believed his gingerbeer bottle to be other than a piece of unfeeling +earthenware. It is, however, a sign of progress when man begins to +picture the ruling powers not as stones, or even as animals, but as +men. This point is reached in the Servian narrative, where the hero's +fortune is a hag given to him as his luck by fate. In the Spanish +tale, the aspect of the personal fate varies with its character: the +fortunate man's fate is a lovely girl, the fate of the unfortunate +man being a toothless old woman. In the _Pentamerone_ of Giambattista +Basile, Fortune is also spoken of as an old woman, but this seems a +departure from the true Italian ideal, which is neither a stone nor a +luck-hag, nor yet a varying fair-and-foul fortune, but a "bella, alta +Signora:" the imposing figure that surmounts the wheel of fortune +on the marble pavement of the Cathedral of Siena. It is a graver +conception than the gracefully fickle goddess of Jean Cousin's "Liber +Fortunae": + + ... On souloit la pourtraire, + Tenant un voile afin d'aller au gre du vent + Des aisles aux costez pour voler bien avant. + +Shakespeare had the Emblematist's Fortune in his mind when he wrote: +"Fortune is painted blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify +to you, which is the moral of it, that she is turning, and inconstant, +and mutability, and variation: and her foot, look you, is fixed upon a +spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls, and rolls." + +In hands less light than Cousin's, it was easy for the Fortune of the +emblem writers to become grotesque, and to lose all artistic merit. +The Italian Fortuna does not in the least lend herself to caricature. +In Italy, the objects of thought, even of the common people, have +the tendency to assume concrete and aesthetic forms--a fact of great +significance in the history of a people destined to render essential +service to art. + +The "tall, beautiful lady" of the Sicilian story, reappears in a +series of South Italian folk-songs which contains further evidence of +this unconsciously artistic instinct. The Italian folk-poet, for the +most part, lets the lore of tradition altogether alone. It does not +lie in his province, which is purely lyrical. But he has seized upon +Fortune as a myth very capable of lyrical treatment, and following the +free bent of his genius, he has woven out of his subject the delicate +fancies of these songs. A series in the sense of being designed to +form a consecutive whole, they, of course, are not. No two, probably, +had the same author; the perfect individuality of the figure +presented, only showing how a type may be so firmly fixed that the +many have no difficulty in describing it with the consistency of one +man who draws the creation of his own brain. + + I. + + Once in the gloaming, Fortune met me here; + Fair did she seem, and Love was on me laid, + Her hair was raised, as were it half a sphere, + Flowered on her breast a rose that cannot fade. + Then said I, "Fortune, thou without a peer, + What rule shall tell the measure of thine aid?" + "The pathway of the moon through all the year, + The channel of the exhaustless sea," she said. + + II. + + One night, the while I slept, drew Fortune near, + At once I loved, such beauty she displayed; + A crescent moon did o'er her brows appear, + And in her hand a wheel that never stayed. + Then said I to her, "O my mistress dear, + Grant all my wishes, mine if thou wilt aid." + But she turned from me with dark sullen cheer + And "Never!" as she turned, was all she said. + + III. + + I saw my Fortune midst the sounding sea + Sit weeping on a rocky height and steep, + Said I to her, "Fortune, how is't with thee?" + "I cannot help thee, child" (so answered she), + "I cannot help thee more--so must I weep." + How sweet were those her tears, how sweet, ah me! + Even the fishes wept within the deep. + + IV. + + One day did Fortune call me to her side, + "What are the things," she asked, "that thou hast done?" + Then answered I, "Dear mistress, I have tried + To grave them upon marble, every one." + "Ah! maddest of the mad!" so she replied, + "Better hadst writ on sand than wrought in stone; + He who to marble should his love confide, + Loves when he loves till all his wits are gone." + + V. + + There where I lay asleep came Fortune in, + She came the while I slept and bid me wake, + "What dost thou now?" she said, "companion mine? + What dost thou now? Wilt thou then love forsake? + Arise," she said, "and take this violin, + And play till every stone thereat shall wake." + I was asleep when Fortune came to me, + And bid me rise, and led me unto thee! + +These songs come from different villages; from Caballino and Morciano +in Calabria, from Corigliano and Calimera in Terra d'Otranto; the two +last are in the Greek dialect spoken in the latter district. There are +a great many more, in all of which the same sweet and serious type +is preserved; but the above quintet suffices to give a notion of this +modern Magna-Graecian Idyll of Fortune. + + [Footnote 1: In a Breton variant the "Bon Dieu" is the first + to offer himself as sponsor, but is refused by the peasant, + "Because you are not just; you slay the honest bread-winner + and the mother whose children can scarce run alone, and you + let folks live who never brought aught but shame and sorrow on + their kindred." Death is accepted, "Because at least you take + the rich as well as the poor, the young as well as the old." + The German tale of "Godfather Death" begins in the same way, + but ends rather differently, as it is the godson and not the + father who is shown the many candles, and who vainly requests + Death to give him a new one instead of his own which is nearly + burnt out. A poem by Hans Sachs (1553) contains reference to + the legend, of which there are also Provencal and Hungarian + versions.] + + [Footnote 2: Laura Gonzenbach was the daughter of the Swiss + Consul at Messina, where she was born. At an early age she + developed uncommon gifts, and she was hardly twenty when she + made her collection of Sicilian stories, almost exclusively + gathered from a young servant-girl who did not know how to + write or read. It was with great difficulty that a publisher + was found who would bring out the book. Fraeulein Gonzenbach + married Colonel La Racine, a Piedmontese officer, and died + five or six years ago, being still quite young. A relation of + hers, from whom I have these particulars, was much surprised + to hear that the _Sicilianische Maerchen_ is widely known as + one of the best works of its class. It is somewhat singular + that the preservation of Italian folk-tales should have been + so substantially aided by two ladies not of Italian origin: + Fraeulein Gonzenbach and Miss R. H. Busk, author of "The + Folk-lore of Rome."] + + + + +FOLK-LULLABIES. + + ... A nurse's song + Of lullaby, to bring her babe asleep. + + +Infancy is a great mystery. We know that we each have gone over that +stage in human life, though even this much is not always quite easy to +realise. But what else do we know about it? Something by observation, +something by intuition; by experience hardly anything at all. We have +as much personal acquaintance with a lake-dwelling or stone age infant +as with our proper selves at the time when we were passing through the +"avatar" of babyhood. The recollections of our earliest years are at +most only as the confused remembrance of a morning dream, which at one +end fades into the unconsciousness of sleep, whilst at the other it +mingles with the realities of awaking. And yet, as a fact, we did not +sleep through all the dawn of our life, nor were we unconscious; only +we were different from what we now are; the term "thinking animal" did +not then fit us so well. We were less reasonable and less material. +Babies have a way of looking at you that makes you half suspect that +they belong to a separate order of beings. You speculate as to whether +they have not invisible wings, which drop off afterwards as do the +birth wings of the young ant. There is one thing, however, in which +the baby is very human, very manlike. Of all newborn creatures he is +the least happy. You may sometimes see a little child crying softly +to himself with a look of world woe on his face that is positively +appalling. Perhaps human existence, like a new pair of shoes, is very +uncomfortable till one gets accustomed to it. Anyhow the child, being +for some reason or reasons exceedingly disposed to vex its heart, +needs much soothing. In one highly civilised country a good many +mothers are in the habit of going to the nearest druggist for the +means to tranquillise their offspring, with the result that these +latter are not unfrequently rescued from the sea of sorrows in the +most final and expeditious way. In less advanced states of society +another expedient has been resorted to from time immemorial--to wit, +the cradle song. + +Babies show an early appreciation of rhythm. They rejoice in measured +noise, whether it takes the form of words, music, or the jingle of a +bunch of keys. In the way of poetry I am afraid they must be admitted +to have a perverse preference for what goes by the name of sing-song. +It will be a long time before the infantine public are brought round +to Walt Whitman's views on versification. For the rest, they are not +very severe critics. The small ancient Roman asked for nothing better +than the song of his nurse-- + + Lalla, lalla, lalla, + Aut dormi, aut lacta. + +This two-line lullaby constitutes one of the few but sufficing proofs +which have come down to us of the existence among the people of old +Rome of a sort of folk verse not by any means resembling the Latin +classics, but bearing a considerable likeness to the _canti popolari_ +of the modern Italian peasant. It may be said parenthetically that +the study of dialect tends altogether to the conviction that there are +country people now living in Italy to whom, rather than to Cicero, we +should go if we want to know what style of speech was in use among +the humbler subjects of the Caesars. The lettered language of the +cultivated classes changes; the spoken tongue of the uneducated +remains the same; or, if it too undergoes a process of change, the +rate at which it moves is to the other what the pace of a tortoise +is to the speed of an express train. About eight hundred years ago +a handful of Lombards went to Sicily, where they still preserve the +Lombard idiom. The Ober-Engadiner could hold converse with his remote +ancestors who took refuge in the Alps three or four centuries before +Christ; the Aragonese colony at Alghero, in Sardinia, yet discourses +in Catalan; the Roumanian language still contains terms and +expressions which, though dissimilar to both Latin and standard +Italian, find their analogues in the dialects of those eastward-facing +"Latin plains" whence, in all probability, the people of Roumania +sprang. But we must return to our lullabies. + +There exists another Latin cradle song, not indeed springing from +classical times, but which, were popular tradition to be trusted, +would have an origin greatly more illustrious than that of the laconic +effusion of the Roman nurse. It is composed in the person of the +Virgin Mary, and was, in bygone days, believed to have been actually +sung by her. Authorities differ as to its real age, some insisting +that the peculiar structure of the verse was unknown before the 12th +century. There is, however, good reason to think that the idea of +composing lullabies for the Virgin belongs to an early period. + + Dormi, fili, dormi! mater + Cantat unigenito: + Dormi puer, dormi! pater + Nato clamat parvulo: + Millies tibi laudes canimus + Mille, mille, millies. + + Lectum stravi tibi soli, + Dormi, nate bellule! + Stravi lectum foeno molli: + Dormi mi animule. + Millies tibi laudes canimus + Mille, mille, millies. + + Dormi, decus et corona! + Dormi, nectar lacteum! + Dormi, mater dabo dona, + Dabo favum melleum. + Millies tibi laudes canimus + Mille, mille, millies. + + Dormi, nate mi mellite! + Dormi plene saccharo, + Dormi, vita, meae vitae, + Casto natus utero. + Millies tibi laudes canimus + Mille, mille, millies. + + Quidquid optes, volo dare; + Dormi, parve pupule + Dormi, fili! dormi carae, + Matris deliciolae! + Millies tibi laudes canimus + Mille, mille, millies. + + Dormi cor, et meus thronus; + Dormi matris jubilum; + Aurium caelestis sonus, + Et suave sibilum! + Millies tibi laudes canimus + Mille, mille, millies. + + Dormi fili! dulce, mater + Duke melos concinam; + Dormi, nate! suave, pater, + Suave carmen accinam. + Millies tibi laudes canimus + Mille, mille, millies. + + Ne quid desit, sternam rosis, + Sternam foenum violis, + Pavimentum hyacinthis + Et praesepe liliis. + Millies tibi laudes canimus + Mille, mille, millies. + + Si vis musicam, pastores + Convocabo protinus; + Illis nulli sunt priores; + Nemo canit castius. + Millies tibi laudes canimus + Mille, mille, millies. + +Everybody who is in Rome at Christmas-tide makes a point of visiting +Santa Maria in Ara C[oe]li, the church which stands to the right of +the Capitol, where once the temple of Jupiter Feretrius is supposed +to have stood. What is at that season to be seen in the Ara C[oe]li is +well enough known--to one side a "presepio," or manger, with the ass, +the ox, St Joseph, the Virgin, and the Child on her knee; to the other +side a throng of little Roman children rehearsing in their infantine +voices the story that is pictured opposite.[1] The scene may be taken +as typical of the cult of the Infant Saviour, which, under one form +or another, has existed distinct and separable from the main stem of +Christian worship ever since a Voice in Judaea bade man seek after the +Divine in the stable of Bethlehem. It is almost a commonplace to say +that Christianity brought fresh and peculiar glory alike to infancy +and to motherhood. A new sense came into the words of the oracle-- + + Thee in all children, the eternal Child ... + +And the mother, sublimely though she appears against the horizon of +antiquity, yet rose to a higher rank--because the highest--at the +founding of the new faith. Especially in art she left the second place +that she might take the first. The sentiment of maternal love, as +illustrated, as transfigured, in the love of the Virgin for her Divine +Child, furnished the great Italian painters with their master motive, +whilst in his humble fashion the obscure folk-poet exemplifies the +selfsame thought. I am not sure that the rude rhymes of which the +following is a rendering do not convey, as well as can be conveyed in +articulate speech, the glory and the grief of the Dresden Madonna: + + Sleep, oh sleep, dear Baby mine, + King Divine; + Sleep, my Child, in sleep recline; + Lullaby, mine Infant fair, + Heaven's King + All glittering, + Full of grace as lilies rare. + + Close thine eyelids, O my treasure, + Loved past measure, + Of my soul, the Lord, the pleasure; + Lullaby, O regal Child, + On the hay + My joy I lay; + Love celestial, meek and mild. + + Why dost weep, my Babe? alas! + Cold winds that pass + Vex, or is 't the little ass? + Lullaby, O Paradise; + Of my heart + Though Saviour art; + On thy face I press a kiss. + + Wouldst thou learn so speedily, + Pain to try, + To heave a sigh? + Sleep, for thou shalt see the day + Of dire scath, + Of dreadful death, + To bitter scorn and shame a prey. + + Rays now round thy brow extend, + But in the end + A crown of cruel thorns shall bend. + Lullaby, O little one, + Gentle guest + Who for thy rest + A manger hast, to lie upon. + + Born in winter of the year, + Jesu dear, + As the lost world's prisoner. + Lullaby (for thou art bound + Pain to know, + And want and woe), + Mid the cattle standing round. + + Beauty mine, sleep peacefully; + Heaven's monarch! see, + With my veil I cover thee. + Lullaby, my Spouse, my Lord, + Fairest Child + Pure, undefiled, + Thou by all my soul adored. + + Lo! the shepherd band draws nigh; + Horns they ply + Thee their Lord to glorify. + Lullaby, my soul's delight, + For Israel, + Faithless and fell, + Thee with cruel death would smite. + + Now the milk suck from my breast, + Holiest, best, + Thy kind eyes thou openest. + Lullaby, the while I sing; + Holy Jesu + Now sleep anew, + My mantle is thy sheltering. + + Sleep, sleep, thou who dost heaven impart + My Lord thou art; + Sleep, as I press thee to my heart. + Poor the place where thou dost lie, + Earth's loveliest! + Yet take thy rest; + Sleep my Child, and lullaby. + +It would be interesting to know if Mrs Browning ever heard any one of +the many variants of this lullaby before writing her poem "The Virgin +Mary to the Child Jesus." The version given above was communicated to +me by a resident at Vallauria, in the heart of the Ligurian Alps. In +that district it is sung in the churches on Christmas Eve, when out +abroad the mountains sleep soundly in their snows and a stray wolf +is not an impossible apparition, nothing reminding you that you are +within a day's journey of the citron groves of Mentone. + +There are several old English carols which bear a strong resemblance +to the Italian sacred lullabies. One, current at least as far back as +the time of Henry IV., is preserved among the Sloane MSS.: + + Lullay! lullay! lytel child, myn owyn dere fode, + How xalt thou sufferin be nayled on the rode. + So blyssid be the tyme! + + Lullay! lullay! lytel child, myn owyn dere smerte, + How xalt thou sufferin the scharp spere to Thi herte? + So blyssid be the tyme! + + Lullay! lullay! lytel child, I synge all for Thi sake, + Many on is the scharpe schour to Thi body is schape. + So blyssid be the tyme! + + Lullay! lullay! lytel child, fayre happis the befalle, + How xalt thou sufferin to drynke ezyl and galle? + So blyssid be the tyme! + + Lullay! lullay! lytel child, I synge al beforn + How xalt thou sufferin the scharp garlong of thorn? + So blyssid be the tyme! + + Lullay! lullay! lytel child, gwy wepy Thou so sore, + Thou art bothin God and man, gwat woldyst Thou be more? + So blyssid be the tyme! + +Here, as in the Piedmontese song, the "shadow of the cross" makes its +presence distinctly felt, whereas in the Latin lullaby it is wholly +absent. Nor are there any dark or sad forebodings in the fragment: + + Dormi Jesu, mater ridet, + Quae; tam dulcem somnum videt, + Dormi, Jesu blandule. + Si non dormis, mater plorat, + Inter fila cantans orat: + Blande, veni Somnule. + +Many Italian Christmas cradle songs are in this lighter strain. +In Italy and Spain a _presepio_ or _nacimento_ is arranged in +old-fashioned houses on the eve of Christmas, and all kinds of songs +are sung or recited before the white image of the Child as it lies in +its bower of greenery. "Flower of Nazareth sleep upon my breast, my +heart is thy cradle," sing the Tuscans, who curiously call Christmas +"the Yule-log Easter." In Sicily a thousand endearing epithets are +applied to the Infant Saviour: "figghiu duci," "Gesiuzzi beddu," +"Gesiuzzi picchiureddi." The Sicilian poet relates how once, when the +Madunazza was mending St Joseph's clothes, the Bambineddu cried in His +cradle because no one was attending to Him; so the archangel Raphael +came down and rocked Him, and said three sweet little words to Him, +"Lullaby, Jesus, Son of Mary!" Another time, when the Child was older +and the mother was going to visit St Anne, he wept because He wished +to go too. The mother let Him accompany her on condition that He would +not break St Anne's bobbins. Yet another time the Virgin went to the +fair to buy flax, and the Child said that He too would like to have +a fairing. The Virgin buys Him a tambourine, and angels descend to +listen to His playing. Such stories are endless; some, no doubt, are +invented on the spur of the moment, but the larger portion are scraps +of old legendary lore. Not a few of the popular beliefs, relating to +the Infant Jesus may be traced to the apocryphal Gospels, which were +extensively circulated during the earlier Christian centuries. +There is, for instance, a Provencal song containing the legend of an +apple-tree that bowed its branches to the Virgin, which is plainly +derived from this source. Speaking of Provence, one ought not to +forget the famous "Troubadour of Bethlehem," Saboly, who was born in +1640, and who composed more than sixty _noels_. Five pretty lines of +his form an epitome of sacred lullabies: + + Faudra dire, faudra dire, + Quauco cansoun, + Au garcoun, + A la facoun + D'aquelo de _soum-soum_. + +George Wither deserves remembrance here for what he calls a "Rocking +hymn," written about the year of Saboly's birth. "Nurses," he says, +"usually sing their children asleep, and through want of pertinent +matter they oft make use of unprofitable, if not worse, songs; this +was therefore prepared that it might help acquaint them and their +nurse children with the loving care and kindness of their Heavenly +Father." Consciously or unconsciously, Wither caught the true spirit +of the ancient carols in the verses--charming in spite, or perhaps +because of their demure simplicity--which follow his little exordium: + + Sweet baby, sleep: what ails my dear; + What ails my darling thus to cry? + Be still, my child, and lend thine ear, + To hear me sing thy lullaby. + My pretty lamb, forbear to weep; + Be still, my dear; sweet baby, sleep. + + Thou blessed soul, what canst thou fear? + What thing to thee can mischief do? + Thy God is now thy Father dear, + His holy Spouse thy mother too. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep.... + + Whilst thus thy lullaby I sing, + For thee great blessings ripening be; + Thine eldest brother is a king, + And hath a kingdom bought for thee. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. &c., &c. + +Count Gubernatis, in his "Usi Natalizj," quotes a popular Spanish +lullaby, addressed to any ordinary child, but having reference to the +Holy Babe: + + The Baby Child of Mary, + Now cradle He has none; + His father is a carpenter, + And he shall make Him one. + + The lady good St Anna, + The lord St Joachim, + They rock the Baby's cradle, + That sleep may come to Him. + + Then sleep thou too, my baby, + My little heart so dear; + The Virgin is beside thee, + The Son of God is near. + +When they are old enough to understand the meaning of words, children +are sure to be interested up to a certain point by these saintly +fables, but, taken as a whole, the songs of the South give us the +impression that the coming of Christmas kindles the imagination of the +Southern mother rather than that of the Southern child. On the north +side of the Alps it is otherwise; there is scarcely need to say that +in the Vaterland, Christmas is before all the children's feast. We, +who have borrowed many of the German yule-tide customs, have left out +the "Christkind;" and it is well that we have done so. Transplanted +to foreign soil, that poetic piece of extra-belief would have become a +mockery. As soon try to naturalise Kolyada, the Sclavonic white-robed +New-year girl. The Christkind in His mythical attributes is nearer to +Kolyada than to the Italian Bambinello. He belongs to the people, not +to the Church. He is not swathed in jewelled swaddling clothes; His +limbs are free, and He has wings that carry Him wheresoever good +children abide. There is about Him all the dreamy charm of lands where +twilight is long and shade and shine intermingle softly, and where the +earth's wintry winding-sheet is more beautiful than her April bride +gown. The most popular of German lullabies is a truly Teutonic mixture +of piety, wonder-lore, and homeliness. Wagner has introduced the +music to which it is sung into his "Siegfried-Idyl." I have to thank a +Heidelberg friend for the text: + + Sleep, baby, sleep: + Your father tends the sheep; + Your mother shakes the branches small, + Whence happy dreams in showers fall: + Sleep, baby, sleep. + + Sleep, baby, sleep: + The sky is full of sheep; + The stars the lambs of heaven are, + For whom the shepherd moon doth care: + Sleep, baby, sleep. + + Sleep, baby, sleep: + The Christ Child owns a sheep; + He is Himself the Lamb of God; + The world to save, to death He trod: + Sleep, baby, sleep. + + Sleep, baby, sleep: + I'll give you then a sheep + With pretty bells, and you shall play + And frolic with him all the day: + Sleep, baby, sleep. + + Sleep, baby, sleep: + And do not bleat like sheep, + Or else the shepherd's dog will bite + My naughty, little, crying spright: + Sleep, baby, sleep. + + Sleep, baby, sleep: + Begone, and watch the sheep, + You naughty little dog! Begone, + And do not wake my little one: + Sleep, baby, sleep. + +In Denmark children are sung to sleep with a cradle hymn which is +believed (so I am informed by a youthful correspondent) to be "very +old." It has seven stanzas, of which the first runs, "Sleep sweetly, +little child; lie quiet and still; as sweetly sleep as the bird in the +wood, as the flowers in the meadow. God the Father has said, +'Angels stand on watch where mine, the little ones, are in bed.'" A +correspondent at Warsaw (still more youthful) sends me the even-song +of Polish children: + + The stars shine forth from the blue sky; + How great and wondrous is God's might; + Shine, stars, through all eternity, + His witness in the night. + + O Lord, Thy tired children keep: + Keep us who know and feel Thy might; + Turn Thine eye on us as we sleep, + And give us all good-night. + + Shine, stars, God's sentinels on high, + Proclaimers of His power and might; + May all things evil from us fly: + O stars, good-night, good-night! + +Is this "Dobra Noc" of strictly popular origin? From internal evidence +I should say that it is not. It seems, however, to be extremely +popular in the ordinary sense of the word. Before me lie two or three +settings of it by Polish musicians. + +The Italians call lullabies _ninne-nanne_, a term used by Dante when +he makes Forese predict the ills which are to overtake the dames of +Florence: + + E se l'anteveder qui non m' inganna, + Prima fien triste che le guance impeli + Colui che mo si consola con _nanna_. + +Some etymologists have sought to connect "nanna" with _neniae_ or +[Greek: nenitos], but its most apparent relationship is with [Greek: +nannarismata], the modern Greek name for cradle songs, which is +derived from a root signifying the singing of a child to sleep. +The _ninne-nanne_ of the various Italian provinces are to be found +scattered here and there through volumes of folk poesy, and no attempt +has yet been made to collate and compare them. Signor Dal Medico did +indeed publish, some ten years ago, a separate collection of Venetian +nursery rhymes, but his initiative has not been followed up. The +difficulty I had in obtaining the little work just mentioned is +characteristic of the way in which Italian printed matter vanishes +out of all being; instead of passing into the obscure but secure limbo +into which much of English literature enters, it attains nothing +short of Nirv[=a]na--a happy state of non-existence. The inquiries of +several Italian book-sellers led to no other conclusion than that the +book in question was not to be had for love or money; and most likely +I should still have been waiting for it were it not for the courtesy +of the Baron Giovanni di Sardagna, who, on hearing that it was wanted +by a student of folk-lore, borrowed from the author the only copy in +his possession and made therefrom a verbatim transcript. The following +is one of Signor Dal Medico's lullabies: + + Hush! lulla, lullaby! So mother sings; + For hearken, 'tis the midnight bell that rings. + But, darling, not thy mother's bell is this: + St Lucy's priests it calls to prayer, I wis. + St Lucy gave thee eyes--a matchless pair-- + And gave the Magdalen her golden hair; + Thy cheeks their hue from heaven's angels have; + Her little loving mouth St Martha gave. + Love's mouth, sweet mouth, that Florence hath for home, + Now tell me where love springs, and how doth come?... + With music and with song doth love arise, + And then its end it hath in tears and sighs. + +The question and answer as to the beginning and end of love run +through all the songs of Italy, and in nearly every case the reply +proceeds from Florence. The personality of the answerer changes: +sometimes it is a little wild bird; on one occasion it is a preacher. +And the idea has been suggested that the last is the original form, +and that the Preacher of Florence who preaches against love is none +other than Jeronimo Savonarola. + +In an Istriot variant of the above song, "Santa Luceia" is spoken of +as the Madonna of the eyes; "Santa Puluonia" as the Madonna of the +teeth: we hear also something of the Magdalene's old shoes and of the +white lilies she bears in her hands. It is not always quite clear +upon what principle the folk-poet shapes his descriptions of religious +personages; if the gifts and belongings he attributes to them are +at times purely conventional, at others they seem to rest on no +authority, legendary or historic. Most likely his ideas as to +the personal appearance of such or such a saint are formed by the +paintings in the church where he is accustomed to go to mass; it +is probable, too, that he is fond of talking of the patrons of his +village or of the next village, whose names are associated with the +_feste_, which as long as he can recollect have constituted the great +annual events of his life. But two or three saints have a popularity +independent of local circumstance. One of these is Lucy, whom the +people celebrate with equal enthusiasm from her native Syracuse to the +port of Pola. Perhaps the maiden patroness of the blessed faculty of +vision has come to be thought of as a sort of gracious embodiment +of that which her name signifies: of the sweet light which to the +southerner is not a mere helpmate in the performance of daily tasks, +but a providential luxury. Concerning the earthly career of their +favourite, her peasant votaries have vague notions: once when a +French traveller in the Apennines suggested that St Januarius might be +jealous of her praises, he received the answer, "_Ma che, excellenza_, +St Lucy was St Januarius' wife!" + +In Greece we find other saints invoked over the baby's cradle. The +Greek of modern times has his face, his mind, his heart, set in an +undeviating eastward position. To holy wisdom and to Marina, the +Alexandrian martyr, the Greek mother confides her cradled darling: + + Put him to bed, St Marina; send him to sleep, St Sophia! Take + him out abroad that he may see how the trees flower and how + the birds sing; then come back and bring him with you, that + his father may not ask for him, may not beat his servants, + that his mother may not seek him in vain, for she would weep + and fall sick, and her milk would turn bitter. + +At Gessopalena, in the province of Chieti (Abruzzo Citeriore) there +would seem to be much faith in numbers. Luke and Andrew, Michael and +Joseph, Hyacinth and Matthew are called in, and as if these were not +enough to nurse one baby, a summons is sent to _Sant Giusaffat_, who, +as is well known, is neither more nor less than Buddha introduced into +the Catholic calendar. + +Another of Signor Dal Medico's _ninne-nanne_ presents several points +of interest: + + O Sleep, O Sleep, O thou beguiler, Sleep, + Beguile this child, and in beguilement keep, + Keep him three hours, and keep him moments three; + Until I call beguile this child for me. + And when I call I'll call:--My root, my heart, + The people say my only wealth thou art. + Thou art my only wealth; I tell thee so. + Now, bit by bit, this boy to sleep will go; + He falls and falls to sleeping bit by bit, + Like the green wood what time the fire is lit, + Like to green wood that never flame can dart, + Heart of thy mother, of thy father heart! + Like to green wood, that never flame can shoot. + Sleep thou, my cradled hope, sleep thou, my root, + My cradled hope, my spirit's strength and stay; + Mother, who bore thee, wears her life away; + Her life she wears away, and all day long + She goes a-singing to her child this song. + +Now, in the first place, the comparison of the child's gradual falling +asleep with the slow ignition of fresh-cut wood is the common property +of all the populations whose ethnical centre of gravity lies in +Venice. I have seen an Istriot version of it, and I heard it sung by a +countrywoman at San Martino di Castrozza in the Trentino; so that, at +all event, _Italia redenta_ and _irredenta_ has a community of song. +The second thing that calls for remark is the direct invocation +of sleep. A distinct little group of cradle ditties displays this +characteristic. "Come, sleep," cries the Grecian mother, "come, sleep, +take him away; come sleep, and make him slumber. Carry him to the +vineyard of the Aga, to the gardens of the Aga. The Aga will give +him grapes; his wife, roses; his servant, pancakes." A second Greek +lullaby must have sprung from a luxuriant imagination. It comes from +Schio: + + Sleep, carry off my son, o'er whom three sentinels do watch, + Three sentinels, three warders brave, three mates you cannot match. + These guards: the sun upon the hill, the eagle on the plain, + And Boreas, whose chilly blasts do hurry o'er the main. + --The sun went down into the west, the eagle sank to sleep, + Chill Boreas to his mother sped across the briny deep. + "My son, where were you yesterday? Where on the former night? + Or with the moon or with the stars did you contend in fight? + Or with Orion did you strive--though him I deem a friend?" + "Nor with the stars, nor with the moon, did I in strife contend, + Nor with Orion did I fight, whom for your friend I hold, + But guarded in a silver cot a child as bright as gold." + +The Greeks have a curious way of looking at sleep: they seem absorbed +in the thought of what dreams may come--if indeed the word dream +rightly describes their conception of that which happens to the soul +while the body takes its rest--if they do not rather cling to some +vague notion of a real severance between matter and spirit during +sleep. + +The mothers of La Bresse (near Lyons) invoke sleep under the name of +"le souin-souin." I wish I could give here the sweet, inedited melody +which accompanies these lines: + + Le poupon voudrait bien domir; + Le souin-souin ne veut pas venir. + Souin-souin, vene, vene, vene; + Souin-souin, vene, vene, donc! + +The Chippewaya Indians were in the habit of personifying sleep as an +immense insect called Weeng, which someone once saw at the top of a +tree engaged in making a buzzing noise with its wings. Weeng produced +sleep by sending fairies, who beat the foreheads of tired mortals with +very small clubs. + +Sleep acts the part of questioner in the lullaby of the Finland +peasant woman, who sings to her child in its bark cradle: "Sleep, +little field bird; sleep sweetly, pretty redbreast. God will wake thee +when it is time. Sleep is at the door, and says to me, 'Is not there +a sweet child here who fain would sleep? a young child wrapped +in swaddling clothes, a fair child resting beneath his woollen +coverlet?'" A questioning sleep makes his appearance likewise in a +Sicilian _ninna_:-- + + My little son, I wish you well, your mother's comfort when in grief. + My pretty boy, what can I do? Will you not give one hour's relief? + Sleep has just past, and me he asked if this my son in slumber lay. + Close, close your little eyes, my child; send your sweet breath far + leagues away. + You are the fount of rose water; you are with every beauty fraught. + Sleep, darling son, my pretty one, my golden button richly wrought. + +A vein of tender reproach is sprung in that inquiry, "Ca n' ura ri +riposu 'un vuo rari?" The mother appeals to the better feeling, to +the Christian charity as it were, of the small but implacable tyrant. +Another time she waxes yet more eloquent. "Son, my comfort, I am not +happy. There are women who laugh and enjoy themselves while I chafe my +very life out. Listen to me, child; beautiful is the lullaby and all +the folk are asleep--but thou, no! My wise little son, I look about +for thy equal; nowhere do I find him. Thou art mamma's consolation. +There, do sleep just a little while." So pleads the Sicilian; her +Venetian sister tries to soften the obduracy of her infant by still +more plaintive remonstrances. "Hushaby; but if thou dost not sleep, +hear me. Thou hast robbed me of my heart and of all my sentiments. I +really do not know for what cause thou lamentest, and never will have +done lamenting." On this occasion the appeal seems to be made to some +purpose, for the song concludes, "The eyes of my joy are closing; they +open a little and then they shut. Now is my joy at peace with me and +no longer at war." So happy an issue does not always arrive. It may +happen that the perverse babe flatly refuses to listen to the mother's +voice, sing she never so sweetly. Perhaps he might have something +to say for himself could he but speak, at any rate in the matter of +mid-day slumbers. It must no doubt be rather trying to be called upon +to go straight to sleep just when the sunbeams are dancing round and +round and wildly inviting you to make your first studies in optics. +Most often the long-suffering mother, if she does not see things in +this light, acts as though she did. Her patience has no limit; her +caresses are never done; with untiring love she watches the little +wakeful, wilful culprit-- + + Chi piangendo e ridendo pargoleggia.... + +But it is not always so; there are times when she loses all patience, +and temper into the bargain. Such a contingency is only too faithfully +reflected in a Sicilian _ninna_ which ends with the utterance of a +horrible wish that Doctor Death would come and quiet the recalcitrant +baby once for all. I ought to add that this same murderous lullaby is +nevertheless brimful of protestations of affection and compliments; +the child is told that his eyes are the finest imaginable, his cheeks +two roses, his countenance like the moon's. The amount of incense +which the Sicilian mother burns before her offspring would suffice +to fill any number of cathedrals. Every moment she breaks forth into +words such as, "Hush! child of my breath, bunch of jasmine, handful of +oranges and lemons; go to sleep, my son, my beauty: I have got to take +thy portrait." It has been remarked that a person who resembled an +orange would scarcely be very attractive, whence it is inferred that +the comparison came into fashion at the date when the orange tree was +first introduced into Sicily and when its fruit was esteemed a rare +novelty. A little girl is described as a spray of lilies and a bouquet +of roses. A little boy is assured that his mother prefers him to gold +or fine silver. If she lost him where would she find a beloved son +like to him? A child dropped out of heaven, a laurel garland, one +under whose feet spring up flowers? Here is a string of blandishments +prettily wound up in a prayer: + + Hush, my little round-faced daughter; thou art like the stormy sea. + Daughter mine of finest amber, godmother sends sleep to thee. + Fair thy name, and he who gave it was a gallant gentleman. + Mirror of my soul, I marvel when thy loveliness I scan. + Flame of love, be good. I love thee better far than life I love. + Now my child sleeps. Mother Mary, look upon her from above. + +The form taken by parental flattery shows the tastes of nations and of +individuals. The other day a young and successful English artist was +heard to exclaim with profound conviction, whilst contemplating his +son and heir, twenty-four hours old, "There is a great deal of _tone_ +about that baby!" + +The Hungarian nurse tells her charge that his cot must be of rosewood +and his swaddling clothes of rainbow threads spun by angels. The +evening breeze is to rock him, the kiss of the falling star to awake +him; she would have the breath of the lily touch him gently, and the +butterflies fan him with their brilliant wings. Like the Sicilian, the +Magyar has an innate love of splendour. + +Corsica has a _ninna-nanna_ into which the whole genius of its people +seems to have passed. The village, _fetes_, with dancing and music, +the flocks and herds and sheep-dogs, even the mountains, stars, and +sea, and the perfumed air off the _macchi_, come back to the traveller +in that island as he reads-- + + Hushaby, my darling boy; + Hushaby, my hope and joy. + You're my little ship so brave + Sailing boldly o'er the wave; + One that tempests doth not fear, + Nor the winds that blow from high. + Sleep awhile, my baby dear; + Sleep, my child, and hushaby. + + Gold and pearls my vessel lade, + Silk and cloth the cargo be, + All the sails are of brocade + Coming from beyond the sea; + And the helm of finest gold, + Made a wonder to behold. + Fast awhile in slumber lie; + Sleep, my child, and hushaby. + + After you were born full soon + You were christened all aright; + Godmother she was the moon, + Godfather the sun so bright; + All the stars in heaven told + Wore their necklaces of gold. + Fast awhile in slumber lie; + Sleep, my child, and hushaby. + + Pure and balmy was the air, + Lustrous all the heavens were; + And the seven planets shed + All their virtues on your head; + And the shepherds made a feast + Lasting for a week at least. + Fast awhile in slumber lie; + Sleep, my child, and hushaby. + + Nought was heard but minstrelsy, + Nought but dancing met the eye, + In Cassoni's vale and wood + And in all the neighbourhood; + Hawk and Blacklip, stanch and true, + Feasted in their fashion too. + Fast awhile in slumber lie; + Sleep, my child, and hushaby. + + Older years when you attain, + You will roam o'er field and plain; + Meadows will with flowers be gay, + And with oil the fountains play, + And the salt and bitter sea + Into balsam changed be. + Fast awhile in slumber lie; + Sleep, my child, and hushaby. + + And these mountains, wild and steep, + Will be crowded o'er with sheep, + And the wild goat and the deer + Will be tame and void of fear; + Vulture, fox, and beast of prey, + From these bounds shall flee away. + Fast awhile in slumber lie; + Sleep, my child, and hushaby. + + You are savory, sweetly blowing, + You are thyme, of incense smelling, + Upon Mount Basella growing, + Upon Mount Cassoni dwelling; + You the hyacinth of the rocks + Which is pasture for the flocks. + Fast awhile in slumber lie; + Sleep, my child, and hushaby. + +At the sight of a new-born babe the Corsican involuntarily sets to +work making auguries. The mountain shepherds place great faith in +divination based on the examination of the shoulder-blades of animals: +according to the local tradition the famous prophecy of the greatness +of Napoleon was drawn up after this method. The nomad tribes of +Central Asia search the future in precisely the same way. Corsican +lullabies are often prophetical. An old woman predicts a strange sort +of millennium, to begin with the coming of age of her grandson: + + "There grew a boy in Palneca of Pumonti, and his dear + grandmother was always rocking his cradle, always wishing him + this destiny:-- + + "Sleep, O little one, thy grandmother's joy and gladness, for + I have to prepare the supper for thy dear little father, and + thy elder brothers, and I have to make their clothes. + + "When thou art older, thou wilt traverse the plains, the grass + will turn to flowers, the sea-water will become sweet balm. + + "We will make thee a jacket edged with red and turned up in + points, and a little peaked hat, trimmed with gold braid. + + "When thou art bigger, thou wilt carry arms; neither soldier + nor gendarme will frighten thee, and if thou art driven up + into a corner, thou wilt make a famous bandit. + + "Never did woman of our race pass thirteen years unwed, for + when an impertinent fellow dared so much as look at her, he + escaped not two weeks unless he gave her the ring. + + "But that scoundrel of Morando surprised the kinsfolk, + arrested them all in one day, and wrought their ruin. And the + thieves of Palneca played the spy. + + "Fifteen men were hung, all in the market-place: men of great + worth, the flower of our race. Perhaps it will be thou, O + dearest! who shall accomplish the vendetta!" + +An unexpected yet logical development leads from the peaceful +household cares, the joyous images of the familiar song, the playful +picture of the baby boy in jacket and pointed hat, to a terrible +recollection of deeds of shame and blood, long past, and perhaps +half-forgotten by the rest of the family, but at which the old dame's +breast still burns as she rocks the sleeping babe on whom is fixed her +last passionate hope of vengeance fulfilled. + +In the mountain villages scattered about the borders of the vast Sila +forest, Calabrian mothers whisper to their babes, "brigantiellu miu, +brigantiellu della mamma." They tell the little ones gathered round +their knees legends of Fra Diavolo and of Talarico, just as Sardinian +mothers tell the legend of Tolu of Florinas. This last is a story +of to-day. In 1850, Giovanni Tolu married the niece of the priest's +housekeeper. The priest opposed the marriage, and soon after it had +taken place, in the absence of Tolu, he persuaded the young wife to +leave her husband's house, never to return. Tolu, meeting his enemy +in a lonely path, fired his pistol, but by some accident it did not +go off, and the priest escaped with his life. Arrest and certain +conviction, however, awaited Tolu, who preferred to take to the +woods, where he remained for thirty years, a prince among outlaws. +He protected the weak; administered a rude but wise justice to the +scattered peasants of the waste country between Sassari and the sea; +his swift horse was always ready to fly in search of their lost or +stolen cattle; his gun was the terror of the thieves who preyed upon +these poor people. In Osilo lived two families, hereditary foes, the +Stacca and the Achena. An Achena offered Tolu five hundred francs to +kill the head of the Stacca family. Tolu not only refused, he did +not rest till he had brought about a reconciliation between the two +houses. At last, in the autumn of 1880, the gendarmes, after thirty +years' failure, arrested Tolu without a struggle at a place where he +had gone to take part in a country _festa_. For two years he was kept +untried in prison. In September 1882 he was brought before the Court +of Assize at Frosinone. Not a witness could be found to testify +against him. "Tolu," they said, "e un Dio." When asked by the +President what he had to say in his defence, he replied: "I never +fired first. The carabineers hunted me like a wild beast, because a +price was set on my head, and like a wild beast I defended myself." +The jury brought in a verdict of acquittal; and if any one wishes to +make our hero's acquaintance, he has only to take ship for Sardinia +and then find the way to the village of Florinas, where he is now +peaceably living, beloved and respected by all who know him. + +The Sardinian character has old-world virtues and old-world blemishes; +if you live in the wilder districts you may deem it advisable to keep +a loaded pistol on the table at meal-time; but then you may go all +over the island without letters of introduction, sure of a hearty +welcome, and an hospitality which gives to the stranger the best +of everything that there is. If the Sardinian has an imperfect +apprehension of the sacredness of other laws, he is blindly obedient +to that of custom; when some progressive measure is proposed, he does +not argue--he says quietly: "Custu non est secundu la moda nostra." +No man sweeps the dust on antique time less than he. One of his +distinctive traits is an overweening fondness of his children; the +ever-marvellous baby is represented not only as the glory of its +mother, but also as the light even of its most distant connexions-- + + Lullaby, sweet lullaby, + You our happiness supply; + Fair your face, and sweet your ways, + You, your mother's pride and praise. + As the coral, rare and bright, + In your life does father live; + You, of all the dear delight, + All around you pleasure give. + + All your ways, my pretty boy, + Of your parents are the joy; + You were born for good alone, + Sunshine of the family! + Wise, and kind to every one. + Light of every kinsman's eye; + Light of all who hither come, + And the gladness of our home. + Lullaby, sweet lullaby. + +On the northern shore the people speak a tongue akin to that of the +neighbouring isle, and the dialect of the south is semi-Spanish; but +in the midland Logudoro the old Sard speech is spoken much as it is +known to have been spoken a thousand years ago. It is simply a rustic +Latin. Canon Spano's loving rather than critical labours have left +Sardinia a fine field for some future folk-lore collector. The +Sardinian is short in speech, copious in song. I asked a lad, just +returned to Venetia from working in Sardinian quarries, if the people +there had many songs? "Oh! tanti!" he answered, with a gesture more +expressive than the words. He had brought back more than a touch of +that malarious fever which is the scourge of the island and a blight +upon all efforts to develop its rich resources. A Sardinian friend +tells me that the Sard poet often shows a complete contempt for +metrical rules; his poesy is apt to become a rhythmic chant of which +the words and music cannot be dissevered. But the Logudorian +lullabies are regular in form, their distinguishing feature being an +interjection with an almost classical ring that replaces the _fa la +nanna_ of Italy-- + + Oh! ninna and anninia! + Sleep, baby boy; + Oh! ninna and anninia! + God give thee joy. + Oh! ninna and anninia! + Sweet joy be thine; + Oh! ninna and anninia! + Sleep, brother mine. + + Sleep, and do not cry, + Pretty, pretty one, + Apple of mine eye, + Danger there is none; + Sleep, for I am by, + Mother's darling son. + + Oh! ninna and anninia! + Sleep, baby boy; + Oh! ninna and anninia! + God give thee joy. + Oh! ninna and anninia! + Sweet joy be thine; + Oh! ninna and anninia! + Sleep, brother mine. + +The singer is the little mother-sister: the child who, while the +mother works in the fields or goes to market, is left in charge of the +last-come member of the family, and is bound to console it as best +she may, for the absence of its natural guardian. The baby is to her +somewhat of a doll, just as to the children of the rich the doll is +somewhat of a baby. She may be met without going far afield; anyone +who has lived near an English village must know the curly-headed +little girl who sits on the cottage door-step or among the meadow +buttercups, her arms stretched at full length, round a soft, +black-eyed creature, small indeed, yet not much smaller than herself. +This, she solemnly informs you, is her baby. Not quite so often can +she be seen now as before the passing of the Education Act, prior to +which all truants fell back on the triumphant excuse, "I can't go +to school because I have to mind my baby," some neighbouring infant +brother, cousin, nephew, being producible at a moment's notice in +support of the assertion. In those days the mere sight of a baby +filled persons interested in the promotion of public instruction with +wrath and suspicion. Yet womanhood would lose a sweet and sympathetic +phase were the little mother-sister to wholly disappear. The songs +of the child-nurse are of the slenderest kind; the tether of her +imagination has not been cut by hope or memory. As a rule she dwells +upon the important fact that mother will soon be here, and when she +has said that, she has not much more to say. So it is in an Istriot +song: "This is a child who is always crying; be quiet, my soul, for +mother is coming back; she will bring thee nice milk, and then she +will put thee in the crib to hushaby." A Tuscan correspondent sends +me a sister-rhyme which is introduced by a pretty description of +the grave-eyed little maiden, of twelve or thirteen years perhaps, +responsible almost to sadness, who leans down her face over the baby +brother she is rocking in the cradle; and when he stirs and begins to +cry, sings softly the oft-told tale of how the dear mamma will come +quickly and press him lovingly to her breast: + + Che fa mai col volto chino, + Quella tacita fanciulla? + Sta vegliando il fratellino, + Adagiato nella culla. + + Ed il pargolo se desta, + E il meschino prorompe in pianto, + La bambina, mesta, mesta, + Vuol chetarlo col suo canto: + + Bambolino mio, riposa, + Presto mamma tornera; + Cara mamma che amorosa + Al suo sen ti stringera. + +The little French girl turns her thoughts to the hot milk and +chocolate that are being prepared, and of which she no doubt expects +to have a share:-- + + Fais dodo, Colin, mon p'tit frere, + Fais dodo, t'auras du lolo. + Le papa est en haut, qui fait le lolo, + Le maman est en bas, qui fait le colo; + Fais dodo, Colin, mon p'tit frere + Fais dodo. + +In enumerating the rewards for infantine virtue--which is sleep--I +must not forget the celebrated hare's skin to be presented to Baby +Bunting, and the "little fishy" that the English father, set to be +nurse _ad interim_, promises his "babby" when the ship comes in; nor +should I pass over the hopes raised in an inedited cradle song of +French Flanders, which opens, like the Tuscan lullaby, with a short +narration: + + Un jour un' pauv' dentilliere + En amicliton ch'un petiot garchun, + Qui d'puis le matin n'fesions que blaire, + Voulait l'endormir par une canchun. + +In this barbarous _patios_, the poor lace-maker tells her "p'tit +pocchin" (little chick) that to-morrow he shall have a cake made of +honey, spices, and rye flour; that he shall be dressed in his best +clothes "com' un bieau milord;" and that at "la Ducasse," a local +_fete_, she will buy him a laughable Polchinello and a bird-organ +playing the tune of the sugar-loaf hat. Toys are also promised in a +Japanese lullaby, which the kindness of the late author of "Child-life +in Japan" has enabled me to give in the original: + + Nen-ne ko y[=o]--nen-ne ko y[=o] + Nen-ne no mori wa--doko ye yuta + Ano yama koyete--sato ye yuta + Sato no miyage ni--nani morota + Ten-ten taiko ni--sh[=o] no fuye + Oki-agari koboshima--inu hari-ko. + +Signifying in English: + + Lullaby, baby, lullaby, baby + Baby's nursey, where has she gone + Over those mountains she's gone to her village; + And from her village, what will she bring? + A tum-tum drum, and a bamboo flute, + A "daruma" (which will never turn over) and a paper dog. + +Scope is allowed for unlimited extension, as the singer can go on +mentioning any number of toys. The _Daruma_ is what English children +call a tumbler; a figure weighted at the bottom, so that turn it how +you will, it always regains its equilibrium. + +More ethereal delights than chocolate, hare's skins, bird-organs, or +even paper dogs (though these last sound irresistibly seductive), form +the subject of a beautiful little Greek song of consolation: "Lullaby, +lullaby, thy mother is coming back from the laurels by the river, from +the sweet banks she will bring thee flowers; all sorts of flowers, +roses, and scented pinks." When she does come back, the Greek mother +makes such promises as eclipse all the rest: "Sleep, my child, and +I will give thee Alexandria for thy sugar, Cairo for thy rice, and +Constantinople, there to reign three years!" Those who see deep +meaning in childish things will look with interest at the young Greek +woman, who sits vaguely dreaming of empire while she rocks her babe. +The song is particularly popular in Cyprus; the English residents +there must be familiar with the melody--an air constructed on the +Oriental scale, and only the other day set on paper. The few bars of +music are like a sigh of passionate longing. + +From reward to punishment is but a step, and next in order to the +songs that refer to the recompense of good, sleepy children, must be +placed those hinting at the serious consequences which will be +the result of unyielding wakefulness. It must be confessed that +retribution does not always assume a very awful form; in fact, in +one German rhyme, it comes under so gracious a disguise, that a child +might almost lie awake on purpose to look out for it: + + Sleep, baby, sleep, + I can see two little sheep; + One is black and one is white, + And, if you do not sleep to-night, + First the black and then the white + Will give your little toes a bite. + +The translation is by "Hans Breitmann." + +In the threatening style of lullaby, the bogey plays a considerable +part. A history of the bogeys of all nations would be an instructive +book. The hero of one people is the bogey of another. Wellington and +Napoleon (or rather "Boney") served to scare naughty babies long after +the latter, at least, was laid to rest. French children still have +songs about "le Prince Noir," and the nurses sang during the siege of +Paris: + + As-tu vu Bismarck + A la porte de Chatillon? + Il lance les obus + Sur le Pantheon. + +The Moor is the nursery terror of many parts of Southern Europe; +not, however, it would seem of Sicily--a possible tribute to the +enlightened rule of the Kalifs. The Greeks do not enjoy a like +immunity: Signor Avolio mentions, in his "Canti popolari di Noto," +that besides saying "the wolf is coming," it is common for mothers +to frighten their little ones with, "Zittiti, ca vienunu i Riece; Nu +sciri ca 'ncianu ci su i Rieci" ("Hush, for the Greeks are coming: +don't go outside for the Greeks are there.") Noto was the centre of +the district where the ancient Sikeli made their last stand against +Greek supremacy: a coincidence that opens the way to bold speculation, +though the originals of the bogey Greeks may have been only pirates of +times far less remote. + +In Germany the same person distributes rewards and punishments: St +Nicholas in the Rhenish provinces, Knecht Ruprecht in Northern and +Central Germany, Julklapp in Pomerania. On Christmas eve, some one +cries out "Julklapp!" from behind a door, and throws the gift into the +room with the child's name pinned upon it. Even the gentle St Lucy, +the Santa Claus of Lombardy, withholds her cakes from erring babes, +and little Tuscans stand a good deal in awe of their friend the +Befana; delightful as are the treasures she puts in their shoes when +satisfied with their behaviour, she is credited with an unpleasantly +sharp eye for youthful transgressions. She has a relative in Japan of +the name of Hotii. Once upon a time Hotii, who belongs to the sterner +sex, lived on earth in the garb of a priest. His birthland was China, +and he had the happy fame of being extremely kind to children. At +present he walks about Japan with a big sack full of good things +for young people, but the eyes with which the back of his head is +furnished, enable him to see in a second if any child misconducts +itself. Of more dubious antecedents is another patron of the children +of Japan, Kishi Mojin, the mother of the child-demons. Once Kishi +Mojin had the depraved habit of stealing any young child she could lay +hands on and eating it. In spite of this, she was sincerely attached +to her own family, which numbered one thousand, and when the exalted +Amida Niorai hid one of its members to punish her for her cruel +practices, she grieved bitterly. Finally the child was given back on +condition that Kishi Mojin would never more devour her neighbours' +infants: she was advised to eat the fruit of the pomegranate whenever +she had a craving for unnatural food. Apparently she took the advice +and kept the compact, as she is honoured on the 28th day of every +month, and little children are taught to solicit her protection. The +kindness shown to children both in Japan and China is well known; +in China one baby is said to be of more service in insuring a safe +journey than an armed escort. + +"El coco," a Spanish bogey, figures in a sleep-song from Malaga: +"Sleep, little child, sleep, my soul; sleep, little star of the +morning. My child sleeps with eyes open like the hares. Little baby +girl, who has beaten thee that thine eyes look as if they had been +crying? Poor little girl! who has made thy face red? The rose on the +rose-tree is going to sleep, and to sleep goes my child, for already +it is late. Sleep little daughter for the _coco_ comes." + +The folk-poet in Spain reaps the advantage of a recognised freedom of +versification; with the great stress laid upon the vowels, a consonant +more or less counts for nothing: + + A dormir va la rosa + De los rosales; + A dormir va mi nina + Porque ya es tarde. + +All folk-poets, and notably the English, have recourse to an +occasional assonant, but the Spaniard can trust altogether to such. +Verse-making is thus made easy, provided ideas do not fail, and up to +to-day, they have not failed the Spanish peasant. He has not, like +the Italian, begun to leave off composing songs. My correspondent at +Malaga writes that at that place improvisation seems innate in the +people: they go before a house and sing the commonest thing they wish +to express. Love and hate they also turn into songs, to be rehearsed +under the window of the individual loved or hated. There is even an +old woman now living in Malaga who rhymes in Latin with extraordinary +facility. To the present section falls one other lullaby--coo-aby, +perhaps I ought to say, since the Spanish _arrullo_ means the cooing +of doves as well as the lulling of children. It is quoted by Count +Gubernatis: + + Isabellita, do not pine + Because the flowers fade away; + If flowers hasten to decay + Weep not, Isabellita mine. + + Little one, now close thine eyes, + Hark, the footsteps of the Moor! + And she asks from door to door, + Who may be the child who cries? + + When I was as small as thou + And within my cradle lying, + Angels came about me flying + And they kissed me on my brow. + + Sleep, then, little baby, sleep: + Sleep, nor cry again to-night, + Lest the angels take to flight + So as not to see thee weep. + +"The Moor" is in this instance a benignant kind of bogey, not far +removed from harmless "wee Willie Winkie" who runs upstairs and +downstairs in his nightgown: + + Tapping at the window, + Crying at the lock, + "Are the babes in their beds? + For it's now ten o'clock." + +These myths have some analogy with a being known as "La Dormette" who +frequents the neighbourhood of Poitou. She is a good old woman who +throws sand and sleep on children's eyes, and is hailed with the +words: + + Passez la Dormette, + Passez par chez nous! + Endormir gars et fillettes + La nuit et le jou. + +Now and then we hear of an angel who passes by at nightfall; it is not +clear what may be his mission, but he is plainly too much occupied to +linger with his fellow seraphs, who have nothing to do but to kiss +the babe in its sleep. A little French song speaks of this journeying +angel: + + Il est tard, l'ange a passe, + Le jour a deja baisse; + Et l'on n'entend pour tout bruit + Que le ruisseau qui s'enfuit. + Endors toi, + Mon fils! c'est moi. + Il est tard et ton ami, + L'oiseau blue, s'est endormi. + +In Calabria, when a butterfly flits around a baby's cradle, it is +believed to be either an angel or a baby's soul. + +The pendulum of good and evil is set swinging from the moment that the +infant draws its first breath. Angelical visitation has its complement +in demonial influence; it is even difficult to resist the conclusion +that the ministers of light are frequently outnumbered by the powers +of darkness. In most Christian lands the unbaptised child is given +over entirely to the latter. Sicilian women are loth to kiss a child +before its christening, because they consider it a pagan or a Turk. In +East Tyrol and Styria, persons who take a child to be baptised say on +their return--"A Jew we took away, a Christian we bring back." Some +Tyrolese mothers will not give any food to their babies till the rite +has been performed. The unbaptised Greek is thought to be simply +a small demon, and is called by no other designation than [Greek: +srakos] if a boy, and [Greek: srakoula] if a girl. Once when a +christening was unavoidably delayed, the parents got so accustomed to +calling their little girl by the snake name, that they continued doing +so even after she had been presented with one less equivocal. +Dead unchristened babes float about on the wind; in Tyrol they are +marshalled along by Berchte, the wife of Pontius Pilate; in Scotland +they may be heard moaning on calm nights. The state to which their +baby souls are relegated, is probably a lingering recollection of +that into which, in pagan days, all innocent spirits were conceived +to pass: an explanation that has also the merit of being as little +offensive as any that can be offered. There is naturally a general +wish to make baptism follow as soon as possible after birth--an +end that is sometimes pursued regardless of the bodily risks it may +involve. A poor woman gave birth to a child at the mines of Vallauria; +it was a bitterly cold winter; the snow lay deep enough to efface the +mountain tracks, and all moisture froze the instant it was exposed to +the air. However, the grandmother of the new-born babe carried it off +immediately to Tenda--many miles away--for the christening rite. As +she had been heard to remark that it was a useless encumbrance, there +were some who attributed her action to other motives than religious +zeal; but the child survived the ordeal and prospered. In several +parts of the Swiss mountains a baptism, like a funeral, is an event +for the whole community. I was present at a christening in a small +village lying near the summit of the Julier Pass. The bare, little +church was crowded, and the service was performed with a reverent +carefulness contrasting sharply with the mechanical and hurried +performance of a baptism witnessed shortly before in a very different +place, the glorious baptistry at Florence. It ended with a Lutheran +hymn, sung sweetly without accompaniment, by five or six young +girls. More than half of the congregation consisted of men, whose +weather-tried faces were wet with tears, almost without exception. +I could not find out that there was anything particularly sad in the +circumstances of the case; the women certainly wore black, but then, +the rule of attending the funerals even of mere acquaintances, causes +the best dress in Switzerland to be always one suggestive of mourning. +It seemed that the pathos of the dedication of a dawning life to the +Supreme Good was sufficient to touch the hearts of these simple folk, +starved from coarser emotion. + +In Calabria it is thought unlucky to be either born or christened on +a Friday. Saturday is likewise esteemed an inauspicious day, which +points to its association with the witches' Sabbath, once the subject +of numerous superstitious beliefs throughout the southern provinces +of Italy. Not far from the battlefield near Benevento where Charles +of Anjou defeated Manfred, grew a walnut tree, which had an almost +European fame as the scene of Sabbatical orgies. People used to hang +upon its branches the figure of a two-headed viper coiled into a ring, +a symbol of incalculable antiquity. St Barbatus had the tree cut down, +but the devil raised new shoots from the root and so it was renewed. +Shreds of snake-worship may be still collected. The Calabrians hold +that the cast-off skin of a snake is an excellent thing to put under +the pillow of a sick baby. Even after their christening, children are +unfortunately most susceptible to enchantment. When a beautiful and +healthy child sickens and dies, the Irish peasant infers that the +genuine baby has been stolen by fairies, and this miserable sprite +left in its place. Two ancient antidotes have great power to +counteract the effect of spells. One is the purifying Fire. In +Scotland, as in Italy, bewitched children, within the memory of living +men, have been set to rights by contact with its salutary heat. My +relative, Count Belli of Viterbo, was "looked at" when an infant by a +_Jettatrice_, and was in consequence put by his nurse into a mild +oven for half-an-hour. One would think that the remedy was nearly as +perilous as the practice of the lake-dwellers of cutting a little hole +in their children's heads to let out the evil spirits, but in the case +mentioned it seems to have answered well. + +The other important curative agent is the purifying spittle. In +Scotland and in Greece, any one who should exclaim, "What a beautiful +child!" is expected to slightly spit upon the object of the remark, or +some misfortune will follow. Ladies in a high position at Athens have +been observed to do this quite lately. The Scotch and Greek uneasiness +about the "well-faured" is by no means confined to those peoples; the +same anxiety reappears in Madagascar; and the Arab does not like you +to praise the beauty of his horse without adding the qualifying "an +it please God." Persius gives an account of the precautions adopted +by the friends of the infant Roman: "Look here--a grandmother or +superstitious aunt has taken baby from his cradle and is charming his +forehead and his slavering lips against mischief by the joint action +of her middle finger and her purifying spittle; for she knows right +well how to check the evil eye. Then she dandles him in her arms, and +packs off the little pinched hope of the family, so far as wishing can +do it, to the domains of Licinus, or to the palace of Cr[oe]sus. 'May +he be a catch for my lord and lady's daughter! May the pretty ladies +scramble for him! May the ground he walks on turn to a rose-bed.'" +(Prof. Conington's translation.) + +One of the rare lullabies that contain allusion to enchantment is the +following Roumanian "Nani-nani": + + Lullaby, my little one, + Thou art mother's darling son; + Loving mother will defend thee, + Mother she will rock and tend thee, + Like a flower of delight, + Or an angel swathed in white. + + Sleep with mother, mother well + Knows the charm for every spell. + Thou shalt be a hero as + Our good lord, great Stephen, was, + Brave in war, and strong in hand, + To protect thy fatherland. + + Sleep, my baby, in thy bed; + God upon thee blessings shed. + Be thou dark, and be thine eyes + Bright as stars that gem the skies. + Maidens' love be thine, and sweet + Blossoms spring beneath thy feet. + +The last lines might be taken for a paraphrase of-- + + ....... puellae + Hunc rapiant: quicquid calcaverit hic, rosa fiat. + +The Three Fates have still their cult at Athens. When a child is three +days old, the mother places by its cot a little table spread with a +clean linen cloth, upon which she sets a pot of honey, sundry cakes +and fruits, her wedding ring, and a few pieces of money belonging +to her husband. In the honey are stuck three almonds. These are the +preparations for the visit of the [Greek: Moirai]. In some places the +Norns or Parcae have got transformed into the three Maries; in others +they closely retain their original character. A perfect sample of the +mixing up of pagan and Christian lore is to be found in a Bulgarian +legend, which shows the three Fates weaving the destiny of the infant +Saviour during a momentary absence of the Virgin--the whole scene +occurring in the middle of a Balkan wood. In Sicily exists a belief +in certain strange ladies ("donni-di-fora"), who take charge of the +new-born babe, with or without permission. The Palermitan mother says +aloud, when she lifts her child out of the cradle, "'Nnome di Dio!" +("In God's name!")--but she quickly adds _sotto voce_: "Cu licenzi, +signuri miu!" ("By your leave, ladies"). + +At Noto, _Ronni-di-casa_, or house-women, take the place of the +_Donni-di-fora_. They inhabit every house in which a fire burns. If +offended by their host, they revenge themselves on the children: +the mother finds the infant whom she left asleep and tucked into the +cradle, rolling on the floor or screaming with sudden fright. When, +however, the _Ronni-di-casa_ are amiably disposed, they make the +sleeping child smile, after the fashion of angels in other parts of +the world. Should they wish to leave an unmistakable mark of their +good will, they twist a lock of the baby's hair into an inextricable +tress. In England, elves were supposed to tangle the hair during sleep +(_vide King Lear_: "Elf all my hair in knots;" and Mercutio's Mab +speech). The favour of the Sicilian house-women is not without its +drawbacks, for if by any mischance the knotted lock be cut off, +they will probably twist the child's spine out of spite. "'Ccussi lu +lassurii li Ronni-di-casa," says an inhabitant of Noto when he points +out to you a child suffering from spinal curvature. The voice is +lowered in mentioning these questionable guests, and there are +Noticiani who will use any amount of circumlocution to avoid actually +naming them. They are often called "certi signuri," as in this +characteristic lullaby: + + My love, I wish thee well; so lullaby! + Thy little eyes are like the cloudless sky, + My little lovely girl, my pretty one, + Mother will make of thee a little nun: + A sister of the Saviour's Priory + Where noble dames and ladies great there be. + Sleep, moon-faced treasure, sleep, the while I sing: + Thou hadst thy cradle from the Spanish king. + When thou hast slept, I'll love thee better still. + (Sleep to my daughter comes and goes at will + And in her slumber she is made to smile + By certain ladies whom I dare not style.) + Breath of my body, thou, my love, my care, + Thou art without a flaw, so wondrous fair. + Sleep then, thy mother's breath, sleep, sleep, and rest, + For thee my very soul forsakes my breast. + My very soul goes forth, and sore my heart: + Thou criest; words of comfort I impart. + Daughter, my flame, lie still and take repose, + Thou art a nosegay culled from off the rose. + +At Palermo, mothers dazzled their little girls with the prospect of +entering the convent of Santa Zita or Santa Chiara. In announcing the +birth of his child, a Sicilian peasant commonly says, "My wife has a +daughter-abbess." "What! has your wife a daughter old enough to be an +abbess?" has sometimes been the innocent rejoinder of a traveller from +the mainland. The Convent of the Saviour, which is the destination of +the paragon of beauty described in the above lullaby, was one of +the wealthiest, and what is still more to the point, one of the most +aristocratic religious houses in the island. To have a relation among +its members was a distinction ardently coveted by the citizens of +Noto; a town which once rejoiced in thirty-three noble families, one +loftier than the other. The number is now cut down, but according to +Signor Avolio such as remain are regarded with undiminished reverence. +There are households in which the whole conversation runs on the +_Barone_ and _Baronessa_, when not absorbed by the _Baronello_ and the +_Baronessella_. It is just possible that the same phenomenon might be +observed without going to Noto. _Tutto il mondo e paese_: a proverb +which would serve as an excellent motto for the Folk-lore Society. + +Outside Sicily the cradle-singer's ideal of felicity is rather +matrimonial than monastic. The Venetian is convinced that who never +loved before must succumb to her daughter's incomparable charms. It +seems, by-the-by, that the "fatal gift" can be praised without fear or +scruple in modern Italy; the visitors of a new-born babe ejaculate in +a chorus, "Quant' e bellino! O bimbo! Bimbino!" and Italian lullabies, +far more than any others, are one long catalogue of perfections, +one drawn-out reiteration of the boast of a Greek mother of Terra +d'Otranto: "There are children in the street, but like my boy there is +not one; there are children before the house, but like my child there +are none at all." The Sardinian who wishes to say something civil of +a baby will not do less than predict that "his fame will go round the +world." The cradle-singer of the Basilicata desires for her nursling +that he may outstrip the sun and moon in their race. It has been seen +that the Roumanian mother would have her son emulate the famous hero +of Moldavia; for her daughter she cherishes a gentler ambition: + + Sleep, my daughter, sleep an hour; + Mother's darling gilliflower. + Mother rocks thee, standing near, + She will wash thee in the clear + Waters that from fountains run, + To protect thee from the sun. + + Sleep, my darling, sleep an hour, + Grow thou as the gilliflower. + As a tear-drop be thou white, + As a willow, tall and slight; + Gentle as the ring-doves are, + And be lovely as a star! + +This _nani-nani_ calls to mind some words in a letter of Sydney +Dobell's: "A little girl-child! The very idea is the most exquisite of +poems! a child-daughter--wherein it seems to me that the spirit of all +dews and flowers and springs and tender, sweet wonders 'strikes +its being into bounds.'" "Tear drop" (_lacrimiora_) is the poetic +Roumanian name for the lily of the valley. It may be needful to add +that gilliflower is the English name for the clove-pink; at least an +explanatory foot-note is now attached to the word in new editions of +the old poets. Exiled from the polite society of "bedding plants"--all +heads and no bodies--the "matted and clove gilliflowers" which Bacon +wished to have in his garden, must be sought for by the door of +the cottager who speaks of them fondly yet apologetically, as +"old-fashioned things." To the folk-singers of the small Italy on the +Danube and the great Italy on the Arno they are still the type of the +choicest excellence, of the most healthful grace. Even the long stalk, +which has been the flower's undoing, from a worldly point of view, +gets praised by the unsophisticated Tuscan. "See," he says, "with +how lordly an air it holds itself in the hand!" ("Guarda con quanta +signoria si tiene in mano!") + +The anguish of the Hindu dying childless has its root deeper down in +the human heart than the reason he gives for it, the foolish fear lest +his funeral rites be not properly performed. No man quite knows what +it is to die who leaves a child in the world; children are more than a +link with the future--they _are_ the future: the portion of ourselves +that belongs not to this day but to to-morrow. To them may be +transferred all the hopes sadly laid by, in our own case, as +illusions; the "to be" of their young lives can be turned into a +beautiful "arrangement in pink," even though experience has taught us +that the common lot of humanity is "an Imbroglio in Whity-brown." Most +parents do all this and much more; as lullabies would show were there +any need for the showing of it. One cradle-song, however, faces +the truth that of all sure things the surest is that sorrow and +disappointment will fall upon the children as it has fallen upon the +fathers. The song comes from Germany; the English version is by Mr C. +G. Leland: + + Sleep, little darling, an angel art thou! + Sleep, while I'm brushing the flies from your brow. + All is as silent as silent can be; + Close your blue eyes from the daylight and me. + + This is the time, love, to sleep and to play; + Later, oh later, is not like to-day, + When care and trouble and sorrow come sore + You never will sleep, love, as sound as before. + + Angels from heaven as lovely as thou + Sweep round thy bed, love, and smile on thee now; + Later, oh later, they'll come as to-day, + But only to wipe all the tear-drops away. + + Sleep, little darling, while night's coming round, + Mother will still by her baby be found; + If it be early, or if it be late, + Still by her baby she'll watch and she'll wait. + +The sad truth is there, but with what tenderness is it not hedged +about! These Teutonic angels are worth more than the too sensitive +little angels of Spain who fly away at the sight of tears. And the +last verse conveys a second truth, as consoling as the first is sad; +pass what must, change what may, the mother's love will not change or +pass; its healing presence will remain till death; who knows? perhaps +after. Signor Salomone-Marino records the cry of one, who out of the +depths blesses the haven of maternal love: + + Mamma, Mammuzza mia, vu' siti l'arma, + Lu me rifugiu nni la sorti orrenna, + Vui siti la culonna e la giurlanna, + Lu celu chi vi guardi e vi mantegna! + +The soul that directs and inspires, the refuge that shelters, the +column that supports, the garland that crowns--such language would +not be natural in the mouth of an English labourer. An Englishman who +feels deeply is almost bound to hold his tongue; but the poor Sicilian +can so express himself in perfect naturalness and simplicity. + +There is a kind of sleep-song that has only the form in common with +the rose-coloured fiction that makes the bulk of cradle literature. It +is the song of the mother who lulls her child with the overflow of +her own troubled heart. The child may be the very cause of her sorest +perplexity: yet from it alone she gains the courage to live, from it +alone she learns a lesson of duty: + + "The babe I carry on my arm, + He saves for me my precious soul." + +A Corsican mother says to the infant at her breast, "Thou art my +guardian angel!"--which is the same thought spoken in another way. + +The most lovely of all sad lullabies is that written much more than +two thousand years ago by Simonides of Ceos. Acrisius, king of Argos, +was informed by an oracle that he would be killed by the son of his +daughter Danae, who was therefore shut up in a tower, where Zeus +visited her in the form of a shower of gold. Afterwards, when she gave +birth to Perseus, Acrisius ordered mother and child to be exposed in +a wicker chest or coffin on the open sea. This is the story which +Simonides took as the subject of his poem: + + Whilst the wind blew and rattled on the decorated ark, and the + troubled deep tossed as though in terror--her own fair cheek + also not unwet--around Perseus Danae threw her arms, and + cried: "O how grievous, my child, is my trouble; yet thou + sleepest, and with tranquil heart slumberest within this + joyless house, beneath the brazen-barred, black-gleaming, + musky heavens. Ah! little reckest thou, beloved object, of the + howling of the tempest, nor of the brine wetting thy delicate + hair, as there thou liest, clad in thy little crimson mantle! + But even were this dire pass dreadful also to thee, yet lend + thy soft ear to my words: Sleep on, my babe, I say; sleep on, + I charge thee; nay, let the wild waters sleep, and sleep the + immeasurable woe. Let me, too, see some change of will on thy + part, Zeus, father! or if the speech be deemed too venturous, + then, for thy child's sake, I pray thee pardon." + +This is not a folk-song, but it has a prescriptive right to a place +among lullabies. + +Passing over the beautiful Widow's Song, quoted in a former essay, we +come to some Basque lines, which bring before us the blank and vulgar +ugliness of modern misery with a realism that would please M. Zola: + + Hush, poor child, hush thee to sleep; + (See him lying in slumber deep!) + Thou first, then following I, + We will hush and hushaby. + + Thy bad father is at the inn; + Oh! the shame of it, and the sin! + Home at midnight he will fare, + Drunk with strong wine of Navarre. + +After each verse the singer repeats again and again: _Lo lo, lo lo_, +on three lingering notes that have the plaintive monotony of the +chiming of bells where there are but three in the belfry. + +Almost as dismal as the Basque ditty is the English nursery rhyme: + + Bye, O my baby! + When I was a lady + O then my poor baby didn't cry; + But my baby is weeping + For want of good keeping; + Oh! I fear my poor baby will die! + +--which may have been composed to fit in with some particular story, +as was the tearful little song occurring in the ballad of Childe +Waters: + + She said: Lullabye, mine own dear child, + Lullabye, my child so dear; + I would thy father were a king, + Thy mother laid on a bier. + +One feels glad that that story ends happily in a "churching and +bridal" that take place upon the same day. + +I have the copy of a lullaby for a sick child, written down from +memory by Signor Lerda, of Turin, who reports it to be popular in +Tuscany: + + Sleep, dear child, as mother bids: + If thou sleep thou shalt not die! + Sleep, and death shall pass thee by. + Close worn eyes and aching lids, + Yield to soft forgetfulness; + Let sweet sleep thy senses press: + Child, on whom my love doth dwell, + Sleep, sleep, and thou shalt be well. + + See, I strew thee, soft and light, + Bed of down that cannot pain; + Linen sheets have o'er it lain + More than snow new-fallen white. + Perfume sweet, health-giving scent, + The meadows' pride, is o'er it sprent: + Sleep, dear son, a little spell, + Sleep, sleep, and thou shalt be well. + + Change thy side and rest thee there, + Beauty! love! turn on thy side, + O my son, thou dost not bide + As of yore, so fresh and fair. + Sickness mars thee with its spite, + Cruel sickness changes quite; + How, alas! its traces tell! + Yet sleep, and thou shalt be well. + + Sleep, thy mother's kisses poured + On her darling son. Repose; + God give end to all our woes. + Sleep, and wake by sleep restored, + Pangs that make thee faint shall fly! + Sleep, my child, and lullaby! + Sleep, and fears of death dispel; + Sleep, sleep, and thou shalt be well. + +"Se tu dormi, non morrai!" In how many tongues are not these words +spoken every day by trembling lips, whilst the heart seems to stand +still, whilst the eyes dare not weep, for tears would mean the victory +of hope or fear; whilst the watcher leans expectant over the beloved +little wasted form, conscious that all that can be done has been done, +that all that care or skill can try has been tried, that there are no +other remedies to fall back upon, that there is no more strength left +for battle, and that now, even in this very hour, sleep or his brother +death will decide the issue. + +When a Sicilian hears that a child is dead, he exclaims, "Glory +and Paradise!" The phrase is jubilant almost to harshness; yet the +underlying sentiment is not harsh. The thought of a dead child makes +natural harmonies with thoughts of bright and shining things. A mother +likes to dream of her lost babe as fair and spotless and little. If +she is sad, with him it is surely well. He is gone to play with the +Holy Boys. He has won the crown of innocence. There are folk-songs +that reflect this radiancy with which love clothes dead children; +songs for the last sleep full of all the confusion of fond epithets +commonly addressed to living babies. + +Only in one direction did my efforts to obtain lullabies prove +fruitless. America has, it seems, no nursery rhymes but those which +are still current in the Old World.[2] Mr Bret Harte told me: "Our +lullabies are the same as in England, but there are also a few Dutch +ones," and he went on to relate how, when he was at a small frontier +town on the Rhine, he heard a woman singing a song to her child: it +was the old story,--if the child would not sleep it would be punished, +its shoes would be taken away; if it would go to sleep at once, Santa +Claus would bring it a beautiful gift. Words and air, said Mr +Bret Harte, were strangely familiar to him; then, after a moment's +reflection, he remembered hearing this identical lullaby sung amongst +his own kindred in the Far West of America. + + [Footnote 1: The "Preaching of the children" took place as + usual in the Christmas week of 1885, but as the convent in + connection with the church of Santa Maria is about to be + pulled down, I cannot tell whether the pretty custom will be + adhered to in future. The church, however, which was also + threatened with demolition, is now safe.] + + [Footnote 2: This is confirmed by Mr W. Newell in his + admirable book, "Games and Songs of American Children" (1885), + which might be called with equal propriety, "Games and Songs + of British Children." It is indeed the best collection of + English nursery rhymes that exists. Thus America will have + given the mother country the most satisfactory editions, both + of her ballads (Prof. F. T. Child's splendid work, now in + course of publication) and of her children's songs.] + + + + +FOLK-DIRGES. + + +There are probably many persons who could repeat by heart the greater +portion of the last scene in the last book of the _Iliad_, and who +yet have never been struck by the fact, that not its least excellence +consists in its setting before us a carefully accurate picture of a +group of usages which for the antiquity of their origin, the wide +area of their observance, and the tenacity with which they have been +preserved, may be fairly said to occupy an unique position amongst +popular customs and ceremonials. First, we are shown the citizens of +Troy bearing their vanquished hero within the walls amidst vehement +demonstrations of grief: the people cling to the chariot wheels, or +prostrate themselves on the earth; the wife and the mother of the dead +tear their hair and cast it to the winds. Then the body is laid on +a bed of state, and the leaders of a choir of professional minstrels +sing a dirge, which is at times interrupted by the wailing of the +women. When this is done, Andromache, Hecuba, and Helen in turn give +voice each one to the feelings awakened in her by their common loss; +and afterwards--so soon as the proper interval has elapsed--the body +is burnt, wine being poured over the embers of the pyre. Lastly, +the ashes are consigned to the tomb, and the mourners sit down to a +banquet. "Such honours paid they to the good knight Hector;" and such, +in their main features, are the funeral rites which may be presumed to +date back to a period not only anterior to the siege of Troy, granting +for the moment that event to have veritably taken place, but also +previous to the crystallisation of the Greek or any other of the +Indo-European nationalities which flowed westward from the uplands of +the Hindu Kush. The custom of hymning the dead, which is just now what +more particularly concerns us, once prevailed over most if not all +parts of Europe; and the firmness of its hold upon the affections +of the people may be inferred from the persistency with which they +adhered to it, even when it was opposed not only by the working of the +gradual, though fatal, law of decay to which all old usages must in +the end submit, but also by the active interposition of persons +in authority. Charlemagne, for instance, tried to put it down in +Provence--desiring that all those attending funerals, who did not know +by rote any of the appropriate psalms, should recite aloud the _Kyrie +eleison_ instead of singing "profane songs" made to suit the occasion. +But the edict seems to have met with a signal want of success; for +some five hundred years after it was issued, the Provencals still +hired Praeficae, and still introduced within the very precincts of their +churches, whole choirs of lay dirge-singers, frequently composed of +young girls who were stationed in two companies, that chanted songs +alternately to the accompaniment of instrumental music; and this +notwithstanding that the clergy of Provence showed the strongest +objection to the performance of observances at funerals, other than +such as were approved by ecclesiastical sanction. The custom in +question bears an obvious affinity to Highland coronachs and Irish +keens, and here in England there is reason to believe it to have +survived as late as the seventeenth century. That Shakespeare was +well acquainted with it is amply testified by the fourth act of +_Cymbeline_; for it is plain that the song pronounced by Guiderius +and Arviragus over the supposed corpse of Imogene was no mere poetic +outburst of regret, but a real and legitimate dirge, the singing or +saying of which was held to constitute Fidele's obsequies. In the +Cotton Library there is a MS., having reference to a Yorkshire village +in the reign of Elizabeth, which relates: "When any dieth, certaine +women sing a song to the dead bodie recyting the jorney that the +partye deceased must goe." Unhappily the English Neniae are nearly all +lost and forgotten; I know of no genuine specimen extant, except the +famous Lyke Wake (_i.e._, Death Watch) dirge beginning: + + This ae nighte, this ae nighte, + _Everie nighte and alle_, + Fire and sleete and candle lighte, + _And Christe receive thy saule_, &c. + +To the present day we find practices closely analogous with those +recounted in the _Iliad_ scattered here and there from the shores of +the Mediterranean to the banks of Lake Onega; and the Trojan threnody +is even now reproduced in Ireland, in Corsica, Sardinia, and Roumania, +in Russia, in Greece, and South Italy. Students who may be tempted to +make observations on this strange survival of the old world, will +do well, however, to set about it at once, in parts which are either +already invaded or else threatened with an imminent invasion of +railways, for the screech of the engine sounds the very death-knell of +ancient customs. Thus the Irish practice of keening is becoming less +and less general. On recently making inquiries of a gentleman residing +in Leinster, I learnt that it had gone quite out in that province; +he added that he had once seen keeners at a funeral at Clonmacnoise +(King's County), but was told they came from the Connaught side of +the Shannon. The keens must not be confused with the peculiar wail or +death-cry known as the Ullagone; they are articulate utterances, in +a strongly marked rhythm, extolling the merits of the dead, and +reproaching him for leaving his family, with much more in the same +strain. The keeners may or may not be professional, and the keens are +more often of a traditional than of an improvised description. One +or two specimens in Gaelic have appeared in the _Journal of the Irish +Archaeological Association_, but on the whole the subject is far from +having received the attention it deserves. The Irish keeners are +invariably women, as also are all the continental dirge-singers +of modern times. Whether by reason of the somewhat new-fashioned +sentiment which forbids a man to exhibit his feelings in public, +or from other motives not unconnected with selfishness, the onus of +discharging the more active and laborious obligations prescribed in +popular funeral rites has bit by bit been altogether shifted upon the +shoulders of the weaker sex; _e.g._, in places where scratching and +tearing of the face forms part of the traditional ritual, the women +are expected to continue the performance of this unpleasant ceremony +which the men have long since abandoned. Together with the dirge, a +more or less serious measure of self-disfigurement has come down from +an early date. An Etruscan funeral urn, discovered at Clusi, shows an +exact picture of the hired mourners who tear their hair and rend +their garments, whilst one stands apart, in a prophetic attitude, and +declaims to the accompaniment of a flute. Of the precise origin of +the employment of Public Wailers, or Praeficae, not much has been +ascertained. One distinguished writer on folk-lore suggests that it +had its rise not in any lack of consideration for the dead, but in the +apprehension lest the repose of their ghosts should be disturbed by a +display of grief on the part of those who had been nearest and dearest +to them in life; and his theory gains support in the abundant evidence +forthcoming to attest the existence of a widely-spread notion that +the dead are pained, and even annoyed and exasperated, by the tears +of their kindred. Traces of this belief are discoverable in Zend +and Hindu writings; also amongst the Sclavs, Germans, and +Scandinavians--and, to look nearer home, in Ireland and Scotland. On +the other hand, it is possible that the business of singing before the +dead sprang from the root of well-nigh every trade--that its duties +were at first exclusively performed by private persons, and their +passing into public hands resulted simply from people finding out +that they were executed with less trouble and more efficiency by a +professional functionary; a common-place view of the matter which is +somewhat borne out by the circumstance, that whenever a member of the +family is qualified and disposed to undertake the dirge-singing, there +seems to be no prejudice against her doing so. It is often far from +easy to determine whether such or such a death-song was composed by a +hired praefica who for the time being assumed the character of one of +the dead man's relatives, or by the latter speaking in her own person. + +In Corsica, the wailing and chanting are kept up, off and on, from +the hour of death to the hour of burial. The news that the head of +a family has expired is quickly communicated to his relations and +friends in the surrounding hamlets, who hasten to form themselves +into a troop or band locally called the Scirrata, and thus advance in +procession towards the house of mourning. If the death was caused by +violence, the scirrata makes a halt when it arrives in sight of the +village; and then it is that the Corsican women tear their hair and +scratch their faces till the blood flows--just as do their sisters in +Dalmatia and Montenegro. Shortly after this, the scirrata is met by +the deceased's fellow-villagers, accompanied by all his near relatives +with the exception of the widow, to whose abode the whole party +now proceeds with loud cries and lamentations. The widow awaits the +scirrata by the door of her house, and, as it draws near, the leader +steps forward and throws a black veil over her head to symbolise her +widowhood; the term of which must offer a dreary prospect to a woman +who has the misfortune to lose her husband while she is still in the +prime of life, for public opinion insists that she remain for years in +almost total seclusion. The mourners and as many as can enter the +room assemble round the body, which lies stretched on a table or plank +supported by benches; it is draped in a long mantle, or it is clothed +in the dead man's best suit. Now begins the dirge, or Vocero. Two +persons will perhaps start off singing together, and in that case the +words cannot be distinguished; but more often only one gets up at a +time. She will open her song with a quietly-delivered eulogy of the +virtues of the dead, and a few pointed allusions to the most important +events of his life; but before long she warms to her work, and pours +forth volleys of rhythmic lamentation with a fire and animation that +stir up the women present into a frenzied delirium of grief, in which, +as the praefica pauses to take breath, they howl, dig their nails into +their flesh, throw themselves on the ground, and sometimes cover their +heads with ashes. When the dirge is ended they join hands and dance +frantically round the plank on which the body lies. More singing takes +place on the way to the church, and thence to the graveyard. After the +funeral the men do not shave for weeks, and the women let their hair +go loose and occasionally cut it off at the grave--cutting off the +hair being, by the way, a universal sign of female mourning; it was +done by the women of ancient Greece, and it is done by the women of +India. A good deal of eating and drinking brings the ceremonials to a +close. If the bill of fare comes short of that recorded of the funeral +feast of Sir John Paston, of Barton, when 1300 eggs, 41 pigs, 40 +calves, and 10 nete were but a few of the items--nevertheless the +Corsican baked meats fall very heavily upon the pockets of such +families as deem themselves compelled to "keep up a position." Sixty +persons is not an extraordinary number to be entertained at the +banquet, and there is, over and above, a general distribution of bread +and meat to poorer neighbours. Mutton in summer, and pork in winter, +are esteemed the viands proper to the occasion. In happy contrast to +all this lugubrious feasting is the simple cup of milk drunk by each +kinsman of the shepherd who dies in the mountains; in which case his +body is laid out, like Robin Hood's, in the open air, a green sod +under his head, his loins begirt with the pistol belt, his gun at +his side, his dog at his feet. Curious are the superstitions of the +Corsican shepherds touching death. The dead, they say, call the living +in the night time, and he who answers will soon follow them; they +believe, too, that, if you listen attentively after dark, you may hear +at times the low beating of a drum, which announces that a soul has +passed. + +A notable section of the voceri treats of that insatiable thirst +after vengeance which formerly provided as fruitful a theme to French +romancers as it presented a perplexing problem to French legislators. +In these dirges we see the vendetta in its true character, as the +outgrowth and relic of times when people were, in self-defence, +almost coerced into lawlessness through the perpetual miscarriage +of constituted justice, and they enable us to better understand the +process by which what was at the outset something of the nature of a +social necessity, developed into the ruling passion of the race, and +led to the frightful abuses that are associated with its name. All +that he held sacred in heaven or on earth became bound up in the +Corsican's mind with the obligation to avenge the blood of his +kindred. Thus he made Hate his deity, and the old inexorable spirit +of the Greek _Oresteia_ lived and breathed in him anew, the Furies +themselves finding no bad counterpart in the frenzied women who +officiated at his funeral rites. As is well known, when no man was to +be found to do the deed a woman would often come forward in his stead, +and this not only among the lower orders, but in the highest ranks of +society. A lady of the noble house of Pozzo di Borgo once donned +male attire, and in velvet-tasselled cap, red doublet, high sheepskin +boots, with pistol, gun, and dagger for her weapons, started off in +search of an assassin at the head of a band of partisans. When he was +caught, however, after the guns had been two or three times levelled +at his breast, she decided to give him his life. Another fair avenger +whose name has come down to us was Maria Felice di Calacuccia, of +Niolo. Her vocero may be cited here as affording a good idea of the +tone and spirit of the vendetta dirges in general. + +"I was spinning at my distaff when I heard a loud noise; it was a +gun-shot, it re-echoed in my heart. It seemed to say to me: 'Fly! thy +brother dies.' I ran into the upper chamber. As I unlatched the door, +'I am struck to the heart,' he said; and I fell senseless to the +ground. If I too died not, it was that one thought sustained me. Whom +wouldst thou have to avenge thee? Our mother, nigh to death, or thy +sister Maria? If Lario was not dead surely all this would not end +without bloodshed. But of so great a race, thou dost only leave thy +sister: she has no cousins, she is poor, an orphan, young. Still be at +rest--to avenge thee, she suffices!" + +A dramatic vocero, dealing with the same subject, is that of the +sister of Canino, a renowned brigand, who fell at Nazza in an +encounter with the military. She begins by regretting that she has not +a voice of thunder wherewith to rehearse his prowess. Alas! one early +morning the soldiers ("barbarous set of bandits that they are!") +sallied forth on his pursuit, and pounced upon him like wolves upon +a lamb. When she heard the bustle of folks going to and fro in the +street, she put her head out of window and asked what it was all +about. "Thy brother has been slaughtered in the mountains," they +reply. Even so it was; his arquebuse was of no use to him; no, nor his +dagger, nor his pistol, nor yet his amulet. When they brought him in, +and she beheld his wounds, the bitterness of her grief redoubled. Why +did he not answer her--did he lack heart to do so? "Canino, heart of +thy sister," she cries, "how thou art grown pale! Thou that wert +so stalwart and so full of grace, thou who didst appear like unto a +nosegay of flowers. Canino, heart of thy sister, they have taken thy +life. I will plant a blackthorn in the land of Nazza, that none of our +house may henceforth pass that way--for there were not three or four, +but seven men against one. Would I could make my bed at the foot of +the chestnut tree beneath whose shade they fired upon thy breast. I +desire to cast aside these women's skirts, to arm me with poniard, and +pistol, and gun, to gird me with the belt and pouch; Canino, heart of +thy sister, I desire to avenge thy death." In the lamentations over +one Matteo, a doctor who was murdered in 1745, we have an example of +the songs improvised along the road to the grave. This time there are +plenty of male relatives--brothers, brothers-in-law, and cousins--to +accomplish the vendetta. The funeral procession passes through the +village where the crime was committed, and one of the inhabitants, +perhaps as a peace-offering, invites the whole party to come in and +refresh themselves. To this a young girl replies: "We want none of +your bread and wine; what we do want is your blood." She invokes a +thunderbolt to exterminate every soul in the blood-guilty place. But +an aged dame interposes, for a wonder, with milder counsels; she bids +her savage sisters calm their wrath: "Is not Matteo in heaven with the +Lord? Look at his winding sheet," says she, "and learn from it that +Christ dwells above, who teaches forgiveness. The waters are troubled +enough already without your goading on your men to violence." It is +not unlikely that the Corsicans may have been in the habit, like the +Irish, of intentionally parading the coffin of a murdered man past the +door of the suspected murderer, in order that they might have a public +opportunity of branding the latter with infamy. + +Having glanced at these hymns of the avenger, we will turn to the +laments expressive of grief unmixed with threats or anger. In these, +also, Corsica is very rich. Sometimes it is a wife who deplores her +husband struck down by no human hand, but by fever or accident. In one +such vocero the widow pathetically crowds epithet on epithet, in the +attempt to give words to her affection and her sorrow. "You were my +flower, my thornless rose, my stalwart one, my column, my brother, my +hope, my prop, my eastern gem, my most beautiful treasure," she says +to her lost "Petru Francescu!" She curses fate which in a brief moment +has deprived her of her paladin--she prayed so hard that he might +be spared, but it was all in vain. He was laid low, the greatly +courageous one, who seemed so strong! Is it indeed true, that he, the +clever-headed, the handy-handed, will leave his Nunziola all alone? +Then she bids Mari, her little daughter, come hither to where papa +lies, and beg him to pray God in paradise that she may have a better +lot than her little mother. She wishes her eyes may change into two +fountains ere she forgets his name; for ever would she call him her +Petru Francescu. But most of all she wishes that her heart might +break so that her poor little soul could go with his, and quit this +treacherous world where is no more joy. The typical keen given in +Carleton's _Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry_ is so like +Nunziola's vocero, that in parts it might be taken for a translation +of it. Sometimes it is a plaint of a mother whose child has met the +fate of those "whom the gods love." That saying about the gods has its +equivalent in the Corsican lines: + + Chi nasci pe u paradisu + A stu mondu un po' imbecchia, + +which occur in the lament of La Dariola Danesi, of Zuani, who mourns +her sixteen-year-old daughter Romana. Decked in feast-day raiment +the damsel sleeps in the rest of death, after all her sufferings. Her +sweet face has lost its hues of red and white; it is like a gone-out +sun. Romana was the fairest of all the young girls, a rose among +flowers; the youths of the country round were consumed by love of her, +but in her presence they were filled with decorous respect. She was +courteous to all, familiar with none; in church everybody gazed at +her, but she looked at no one; and the minute mass was over she would +say: "Mamma, let us go." Never can the mother be consoled, albeit she +knows her darling fares well up there in heaven where all things smile +and are glad. Of a surety this earth was not worthy to contain so fair +a face. "Ah! how much more beautiful Paradise will be now she is in +it!" cries the voceratrice, with the sublime audacity of maternal +love. In another dirge we have pictured a troop of girls coming early +to the house of Maria, their young companion, to escort her to the +Church of St Elia: for this morning the father of her betrothed has +settled the marriage portion, and it is seemly that she should hear +mass, and make an offering of wax tapers. But the maiden's mother +comes forth to tell the gladsome band that to-day's offering to +St Elia is not of waxen tapers; it is a peerless flower, a bouquet +adorned with ribands--surely the saint will be well pleased with such +a fine gift! For the bride elect lies dead; who will now profit by +her possessions--the twelve mattresses, the twenty-four lambs? "I will +pray the Virgin," says the mother, "I will pray my God that I may go +hence this morning, pressing my flower to my heart." The playfellows +bathe Maria's face with tears: sees she not those who loved her? Will +she leave them in their sadness? One runs to pluck flowers, a second +to gather roses; they twine her a garland, a bridal crown--will she +depart all the same, lying upon her bier? But, after all, why should +there be all this grief? "To-day little Maria becomes the spouse of +the Lord; with what honour will she not be greeted in paradise!" +Alas for broken hearts! they were never yet healed by that line of +argument. Up the street steals the chilling sound of the funeral +chant, _Ora pro ea_. They are come to bear the maiden to St Elia's +Church; the mother sinks to the ground; fain would she follow the body +to the grave, but she faints with sorrow; only her streaming tears can +pay the tribute of her love. + +It will be observed that it is usual for the survivors to be held up +as objects of pity rather than the dead, who are generally regarded +as well off; but now and then we come across less optimist presages of +the future life. A woman named Maddele complains that they have taken +her blonde daughter, her snow-white dove, her "Chili, cara di Mamma," +to the worst possible of places, where no sun penetrates, and no fire +is lit. + +Sometimes to a young girl is assigned the task of bewailing her +playmate. "This morning my companion is all adorned," begins a maiden +dirge-singer; "one would think she was going to be married." But the +ceremony about to take place differs sadly from that other. The +bell tolls slowly, the cross and banner arrive at the door; the dead +companion is setting out on a long journey, she is going to find their +ancestors--the voceratrice's father, and her uncle the cure--in the +land whither each one must go in his turn and remain for ever. Since +she has made up her mind thus to change country and climate (though +it be all too soon, for she has not yet done growing), will she at any +rate listen for an instant to her friend of other days? She wishes +to give her a little letter to carry to her father; and, besides the +letter, she would like her to take him a message, and give him news of +the family he left so young, all weeping round his hearth. She is to +tell him that all goes well; that his eldest daughter is married and +has a boy, a flowering lily, who already knows his father, and points +at him with his finger. The boy is called after the grandpapa, and old +friends declare him to be his very image. To the cure she is to say +that his flock flourish and do not forget him. Now the priest enters, +bringing the holy water; everyone lifts his hat; they bear the body +away: "Go to heaven, dear; the Lord awaits you." + +It is hardly necessary to add that the voceri of Corsica are without +exception composed in the native speech of the country, which the +accomplished scholar, lexicographer, and poet, Niccolo Tommaseo, spoke +of with perfect truth as one of "the most Italian of the dialects +of Italy." The time may come when the people will renounce their own +language in favour of the idiom of their rulers, but it has not come +yet; nor do they show much disposition to abandon their old usages, as +may be guessed from the fact that even in their Gallicanised capital +the dead are considered slighted if the due amount of wailing is left +undone. + +The Sardinian Attitido--a word which has been thought to have some +connection with the Greek [Greek: ototoi], and the Latin _atat_--is +made on exactly the same pattern as the Corsican vocero. I have been +told on trustworthy authority that in some districts in the island the +keening over a married man is performed not by a dirge-singer but by +his own children, who chant a string of homely sentences, such as: +"Why art thou dead, papa? Thou didst not want for bread or wine!" A +practice may here be mentioned which recalls the milk and honey and +nuts of the Roman Inferiae, and which, so far as I am aware, lingers on +nowhere excepting Sardinia; the attidora whilst she sings, scatters +on the bier handfuls of almonds or--if the family is well-to-do--of +sweetmeats, to be subsequently buried with the body. + +Very few specimens of the attitido have found their way into print; +but amongst these few, in Canon Spano's _Canti popolari Tempiesi_, +there is one that is highly interesting. Doubts have been raised as +to whether the bulk of the songs in Canon Spano's collection are of +purely illiterate origin; but even if the author of the dirge to which +I allude was guilty of that heinous offence in the eyes of the strict +folk-lore gleaner--the knowledge of the alphabet--it must still be +judged a remarkable production. The attidora laments the death of a +much-beloved bishop:-- + +"It was the pleasure of this good father, this gentle pastor," she +says, "at all hours to nourish his flock; to the bread of the soul he +joined the bread of the body. Was the wife naked, her sons starving +and destitute? He laboured unceasingly to console them all. The one he +clothed, the others he fed. None can tell the number of the poor whom +he succoured. The naked came to him that they might be clothed, the +hungry came to him that they might be fed, and all went their way +comforted. How many had suffered hunger in the winter's cold, had not +his tender heart proffered them help! It was a grand sight to behold +so many poor gathered together in his house--above, below, they were +so numerous there was no room to pass. And these were the comers of +every day. I do not count those to whom once a month he supplied +the needful food, nor yet those other poor to whose necessities he +ministered in secret. By the needy rogue he let himself be deceived +with shut eyes: he recognised the fraud, but he esteemed it gain so to +lose. Ah, dear father, father to us all, I ought not to weep for thee! +I mourn our common bereavement, for thy death this day has been a blow +to all of us, even to the strongest men." + +It would be hard to conceive a more lovely portrait of the Christian +priest; it is scarcely surpassed by that of Monseigneur Bienvenu +in _Les Miserables_, of whose conduct in the matter of the silver +candlesticks we are not a little reminded by the good Sardinian +bishop's compassion for the needy rogue. Neither the one nor the other +realises an ideal which would win the unconditional approval of the +Charity Organisation Society, and we must perhaps admit that humane +proclivities which indirectly encourage swindling are more a mischief +than an advantage to the State. Yet who can be insensible to the +beauty of this unconquerable pity for the evil-doer, this charity that +believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things? Who can +say how much it has done to make society possible, to keep the world +on its wheels? It is the bond that binds together all religions. Six +thousand years ago the ancient Egyptian dirge-singers chanted before +their dead: "There is no fault in him. No answer riseth up against +him. In the truth he liveth, with the truth he nourisheth himself. +The gods are satisfied with all he hath done.... He succoured the +afflicted, he gave bread to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothes +to the naked, he sheltered the outcast, his doors were open to the +stranger, he was a father to the fatherless." + +The part of France where dirge-singing stayed the longest seems to +have been the south-west. The old women of Gascony still preserve +the memory of a good many songs, some of which have been fortunately +placed on record by M. Blade in his collection of Gascon folk-lore. +The Gascon dirge is a kind of prose recitative made up of distinct +exclamations that fall into irregular strophes. Each has a burden of +this description: + + Ah! + Ah! Ah! Ah! + Ah! Praube! + Ah! Praube! + Moun Diu! + Moun Diu! Moun Diu! + +The wife mourns for the loss of "Praube Jan;" when she was a young +girl she loved only him. "No, no! I will not have it! I will not have +them take thee to the graveyard!" "What will become of us?" asks the +daughter; "my poor mother is infirm, my brothers and sisters are too +small; there is only me to rule the house." The mother bewails her +boy: "Poor little one! I loved thee so much, thou wert so pretty, thou +wert so good. Thou didst work so well; all I bid thee do, thou didst; +all I told thee, didst thou believe; thou wert very young, yet already +didst thou earn thy bread. Poor little one, thou art dead; they carry +thee to the grave, with the cross going before. They put thee into +the earth.... Poor little one, I shall see thee no more; never! never! +never! Thou goest and I stay. My God! thou wilt be very lonely in the +graveyard this night; and I, I shall weep at home." + +If we transport ourselves to the government of Olonetz, we discover +the first cousin of the Corsican voceratrice in the Russian Voplenitsa +("the sobbing one"). But the jurisdiction of this functionary is of +wider extent; she is mistress of the ceremonies at marriages as well +as at funerals, and in both cases either improvises new songs or +adapts old ones. Mr Ralston has familiarised English readers with some +excellent samples of the Russian neniae in his work on the _Songs of +the Russian People_. In Montenegro dirge-singing survives in its +most primitive form. During the war of 1877 there were frequent +opportunities of observing it. One such occurred at Ostrog. A wounded +man arrived at that place, which was made a sort of hospital station, +with his father and mother, his sisters and a brother. Another +brother and a cousin had fallen by his side in the last fight--the +Montenegrins have always gone into battle in families--and the women +had their faces covered with scratches, self-inflicted in their +mourning for these kindred. The man was young, lively, and courageous; +he might have got well but there were no surgical instruments to +extract the ball in his back, and so in a day or two he was dead. At +three in the morning the women began shrieking in spite of the orders +given by the doctors in the interest of the other wounded; the noise +was horrible, and no sooner were they driven away than they came back +and renewed it. The Prince, who has tried to put down the custom as +barbarous, was quartered at Ostrog, and he succeeded in having the +wailers quieted for a moment, but when the body was borne to the +cemetery the uproar began again. The women beat their breasts, +scratched their faces, and screamed at a pitch that could be heard +a mile off. It is usual to return to the house where the person +died--they made their way therefore back into the hospital (the Prince +being absent), and it was only after immense efforts on the part of +the sisters of charity and those who were in authority that they were +expelled. Then they seated themselves in the courtyard, and continued +beating their breasts and reciting their death-song. An eyewitness of +the scene described the dirge as a monotonous chant. One of the dead +man's sisters had worked herself up into a state of hysterical frenzy, +in which she seemed to have lost all control over her words and +actions; she led the dirge, and her rhythmic ejaculations flowed forth +as if she had no power to contain them. The father and brother went to +salute the Prince the day after the funeral; the old man appeared to +be extremely cheerful, but was doggedly inattentive to the advice to +go home and fight no more, as his family had suffered enough losses. +He had a son of ten, he said, who could accompany him now as there was +a gun to spare, which before had not been the case. He wished he had +ten sons to bring them all to fight the Turks. + +The Sclavs are everywhere very strict in all that regards the cult +of the dead, and the observances which have to be gone through by +Russians who have lost friends or relations are by no means confined +to the date of death and burial. Even when they have experienced +no personal loss, they are still thought called upon to visit the +cemeteries on the second Tuesday after Easter, and howl lustily over +the tombs of their ancestors. Nor would it be held sufficient to strew +flowers upon the graves, as is done on the Catholic All Souls' +day; the most orthodox ghosts want something more substantial, and +libations of beer and spirits are poured over their resting-places. +Furthermore, disagreeable consequences have been said to result upon +an omission of like marks of respect due to "the rude forefathers +of the hamlet;" there is no making sure that a highly estimable +individual will not, when thus incensed, re-enter an appearance +on life's stage in the shape of a vampire. A small volume might be +written on the preventive measures adopted to procure immunity from +such-like visitations. The people of Havellend and Altmark put a small +coin into the mouths of the dead in the hope that, so appeased, they +will not assume vampire form; but this time the superstition, like +a vast number of others, is clearly a later invention to explain a +custom, the original significance of which is forgotten. The peasants +of Roumelia also place pieces of money in the coffins, not as an +insurance against vampires--who they think may be best avoided by +burning instead of burying the mortal remains of any person they +credit with the prospect of becoming one--but to pay the entrance fee +into Paradise; a more authentic version of the old fable. The setting +apart of a day, fixed by the Church or varying according to private +anniversaries, for the special commemoration of the dead, is a +world-wide custom. + +If, as Mr Herbert Spencer thinks, the rudimentary form of all religion +is the propitiation of dead ancestors who are supposed still to exist, +some kind of _fete des morts_ was probably the oldest of religious +feasts. A theory has been started, to the effect that the time of its +appointment has been widely influenced by the rising of the Pleiades, +in support of which is cited the curious fact that the Australians and +Society Islanders keep the celebration in November, though with +them November is a spring month. But this may be no more than a +coincidence. In ancient Rome, in Russia, in China, the tendency has +been to commemorate the dead in the season of resurrection. + +The Letts and Esthonians observe the Feast of Souls, by spreading a +banquet of which they suppose their spirit relatives to partake; they +put torches on the graves to light the ghosts to the repast, and they +imagine every sound they hear through the day to be caused by the +movements of the invisible guests. Both these people celebrate +death-watches with much singing and drinking, the Esthonians +addressing long speeches to the dead, and asking him why he did +not stay longer, if his puddro (gruel) was not to his taste, &c., +precisely after the style of the keeners of less remote parts. In +some countries the entire system of life would seem to be planned and +organised mainly with a view to honouring the dead. In Albania, for +example, one of the foremost objects pursued by the peasantry is +that of marrying their daughters near home; not so much from any +affectionate unwillingness to part with them, as in order to secure +their attendance at the _vai_ or lamentations which take place on +the death of a member of the family; and so rigorous are the mourning +regulations, that even married women who have lost their fathers +remain year after year shut up in houses deprived of light and draped +in black--they may not even go out to church. The Albanian keens are +not always versified; they sometimes consist simply in the endless +reiteration of a single phrase. M. Auguste Dozon reports that he was +at one time constantly hearing "les hurlements" of a poor Mussulman +widow who bewailed two sons; on certain anniversaries she took their +clothes out of a chest, and, placing them before her, she repeated, +without intermission, [Greek: Chalasia mon]. The Greeks have the +somewhat analogous practice, on the recurrence of the death-days +of their dear ones, of putting their lips close to the graves and +whispering to their silent tenants that they still love them. + +The near relations in Greece leave their dwelling, as soon as they +have closed the eyes of the dead, to take refuge in the house of a +friend, with whom they sojourn till the more distant connections have +had time to arrive, and the body is dressed in holiday gear. Then they +return, clothe themselves in white dresses, and take up their position +beside the bier. After some inarticulate wailing, which is strenuously +echoed back by the neighbours, the dirge is sung, the chief female +mourner usually leading off, and whosoever feels disposed following +wake. When the body is lowered into the earth, the best-beloved of the +dead--his mother or perhaps his betrothed--stoops down to the ground +and imploringly utters his name, together with the word "Come!" On his +making no reply, he is declared to be indeed dead, and the grave is +closed.[1] The usage points to a probability that all the exhortations +to awaken and to return with which the dirges of every nation +are interlarded are remnants of ancient makeshifts for a medical +certificate of death; and we may fancy with what breathless +excitement these apostrophes were spoken in former days when they were +accompanied by an actual, if faint, expectation that they would be +heard and answered. It is conceivable that the complete system of +making as much noise as possible at funerals may be derived from some +sort of notion that the uproar would wake the dead if he were not dead +at all, but sleeping. As elsewhere, so in Greece, the men take no part +in the proceedings beyond bidding one last farewell just before they +retire from the scene. Praeficae are still employed now and then; but +the art of improvisation seems to be the natural birthright of Greek +peasant women, nor do they require the inspiration of strong grief to +call their poetic gifts into operation; it is stated to be no unusual +thing to hear a girl stringing elegies over some lamb, or bird, or +flower, which may have died, while she works in the fields. The Greeks +send communications and even flowers by the dead to the dead: "Now +is the time," the folk-poet makes one say whose body is about to be +buried, "for you to give me any messages or commissions; and if your +grief is too poignant for utterance, write it down on paper and bring +me the letter." The Greek neniae are marked by great vigour and variety +of imagery as is apparent in the subjoined extract from the dirge of a +poor young country-woman who was left a widow with two children:-- + +"The other day I beheld at our threshold a youth of lofty stature and +threatening mien; he had out-stretched wings of gleaming white, and in +his hand was a sword. 'Woman, is thy husband in the house?' 'Yes; he +combs our Nicos' hair, and caresses him so he may not cry. Go not in, +terrible youth; do not frighten our babe.' The white-winged would not +listen; I tried to drive him back, but I could not; he darted past +me, and ran to thy side, O my beloved. Hapless one, he smote thee; and +here is thy little son, thy tiny Nicos, whom likewise he was fain to +strike." ... + +So vivid was the impression created by the woman's fantasy that +some of the spectators looked towards the door, half expecting the +white-winged visitant to advance in their midst; others turned to the +child, huddled by his mother's knees. She, coming down from flights +of imagination to the bitter realities of her condition, exclaimed, +as she flung herself sobbing upon the bier: "How can I maintain the +children? How will they be able to live? What will they not suffer in +the contrast between the rough lot in store for them and the tender +care which guarded them in the happy days when their father lived?" At +last, worn out by the force of her emotions, she sank senseless to the +floor. The laments of widows, which are very rare in some localities, +are often to be met with in Greece. In one of them we come upon an +original idea respecting the requirements of spirits: the singer prays +that her tears may swell into a lake or a sea, so they may trickle +through the earth to the nether regions, to moisten those who get +no rain, to be drink to those who thirst, and--to fill up the dry +inkstands of the writers! "Then will they be able to chronicle the +chagrins of the loved ones who cross the river, taste its wave, and +forget their homes and their poor orphans." Every species of Grecian +peasant-song abounds in classical reminiscences, which are easy to +identify, although they betray some mental confusion of the attributes +and functions belonging to the personages of antiquity. Of all the +early myths, that of the Stygian ferryman is the one which has shown +greatest longevity. Far from falling into oblivion, the son of Erebus +has gone on diligently accumulating honours till he has managed to get +the arbitrament of life and death into his power, and to enlist the +birds of the air as a staff of spies, to give him prompt information +should any unlucky individual refer to him in a tone of mockery or +defiance. Perhaps this is not development but reversion. Charon may +have been a great Infernal deity before he was a boatman. The Charun +of the Etruscans could destroy life and torment the guilty--the office +of conducting shades to the other world forming only one part of his +duties. + +The opinion of Achilles, that it was better to be a slave amongst +men than a king over ghosts, is very much that which prevails in the +Greece of to-day. Visions of a Christian paradise above the skies +have much less hold on the popular mind than dread of a pagan Tartarus +under the earth; and that full conviction that after all it was a very +bad thing to die, that tendency to attach a paramount value to life, +_per se_, and _quand meme_, which constituted so significant a +feature of the old Greeks, is equally characteristic of their modern +representatives. The next world of the Romaic songs is far from +being a place "where all smiles and is glad;" the forebodings of the +Corsican's Chilina's mother are common enough here in Greece. "Rejoice +in the present world, rejoice in the passing day," runs a [Greek: +myrologion], quoted by Fauriel; "to-morrow you will be under the sod, +and will behold the day no more." Down in Tartarus youths and maidens +spend their time dismally in asking if there be yet an earth and a +sky up above. Are there still churches and golden icons? Do people +continue to work at their several trades? "Blessed are the mountains +and the pastures," it is said, "where we meet not Charon." The parents +of a dying girl ask of her why she is resolved to hasten into the +other world where the cock crows not, and the hen clucks not; +where there is no water and no grass, and where the hungry find it +impossible to eat, and the tired are incapable of sleep. Why is +she not content to abide at home? The girl replies she cannot, for +yesterday, in the late evening, she was married, and her consort is +the tomb. That is the peasant elegist's way of speaking of a sudden +death, caused very likely by the chill of nightfall. Of another +damsel, who succumbed to a long illness, "who had suffered as none +before suffered under the sun," he narrates how she pressed her +father's hand to her heart, saying: "Alas! my father, I am about to +die." She clasped her mother's hand to her breast, saying: "Alas! my +mother, I am about to die." Then she sent for her betrothed, and she +bent over him and kissed him, and whispered softly into his ear: "Oh, +my friend, when I am dead deck my grave as you would have decked my +nuptial bed." We find in Greek poesy the universal legend of the lover +who kills himself on hearing of the death of his mistress; but, as +a rule, the regret of survivors is depicted as neither desperate nor +durable. Long ago, three gallant youths plotted together to contrive +an escape from Hades, and a fair-haired maiden prayed that they would +take her with them; she did so wish to see her mother mourning her +loss, her brothers weeping because she is no more. They answered: "As +to thy brothers, poor girl, they are dancing, and thy mother diverts +herself with gossiping in the street." The mournfully beautiful +music that Schubert wedded to Claudius's little poem _Der Tod und das +Maedchen_ might serve as melodious expression to many a one of these +Grecian lays of dead damsels. Death will not halt because he hears +a voice crying: "Tarry, I am still so young!" The future is as +irrevocably fixed as the past; and if fate deals hardly by mortals, +there is nothing to fall back upon but the sorry resignation of +despair; such is the sombre folk philosophy of the land of eternal +summer. Perhaps it is the very brightness of the sky and air that +makes the quitting of this mortal coil so unspeakably grievous. The +most horribly painful idea associated with death in the mind of the +modern as of the ancient Greek is the idea of darkness, of separation +from what Dante, yet more Greek than Italian in his passionate +sun-worship, describes in a line which seems somehow to hold incarnate +the thing it tells of-- + + ... l'aer dolce che dal sol s'allegra. + +It is worth noting that, whether the view entertained of immortality +be cheerful or the reverse, in the songs of Western nations the +disembodied soul is universally taken to be the exact duplicate of +the creature of flesh and blood, in wants, tastes, and semblance. The +European folk-singer could no more grasp a metaphysical conception of +the eternity of spirit, such as that implied in the grand Indian dirge +which craves everlasting good for the "unborn part" in man, than +he would know what to make of the scientific theory of the +indestructibility of matter shadowed forth in the ordinary Sanskrit +periphrases for death, signifying "the resolution of the body into its +five elementary constituents." + +Among the Greek-speaking inhabitants of Southern Italy a peculiar +metre is set apart to the composition of the neniae, and the office +of public wailer is transmitted from mother to daughter; so that the +living praeficae are the lineal descendants of the praeficae who lived +of old in the Grecian Motherland. Unrivalled in the matter of her +improvisations as in the manner of their delivery, the hereditary +dirge-singer no doubt, like a good actress, keenly realises at +the moment the sorrow not her own, of which she undertakes the +interpretation in return for a trifling gratuity, and to her hearers +she appears as the genius or high priestess of woe: she excites them +into a whirlwind of ecstatic paroxysms not greatly differing +from kindred phenomena vouched for by the historians of religious +mysticism. There are, however, one or two of the Graeco-Italic +death-songs which bear too clear and touching a stamp of sincerity for +us to attribute them even to the most skilled of hired "sobbing ones." +There is no savour of vicarious mourning in the plaint of the desolate +girl, who says to her dead mother that she will wait for her, so that +she may tell her how she has passed the day: at eight she will await +her, and if she does not come she will begin to weep; at nine she will +await her, and if she comes not she will grow black as soot; at ten +she will await her, and if she does not come at ten she will turn to +earth, to earth that may be sown in. And it is difficult to believe +that aught save the anguish of a mother's broken heart could have +quickened the senses of an ignorant peasant to the tragic intensity of +the following lament: + + Now they have buried thee, my little one, + Who will make thy little bed? + Black Death will make it for me + For a very long night. + Who will arrange thy pillows, + So thou mayst sleep softly? + Black Death will arrange them for me + With hard stones. + Who will awake thee, my daughter, + When day is up? + Down here it is always sleep, + Always dark night. + This my daughter was fair. + When I went (with her) to high mass, + The columns shone, + The way grew bright. + +The neniae of Terra d'Otranto and of Calabria are not uncommonly +composed in a semi-dramatic form. Professor Comparetti cites one, in +which the friend of a dead girl is represented as going to pay her a +visit, in ignorance of the misfortune that has happened. She sees a +crowd at the door, and she exclaims: "How many folks are in thy house! +they come from all the neighbourhood; they are bidden by thy mother, +who shows thee the bridal array!" But on crossing the threshold she +finds that the shutters are closed: "Alas!" she cries, "I deceive +myself--I enter into darkness." Again she repeats: "How many folks are +in thy house! All Corigliano is there." The mother says: "My daughter +has bidden them by the tolling of the bell." Then the daughter is made +to ask: "What ails thee, what ails thee, my mother? wherefore +dost thou rend thy hair?" The mother rejoins: "I think of thee, my +daughter, of how thou liest down in darkness." "What ails thee, what +ails thee, my mother, that all around one can hear thee wailing?" "I +think of thee, my daughter, of how thou art turned black as soot." A +sort of chorus is appended: "All, all the mothers weep and rend their +hair: let them weep, the poor mothers who lose their children." Here +are the last four lines as they were originally set on paper: + + Ole sole i mane i cluene + Isirnune anapota ta maddia, + Afi na clapsune tio mane misere + Pu ichannune ta pedia! + +Professor Comparetti has shaped them into looking more like Greek: + + [Greek: Olais, holais e manai eklaioune + Esyrnoune anapoda ta mallia + Aphese na klapsoune tais manais] _misere_ + [Greek: Pou echanoune ta paidia!] + +In his "Tour through the Southern Provinces of the Kingdom of Naples," +the Hon. R. Keppel Craven gave an account of a funeral at Corigliano. +The deceased, a stout, swarthy man of about fifty, had been fond of +field sports; he was, therefore, laid on his open bier in the dress of +a hunter. When the procession passed the house of a friend of the dead +man, it halted as a mark of respect, and the friend got up from his +dinner and looked out for a few minutes, afterwards philosophically +returning to the interrupted meal. The busy people in the street, +carpenters, blacksmiths, cobblers, and fruitsellers, paused from their +several occupations--all carried on, as usual, in the open air, when +the dismal chant of the priests announced the approach of the funeral, +resuming them with redoubled energy as soon as it had moved on. +A group of weeping women led the widow, whose face was pale and +motionless as a statue; her black tresses descended to her knees, +and at regular intervals she pulled out two or three hairs--the women +instantly taking hold of her hands and replacing them by her side, +where they hung till the operation was next repeated. + +The practice of plucking out the hair was so general in the last +century that even at Naples the old women had hardly a hair left from +out-living many relations. It was proper also to observe the day +of burial as a fast day. Two unlucky women near Salerno lost their +characters for ever because the dog of a visitor who had come to +condole, sniffed out a dish of tripe which had been hastily thrust +into a corner. + +The Italian, or rather Calabrese-speaking population of Calabria, +call their preficae--where they still have any--_Reputatrici_. Some +remarkable songs have been collected in the commune of Pizzo, the +place of dubious fame by whose peasants Murat was caught and betrayed. +There is something Dantesque in the image of Death as _'nu gran +levreri_ crouching in a mountain defile: + + Joy, I saw death; Joy, I saw her yesterday; I beheld her in a + narrow way, like unto a great greyhound, and I was very + curious. "Death, whence comest thou?" "I am come from Germany, + going thence to Count Roger. I have killed princes, counts, + and cavaliers; and now I am come for a young maiden so that + with me she may go". + + Weep, mamma, weep for me, weep and never rest; weep for me + Sunday, Easter, and Christmas Day; for no more wilt thou see + thy daughter sit down at thy board to eat, and no more shalt + thou await me. + +One conclusion forced upon us incidentally by folk-dirges must seem +strange when we remember how few are the cultured poetesses who have +attained eminence--to wit, that with the unlettered multitude the +poetic faculty is equally the property of women as of men. + +In various parts of Italy the funerals of the poor are conducted +exclusively by those of like sex with the dead--a custom of which I +first took note at Varese in the year 1879. The funeral procession +came up slowly by the shady paths near the lake; long before it +appeared one could hear the sound of shrill voices chanting a litany. +When it got near to the little church of S. Vittore, it was seen that +only women followed the bier, which was carried by women. "Una povera +donna morta in parto," said a peasant standing by, as she pointed to +the coffin with a gesture of sympathy. The mourners had black shawls +thrown over their heads and bore tapers. A sight yet stranger to +unaccustomed eyes is the funeral of a child at Spezia. A number of +little girls, none older than eleven or twelve, some as young as five, +carry the small coffin to the cemetery. Some of the children hold +candles; they are nicely dressed in their best frocks; the sun plays +on their bare black or golden curls. They have the little serious look +of children engaged in some business of work or play, but no look of +gloom or sadness. The coffin is covered with a white pall on which +lies a large nosegay. No priests or elder persons are there except one +man, walking apart, who has to see that the children go the right +way. About twenty children is the average number, but there may +be sometimes a hundred. When they return, running across the grass +between the road and the sea-wall, they tumble over one another in the +scramble to snatch daisies from the ground. + +It is still common in Lombardy to ring the bells _d'allegrezza_ on the +death of an infant, "because its soul goes straight to Paradise." This +way of ringing, or, rather, chiming, consists in striking the bell +with a clapper held in the hand, when a light, dancing sound is +produced, something like that of hand-bells. On a high _festa_ all the +bells are used; for dead babies, only two. I have often heard the sad +message sounding gaily from the belfry at Salo. + +Were I sure that all these songs of the Last Parting would have +for others the same interest that they have had for me, I should +be tempted to add a study dedicated solely to the dirges of savage +nations and of those nations whose civilization has not followed the +same course as ours. I must, at all events, indicate the wonderfully +strange and wild Polynesian "Death-talks" and "Evas" (dirges proper) +collected by the Rev. W. W. Gill. The South Pacific Islanders say of +the dying, "he is passing over the sea." Their dead set out in a canoe +on a long and perilous voyage to the regions of the sun-setting. When +they get there, alas!--when they reach the mysterious spirit-land, +a horrid doom awaits them: children and old men and women--all, in +short, who have not died in battle, are devoured by a dreadful deity, +and perish for ever. But this fate does not overtake them immediately; +for a time they remain in a shadowy intermediate state till their +turn comes. The spirit-journey is described in a dirge for two little +children, composed by their father about the year 1796: + + "Thy god,[2] pet-child, is a bad one; + For thy body is attenuated; + This wasting sickness must end thy days. + Thy form, once so plump, now how changed! + Ah! that god, that bad god! + Inexpressibly bad, my child! + + * * * * * + + Thou hast entered the expanse; + And wilt visit 'the land of red parrot feathers,' + Where O[=a]rangi was once a guest. + Thou feedest now on ocean spray, + And sippest fresh water out of the rocks, + Travelling over rugged cliffs, + To the music of murmuring billows. + Thy exile spirit is overtaken + By darkness at the ocean's edge. + Fourapapa[3] there sleeps. All three[4] + Stood awhile to gaze wistfully + At the glories of the setting sun." + +There is much more, but this is perhaps sufficient to show the +particular note struck. + +I will give, in its entirety, one more dirge--the death-chant of the +tribe of Badagas, in the Neilgherry Hills--because it is unique, so +far as I know, in reversing the rule _de mortius_, and in charging, +instead, the dead man with every sin, to make sure that none are +omitted of which he is actually guilty. It is accompanied by a +singular ceremony. An unblemished buffalo-calf is led into the midst +of the mourners, and as after each verse they catch up and repeat the +refrain, "It is a sin!" the performer of the dirge lays his hand upon +the calf, to which the guilt is transferred. At the end the calf is +let loose; like the Jewish scape-goat, it must be used for no secular +work; it bears the sins of a human being, and is sacred till death. +The English version is by Mr C. E. Gover, who has done so much for the +preservation of South-Indian folk-songs. + + INVOCATION. + + In the presence of the great Bassava, + Who sprang from Banige the holy cow. + + The dead has sinned a thousand times. + E'en all the thirteen hundred sins + That can be done by mortal men + May stain the soul that fled to-day. + Stay not their flight to God's pure feet. + Chorus--Stay not their flight. + + He killed the crawling snake + Chorus--It is a sin. + + The creeping lizard slew. + It is a sin. + + Also the harmless frog. + It is a sin. + Of brothers he told tales. + It is a sin. + The landmark stone he moved. + It is a sin. + Called in the Sircar's aid.[5] + It is a sin. + Put poison in the milk. + It is a sin. + To strangers straying on the hills, + He offered aid but guided wrong. + It is a sin. + His sister's tender love he spurned + And showed his teeth to her in rage. + It is a sin. + He dared to drain the pendent teats + Of holy cow in sacred fold. + It is a sin. + The glorious sun shone warm and bright + He turned its back towards its beams.[6] + It is a sin. + Ere drinking from the babbling brook, + He made no bow of gratitude. + It is a sin. + His envy rose against the man + Who owned a fruitful buffalo. + It is a sin. + He bound with cords and made to plough + The budding ox too young to work. + It is a sin. + While yet his wife dwelt in his house + He lusted for a younger bride. + It is a sin. + The hungry begged--he gave no meat, + The cold asked warmth--he lent no fire. + It is a sin. + He turned relations from his door, + Yet asked unworthy strangers home. + It is a sin. + The weak and poor called for his aid, + He gave no alms, denied their woe. + It is a sin. + When caught by thorns, in useless rage + He tore his cloth from side to side. + It is a sin. + The father of his wife sat on the floor + Yet he reclined on bench or couch. + It is a sin. + He cut the bund around a tank, + Set free the living water's store. + It is a sin. + + What though he sinned so much, + Or that his parents sinned? + What though the sins' long score + Was thirteen hundred crimes? + O let them every one, + Fly swift to Bas'va's feet. + Chorus--Fly swift. + + The chamber dark of death + Shall open to his soul. + The sea shall rise in waves; + Surround on every side, + But yet that awful bridge + No thicker than a thread, + Shall stand both firm and strong. + The dragon's yawning mouth + Is shut--it brings no fear. + The palaces of heaven + Throw open wide their doors. + Chorus--Open wide their doors. + + The thorny path is steep, + Yet shall his soul go safe. + The silver pillar stands + So near--he touches it. + He may approach the wall + The golden wall of heaven. + The burning pillar's flame + Shall have no heat for him. + Chorus--Shall have no heat. + + Oh let us never doubt + That all his sins are gone, + That Bassava forgives. + May it be well with him! + Chorus--May it be well! + Let all be well with him! + Chorus--Let all be well. + +Surely an impressive burial service to have been found in use amongst +a poor little obscure tribe of Indian mountaineers! + +It cannot be said that this moral attitude is often reached. Research +into funeral rites, of whatever nature, confronts us with much that +would be ludicrous were it not so very pitiful, for humanity has +displayed a fatal tendency to rush into the committal of ghastly +absurdities by way of showing the most sacred kind of grief. Yet, take +them all in all, the death laments of the people form a striking and +beautiful manifestation of such homage as "Life may give for love to +death." + + [Footnote 1: "Calling the dead" was without doubt once general + amongst all classes--which may be true of all the customs that + we are now inclined to associate with only the very poor. In + the striking mediaeval ceremonial performed at the entombment + of King Alfonso in the vault at the Escurial, the final act + was that of the Lord Chamberlain, who unlocked the coffin, and + in the midst of profound silence shouted into the king's ear, + "Senor, Senor, Senor." After which he rose, saying, "His + majesty does not answer. Then it is true the king is dead."] + + [Footnote 2: The child's "personal fate."] + + [Footnote 3: The brother.] + + [Footnote 4: A little sister had died before.] + + [Footnote 5: He had recourse to the Rajahs, whose courts under + the old regime, had become a byeword for oppression and + corruption.] + + [Footnote 6: Compare _Inferno_, Canto vii.] + + + + +BOOKS OF REFERENCE. + + + Alecsandri, Vasile. Poesii Populare ale Romanilor. 1867. + + ---- Les Doinas. Poesies Moldaves. 1855. + + Alexander, Francesca. Roadside Songs of Tuscany (in ten parts, + edited by John Ruskin, LL.D.). 1885. + + Arbaud, Damase. Chants Populaires de la Provence. 2 vols 1864. + + Armana Provencau. 1870. + + Avolio, Corrado. Canti Popolari di Noto. 1875. + + Bernoni, Dom. Giuseppe. Canti Populari Veneziani. 1873. + + ---- Preghiere Populari Veneziane. 1873. + + ---- Leggende Fantastiche Populari Veneziane. 1873. + + Blade, J. Poesies Populaires de la Gascogne. 3 vols. + + Boullier, Auguste. Le Dialecte et les Chants Populaires de la + Sardaigne. 1864. + + Burton, Richard. Wit and Wisdom from West Arica. 1865. + + Cardona, Enrico. Dell' Antica Letteratura Catalana. 1878. + + Champfleury. Chansons Populaires des Provinces de France. + 1860. + + Comparetti, Prof. D. Saggi de' Dialetti Greci dell' Italia + Meridionale. 1866. + + Constantinescu, Dr B. Probe de Limba si Literatura Tiganilor + din Romania. 1878. + + Dalmedico, A. Canti del Popolo di Chioggia. 1872. + + ---- Ninne-Nanne e Giuochi Infantile Veneziani. 1871. + + Davies, William. The Pilgrimage of the Tiber. 1874. (Popular + Songs of the Tiberine District.) + + D'Ancona, Prof. A. Origini del Teatro in Italia. 2 vols. 1877. + + ---- La Poesia Popolare Italiana. 1878. + + Day, Rev. Lal Behari. Folk-Tales of Bengal. 1883. + + Dorsa, Prof. V. La Tradizione Greco-Latina negli usi e nelle + Credenze Popolari della Calabria Citeriore. 2d Ed. 1884. + + Dozon, Auguste. Poesies Populaires Serbes. 1859. ---- Chansons + Populaires Bulgares Inedites. 1875. + + Dumersan et Colet. Chants et Chansons Populaires de la France. + + Fauriel, C. Chansons Populaires de la Grece. 2 vols. 1824. + + Ferraro, Dr G. Canti Popolari Monferrini. 1870. + + Fissore, G. Canti Popolari dell' Allemagna. 1857. + + Flugi, Alfons von. Die Volkslieder des Engadin. 1873. + + Gill, Rev. W.W. Myths and Songs from the South Pacific. 1876. + + Gonzenbach, Laura. Sicilianische Maerchen. 1870. + + Gover, Charles E. The Folk-Songs of Southern India. 1872. + + Grimm, Jacob. Deutsche Mythologie. Vierte Ausgabe Besorgt von + Elard Hugo Meyer. 3 vols. 1875-7-8. + + Gubernatis, Conte A. de. Storia Comparata degli usi Natalizi + in Italia e presso gli altri Popoli Indo-Europei. 1878. + + Imbriani, V., and Casetti, A. Canti Popolari delle Provincie + Meridionali. 2 vols. 1871. + + Issaverdenz, Dr G. Armenian Popular Songs. 1867. + + Ive, Antonio. Canti Popolari Istriani. 1877. + + Kolberg, Oskar. Piesni Luder Polskiego. 1857. + + Kuhff, Prof. P. Les Enfantines du "Bon Pays de France." 1878. + + Latham, R.G. The Nationalities of Europe (Estonian Poetry). + 1863. + + Leger, Louis. Chants Heroiques et Chansons Populaires des + Slaves de Boheme. 1866. + + Lizio-Bruno, Prof. Canti Popolari delle Isole Eolie. 1871. + + Mandalari, Mario. Canti del Popolo Reggino. 1881. + + Marcellus, C^te de. Chants Populaires de la Grece Moderne. + 1860. + + Marcoaldi, Oreste. Canti Popolari inediti. 1855. + + Marmier, X. Chants Populaires du Nord. 1842. + + Moncaut, Cenac. Litterature Populaire de la Gascogne. 1868. + + Morosi, Dr Giuseppe. Studi sui Dialetti Greci della Terra + d'Otranto, 1870. + + ---- I Dialetti Romaici del Dialetto di Bova in Calabria. + 1874. + + Nerucci, G. Sessanta Novelle Popolari Montalesi. 1880. + + Nigra, Conte Constantino. Canzone Popolari del Piemonte. + Rivista Contemporanea: fascicoli lxxiv. and lxxxvi. 1860-1. + + Nino, A. de. Usi Abruzzesi. 3 vols. 1879, 1881-3. + + + Ortoli, Frederic. Les Contes Populaires de l'ile de Corse. + 1883. + + + Pellegrini, Prof. Astorre. Il Dialetto Greco-Calabro di Bova. + 1880. + + ---- La Poesia di Bova. 1881. + + Pitre, Cav. Dr Giuseppe. Studi di Poesia Popolare. 1872. + + ---- Biblioteca delle Tradizioni Popolari Siciliane. 13 vols. + + Ralston, W. R. S. The Songs of the Russian People. 1872. + + Righi, Ettore-Scipione. Canti Popolari Veronesi. 1863. + + Rink, Dr R. Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo. 1875. + + Rosa, Gabriele. Dialetti, Costumi e Tradizioni nelle Provincie + di Bergamo e di Brescia. Jerza edizione. 1870. + + Salomone-Marino, S. Canti Popolari Siciliani. 1867. + + Stokes, Maive. Indian Fairy Tales. 1880. + + Symonds, T. Addington. Sketches in Italy and Greece. + + (Popular Songs of Tuscany.) 1874. + + Thorpe, B. Northern Mythology. 1851. + + Tigri, G. Canti Popolari Toscani. Terza ediz. 1869. + + Tommaseo, N. Canti Popolari Toscani, Corsi, Illirici, Greci. + 1841. + + +TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. + + + + * * * * * + + +Transcriber's Note: + +This book contains some dialect and/or older grammatical constructions, +some old French (and bits of other languages), which have all been +retained. + +For example: + +Footnote 2, Page l (from p. xvii): + "Sire cuens," + ... + "C'est vilanie;" ('T was villany:) + ... + "Ma feme ne me rit mie." + ... + "Vez com vostre male plie, + Ele est bien de vent farsie." + ... + Deux chapons por deporter + A la sause aillie; + etc. + + +Page 20: 'the girl leaning out of window to tell her piece of news' is +as printed. The transcriber does not know if 'a window' or 'the window' +or just 'window' was intended. + +Page 24: 'Nella' would be the genitive of 'Nello'. +In some European languages, the Proper nouns are also declined. +["... it is Count Nello, my father, he who fain would wed +me." "Who speaks of Count Nella...."] + +Page 145: "E te' cca 'na timpulata!" occurs in another document as: +"E te 'cca 'na timpulata!", and in another as "E te' 'cca 'na timpulata!" + +Many French accents are missing from the English text, e.g. +Page 181: "Mistral ... paints the Provence of the valley of the Rhone, ..." + +Page 335: 'compact' is correct; = 'agreement'. +(Apparently she took the advice and kept the compact) + +Page 348: "nni" in "Lu me rifugiu nni la sorti orrenna," is as printed. +It may not be an error. + + +This book also contains some Greek words, and passages of Greek. +which have been transliterated into Latin text, e.g. [Greek: nenitos] + + +Errata: + +Sundry damaged or missing punctuation has been repaired. + +Page 62: 'portait' corrected to 'portrait'. +(he might at least possess his portrait). + +Page 84: 'befel' corrected to 'befell'. +(the fate that befell a French professorship of Armenian) + +Page 172: 'hushand' corrected to 'husband'. +(and shortly after her husband had extricated her she became a mother). + +Page 226: 'daugher' corrected to 'daughter'. +("And a cup of poison, my daughter.") + +Page 335: 'compact' is correct. = 'agreement'. +(Apparently she took the advice and kept the compact,) + +Page 335: n[~i]na corrected to nina. +(A dormir va mi nina). + +Page 337: "wee Willie Winkile" corrected to "wee Willie Winkie" +("wee Willie Winkie" who runs upstairs and downstairs in his nightgown:) + +Page 341: 'cardle' corrected to 'cradle'. +(aunt has taken baby from his cradle) + +Page 343: 'The' corrected to 'They'. +(They are often called "certi signuri,") + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs +(1886), by Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS IN THE STUDY OF *** + +***** This file should be named 36222.txt or 36222.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/2/2/36222/ + +Produced by Lesley Halamek, Jonathan Ingram and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/36222.zip b/36222.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0d120a2 --- /dev/null +++ b/36222.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..585b93b --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #36222 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36222) |