Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs (1886) Part 27

Shine, stars, G.o.d's sentinels on high, Proclaimers of His power and might; May all things evil from us fly: O stars, good-night, good-night!

Is this "Dobra Noc" of strictly popular origin? From internal evidence I should say that it is not. It seems, however, to be extremely popular in the ordinary sense of the word. Before me lie two or three settings of it by Polish musicians.

The Italians call lullabies _ninne-nanne_, a term used by Dante when he makes Forese predict the ills which are to overtake the dames of Florence:

E se l'anteveder qui non m' inganna, Prima fien triste che le guance impeli Colui che mo si consola con _nanna_.

Some etymologists have sought to connect "nanna" with _neniae_ or [Greek: nenitos], but its most apparent relationship is with [Greek: nannarismata], the modern Greek name for cradle songs, which is derived from a root signifying the singing of a child to sleep.

The _ninne-nanne_ of the various Italian provinces are to be found scattered here and there through volumes of folk poesy, and no attempt has yet been made to collate and compare them. Signor Dal Medico did indeed publish, some ten years ago, a separate collection of Venetian nursery rhymes, but his initiative has not been followed up. The difficulty I had in obtaining the little work just mentioned is characteristic of the way in which Italian printed matter vanishes out of all being; instead of pa.s.sing into the obscure but secure limbo into which much of English literature enters, it attains nothing short of Nirv[=a]na--a happy state of non-existence. The inquiries of several Italian book-sellers led to no other conclusion than that the book in question was not to be had for love or money; and most likely I should still have been waiting for it were it not for the courtesy of the Baron Giovanni di Sardagna, who, on hearing that it was wanted by a student of folk-lore, borrowed from the author the only copy in his possession and made therefrom a verbatim transcript. The following is one of Signor Dal Medico's lullabies:

Hush! lulla, lullaby! So mother sings; For hearken, 'tis the midnight bell that rings.

But, darling, not thy mother's bell is this: St Lucy's priests it calls to prayer, I wis.

St Lucy gave thee eyes--a matchless pair-- And gave the Magdalen her golden hair; Thy cheeks their hue from heaven's angels have; Her little loving mouth St Martha gave.

Love's mouth, sweet mouth, that Florence hath for home, Now tell me where love springs, and how doth come?...

With music and with song doth love arise, And then its end it hath in tears and sighs.

The question and answer as to the beginning and end of love run through all the songs of Italy, and in nearly every case the reply proceeds from Florence. The personality of the answerer changes: sometimes it is a little wild bird; on one occasion it is a preacher.

And the idea has been suggested that the last is the original form, and that the Preacher of Florence who preaches against love is none other than Jeronimo Savonarola.

In an Istriot variant of the above song, "Santa Luceia" is spoken of as the Madonna of the eyes; "Santa Puluonia" as the Madonna of the teeth: we hear also something of the Magdalene's old shoes and of the white lilies she bears in her hands. It is not always quite clear upon what principle the folk-poet shapes his descriptions of religious personages; if the gifts and belongings he attributes to them are at times purely conventional, at others they seem to rest on no authority, legendary or historic. Most likely his ideas as to the personal appearance of such or such a saint are formed by the paintings in the church where he is accustomed to go to ma.s.s; it is probable, too, that he is fond of talking of the patrons of his village or of the next village, whose names are a.s.sociated with the _feste_, which as long as he can recollect have const.i.tuted the great annual events of his life. But two or three saints have a popularity independent of local circ.u.mstance. One of these is Lucy, whom the people celebrate with equal enthusiasm from her native Syracuse to the port of Pola. Perhaps the maiden patroness of the blessed faculty of vision has come to be thought of as a sort of gracious embodiment of that which her name signifies: of the sweet light which to the southerner is not a mere helpmate in the performance of daily tasks, but a providential luxury. Concerning the earthly career of their favourite, her peasant votaries have vague notions: once when a French traveller in the Apennines suggested that St Januarius might be jealous of her praises, he received the answer, "_Ma che, excellenza_, St Lucy was St Januarius' wife!"

In Greece we find other saints invoked over the baby's cradle. The Greek of modern times has his face, his mind, his heart, set in an undeviating eastward position. To holy wisdom and to Marina, the Alexandrian martyr, the Greek mother confides her cradled darling:

Put him to bed, St Marina; send him to sleep, St Sophia! Take him out abroad that he may see how the trees flower and how the birds sing; then come back and bring him with you, that his father may not ask for him, may not beat his servants, that his mother may not seek him in vain, for she would weep and fall sick, and her milk would turn bitter.

At Gessopalena, in the province of Chieti (Abruzzo Citeriore) there would seem to be much faith in numbers. Luke and Andrew, Michael and Joseph, Hyacinth and Matthew are called in, and as if these were not enough to nurse one baby, a summons is sent to _Sant Giusaffat_, who, as is well known, is neither more nor less than Buddha introduced into the Catholic calendar.

Another of Signor Dal Medico's _ninne-nanne_ presents several points of interest:

O Sleep, O Sleep, O thou beguiler, Sleep, Beguile this child, and in beguilement keep, Keep him three hours, and keep him moments three; Until I call beguile this child for me.

And when I call I'll call:--My root, my heart, The people say my only wealth thou art.

Thou art my only wealth; I tell thee so.

Now, bit by bit, this boy to sleep will go; He falls and falls to sleeping bit by bit, Like the green wood what time the fire is lit, Like to green wood that never flame can dart, Heart of thy mother, of thy father heart!

Like to green wood, that never flame can shoot.

Sleep thou, my cradled hope, sleep thou, my root, My cradled hope, my spirit's strength and stay; Mother, who bore thee, wears her life away; Her life she wears away, and all day long She goes a-singing to her child this song.

Now, in the first place, the comparison of the child's gradual falling asleep with the slow ignition of fresh-cut wood is the common property of all the populations whose ethnical centre of gravity lies in Venice. I have seen an Istriot version of it, and I heard it sung by a countrywoman at San Martino di Castrozza in the Trentino; so that, at all event, _Italia redenta_ and _irredenta_ has a community of song.

The second thing that calls for remark is the direct invocation of sleep. A distinct little group of cradle ditties displays this characteristic. "Come, sleep," cries the Grecian mother, "come, sleep, take him away; come sleep, and make him slumber. Carry him to the vineyard of the Aga, to the gardens of the Aga. The Aga will give him grapes; his wife, roses; his servant, pancakes." A second Greek lullaby must have sprung from a luxuriant imagination. It comes from Schio:

Sleep, carry off my son, o'er whom three sentinels do watch, Three sentinels, three warders brave, three mates you cannot match.

These guards: the sun upon the hill, the eagle on the plain, And Boreas, whose chilly blasts do hurry o'er the main.

--The sun went down into the west, the eagle sank to sleep, Chill Boreas to his mother sped across the briny deep.

"My son, where were you yesterday? Where on the former night?

Or with the moon or with the stars did you contend in fight?

Or with Orion did you strive--though him I deem a friend?"

"Nor with the stars, nor with the moon, did I in strife contend, Nor with Orion did I fight, whom for your friend I hold, But guarded in a silver cot a child as bright as gold."

The Greeks have a curious way of looking at sleep: they seem absorbed in the thought of what dreams may come--if indeed the word dream rightly describes their conception of that which happens to the soul while the body takes its rest--if they do not rather cling to some vague notion of a real severance between matter and spirit during sleep.

The mothers of La Bresse (near Lyons) invoke sleep under the name of "le souin-souin." I wish I could give here the sweet, inedited melody which accompanies these lines:

Le poupon voudrait bien domir; Le souin-souin ne veut pas venir.

Souin-souin, vene, vene, vene; Souin-souin, vene, vene, donc!

The Chippewaya Indians were in the habit of personifying sleep as an immense insect called Weeng, which someone once saw at the top of a tree engaged in making a buzzing noise with its wings. Weeng produced sleep by sending fairies, who beat the foreheads of tired mortals with very small clubs.

Sleep acts the part of questioner in the lullaby of the Finland peasant woman, who sings to her child in its bark cradle: "Sleep, little field bird; sleep sweetly, pretty redbreast. G.o.d will wake thee when it is time. Sleep is at the door, and says to me, 'Is not there a sweet child here who fain would sleep? a young child wrapped in swaddling clothes, a fair child resting beneath his woollen coverlet?'" A questioning sleep makes his appearance likewise in a Sicilian _ninna_:--

My little son, I wish you well, your mother's comfort when in grief.

My pretty boy, what can I do? Will you not give one hour's relief?

Sleep has just past, and me he asked if this my son in slumber lay.

Close, close your little eyes, my child; send your sweet breath far leagues away.

You are the fount of rose water; you are with every beauty fraught.

Sleep, darling son, my pretty one, my golden b.u.t.ton richly wrought.

A vein of tender reproach is sprung in that inquiry, "Ca n' ura ri riposu 'un vuo rari?" The mother appeals to the better feeling, to the Christian charity as it were, of the small but implacable tyrant.

Another time she waxes yet more eloquent. "Son, my comfort, I am not happy. There are women who laugh and enjoy themselves while I chafe my very life out. Listen to me, child; beautiful is the lullaby and all the folk are asleep--but thou, no! My wise little son, I look about for thy equal; nowhere do I find him. Thou art mamma's consolation.

There, do sleep just a little while." So pleads the Sicilian; her Venetian sister tries to soften the obduracy of her infant by still more plaintive remonstrances. "Hushaby; but if thou dost not sleep, hear me. Thou hast robbed me of my heart and of all my sentiments. I really do not know for what cause thou lamentest, and never will have done lamenting." On this occasion the appeal seems to be made to some purpose, for the song concludes, "The eyes of my joy are closing; they open a little and then they shut. Now is my joy at peace with me and no longer at war." So happy an issue does not always arrive. It may happen that the perverse babe flatly refuses to listen to the mother's voice, sing she never so sweetly. Perhaps he might have something to say for himself could he but speak, at any rate in the matter of mid-day slumbers. It must no doubt be rather trying to be called upon to go straight to sleep just when the sunbeams are dancing round and round and wildly inviting you to make your first studies in optics.

Most often the long-suffering mother, if she does not see things in this light, acts as though she did. Her patience has no limit; her caresses are never done; with untiring love she watches the little wakeful, wilful culprit--

Chi piangendo e ridendo pargoleggia....

But it is not always so; there are times when she loses all patience, and temper into the bargain. Such a contingency is only too faithfully reflected in a Sicilian _ninna_ which ends with the utterance of a horrible wish that Doctor Death would come and quiet the recalcitrant baby once for all. I ought to add that this same murderous lullaby is nevertheless brimful of protestations of affection and compliments; the child is told that his eyes are the finest imaginable, his cheeks two roses, his countenance like the moon's. The amount of incense which the Sicilian mother burns before her offspring would suffice to fill any number of cathedrals. Every moment she breaks forth into words such as, "Hush! child of my breath, bunch of jasmine, handful of oranges and lemons; go to sleep, my son, my beauty: I have got to take thy portrait." It has been remarked that a person who resembled an orange would scarcely be very attractive, whence it is inferred that the comparison came into fashion at the date when the orange tree was first introduced into Sicily and when its fruit was esteemed a rare novelty. A little girl is described as a spray of lilies and a bouquet of roses. A little boy is a.s.sured that his mother prefers him to gold or fine silver. If she lost him where would she find a beloved son like to him? A child dropped out of heaven, a laurel garland, one under whose feet spring up flowers? Here is a string of blandishments prettily wound up in a prayer:

Hush, my little round-faced daughter; thou art like the stormy sea.

Daughter mine of finest amber, G.o.dmother sends sleep to thee.

Fair thy name, and he who gave it was a gallant gentleman.

Mirror of my soul, I marvel when thy loveliness I scan.

Flame of love, be good. I love thee better far than life I love.

Now my child sleeps. Mother Mary, look upon her from above.

The form taken by parental flattery shows the tastes of nations and of individuals. The other day a young and successful English artist was heard to exclaim with profound conviction, whilst contemplating his son and heir, twenty-four hours old, "There is a great deal of _tone_ about that baby!"

The Hungarian nurse tells her charge that his cot must be of rosewood and his swaddling clothes of rainbow threads spun by angels. The evening breeze is to rock him, the kiss of the falling star to awake him; she would have the breath of the lily touch him gently, and the b.u.t.terflies fan him with their brilliant wings. Like the Sicilian, the Magyar has an innate love of splendour.

Corsica has a _ninna-nanna_ into which the whole genius of its people seems to have pa.s.sed. The village, _fetes_, with dancing and music, the flocks and herds and sheep-dogs, even the mountains, stars, and sea, and the perfumed air off the _macchi_, come back to the traveller in that island as he reads--

Hushaby, my darling boy; Hushaby, my hope and joy.

You're my little ship so brave Sailing boldly o'er the wave; One that tempests doth not fear, Nor the winds that blow from high.

Sleep awhile, my baby dear; Sleep, my child, and hushaby.

Gold and pearls my vessel lade, Silk and cloth the cargo be, All the sails are of brocade Coming from beyond the sea; And the helm of finest gold, Made a wonder to behold.

Fast awhile in slumber lie; Sleep, my child, and hushaby.

After you were born full soon You were christened all aright; G.o.dmother she was the moon, G.o.dfather the sun so bright; All the stars in heaven told Wore their necklaces of gold.

Fast awhile in slumber lie; Sleep, my child, and hushaby.

Pure and balmy was the air, l.u.s.trous all the heavens were; And the seven planets shed All their virtues on your head; And the shepherds made a feast Lasting for a week at least.

Fast awhile in slumber lie; Sleep, my child, and hushaby.