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 wellKnows the charm for every spell.Thou shalt be a hero asOur 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 eyesBright as stars that gem the skies.Maidens' love be thine, and sweetBlossoms spring beneath thy feet.
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.
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 wellKnows the charm for every spell.Thou shalt be a hero asOur good lord, great Stephen, was,Brave in war, and strong in hand,To protect thy fatherland.
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 eyesBright as stars that gem the skies.Maidens' love be thine, and sweetBlossoms spring beneath thy feet.
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—
. . . . . . .puellaeHunc rapiant: quicquid calcaverit hic, rosa fiat.
. . . . . . .puellaeHunc rapiant: quicquid calcaverit hic, rosa fiat.
. . . . . . .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 theΜοιραι. 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 ofthe 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 addssotto voce: "Cu licenzi, signuri miu!" ("By your leave, ladies").
At Noto,Ronni-di-casa, or house-women, take the place of theDonni-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, theRonni-di-casaare 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.Theyare 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 PrioryWhere 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 willAnd in her slumber she is made to smileBy 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.
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 PrioryWhere 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 willAnd in her slumber she is made to smileBy 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.
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 theBaroneandBaronessa, whennot absorbed by theBaronelloand theBaronessella. 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 clearWaters 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!
Sleep, my daughter, sleep an hour;Mother's darling gilliflower.Mother rocks thee, standing near,She will wash thee in the clearWaters that from fountains run,To protect thee from the sun.
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!
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!
Thisnani-nanicalls 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 reasonhe 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—theyarethe 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 soreYou never will sleep, love, as sound as before.Angels from heaven as lovely as thouSweep 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.
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.
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 soreYou never will sleep, love, as sound as before.
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 thouSweep 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.
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.
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 rifugiunnila sorti orrenna,Vui siti la culonna e la giurlanna,Lu celu chi vi guardi e vi mantegna!
Mamma, Mammuzza mia, vu' siti l'arma,Lu mè rifugiunnila sorti orrenna,Vui siti la culonna e la giurlanna,Lu celu chi vi guardi e vi mantegna!
Mamma, Mammuzza mia, vu' siti l'arma,
Lu mè rifugiunnila 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."
"The babe I carry on my arm,He saves for me my precious soul."
"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."
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 ofmodern 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.
Hush, poor child, hush thee to sleep;(See him lying in slumber deep!)Thou first, then following I,We will hush and hushaby.
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.
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 ladyO then my poor baby didn't cry;But my baby is weepingFor want of good keeping;Oh! I fear my poor baby will die!
Bye, O my baby!When I was a ladyO then my poor baby didn't cry;But my baby is weepingFor want of good keeping;Oh! I fear my poor baby will die!
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.
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.
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 lainMore 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 bideAs 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 pouredOn 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.
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.
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 lainMore 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.
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 bideAs 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.
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 pouredOn 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.
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.2Mr Bret Harte told me: "Ourlullabies 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.
There are probably many persons who could repeat by heart the greater portion of the last scene in the last book of theIliad, 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 tothe 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 theKyrie eleisoninstead 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 ofCymbeline; 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.
This ae nighte, this ae nighte,Everie nighte and alle,Fire and sleete and candle lighte,And Christe receive thy saule, &c.
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 theIliadscattered 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 areeither 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 theJournal 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 ceremonywhich 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 prejudiceagainst 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. Nowbegins 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 GreekOresteialived and breathed in him anew, the Furies themselves finding no bad counterpart in the frenzied women who officiatedat 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 ofthunder 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 theinhabitants, 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 courageousone, 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'sTraits and Stories of the Irish Peasantryis 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 paradisuA stu mondu un po' imbecchia,
Chi nasci pe u paradisuA stu mondu un po' imbecchia,
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 wouldsay: "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 funeralchant,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 allgoes 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 Greekοτοτοι, and the Latinatat—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'sCanti 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 theneedy 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 inLes 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 thelongest 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: