Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs (1886) Part 13

The Italian complimentary alphabet is unknown to the Greek poets. The person whom they address is not apostrophised as Beauty or Beloved, or star, or angel, or _Fior eterno_, or _Delicatella mia_. They do not carry about ready for use a pocketful of poetic-sugared rose-leaves, nor have they the art of making each word serve as an act of homage or a caress. It is true that "caxedda," a word that occurs frequently in their songs, has been resolved by etymologists into "pupil of my eye;"

but for the people it means simply "maiden." The Greek Calabrian gives one the impression of rarely saying a thing because it is a pretty thing to say. If he treats a fanciful idea, he presents it, as it were, in the rough. Take for instance the following:--

Oh! were I earth, and thou didst tread on me, Or of thy shoe the sole, this too were sweet!

Or were I just the dress that covers thee, So might I fall entangling round thy feet.

Were I the crock, and thou didst strike on me, And we two stooped to catch the waters fleet; Or were I just the dress that covers thee, So without me thou couldst not cross the street.

Here the fancy is the mere servant of the thought behind it. The lover does not figure himself as the fly on the cheek of his mistress, or the flower on her breast. There is no intrinsic prettiness in the common earth or the common water-vessel, in the sole of a worn shoe, or in a workaday gown.

It cannot be pretended that the Greek is so advanced in untaught culture as some of his Italian brothers; in fact there are specimens of the _Sonetto Grico_ which are so bald and prosaic that the "Latins"

might not be at much pains to learn them even were they sung at noonday. The t.i.tianesque glow which illuminates the plain materials of Venetian song must not be looked for. What will be found in Graeco-Calabrian poesy is a strong appearance of sincerity, supplemented at times by an almost startling revelation of tender and chivalrous feeling. To these Greek poets of Calabria love is another name for self-sacrifice. "I marvel how so fair a face can have a heart so tyrannous, in that thou bearest thyself so haughtily towards me, while for thee I take no rest; and thou dost as thou wilt, because I love thee--if needs be that I should pour out my blood with all my heart for thee, I will do it." This is love which discerns in its own depths the cause of its defeat. A reproach suggestive of Heine in its mocking bitterness changes in less than a moment to a cry of despairing entreaty--

I know you love me not, say what you may, I'll not believe, no, no, my faithless one; With all the rest I see you laugh and play, 'Tis only I, I only whom you shun.

Ah, could I follow where you lead the way: The obstinate thoughts upon your traces run Make me a feint of love, though you have none, For I must think upon you night and day.

The scene is easily pictured: the bravery of words at meeting, all the just displeasure of many a day bursting forth; then the cessation of anger in the beloved presence and the final unconditional surrender. A lighter mood succeeds, but love's royal clemency is still the text:

Say, little girl, what have I done to thee, What have I done to thee that thou art dumb?

Oft wouldst thou seek me once, such friends were we, But now thou goest away whene'er I come.

If thou hast missed in aught, why quick, confess it, For thee this heart will all, yes all, forgive; If miss be mine, contrive that I should guess it; And soon the thing shall finish, as I live!

The dutiful lover rings all the changes on humble remonstrance:

I go where I may see thee all alone, So I may kneel before thee on the ground, And ask of thee how is it that unknown Unto thy heart is every p.r.i.c.k and wound?

Canst thou not see that e'en my breath is flown, Thinking of thee while still the days go round?

If thou wouldst not that I should quickly die, Love only me and bid the rest good-bye.

He might as well speak to the winds or to the stones, and he admits as much. "Whensoever I pa.s.s I sing to make thee glad; if I do not come for a few hours I send thee a greeting with my eyes. But thou dost act the deaf and likewise the dumb: pity thou hast none for my tears."

If he fails to fulfil his prophecy of dying outright, at any rate he falls into the old age of youth, which arrives as soon as the bank of hope breaks:

Come night, come day, one only thought have I, Which graven on my heart must ever stay; Grey grows my hair and dismal age draws nigh, Wilt thou not cease the tyrant's part to play?

Thou seem'st a very Turk for cruelty, Of Barbary a very Turk I say; I know not why thy love thou dost deny, Or why with hate my love thou dost repay.

This may be compared with a song taken down from the mouth of a peasant near Reggio, an amusing ill.u.s.tration of the kind of thing in favour with Calabrian herdsmen:--

Angelical thou art and not terrene, Who dost kings' wives excel in loveliness!

Thou art a pearl, or Grecian Helen, I ween, For whom Troy town was brought to sore distress; Thine are the locks which graced the Magdalene, Lucrece of Rome did scarce thy worth possess: If thou art pitiless to me, oh, my Queen, No Christian thou, a Turk, and nothing less!

A glance at the daughter of Greek Calabria will throw some light on the plaints of her devoted suitors. The name she bears = _Dihatera_, brings directly to mind the Sanskrit _Duhita_; and the vocation of the Graeco-Calabrian girl is often as purely pastoral as that of the Aryan milkmaid who stood sponsor for so large a part of maidenhood in Asia and in Europe. She is sent out into the hills to keep sheep; a circ.u.mstance not ignored by the shepherd lad who sits in the shade and trills on his treble reed. Ewe's milk is as much esteemed as in the days of Theocritus; it forms the staple of the inevitable _ricotta_.

In the house the Greek damsel never has her hands idle. She knows how to make the mysterious cakes and comfits, for which the stranger is bound to have as large an appet.i.te in Calabria as in the isles of Greece. A light heart lightens her work, whatever it be. "You sit on the doorstep and laugh as you wind the reels, then you go to the loom, _e ecinda magna travudia travudia_" ("and sing those beautiful songs"). So says the ill-starred poet, who discovers to his cost that it is just this inexhaustible merriment that lends a sharp edge to maiden cruelty. "I have loved you since you were a little thing, never can you leave my heart; you bound me with a light chain; my mind and your mind were one. Now,"--such is the melancholy outcome of it all--"now you are a perfect little fox to me, while you will join in any frolic with the others." The fair tyrant develops an originality of thought which surprises her best friends: "Ever since you were beloved, you have always an idea and an opinion!" It is beyond human power to account for her caprices: "You are like a fay in the rainbow, showing not one colour, but a thousand." When trouble comes to her as it comes to all--when she has a slight experience of the pain she is so ready to inflict--she does not meekly bow her head and suffer.

"Manamu," cries a girl who seems to have been neglected for some one of higher stature. "Mother mine, I have got a little letter, and all sorts of despair. _She_ is tall, and _I_ am little, and I have not the power to tear her in pieces!"--as she has probably torn the sheet of paper which brought the unwelcome intelligence. She goes on to say that she will put up a vow in a chapel, so as to be enabled to do some personal, but not clearly explained damage to the cause of her misfortunes. There is nothing new under the sun; the word "anathema"

originally meant a votive offering: one of those execratory tablets, deposited in the sacred places, by means of which the ancient Greeks committed their enemies to the wrath of the Infernal G.o.ddesses. Mr Newton has shown that it was the gentler s.e.x which availed itself, by far the most earnestly, of the privilege. Most likely our Lady of Hate in Brittany would have the same tale to tell. Impotence seeks strange ways to compa.s.s its revenge.

In some extremities the lover has recourse, not indeed to anathemas, but to irony. "I am not a reed," he protests, "that where you bend me I should go; nor am I a leaf, that you should move me with a breath."

Then, after observing that poison has been poured on his fevered vitals, he exclaims, "Give your love to others, and just see if they will love you as I do!" One poet has arrived at the conclusion that all the women of a particular street in Bova are hopelessly false: "Did you ever see a shepherd wolf, or a fox minding chickens, or a pig planting lettuces, or an ox, as sacristan, snuffing out tapers with his horns? As soon will you find a woman of Cuveddi who keeps her faith." Another begins his song with sympathy, but ends by uttering a somewhat severe warning:

Alas, alas! my heart it bleeds to see How now thou goest along disconsolate; And in thy sorrow I no help can be-- My own poor heart is in a piteous state.

Come with sweet words--ah! come and doctor me, And lift from off my heart this dolorous weight.

If thou come not, then none can pardon thee: Go not to Rome for shrift; it is too late.

The Calabrian Greek has more than his share of the pangs of unrequited love; that it is so he a.s.sures us with an iteration that must prove convincing. Still, some balm is left in Gilead. Even at Bova there are maidens who do not think it essential to their dignity to act the _role_ of Eunica. The poorest herdsman, the humblest shepherd, has a chance of getting listened to; a poor, bare chance perhaps, but one which unlocks the door to as much of happiness as there is in the world. At least the accepted lover in the mountains of Calabria would be unwilling to admit that there exists a greater felicity than his.

If he goes without shoes, still "love is enough:"

Little I murmur against my load of woe-- Our love will never fail, nor yet decline; For to behold thy form contents me so, To see thee laugh with those red lips of thine.

Dost thou say not a word when past I go?

This of thy love for me is most sure sign; Our love will no decline or failing know Till in the sky the sun shall cease to shine.

Karro, the day-labourer (to whom we will give the credit of inventing this song), would not, if he could, put one jot of his burden on Filomena of the Red Lips. Provided she laughs, he is sufficiently blest. It so happens that Filomena is his master's granddaughter; hence, alas! the need of silence as the sign of love. The wealthy old peasant has sworn that the child of his dead son shall never wed a penniless lad, who might have starved last winter if he had not given him work to do, out of sheer charity. Karro comes to a desperate resolution: he will go down to Reggio and make his fortune. When he thinks it over, he feels quite confident of success: other folks have brought back lots of money to Bova out of the great world, and why should not he? In the early morning he calls Filomena to bid her a cheerful farewell:

Come hither! run! thy friend must go away; Come with a kiss--the time is flying fast.

Sure am I thou thy word wilt not betray, And for remembrance' sake my heart thou hast.

Weep not because I leave thee for a day-- Nay, do not weep, for it will soon be past; And, I advise thee, heed not if they say, "Journeys like this long years are wont to last."

Down at Reggio, Karro makes much poetry, and, were it not for his defective education, one might think that he had been studying Byron:

If I am forced far from thine eyes to go, Doubt not, ah! never doubt my constancy; The very truth I tell, if thou wouldst know-- Distance makes stronger my fidelity.

On my sure faith how shouldst thou not rely?

How think through distance I can faithless grow?

Remember how I loved thee, and reply If distance love like mine can overthrow.

The fact is that he has not found fortune-making quite so quick a business as he had hoped. To the sun he says, when it rises, "O Sun!

thou that travellest from east to west, if thou shouldst see her whom I love, greet her from me, and see if she shall laugh. If she asks how I fare, tell her that many are my ills; if she asks not this of thee, never can I be consoled." One day, in the market place, he meets a friend of his, Toto Sgr, who has come from Bova with wine to sell.

Here is an opportunity of safely sending a _sonetto_ to the red-lipped Filomena. The public letter-writer is resorted to. This functionary gets out the stock of deep pink paper which is kept expressly in the intention of enamoured clients, and says gravely "Proceed." "An imme larga an' du lucchiu tu dicussu," begins Karro. "Pray use a tongue known to Christians," interposes the scribe. Toto Sgr, who is present, remarks in Greek that such insolence should be punished; but Karro counsels peace, and racks his brains for a poem in the Calabrese dialect. Most of the men of Bova can poetize in two languages. The poem, which is produced after a moderate amount of labour, turns chiefly on the idle talk of mischief-makers, who are sure to insinuate that the absent are in the wrong. "The tongue of people is evil speaking; it murmurs more than the water of the stream; it babbles more than the water of the sea. But what ill can folks say of us if we love each other? I love thee eternally. Love me, Filomena, and think nothing about it."

Amame, Filomena, e nu' pensare!

Towards spring-time, Karro goes to Scilla to help in the sword-fish taking; it is a bad year, and the venture does not succeed. He nearly loses courage--fate seems so thoroughly against him. Just then he hears a piece of news: at the _osteria_ there is an _Inglese_ who has set his mind on the possession of a live wolf cub. "Mad, quite mad, like all _Inglesi_," is the comment of the inhabitants of Scilla.

"Who ever heard of taking a live wolf?" Karro, as a mountaineer, sees matters in a different light. Forthwith he has an interview with the Englishman; then he vanishes from the scene for two months. "Poveru giuvinetto," says the host at the inn, "he has been caught by an old wolf instead of catching a young one!" At the end of the time, however, Karro limps up to the door with an injured leg, and hardly a rag left to cover him; but carrying on his back a sack holding two wolf cubs, unhurt and tame as kittens. The gratified _Inglese_ gives a bountiful reward; he is not the first of his race who has acted as the _deus ex machina_ of a love-play on an Italian stage. Nothing remains to be done but for Karro to hasten back to Bova. Yet a kind of uneasiness mixes with his joy. What has Filomena been doing and thinking all this while! He holds his heart in suspense at the sight of her beauty:

In all the world fair women met my gaze, But none I saw who could with thee compare; I saw the dames whom most the Rhegians praise, And by the thought of thee they seemed not fair.

When thou art dressed to take the morning air The sun stands still in wonder and amaze; If thou shouldst scorn thy love of other days, I go a wanderer, I know not where.

The story ends well. Filomena proves as faithful as she is fair; Karro's leg is quickly cured, and the old man gives his consent to the marriage--nay more, feeble as he is now, he is glad to hand over the whole management of the farm to his son-in-law. Thus the young couple start in life with the three inestimable blessings which a Greek poet reckons as representing the sum total of human prosperity: a full granary, a dairy-house to make cheese in, and a fine pig.

In collections of Tuscan and Sicilian songs it is common to find a goodly number placed under the heading "Delle loro bellezze." The Greek songs of Calabria that exactly answer to this description are few. A new Zeuxis might successfully paint an unseen Tuscan or Sicilian girl--local Anacreons by the score would give him the needful details: the colour of the hair and eyes, the height, complexion, breadth of shoulders, smallness of waist; nor would they forget to mention the n.o.bility of pose and carriage, _il leggiadro portamento altero_, which is the crowning gift of women south of the Alps. It can be recognized at once that the poets of Sicily and Tuscany have not merely a vague admiration for beauty in general; they have an innate artistic perception of what goes to const.i.tute the particular form of beauty before their eyes. Poorer in words and ideas, the Greek Calabrian hardly knows what to say of his beloved, except that she is _dulce ridentem_, "sweetly-laughing," and that she has small red lips, between which he is sure that she must carry honey--

To meli ferri s' ettunda hilucia ...

He seems scarcely to notice whether she is fair or dark. Fortunately it is not impossible to fill in the blank s.p.a.ces in the picture. The old Greek stamp has left a deep impression at home and abroad. Where there were Greeks there are still men and women whose features are cut, not moulded, and who have a peculiar symmetry of form, which is not less characteristic though it has been less discussed. A friend of mine, who accompanied the Expedition of the Thousand, was struck by the conformity of the standard of proportion to be observed in the women of certain country districts in Sicily with the rule followed in Greek sculpture; it is a pity that the subject is not taken in hand by some one who has more time to give to it than a volunteer on the march. I have said "men _or_ women," for it is a strange fact that the heritage of Greek beauty seems to fall to only one s.e.x at a time. At Athens and in Cyprus young men may be seen who would have done credit to the gymnasia, but never a handsome girl; whilst at Arles, in Sicily, and in Greek Calabria the women are easily first in the race.

The typical Graeco-Calabrian maiden has soft light hair, a fairness of skin which no summer heats can stain, and the straight outline of a statue. There is another pattern of beauty in Calabria: low forehead, straight, strongly-marked eyebrows, dark, blue, serious eyes, lithe figure, elastic step. Place beside the women of the last type a man dyed copper-colour, with black, lank locks, and the startled look of a wild animal. The Greeks have many dark faces, and many ugly faces, too; for that matter, uncompromising plainness was always amongst the possibilities of an h.e.l.lenic physiognomy. But the beautiful dark girl and her lank-locked companion do not belong to them. Whom they do belong to is an open question; perhaps to those early Brettians who dwelt in the forest of the Syla, despised by the Greeks as savages, and docketed by the Romans, without rhyme or reason, as the descendants of escaped criminals. Calabria offers an inviting field to the ethnologist. It is probable that the juxtaposition of various races has not led in any commensurate degree to a mixture of blood. Each commune is a unit perpetually reformed out of the same const.i.tuents. Till lately intermarriage was carried to such a pitch that it was rare to meet with a man in a village who was not closely related to every other inhabitant of it.

The Greeks of Terra d'Otranto bear a strong physical resemblance to the Greeks of Calabria Ultra. It is fifty or sixty years since the Hon. R. Keppel Craven remarked a "striking regularity of feature and beauty of complexion" in the women of Martano and Calimera. At Martano they have a pretty song in praise of some incomparable maid:

My Sun, where art thou going? Stay to see How pa.s.sing beautiful is she I love.

My Sun, that round and round the world dost move, Hast thou seen any beautiful as she?

My Sun, that hast the whole world travelled round, One beautiful as she thou hast not found!

Next to his lady's laughter, the South Italian Greek worships the sun.

It is the only feature in nature to which he pays much heed. In common with other forms of modern Greek the Calabrian possesses the beautiful periphrase for sunset, _o iglio vasileggui_ ([Greek: ho helios basileuei]). Language, which is altogether a kind of poetry, has not anything more profoundly poetic. There is a brisk, lively ring in the "Sun up!" of the American Far West; but an intellectual Atlantic flows between it and the Greek ascription of kingship, of heroship, to the Day-giver at the end of his course--