Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs (1886) Part 23

"For we are come before hath come the day To sing the coming of the month of May."

But they do not ask the damsels to stand there listening to compliments; "Go to the hen-roost," they say, "and get eighteen, or still better, twenty new laid eggs." If the eggs cannot be had, they can bring money, only let them make haste, as day-break is near and the road is long. By way of acknowledgment the spokesman adds a sort of "And your pet.i.tioners will ever pray;" they will pray for the purse which held the money and for the hen that laid the eggs. If St Nicholas only hears them that hen will eat the fox, instead of the fox eating the hen. The gift is seemly. Now the dwellers in the homestead may go back to their beds and bar doors and windows; "as for us, we go through all the night singing at the arrival of sweet spring."

The antiquary in search of May-songs will turn to the Motets and Pastorals of that six-hundred-year-old Comic Opera "Li gieus de Robin et de Marion." Its origin was not illiterate, but in Adam de la Halle's time and country poets who had some letters and poets who had none did not stand so widely apart. The May month, the summer sweetness, the lilies of the valley, the green meadows--these const.i.tuted pretty well the whole idea which the French rustic had formed to himself of what poetry was. It cannot be denied that he came to use these things occasionally as mere commonplaces, a tendency which increased as time wore on. But he has his better moods, and some of his ditties are not wanting in elegance. Here is an old song preserved in Burgundy:

Voici venu le mois des fleurs Des chansons et des senteurs; Le mois qui tout enchante Le mois de douce attente.

Le buisson reprend ses couleurs Au bois l'oiseau chante.

Il est venu sans mes amours One j'attends, helas, toujours; Tandis que l'oiseau chante Et que le mai l' on plante Seule en ces bois que je parcours Seule je me lamente.

In the France of the sixteenth century, the planting of the May took a literary turn. At Lyons, for instance, the printers were in the habit of setting up what was called "Le Mai des Imprimeurs" before the door of some distinguished person. The members of the ill.u.s.trious Lombard house of Trivulzi, who between them held the government of Lyons for more than twenty-five years, were on several occasions chosen as recipients of the May-day compliment. "Le Grand Trivulce," marshal of France, was a great patron of literature, and the encouragement of the liberal arts grew to be a tradition in the family. In 1529 Theodore de Trivulce had a May planted in his honour bearing a poetical address from the pen of Clement Marot, and Pompone de Trivulce received a like distinction in 1535, when Etienne Dolet wrote for the occasion an ode in the purest Latin, which may be read in Mr R. C. Christie's biography of its author.

Giulio Cesare Croce, the famous ballad-singer of Bologna (born 1550), wrote a "Canzonetta vaga in lode del bel mese di maggio et delle regine o contesse che si fanno quel giorno in Bologna," and in 1622, a small book was published at Bologna, ent.i.tled: "Ragionamenti piacevoli intorno alle contesse di maggio; piantar il maggio; nozze che si fanno in maggio." The author, Vincenzo Giacchiroli, observes: "These countesses, according to what I have read, the Florentines call Dukes of May--perhaps because there they have real dukes." The first of May, he continues, the young girls select one from among them and set her on a high seat or throne in some public street, adorned and surrounded with greenery, and with such flowers as the season affords. To this maiden, in semblance like the G.o.ddess Flora, they compel every pa.s.ser-by to give something, either by catching him by his clothes, or by holding a cord across the street to intercept him, singing at the same time, "Alla contessa, alla contessa!" They who pa.s.s, therefore, throw into a plate or receptacle prepared for the purpose, money, or flowers, or what not, for the new countess. In some places it was the custom to kiss the countess; "neither," adds the author, "is this to be condemned, since so were wont to do the ancients as a sign of honour."

Regarding a similar usage at Mantua, Merlinus Coccaius (Folengo) wrote:

"Accidit una dies qua Mantua tota bagordat Prima dies mensis Maii quo quisque piantat Per stradas ramos frondosos nomine mazzos." &c.

Exactly the same practice lingers in Spain. In the town of Almeria, improvised temples are raised at the street corners and gateways, where, on an altar covered with damask or other rich stuff, a girl decked with flowers is seated, whilst around her in a circle stand other girls, also crowned with flowers, who hold hands, and intone, like a Greek chorus--

"Un cuart.i.to para la Maya, Que no tiene manto ni saya."

"A penny for the May who has neither mantle nor petticoat."

Lorenzo de' Medici says in one of his ballads:

Se tu vuo' appiccare un maio.

A qualcuna che tu ami....

In his day "Singing the May" was almost a trade; the country folk flocked into Florence with their May trees and rustic instruments and took toll of the citizens. The custom continues along the Ligurian coast. At Spezia I saw the boys come round on May-day piping and singing, and led by one, taller than the rest, who carried an Italian flag covered with garlands. The name of the master of the house before which they halt is introduced into a song that begins:

Siam venuti a cantar maggio, Al Signore ---- Come ogn' anno usar si suole, Nella stagion di primavera.

Since Chaucer, who loved so dearly the "May Kalendes" and the "See of the day," no one has celebrated them with a more ingenuous charm than the country lads of the island of Sardinia, who sing "May, May, be thou welcome, with all Sun and Love; with the Flower and with the Soul, and with the Marguerite." A Tuscan and a Pisan _Rispetto_ may be taken as representative of Italian May-song:

'Twas in the Calends of the month of May, I went into the garden for a flower, A wild bird there I saw upon a spray, Singing of love with skilled melodious power.

O little bird, who dost from Florence speed Teach me whence loving doth at first proceed?

Love has its birth in music and in songs Its end, alas! to tears and grief belongs.

Era di maggio, se ben mi ricordo Quando c'incominciammo a ben volere Eran fiorite le rose dell'orto, E le ciliege diventavan nere; Ciliege nere e pere moscatelle, Siete il trionfo delle donne belle Ciliege nere e pere moscatate.

Siete il trionfo delle innamorate Ciliege nere e pere moscatine.

Siete il trionfo delle piu belline.

The child's or lover's play of words in this last baffles all attempt at translation: it is not sense but sweetness, not poetry but music.

It is as much without rule or study or conventionality as the song of birds when in Italian phrase, _fanno primavera_.

In the Province of Brescia the Thursday of Mid-Lent is kept by what is called "Burning the old women." A doll made of straw or rags, representing the oldest woman, is hung outside the window; or, if in a street, suspended from a cord pa.s.sed from one side to the other.

Everyone makes the tour of town or village to see _le Vecchie_ who at sundown are consigned to the flames, generally with a distaff placed in their hands. It is a picturesque sight at Sal, when the bonfires blaze at different heights up the hills, casting long reflections across the clear lake-water. The sacrifice is consummated--but what sacrifice? I was at first disposed to simply consider the "old woman"

as a type of winter, but I am informed that by those who have studied relics of the same usage in other lands, she is held to be a relative of the "harvest-man" or growth-genius, who must be either appeased or destroyed. Yet a third interpretation occurs to me, which I offer for what it is worth. Might not the _Vecchia_ be the husk which must be cast off before the miracle of new birth is accomplished? "The seed that thou sowest shall not quicken unless it die." Hardly any idea has furnished so much occasion for symbolism as this, that life is death, and death is life.

Professor d'Ancona believes, that to the custom of keeping May by singing from house to house and collecting largess of eggs or fruit or cheese, may be traced the dramatic representations, which, under the name of _Maggi_, can still be witnessed in certain districts of the Tuscan Hills and of the plain of Pisa. These May-plays are performed any Sunday in Spring, just after Ma.s.s; the men, women, and children, hastening from the church-door to the roughly-built theatre which has the sky for roof, the grey olives and purple hills for background.

The verses of the play (it is always in verse) are sung to a sort of monotonous but elastic chant, in nearly every case unaccompanied by instruments. No one can do more than guess when that chant was composed; it may have been five hundred years ago and it may have been much more. Grief or joy, love and hate, all are expressed upon the same notes. It is possible that some such recitative was used in the Greek drama. A play that was not sung would not seem a play to the Tuscan contadino. The characters are acted by men or boys, the peasants not liking their wives and daughters to perform in public.

A considerable number of _Maggi_ exist in print or in MS. carefully copied for the convenience of the actors. The subjects range from King David to Count Ugolino, from the siege of Troy to the French Revolution. They seem for most part modern compositions, cast in a form which was probably invented before the age of Dante.

THE IDEA OF FATE IN SOUTHERN TRADITIONS.

In the early world of Greece and Italy, the beliefs relating to Fate had a vital and penetrative force which belonged only to them.

"Nothing," says Sophocles, "is so terrible to man as Fate." It was the shadow cast down the broad sunlight of the roofless h.e.l.lenic life. All Greece, its G.o.ds and men, bowed at that word which Victor Hugo saw, or imagined that he saw, graven on a pillar of Notre Dame: [Greek: Ananke]. Necessity alone of the supernatural powers was not made by man in his own image. It had no sacred grove, for in the whole world there was no place where to escape from it, no peculiar sect of votaries, for all were bound equally to obey; it could not be bought off with riches nor withstood by valour; no man worshipped it, many groaned under its dispensation; but by all it was vaguely felt to be the instrument of a pure justice. If they did not, with Herder, call Fate's law "Eternal Truth," yet their idea of necessity carried these men nearer than did any other of their speculative guesses to the idea of a morally-governed universe.

The belief in one Fate had its train of accessorial beliefs. The Parcae and the Erinnyes figured as dark angels of Destiny. Then, in response to the double needs of superst.i.tion and materialism, the impersonal Fate itself took the form of the Greek Tyche, and of that Fortuna, who, in Rome alone, had no less than eight temples. There were some indeed who saw in Fortune nothing else than the old _dira necessitas_; but to the popular mind, she was nearer to chance than to necessity; she dealt out the favourable accident which goes further to secure success than do the subtlest combinations of men. The Romans did not only demand of a military leader that he should have talent, foresight, energy; they asked, was he _felix_--happy, fortunate? Since human life was seen to be, on the whole, but a sorry business, and since it was also seen that the prosperous were not always the meritorious, the inference followed that Fortune was capricious, changeable, and, if not immoral, at least unmoral. With this character she came down to the Middle Ages, having contrived to outlive the whole Roman pantheon.

So Dante found her, and inquired of his guide who and what she might really be?

Maestro, dissi lui, or mi di' anche: Questa Fortuna di che tu mi tocche, Che e, che i ben del mondo ha s tra branche?

Dante had no wish to level the spiritual windmills that lay in his path: he left them standing, only seeking a proper reason for their being there. Therefore he did not answer himself in the words of the Tuscan proverb: "Chi crede in sorte, non crede in Dio;" but, on the contrary, tried to prove that the two beliefs might be perfectly reconciled. "He whose knowledge transcends all things" (is the reply) "fashioned the heavens, and gave unto them a controlling force in such wise that each part shines upon each, distributing equally the light. Also to worldly splendours he ordained a general minister, and captain, who should timely change the tide of vain prosperity from race to race and from blood to blood. Why these prevail, and those languish, according to her ruling, is hidden, like the snake in the gra.s.s; your knowledge has in her no counterpart; she provides, judges, and pursues her governance, as do theirs the other G.o.ds. Her permutations have no truce, necessity makes her swift; for he is swift in coming who would have his turn. This is she who is upbraided even by those who should praise her, giving her blame wrongfully and ill-repute; but she continues blessed, and hearkens not; glad among the other primal creatures, she revolves her sphere, and being blessed, rejoices."

The peasants, the _pagani_ of Italy, did not give their name for nothing to the entire system of antiquity. They were its last, its most faithful adherents, and to this day their inmost being is watered from the springs of the antique. They have preserved old-world thoughts as they have preserved old-world pots and pans. In the isolated Tuscan farm you will be lighted to your bed by a woman carrying an oil lamp identical in form with those buried in Etruscan tombs; on the Neapolitan hill-side a girl will give you to drink out of a jar not to be distinguished from the amphorae of Pompeii. A stranger hunting in the campagna may often hear himself addressed with the "Tu" of Roman simplicity. The living Italian people are the most interesting of cla.s.sical remains. Even their religion has helped to perpetuate practices older than Italy. How is it possible, for instance, to see the humble shrine by vineyard or maize field, with its posy of flowers and its wreath of box hung before the mild countenance of some local saint, without remembering what the chorus says to Admetus: "Deem not, O king, of the tomb of thy wife as of the vulgar departed; rather let it be kept in religious veneration, a cynosure for the way-faring man. And as one climbs the slanting pathway, these will be the words he utters: 'This was she who erewhile laid down her life for her husband; now she is a saint for evermore.

Hail, blessed spirit, befriend and aid us!' Such the words that will be spoken."

Can it be doubted that the Catholic honour of the dead--nay, even the cult of the Virgin, which crept so mysteriously into the exercise of Christian worship--had birth, not in the councils of priests and schoolmen, but in the all-unconscious grafting by the people of Italy of the new faith upon an older stock?

With this persistency of thought, observable in outward trifles, as in the deepest yearnings of the soul, it would be strange if the Italian mind had ceased to occupy itself with the old wonder about fate. The folk-lore of the country will show the mould into which the ancient speculations have been cast, and in how far these have undergone change, whether in the sense of a.s.similating new theories or in that of reverting to a still earlier order of ideas.

They tell at Venice the story of a husbandman who had set his heart on finding _one who was just_ to be sponsor to his new-born child. He took the babe in his arms and went forth into the public ways to seek _El Giusto_. He walked and walked and met a man (who was our Lord) and to him he said, "I have got this son to christen, but I do not wish to give him to any one who is not just. Are you just?" To him the Lord replied, "But I do not know if I am just." Then the husbandman went a little further and met a woman (who was the Madonna), and to her he said, "I have this son to christen, but I only wish to give him to one who is just. Are you just?" "I know not," said the Madonna; "but go a little further and you will meet one who is just." After that, he went a little further, and met another woman who was Death. "I have been sent to you," he said, "for they say you are just. I have a child to christen, and I do not wish to give him except to one who is just.

Are you just?" "Why, yes; I think I am just," said Death; "but let us christen the babe and afterwards I will show you if I am just." So the boy was christened, and then this woman led the husbandman into a long, long room where there were an immense number of lighted lamps.

"Gossip," said the man, who marvelled at seeing so many lamps, "what is the meaning of all these lights?" Said Death: "These are the lights of all the souls that are in the world. Would you like just to see, Gossip? That is yours, and that is your son's." And the husbandman, who saw that his lamp was going out, said, "And when there is no more oil, Gossip?" "Then," replied Death, "one has to come to me, for I am Death." "Oh! for charity," said the husbandman, "do let me pour a little of the oil out of my son's lamp into mine!" "No, no, Gossip,"

said Death, "I don't go in for that sort of thing. A just one you wished to meet, and a just one you have found. And now, go you to your house and put your affairs in order, for I am waiting for you."[1]

In this parable, we see a severe fatalism, which is still more oriental than antique.

... G.o.d gives each man one life, like a lamp, then gives That lamp due measure of oil....

The Mahomedans say that there are trees in heaven on each of whose leaves is the name of a human being, and whenever one of these leaves withers and falls, the man whose name it bears dies with it. The conception of human life as of something bound up and incorporated with an object seemingly foreign, lies at the very root of elementary beliefs. In an Indian tale the life of a boy resides in a gold necklace which is in the heart of a fish; in another a woman's life is contained in a bird: when the bird is killed, the woman must perish.

In a third a prince plants a tree before he goes on a journey, saying as he does so, "This tree is my life. When you see the tree green and fresh, then know that it is well with me. When you see the tree fade in some parts, then know that I am in an ill case. When you see the whole tree fade, then know that I am dead and gone."

According to a legend of wide extension--it is known from Esthonia to the Pyrenees--all men were once aware of the hour of their death. But one day Christ went by and saw a man raising a hedge of straw. "That hedge will last but for a short while," He said; to which the man answered, "It will be good for as long as I live; that it should last longer, matters not;" and forthwith Christ ordained that no man should thereafter know when he should die.

The southern populations of Italy cling to the idea that from the moment of a man's birth his future lot is decided, whether for good or evil hap, and that he has but little power of altering or modifying the irrevocable sentence. There are lucky and unlucky days to be born on; lucky and unlucky circ.u.mstances attendant on an entry into the world, which affect all stages of the subsequent career. He who is born on the last day of the year, will always arrive late. It is very unfortunate to be born when there is no moon. Anciently the moon was taken as symbol both of Fortune, and of Hecate, G.o.ddess of Magic.

The Calabrian children have a song: "Moon, holy moon, send me good fortune; thou shining, and I content, l.u.s.trous thou, I fortunate."

Also at Cagliari, in Sardinia, they sing: "Moon, my moon, give me luck; give me money, so I may amuse myself; give it soon, so I may buy sweetmeats." The changing phases of the moon doubtless contributed to its identification with fortune; "Wind, women, and fortune," runs the Basque proverb, "change like the moon." But yet more, its influence over terrestrial phenomena, always mysterious to the ignorant observer and by him readily magnified to any extent, served to connect it with whatever occult, unaccountable power was uppermost in people's minds.

In Italy, nothing is done without consulting the _Lunario_. All kinds of roots and seeds must be planted with the new moon, or they will bear no produce. Timber must be cut down with the old moon, or it will quickly rot. These rules and many more are usually followed; and it is reported as a matter of fact, that their infringement brings the looked-for results. In the Neapolitan province, old women go to the graveyards by night and count the tombs illuminated by the moonlight; the sum total gives them a "number" for the lottery. The extraordinary vagaries of superst.i.tion kept alive by the public lotteries are of almost endless variety and complexity. No well-known man dies without thousands of the poorest Neapolitans racking their brains with abtruse calculations on the dates of his birth, death, and so on, in the hope of discovering a lucky number. Fortune, chance (what, after all, shall it be called?) sometimes strangely favours these pagan devices. When Pio Nono died, the losses of the Italian exchequer were enormous; and in January 1884, the numbers staked on the occasion of the death of the patriot De Sanctis, produced winnings to the amount of over two million francs. During the last cholera epidemic, the daily rate of mortality was eagerly studied with a view to happy combinations. Even in North Italy such things are not unknown. At Venice, when a notable Englishman died some years ago in a hotel, the number of his room was played next day by half the population. Domestic servants are among the most inveterate gamblers; they all have their cabalistic books, and a large part of their earnings goes to the insatiable "lotto."