SICILIAN FOLK-SONG.

To-night their boats must seek the sea,One night his boat will linger yet;They bear a freight of wood, and heA freight of rose and violet.

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 earlymorning 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 fitTo wait at table where the lovers sit.

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 thecanti popolariof 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!

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.

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 eveningsOrlando Furiosois 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 takeA 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!

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 thebel 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 thebeloved 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 fishermanwho fishes it up, refusing all other reward than a kiss:

Oh! pescator dell 'onda,Findelin,Vieni pescar in qua!Colla bella sua barcaColla bella se ne vaFindelin! lin, la!

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 theVilote. 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 showAgainst the wife who wrongs her lord.

"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 ofEvvivasto the dictator and the army. It may be argued that the fact is not exceptional, that like theFratelli d'ltaliaof 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 ofItalia libera. The Tuscan peasants sang as they stored the olives of 1859—

L'amore l'ho in Piamonte,Bandiera tricolor!

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 Venetianpopolanodid 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 gueraPer mare e per tera,E cataremo i Turchi,Li mazzaremo tuti, &c.

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 attitudeassumed 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 magnificentamour 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 agazeta," 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 hissweetheart 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.

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 ofViloterelates 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?

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 elementsof 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, orGastaldo 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 lingerson 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 pensarE vega quelo che li po inchiontrar,

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 thetask 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 andpatois. 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 ofpatoisas 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. Apiece of nonsense written in the seventeenth century gives an admirable idea of what the popular idiom was then and is now:

Mi son tanto inamoraoIn dona Nina mia vesinaChe 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 caniCh'al mi cor fazza brusore;Che da tute quante l'oreMi me sento passionao.Gnao bao, bao gnao,Mi son tanto inamorao!

Mi son tanto inamoraoIn dona Nina mia vesinaChe me dà gran disciplina,Che me vedo desparao.Gnao bao, bao gnao,Mi son tanto inamorao!

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 caniCh'al mi cor fazza brusore;Che da tute quante l'oreMi me sento passionao.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 itsnaïvetéwas 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."

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 thelatomiæwere told they were free men, thanks to their ability to recite passages from Euripides; we remember also thatnew 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 ofAlcestis. 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

. . .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, thelingua cortigianaof 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 thelingua cortigianaand made it their own, the people of Sicily stuck fastto 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; andwhen 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 thingsui generisfor it to suffer by contrast with the faultless finish of a sonnet inVita 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.*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.

*"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 ofevery 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 manycanzuninow 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 broughtto 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 eventsthey 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 Sicilianparodies. 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 Sicilianpopolanorises from the rhymester to the poet.

The most characteristic forms of the love-songs of Sicily are those of theciuri, called in Tuscanystornelli, and thecanzuni, called in Tuscanyrispetti. Theciuri(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 tofigure 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 inFra Lippo Lippithere are two or three charming imitations of thestornello; but, then, Mr Browning is the poet who, of all others, has got most inside of the Italian mind. Here is anaubade, which will give a notion of the unsubstantial stuff theciuriare made of:

Rosa marina,Lucinu l'alba e la stidda Diana:Lu cantu è fattu, addui, duci Rusina.

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!

Flower of the night,

Whoever wills me ill shall die to-night!

With which ominous sentiment I will leave theciuri, and pass on to the yet more interestingcanzuni: 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.

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 hisbeddapossesses no less than thirty-threebiddizzi. In the same manner, when he is aboutsending 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 fryAnd 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.

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 mostdelicate and elegant of all thecanzuni 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!

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 placeTo make autopsy of the case—Knives, scissors, saws, with eager zestOf each laid open wide the breast:—Dumfounded then was every one,Yours held two hearts, but mine had none!

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!

Thecanzunidiffer 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 printedcanzuniwhich 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 havinga 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 Borgettocanzuna, "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 dwellsAnd lures the spell-bound sailor with her lay,Amid the shoals the fated bark compelsOr holds upon the reef a willing prey,None ever 'scape her toils, while sinks and swellsHer 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.

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 realcontadinispeak 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 fugitivecanzuni. 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

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