Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs (1886) Part 12

In the early morning, almost all the year round the women may be seen sitting before their doors undoing and doing up again this long abundant hair. The chief part of their domestic work they perform out in the sunshine; one thing only, but that the most important of all, has to be done in the house--the never finished task of weaving the clothes of the family. From earliest girlhood to past middle age the Sicilian women spend many hours every day at the loom. A woman of eighty, Rosa Cataldi of Borgetto, made the n.o.ble boast to Salomone-Marino: "I have clothed with stuff woven by my hands from fourteen to fifty years, myself, my brothers, my children, and their children." A girl who cannot, or will not, weave is not likely to find a husband. As they ply the shuttle, the women hardly cease from singing, and many, and excellent also, are the songs composed in praise of the active workers. The girl, not yet affianced, who is weaving perhaps her modest marriage clothes, may hear, coming up from the street, the first avowal of love:

Ciuri d'aranci.

Bedda, tu tessi e tessennu mi vinci; Bedda, tu canti, e lu me' cori chianci.

It has been said that love begins with sweetness and ends in bitterness. What a fine world it would be were Brown Death the only agent in the bitter end of love! It is not so. Rusidda, who dies, is possibly more fortunate than Rusidda who is married. When bride and bridegroom return from the marriage rite, the husband sometimes solemnly strikes his wife in presence of the a.s.sembled guests as a sign of his henceforth unlimited authority. The symbol has but too great appropriateness. Even in what may be called a happy marriage, there is a formality akin to estrangement, once the knot is tied.

Husband and wife say "voi" to each other, talking to a third person, they speak of one another as "he" and "she," as "mio cristiano," and "mia cristiana," never as "my husband" and "my wife." The wife sits down to table with the husband, but she scrupulously waits for him to begin first, and takes tiny mouthfuls as if she were ashamed of eating before him. Then, if the husband be out of humour, or if he thinks that the wife does not work hard enough (an "enough" which can never be reached), the nuptial blow is repeated in sad and miserable earnest. The woman will not even weep; she bears all in silence, saying meekly afterwards, "We women are always in the wrong, the husband is the husband, he has a right even to kill us since we live by him." These things have been recorded by one who loves the Sicilian peasant, and who has defended him against many unfounded charges. A hard case it would be for wedded Rusidda if she had not her songs and the sun to console her.

All the _canzuni_ that have been quoted are, so far as can be judged, of strictly popular origin, nor is there any sign of continental derivation in their wording or shape. Several, however, are the common property of most of the Italian provinces. There is a charming Vicentine version of "The Siren," and the "Four Sighs" makes its appearance in Tuscany under a dress of pure Italian. Has Sicily, then, a right to the honour of their invention? There is a strong presumption that it has. On the other hand, there are some Sicilianized songs of plainly foreign birth, which shows that if the island gave much to the peninsula, it has had at least something back in return. There is a third category, comprising the songs of the Lombard colonies of Piazza and San Fratello, which have a purely accidental connection with Sicily. The founders of this community were Lombards or Longobards, who were attracted to Sicily somewhere in the eleventh century, either by the fine climate and the demand for soldiers of fortune, or by the marriage of Adelaide of Monferrato with Count Roger of Hauteville. But what is far more curious than how or why they came, is the circ.u.mstance of the extraordinary isolation in which they seem to have lived, and their preservation to this day of a dialect a.n.a.logous with that spoken at Monferrato. In this dialect there exist a good many songs, but a full collection of them has yet to be made.

Besides the _ciuri_ and _canzuni_, there is another style of love-song, very highly esteemed by the Sicilian peasantry, and that is the _aria_. When a peasant youth serenades his _'nnamurata_ with an _aria_, he pays her by common consent the most consummate compliment that lies in his power. The _arii_ are songs of four or more stanzas--a form which is not so germane to the Sicilian folk-poet as that of the _canzuna_; and, although he does use it occasionally, it may be suspected that he more often adapts a lettered or foreign _aria_ than composes a new one. An aria is nothing unless sung to a guitar accompaniment, and is heard to great advantage when performed by the barbers, who are in the habit of whiling away their idle hours with that instrument. The Sicilian (lettered) poet, Giovanni Meli, has written some admirable _arii_, many of which have become popular songs.

Meli's name is as oddly yoked with the t.i.tle of _abate_ as Herrick's with the designation of clergyman. He does not seem, as a matter of fact, to have ever been an _abate_ at all. Once, when dining with a person influential at court, his host inquired why he did not ask to be appointed to a rich benefice then vacant. "Because," he replied, "I am not a priest." And it appeared that when a young man he had adopted the clerical habit for no other reason than that he intended to practise medicine, and wished to gain access to convents, and to make himself acceptable to the nuns. It was not an uncommon thing to do.

The public generally dubbed him with the ecclesiastical t.i.tle. Not long before his death, in 1815, he actually a.s.sumed the lesser orders, and in true Sicilian fashion, wrote some verses to his powerful friend to beg him to get him preferment, but he died too soon after to profit by the result. The Sicilians are very proud of Meli. It is for them alone probably to find much pleasure in his occasional odes--to others their n.o.ble sentiments will be rather suggestive of the _sinfonia eroica_ played on a flute; but the charm and lightness of his Anacreontic poems must be recognised by all who care for poetry. He had a nice feeling for nature too, as is shown in a sonnet of rare beauty:

Ye gentle hills, with intercepting vales, Ye rocks with musk and clinging ivy dight; Ye sparkling falls of water, silvery pale, Still meres, and brooks that babble in the light; Deep chasms, wooded steeps that heaven a.s.sail, Unfruitful rushes, broom with blossoms bright, And ancient trunks, encased in gnarled mail, And caves adorned with crystal stalact.i.te; Thou solitary bird of plaintive song, Echo that all dost hear, and then repeat, Frail vines upheld by stately elms and strong, And silent mist, and shade, and dim retreat; Welcome me! tranquil scenes for which I long-- The friend of haunts where peace and quiet meet.

I must not omit to say a word about a cla.s.s of songs which, in Sicily as elsewhere, affords the most curious ill.u.s.tration of the universality of certain branches of folk-lore--I mean the nursery rhymes. One instance of this will serve for all. Sicilian nurses play a sort of game on the babies' features, which consists in lightly touching nose, mouth, eyes, &c., giving a caressing slap to the chin, and repeating at the same time--

Varvaruttedu, Vucca d'aneddu, Nasu affilatu, Occhi di stiddi, Frunti quatrata, E te' cca 'na timpulata!

Now this rhyme has not only its counterpart in the local dialect of every Italian province, but also in most European languages. In France they have it:

Beau front, Pet.i.ts yeux, Nez cancan, Bouche d'argent, Menton fleuri, Chichirichi.

We find a similar doggerel in Germany, and in England, as most people know, there are at least two versions, one being--

Eye winker, Tom Tinker, Nose dropper.

Mouth eater, Chinchopper, Chinchopper.

Of more intrinsic interest than this ubiquitous old nurse's nonsense are the Sicilian cradle songs, in some of which there may also be traced a family likeness with the corresponding songs of other nations. As soon as the little Sicilian gets up in the morning he is made to say--

While I lay in my bed five saints stood by; Three at the head, two at the foot--in the midst was Jesus Christ.

The Greek-speaking peasants of Terra d'Otranto have a song somewhat after the same plan:

I lay me down to sleep in my little bed; I lay me down to sleep with my Mamma Mary: the Mamma Mary goes hence and leaves me Christ to keep me company.

Very tender is the four-line Sicilian hushaby, in which the proud mother says--

How beautiful my son is in his swaddling clothes; just think what he will be when he is big! Sleep, my babe, for the angel pa.s.ses: he takes from thee heaviness, and he leaves thee slumber.

There is in Vigo's collection a lullaby so exquisite in its blended echoes from the cradle and the grave that it makes one wish for two great masters in the pathos of childish things, such as Blake and Schumann, to translate and set it to music. It is called "The Widow."

Sweet, my child, in slumber lie, Father's dead, is dead and gone.

Sleep then, sleep, my little son, Sleep, my son, and lullaby.

Thou for kisses dost not cry, Which thy cheeks he heaped upon.

Sleep then, sleep, my pretty one, Sleep, my child, and lullaby.

We are lonely, thou and I, And with grief and fear I faint.

Sleep then, sleep, my little saint, Sleep, my child, and lullaby.

Why dost weep? No father nigh.

Ah, my G.o.d! tears break his rest.

Darling, nestle to my breast, Sleep, my child, and lullaby.

Very scant information is to be had regarding the Sicilian folk-poets of the past; with one exception their names and personalities have almost wholly slipped out of the memory of the people, and that exception is full three parts a myth. If you ask a Sicilian popolano who was the chief and master of all rustic poets, he will promptly answer, "Pietro Fullone;" and he will tell you a string of stories about the poetic quarry-workman, dissolute in youth, devout in old age, whose fame was as great as his fortune was small, and who addressed a troop of admiring strangers who had travelled to Palermo to visit him, and were surprised to find him in rags, in the following dignified strain:

Beneath these pilgrim weeds so coa.r.s.e and worn A heart may still be found of priceless worth.

The rose is ever coupled to the thorn.

The spotless lily springs from blackest earth.

Rubies and precious stones are only born Amidst the rugged rocks, uncouth and swarth.

Then wonder not though till the end I wear Nought but this pilgrim raiment poor and bare.

Unfortunately nothing is more sure than that the real Pietro Fullone, who lived in the 17th century, and published some volumes of poetry, mostly religious, had as little to do with this legendary Fullone as can well be imagined. It is credible that he may have begun life as a quarry workman and ignorant poet, as tradition reports; but it is neither credible that a t.i.the of the _canzuna_ attributed to him are by the same author as the writer of the printed and distinctly lettered poems which bear his name, nor that the bulk of the anecdotes which profess to relate to him have any other foundation than that of popular fiction. But though we hear but little, and cannot trust the little we hear, of the folk-poet of times gone by, for us to become intimately acquainted with him, we have only to go to his representative, who lives and poetizes at the present moment. In this or that Sicilian hamlet there is a man known by the name of "the Poet," or perhaps "the Goldfinch." He is completely illiterate and belongs to the poorest cla.s.s; he is a blacksmith, a fisherman, or a tiller of the soil. If he has the gift of improvisation, his fellow-villagers have the satisfaction of hearing him applauded by the Great Public--the dwellers in all the surrounding hamlets a.s.sembled at the fair on St John's Eve. Or it may be he is of a meditative turn of mind, and makes his poetry leisurely as he lies full length under the lemon-trees taking his noontide rest. Should you pa.s.s by, it is unlikely he will give himself the trouble of lifting his eyes: He could not say the alphabet to save his life; but the beautiful earth and skies and sea which he has looked on every day since he was born have taught him some things not learnt in school. The little poem he has made in his head is indeed a humble sort of poetry, but it is not unworthy of the praise it gets from the neighbours who come dropping into his cottage door, uninvited, but sure of a friendly welcome next Sunday after ma.s.s, their errand being to find out if the rumour is true that "the Goldfinch" has invented a fresh _canzuna_?

Such is the peasant poet of to-day; such he was five hundred or a thousand years ago. He presents a not unlovely picture of a stage in civilisation which is not ours. To-morrow it will not be his either; he will learn to read and write; he will taste the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as it grows in our great centres of intellectual activity; he will begin to "look before and after."

Still, he will do all this in his own way, not in our way, and so much of his childhood having clung to him in youth, it follows that his youth will not wholly depart from him in manhood. Through all the wonderfully mixed vicissitudes of his country the Sicilian has preserved an unique continuity of spiritual life; Christianity itself brought him to the brink of no moral cataclysm like that which engulfed the Norseman when he forsook Odin and Thor for the White Christ. It may therefore be antic.i.p.ated that the new epoch he is entering upon will modify, not change his character. That he has remained outside of it so long, is due rather to the conditions under which he has lived than to the man; for the Sicilian grasps new ideas with an almost alarming rapidity when once he gets hold of them; of all quick Italians he is the quickest of apprehension. This very intelligence of his, called into action by the lawlessness of his rulers and by ages of political tyranny and social oppression, has enabled him to accomplish that systemization of crime which at one time bred the Society of the Blessed Pauls, and now is manifested in the Mafia. You cannot do any business harmless or harmful, you cannot buy or sell, beg or steal, without feeling the hand of an unacknowledged but ever present power which decides for you what you are to do, and levies a tax on whatever profit you may get out of the transaction. If a costermonger sells a melon for less than the established price, his fellows consider that they are only executing the laws of their real masters when they make him pay for his temerity with his life. The wife of an English naval officer went with her maid to the market at Palermo, and asked the price of a fish which, it was stated, cost two francs. She pa.s.sed on to another stall where a fish of the same sort was offered her for 1.50. She said she would buy it, and took out of her purse a note for five _lire_, which she gave the vendor to change. Meanwhile, un.o.bserved, the first man had come up behind them, and no sooner was the bargain concluded, than he whipped a knife out of his pocket, and in a moment more would have plunged it in the second man's breast, had not the lady pushed back his arm, and cried by some sudden inspiration, "Wait, he has not given me my change!" No imaginable words would have served their purpose so well; the man dropped the knife, burst out laughing, and exclaimed: "Che coraggio!" The brave Englishwoman nearly fainted when she returned home. Her husband asked what was the matter, to which she answered: "I have saved a man's life, and I have no idea how I did it."

Something has been done to lessen the hereditary evil, but the cure has yet to come. It behoves the Sicilians of a near future to stamp out this plague spot on the face of their beautiful island, and thus allow it to garner the full harvest of prosperity lying in its mineral wealth and in the incomparable fertility of its soil. That it is only too probable that the people will lose their lyre in proportion as they learn their letters is a poor reason for us to bid them stand still while the world moves on; human progress is rarely achieved without some sacrifices--the one sacrifice we may not make, whatever be the apparent gain, is that of truth and the pursuit of it.

[Footnote 1: So Virgil:

"Alba ligustra cadunt, vaccinia nigra leguntur."

GREEK SONGS OF CALABRIA.

That the connecting link between Calabria and Greece was at one time completely cut in two, is an a.s.sumption which is commonly made, but it is scarcely a proved fact. What happened to the Italian Greeks on their surrender to Rome? In a few instances they certainly disappeared with extreme rapidity. Aristoxenus, the peripatetic musician, relates of the Poseidonians--"whose fate it was, having been originally Greek, to be barbarised, becoming Tuscans or Romans," that they still met to keep one annual festival, at which, after commemorating their ancient customs, they wept together over their lost nationality. This is the pathetic record of men who could not hope. In a little while, Poseidonia was an obscure Roman town famous only for its beautiful roses. But the process of "barbarisation" was not everywhere so swift.

Along the coast-line from Rhegium to Tarentum, Magna Graecia, in the strict use of the term, the people are known to have clung so long to their old language and their old conditions of life that it is at least open to doubt if they were not clinging to them still when it came to be again a habit with Greeks to seek an Italian home. In the ninth and tenth centuries the tide of Byzantine supremacy swept into Calabria from Constantinople, only, however, to subside almost as suddenly as it advanced. Once more history well-nigh loses sight of the Greeks of Italy. Yet at a moment of critical importance to modern learning their existence was honourably felt. Petrarch's friend and master, Barlaam, who carried the forgotten knowledge of Homer across the Alps, was by birth a Calabrian. In Barlaam's day there were large communities of Greeks both in Calabria and in Terra d'Otranto. A steady decrease from then till now has brought their numbers down to about 22,800 souls in all. These few survivors speak a language which is substantially the same as modern Greek, with the exceptions that it is naturally affected by the surrounding Italic dialects and that it contains hardly a Turkish or a Sclavonic word. Their precise origin is still a subject of conjecture. Soon after Niebuhr had hailed them as Magna Graecians pure and simple, they were p.r.o.nounced offhand to be quite recent immigrants; then the date of their arrival was a.s.signed to the reign of the first or second Basil; and lastly there is a growing tendency to push it back still further and even to admit that some strain of the blood of the original colonists may have entered into the elements of their descent. On the whole, it seems easier to believe that though their idiom was divided from the Romaic, it yet underwent much the same series of modifications, than to suppose them to have been in Greece when the language of that country was saturated with Sclavonic phrases, which have only been partly weeded out within the last thirty years.

Henry Swinburne visited the Greek settlements in 1780 or thereabouts, but like most of his contemporaries he mixes up the Greek with the Albanians, of whom there are considerable colonies in Calabria, dating from the death of Skanderbeg. Even in this century a German savant was a.s.sured at Naples that the so-called Greeks were one and all Albanians. The confusion is not taken as a compliment. No one has stayed in the h.e.l.lenic kingdom without noticing the pride that goes along with the name of Greek--a pride which it is excusable to smile at, but which yet has both its touching and its practical aspect, for it has remade a nation. The Greeks of Southern Italy have always had their share of a like feeling. "We are not ashamed of our race, Greeks we are, and we glory in it," wrote De Ferraris, a Greek born at Galatone in 1444, and the words would be warmly endorsed by the enlightened citizens of Bova and Ammendolea, who quarrel as to which of the two places gave birth to Praxiteles. The letterless cla.s.ses do not understand the grounds of the Magna Graecian pretensions, but they too have a vague pleasure in calling themselves Greek and a vague idea of superiority over their "Latin" fellow-countrymen. "Wake up," sings the peasant of Martignano in Terra d'Otranto, "wake up early to hear a Grecian lay, so that the Latins may not learn it."

Fsunna, fsunna, na cusi ena sonetto Grico, na mi to matun i Latini.

Bova is the chief place in Calabria where Greek survives. The inhabitants call it "Vua," or simply "Hora." The word "hora," _the city_, is applied by the Greeks of Terra d'Otranto to that part of their hamlets which an Englishman would call "the old village." It is not generally known that "city" is used in an identical sense by old country-folks in the English Eastern counties. The Bovesi make a third of the whole Greek-speaking population of Calabria, and Bova has the dignity of being an episcopal seat, though its bishop has moved his residence to the Marina, a sort of seaside suburb, five miles distant from the town. Thirty years ago the ecclesiastical authorities were already agitating for the transfer, but the people opposed it till the completion of the railway to Reggio and the opening of a station at the Marina di Bova settled the case against them. The cathedral, the four or five lesser churches, the citadel, even the Ghetto, all tell of the unwritten age of Bova's prosperity. Old street-names perpetuate the memory of the familiar spirits of the place; the Lamiae who lived in a particular quarter, the _Fullitto_ who frequented the lane under the cathedral wall. Ignoring Praxiteles, the poorer Bovesi set faith in a tradition that their ancestors dwelt on the coast, and that it was in consequence of Saracenic incursions that they abandoned their homes and built a town on the crags of Aspromonte near the lofty pastures to which herds of cattle (_bovi_) were driven in the summer.

The name of Bova would thus be accounted for, and its site bears out the idea that it was chosen as a refuge. The little Greek city hangs in air. To more than one traveller toiling up to it by the old Reggio route it has seemed suggestive of an optical delusion. There is refreshment to be had on the way: a feast for the sight in pink and white flowers of gigantic oleanders; a feast for the taste in the sweet and perfumed fruit of the wild vine. Still it is disturbing to see your destination suspended above your head at a distance that seems to get longer instead of shorter. Some comfort may be got from hearing Greek spoken at Ammendolea, itself an eyrie, and again at Condufuri. A last, long, resolute effort brings you, in spite of your forebodings, to Bova, real as far as stones and fountains, men and women, and lightly-clothed children can make it; yet still half a dream, you think, when you sit on the terrace at sunset and look across the blue Ionian to the outline, unbroken from base to crown, of "Snowy aetna, nurse of endless frost, the prop of heaven."

There is plenty of activity among the Greeks of Calabria Ultra. Many of them contrive to get a livelihood out of the chase; game of every sort abounds, and wolves are not extinct. In the mountaineers'

cottages, which shelter a remarkable range of animals, an infant wolf sometimes lies down with a tame sheep; whilst on the table hops a domesticated eagle, taken when young from its nest in defiance of the stones dropped upon the robber by the outraged parent-birds. The peasants till the soil, sow corn, plant vegetables, harvest the olives and grapes, gather the p.r.i.c.kly pears, make cheese, tend cattle, and are wise in the care of hives. It is a kind of wisdom of which their race has ever had the secret. The Greek Calabrians love bees as they were loved by the idyllic poets. "Ehi tin cardia to melissa" ("he has the heart of a bee"), is said of a kindly and helpful man. Sicilian Hybla cannot have yielded more excellent honey than Bova and Ammendolea. It is sad to think of, but it is stated on good authority that the people of those lofty cities quarrel over their honey as much as about Praxiteles. Somehow envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness find a way into the best of real idylls. You may live at the top of a mountain and cordially detest your neighbour. The folk of Condufuri greet the folk of Bova as Vutani dogs, which is answered by the epithet of Spesi-spasu, all the more disagreeable because n.o.body knows what it means. In Terra d'Otranto the dwellers in the various Greek hamlets call each other thieves, a.s.ses, simpletons, and necromancers.

The Italian peasants are inclined to cla.s.s Greeks and Albanians alike in the category of "Turchi," and though the word Turk, as used by Italians, in some cases simply means foreign, it is a questionable term to apply to individuals. The Greeks, with curious scorn, are content to fling back the charge of Latin blood.

When the day's work is done, comes the frugal evening meal; a dish of _ricotta_, a gla.s.s of wine and snow. Wine is cheap in Calabria, where the finest variety is of a white sweet kind called _Greco_; and the heights of Aspromonte provide a supply of frozen snow, which is a necessary rather than a luxury in this climate. About the hour of Avemmaria the bagpipers approach. In the mountains the flocks follow the wild notes of the "Zampogna" or "Ceramedda," unerringly distinguishing the music of their own shepherd. A visit from the Zampognari to hill-town, or village sets all the world on the alert.

There is gossiping, and dancing, and the singing of songs, in which expression takes the place of air. Two young men sing together, without accompaniment, or one sings alone, accompanied by bagpipe, violin, and guitar. So the evening pa.s.ses by, till the moon rises and turns the brief, early darkness into a more glorified day. The little hum of human sound dies in the silence of the hills; only perhaps a single clear, sweet voice prolongs the monotone of love.