V.

There where I lay asleep came Fortune in, She came the while I slept and bid me wake, "What dost thou now?" she said, "companion mine? What dost thou now? Wilt thou then love forsake? Arise," she said, "and take this violin, And play till every stone thereat shall wake." I was asleep when Fortune came to me, And bid me rise, and led me unto thee!

These songs come from different villages; from Caballino and Morciano in Calabria, from Corigliano and Calimera in Terra d'Otranto; the two last are in the Greek dialect spoken in the latter district. There are a great many more, in all of which the same sweet and serious type is preserved; but the above quintet suffices to give a notion of this modern Magna-Graecian Idyll of Fortune.

[Footnote 1: In a Breton variant the "Bon Dieu" is the first to offer himself as sponsor, but is refused by the peasant, "Because you are not just; you slay the honest bread-winner and the mother whose children can scarce run alone, and you let folks live who never brought aught but shame and sorrow on their kindred." Death is accepted, "Because at least you take the rich as well as the poor, the young as well as the old." The German tale of "Godfather Death" begins in the same way, but ends rather differently, as it is the godson and not the father who is shown the many candles, and who vainly requests Death to give him a new one instead of his own which is nearly burnt out. A poem by Hans Sachs (1553) contains reference to the legend, of which there are also Provencal and Hungarian versions.]

[Footnote 2: Laura Gonzenbach was the daughter of the Swiss Consul at Messina, where she was born. At an early age she developed uncommon gifts, and she was hardly twenty when she made her collection of Sicilian stories, almost exclusively gathered from a young servant-girl who did not know how to write or read. It was with great difficulty that a publisher was found who would bring out the book. Fraeulein Gonzenbach married Colonel La Racine, a Piedmontese officer, and died five or six years ago, being still quite young. A relation of hers, from whom I have these particulars, was much surprised to hear that the _Sicilianische Maerchen_ is widely known as one of the best works of its class. It is somewhat singular that the preservation of Italian folk-tales should have been so substantially aided by two ladies not of Italian origin: Fraeulein Gonzenbach and Miss R. H. Busk, author of "The Folk-lore of Rome."]

FOLK-LULLABIES.

... A nurse's song Of lullaby, to bring her babe asleep.

Infancy is a great mystery. We know that we each have gone over that stage in human life, though even this much is not always quite easy to realise. But what else do we know about it? Something by observation, something by intuition; by experience hardly anything at all. We have as much personal acquaintance with a lake-dwelling or stone age infant as with our proper selves at the time when we were passing through the "avatar" of babyhood. The recollections of our earliest years are at most only as the confused remembrance of a morning dream, which at one end fades into the unconsciousness of sleep, whilst at the other it mingles with the realities of awaking. And yet, as a fact, we did not sleep through all the dawn of our life, nor were we unconscious; only we were different from what we now are; the term "thinking animal" did not then fit us so well. We were less reasonable and less material. Babies have a way of looking at you that makes you half suspect that they belong to a separate order of beings. You speculate as to whether they have not invisible wings, which drop off afterwards as do the birth wings of the young ant. There is one thing, however, in which the baby is very human, very manlike. Of all newborn creatures he is the least happy. You may sometimes see a little child crying softly to himself with a look of world woe on his face that is positively appalling. Perhaps human existence, like a new pair of shoes, is very uncomfortable till one gets accustomed to it. Anyhow the child, being for some reason or reasons exceedingly disposed to vex its heart, needs much soothing. In one highly civilised country a good many mothers are in the habit of going to the nearest druggist for the means to tranquillise their offspring, with the result that these latter are not unfrequently rescued from the sea of sorrows in the most final and expeditious way. In less advanced states of society another expedient has been resorted to from time immemorial--to wit, the cradle song.

Babies show an early appreciation of rhythm. They rejoice in measured noise, whether it takes the form of words, music, or the jingle of a bunch of keys. In the way of poetry I am afraid they must be admitted to have a perverse preference for what goes by the name of sing-song. It will be a long time before the infantine public are brought round to Walt Whitman's views on versification. For the rest, they are not very severe critics. The small ancient Roman asked for nothing better than the song of his nurse--

Lalla, lalla, lalla, Aut dormi, aut lacta.

This two-line lullaby constitutes one of the few but sufficing proofs which have come down to us of the existence among the people of old Rome of a sort of folk verse not by any means resembling the Latin classics, but bearing a considerable likeness to the _canti popolari_ of the modern Italian peasant. It may be said parenthetically that the study of dialect tends altogether to the conviction that there are country people now living in Italy to whom, rather than to Cicero, we should go if we want to know what style of speech was in use among the humbler subjects of the Caesars. The lettered language of the cultivated classes changes; the spoken tongue of the uneducated remains the same; or, if it too undergoes a process of change, the rate at which it moves is to the other what the pace of a tortoise is to the speed of an express train. About eight hundred years ago a handful of Lombards went to Sicily, where they still preserve the Lombard idiom. The Ober-Engadiner could hold converse with his remote ancestors who took refuge in the Alps three or four centuries before Christ; the Aragonese colony at Alghero, in Sardinia, yet discourses in Catalan; the Roumanian language still contains terms and expressions which, though dissimilar to both Latin and standard Italian, find their analogues in the dialects of those eastward-facing "Latin plains" whence, in all probability, the people of Roumania sprang. But we must return to our lullabies.

There exists another Latin cradle song, not indeed springing from classical times, but which, were popular tradition to be trusted, would have an origin greatly more illustrious than that of the laconic effusion of the Roman nurse. It is composed in the person of the Virgin Mary, and was, in bygone days, believed to have been actually sung by her. Authorities differ as to its real age, some insisting that the peculiar structure of the verse was unknown before the 12th century. There is, however, good reason to think that the idea of composing lullabies for the Virgin belongs to an early period.

Dormi, fili, dormi! mater Cantat unigenito: Dormi puer, dormi! pater Nato clamat parvulo: Millies tibi laudes canimus Mille, mille, millies.

Lectum stravi tibi soli, Dormi, nate bellule! Stravi lectum foeno molli: Dormi mi animule. Millies tibi laudes canimus Mille, mille, millies.

Dormi, decus et corona! Dormi, nectar lacteum! Dormi, mater dabo dona, Dabo favum melleum. Millies tibi laudes canimus Mille, mille, millies.

Dormi, nate mi mellite! Dormi plene saccharo, Dormi, vita, meae vitae, Casto natus utero. Millies tibi laudes canimus Mille, mille, millies.

Quidquid optes, volo dare; Dormi, parve pupule Dormi, fili! dormi carae, Matris deliciolae! Millies tibi laudes canimus Mille, mille, millies.

Dormi cor, et meus thronus; Dormi matris jubilum; Aurium caelestis sonus, Et suave sibilum! Millies tibi laudes canimus Mille, mille, millies.

Dormi fili! dulce, mater Duke melos concinam; Dormi, nate! suave, pater, Suave carmen accinam. Millies tibi laudes canimus Mille, mille, millies.

Ne quid desit, sternam rosis, Sternam foenum violis, Pavimentum hyacinthis Et praesepe liliis. Millies tibi laudes canimus Mille, mille, millies.

Si vis musicam, pastores Convocabo protinus; Illis nulli sunt priores; Nemo canit castius. Millies tibi laudes canimus Mille, mille, millies.

Everybody who is in Rome at Christmas-tide makes a point of visiting Santa Maria in Ara C[oe]li, the church which stands to the right of the Capitol, where once the temple of Jupiter Feretrius is supposed to have stood. What is at that season to be seen in the Ara C[oe]li is well enough known--to one side a "presepio," or manger, with the ass, the ox, St Joseph, the Virgin, and the Child on her knee; to the other side a throng of little Roman children rehearsing in their infantine voices the story that is pictured opposite.[1] The scene may be taken as typical of the cult of the Infant Saviour, which, under one form or another, has existed distinct and separable from the main stem of Christian worship ever since a Voice in Judaea bade man seek after the Divine in the stable of Bethlehem. It is almost a commonplace to say that Christianity brought fresh and peculiar glory alike to infancy and to motherhood. A new sense came into the words of the oracle--

Thee in all children, the eternal Child ...

And the mother, sublimely though she appears against the horizon of antiquity, yet rose to a higher rank--because the highest--at the founding of the new faith. Especially in art she left the second place that she might take the first. The sentiment of maternal love, as illustrated, as transfigured, in the love of the Virgin for her Divine Child, furnished the great Italian painters with their master motive, whilst in his humble fashion the obscure folk-poet exemplifies the selfsame thought. I am not sure that the rude rhymes of which the following is a rendering do not convey, as well as can be conveyed in articulate speech, the glory and the grief of the Dresden Madonna:

Sleep, oh sleep, dear Baby mine, King Divine; Sleep, my Child, in sleep recline; Lullaby, mine Infant fair, Heaven's King All glittering, Full of grace as lilies rare.

Close thine eyelids, O my treasure, Loved past measure, Of my soul, the Lord, the pleasure; Lullaby, O regal Child, On the hay My joy I lay; Love celestial, meek and mild.

Why dost weep, my Babe? alas! Cold winds that pass Vex, or is 't the little ass? Lullaby, O Paradise; Of my heart Though Saviour art; On thy face I press a kiss.

Wouldst thou learn so speedily, Pain to try, To heave a sigh? Sleep, for thou shalt see the day Of dire scath, Of dreadful death, To bitter scorn and shame a prey.

Rays now round thy brow extend, But in the end A crown of cruel thorns shall bend. Lullaby, O little one, Gentle guest Who for thy rest A manger hast, to lie upon.

Born in winter of the year, Jesu dear, As the lost world's prisoner. Lullaby (for thou art bound Pain to know, And want and woe), Mid the cattle standing round.

Beauty mine, sleep peacefully; Heaven's monarch! see, With my veil I cover thee. Lullaby, my Spouse, my Lord, Fairest Child Pure, undefiled, Thou by all my soul adored.

Lo! the shepherd band draws nigh; Horns they ply Thee their Lord to glorify. Lullaby, my soul's delight, For Israel, Faithless and fell, Thee with cruel death would smite.

Now the milk suck from my breast, Holiest, best, Thy kind eyes thou openest. Lullaby, the while I sing; Holy Jesu Now sleep anew, My mantle is thy sheltering.

Sleep, sleep, thou who dost heaven impart My Lord thou art; Sleep, as I press thee to my heart. Poor the place where thou dost lie, Earth's loveliest! Yet take thy rest; Sleep my Child, and lullaby.

It would be interesting to know if Mrs Browning ever heard any one of the many variants of this lullaby before writing her poem "The Virgin Mary to the Child Jesus." The version given above was communicated to me by a resident at Vallauria, in the heart of the Ligurian Alps. In that district it is sung in the churches on Christmas Eve, when out abroad the mountains sleep soundly in their snows and a stray wolf is not an impossible apparition, nothing reminding you that you are within a day's journey of the citron groves of Mentone.

There are several old English carols which bear a strong resemblance to the Italian sacred lullabies. One, current at least as far back as the time of Henry IV., is preserved among the Sloane MSS.:

Lullay! lullay! lytel child, myn owyn dere fode, How xalt thou sufferin be nayled on the rode. So blyssid be the tyme!

Lullay! lullay! lytel child, myn owyn dere smerte, How xalt thou sufferin the scharp spere to Thi herte? So blyssid be the tyme!

Lullay! lullay! lytel child, I synge all for Thi sake, Many on is the scharpe schour to Thi body is schape. So blyssid be the tyme!

Lullay! lullay! lytel child, fayre happis the befalle, How xalt thou sufferin to drynke ezyl and galle? So blyssid be the tyme!

Lullay! lullay! lytel child, I synge al beforn How xalt thou sufferin the scharp garlong of thorn? So blyssid be the tyme!

Lullay! lullay! lytel child, gwy wepy Thou so sore, Thou art bothin God and man, gwat woldyst Thou be more? So blyssid be the tyme!

Here, as in the Piedmontese song, the "shadow of the cross" makes its presence distinctly felt, whereas in the Latin lullaby it is wholly absent. Nor are there any dark or sad forebodings in the fragment:

Dormi Jesu, mater ridet, Quae; tam dulcem somnum videt, Dormi, Jesu blandule. Si non dormis, mater plorat, Inter fila cantans orat: Blande, veni Somnule.

Many Italian Christmas cradle songs are in this lighter strain. In Italy and Spain a _presepio_ or _nacimento_ is arranged in old-fashioned houses on the eve of Christmas, and all kinds of songs are sung or recited before the white image of the Child as it lies in its bower of greenery. "Flower of Nazareth sleep upon my breast, my heart is thy cradle," sing the Tuscans, who curiously call Christmas "the Yule-log Easter." In Sicily a thousand endearing epithets are applied to the Infant Saviour: "figghiu duci," "Gesiuzzi beddu," "Gesiuzzi picchiureddi." The Sicilian poet relates how once, when the Madunazza was mending St Joseph's clothes, the Bambineddu cried in His cradle because no one was attending to Him; so the archangel Raphael came down and rocked Him, and said three sweet little words to Him, "Lullaby, Jesus, Son of Mary!" Another time, when the Child was older and the mother was going to visit St Anne, he wept because He wished to go too. The mother let Him accompany her on condition that He would not break St Anne's bobbins. Yet another time the Virgin went to the fair to buy flax, and the Child said that He too would like to have a fairing. The Virgin buys Him a tambourine, and angels descend to listen to His playing. Such stories are endless; some, no doubt, are invented on the spur of the moment, but the larger portion are scraps of old legendary lore. Not a few of the popular beliefs, relating to the Infant Jesus may be traced to the apocryphal Gospels, which were extensively circulated during the earlier Christian centuries. There is, for instance, a Provencal song containing the legend of an apple-tree that bowed its branches to the Virgin, which is plainly derived from this source. Speaking of Provence, one ought not to forget the famous "Troubadour of Bethlehem," Saboly, who was born in 1640, and who composed more than sixty _noels_. Five pretty lines of his form an epitome of sacred lullabies:

Faudra dire, faudra dire, Quauco cansoun, Au garcoun, A la facoun D'aquelo de _soum-soum_.

George Wither deserves remembrance here for what he calls a "Rocking hymn," written about the year of Saboly's birth. "Nurses," he says, "usually sing their children asleep, and through want of pertinent matter they oft make use of unprofitable, if not worse, songs; this was therefore prepared that it might help acquaint them and their nurse children with the loving care and kindness of their Heavenly Father." Consciously or unconsciously, Wither caught the true spirit of the ancient carols in the verses--charming in spite, or perhaps because of their demure simplicity--which follow his little exordium:

Sweet baby, sleep: what ails my dear; What ails my darling thus to cry? Be still, my child, and lend thine ear, To hear me sing thy lullaby. My pretty lamb, forbear to weep; Be still, my dear; sweet baby, sleep.

Thou blessed soul, what canst thou fear? What thing to thee can mischief do? Thy God is now thy Father dear, His holy Spouse thy mother too. Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep....

Whilst thus thy lullaby I sing, For thee great blessings ripening be; Thine eldest brother is a king, And hath a kingdom bought for thee. Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. &c., &c.

Count Gubernatis, in his "Usi Natalizj," quotes a popular Spanish lullaby, addressed to any ordinary child, but having reference to the Holy Babe:

The Baby Child of Mary, Now cradle He has none; His father is a carpenter, And he shall make Him one.

The lady good St Anna, The lord St Joachim, They rock the Baby's cradle, That sleep may come to Him.

Then sleep thou too, my baby, My little heart so dear; The Virgin is beside thee, The Son of God is near.

When they are old enough to understand the meaning of words, children are sure to be interested up to a certain point by these saintly fables, but, taken as a whole, the songs of the South give us the impression that the coming of Christmas kindles the imagination of the Southern mother rather than that of the Southern child. On the north side of the Alps it is otherwise; there is scarcely need to say that in the Vaterland, Christmas is before all the children's feast. We, who have borrowed many of the German yule-tide customs, have left out the "Christkind;" and it is well that we have done so. Transplanted to foreign soil, that poetic piece of extra-belief would have become a mockery. As soon try to naturalise Kolyada, the Sclavonic white-robed New-year girl. The Christkind in His mythical attributes is nearer to Kolyada than to the Italian Bambinello. He belongs to the people, not to the Church. He is not swathed in jewelled swaddling clothes; His limbs are free, and He has wings that carry Him wheresoever good children abide. There is about Him all the dreamy charm of lands where twilight is long and shade and shine intermingle softly, and where the earth's wintry winding-sheet is more beautiful than her April bride gown. The most popular of German lullabies is a truly Teutonic mixture of piety, wonder-lore, and homeliness. Wagner has introduced the music to which it is sung into his "Siegfried-Idyl." I have to thank a Heidelberg friend for the text:

Sleep, baby, sleep: Your father tends the sheep; Your mother shakes the branches small, Whence happy dreams in showers fall: Sleep, baby, sleep.

Sleep, baby, sleep: The sky is full of sheep; The stars the lambs of heaven are, For whom the shepherd moon doth care: Sleep, baby, sleep.

Sleep, baby, sleep: The Christ Child owns a sheep; He is Himself the Lamb of God; The world to save, to death He trod: Sleep, baby, sleep.

Sleep, baby, sleep: I'll give you then a sheep With pretty bells, and you shall play And frolic with him all the day: Sleep, baby, sleep.

Sleep, baby, sleep: And do not bleat like sheep, Or else the shepherd's dog will bite My naughty, little, crying spright: Sleep, baby, sleep.

Sleep, baby, sleep: Begone, and watch the sheep, You naughty little dog! Begone, And do not wake my little one: Sleep, baby, sleep.

In Denmark children are sung to sleep with a cradle hymn which is believed (so I am informed by a youthful correspondent) to be "very old." It has seven stanzas, of which the first runs, "Sleep sweetly, little child; lie quiet and still; as sweetly sleep as the bird in the wood, as the flowers in the meadow. God the Father has said, 'Angels stand on watch where mine, the little ones, are in bed.'" A correspondent at Warsaw (still more youthful) sends me the even-song of Polish children:

The stars shine forth from the blue sky; How great and wondrous is God's might; Shine, stars, through all eternity, His witness in the night.

O Lord, Thy tired children keep: Keep us who know and feel Thy might; Turn Thine eye on us as we sleep, And give us all good-night.

Shine, stars, God'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 passing 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 mass; it is probable, too, that he is fond of talking of the patrons of his village or of the next village, whose names are associated with the _feste_, which as long as he can recollect have constituted the great annual events of his life. But two or three saints have a popularity independent of local circumstance. 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. God 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 button 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 assured 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, godmother 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 butterflies 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 passed. 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; Godmother she was the moon, Godfather 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, Lustrous 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.

Nought was heard but minstrelsy, Nought but dancing met the eye, In Cassoni's vale and wood And in all the neighbourhood; Hawk and Blacklip, stanch and true, Feasted in their fashion too. Fast awhile in slumber lie; Sleep, my child, and hushaby.

Older years when you attain, You will roam o'er field and plain; Meadows will with flowers be gay, And with oil the fountains play, And the salt and bitter sea Into balsam changed be. Fast awhile in slumber lie; Sleep, my child, and hushaby.

And these mountains, wild and steep, Will be crowded o'er with sheep, And the wild goat and the deer Will be tame and void of fear; Vulture, fox, and beast of prey, From these bounds shall flee away. Fast awhile in slumber lie; Sleep, my child, and hushaby.

You are savory, sweetly blowing, You are thyme, of incense smelling, Upon Mount Basella growing, Upon Mount Cassoni dwelling; You the hyacinth of the rocks Which is pasture for the flocks. Fast awhile in slumber lie; Sleep, my child, and hushaby.

At the sight of a new-born babe the Corsican involuntarily sets to work making auguries. The mountain shepherds place great faith in divination based on the examination of the shoulder-blades of animals: according to the local tradition the famous prophecy of the greatness of Napoleon was drawn up after this method. The nomad tribes of Central Asia search the future in precisely the same way. Corsican lullabies are often prophetical. An old woman predicts a strange sort of millennium, to begin with the coming of age of her grandson:

"There grew a boy in Palneca of Pumonti, and his dear grandmother was always rocking his cradle, always wishing him this destiny:--

"Sleep, O little one, thy grandmother's joy and gladness, for I have to prepare the supper for thy dear little father, and thy elder brothers, and I have to make their clothes.

"When thou art older, thou wilt traverse the plains, the grass will turn to flowers, the sea-water will become sweet balm.

"We will make thee a jacket edged with red and turned up in points, and a little peaked hat, trimmed with gold braid.

"When thou art bigger, thou wilt carry arms; neither soldier nor gendarme will frighten thee, and if thou art driven up into a corner, thou wilt make a famous bandit.

"Never did woman of our race pass thirteen years unwed, for when an impertinent fellow dared so much as look at her, he escaped not two weeks unless he gave her the ring.

"But that scoundrel of Morando surprised the kinsfolk, arrested them all in one day, and wrought their ruin. And the thieves of Palneca played the spy.

"Fifteen men were hung, all in the market-place: men of great worth, the flower of our race. Perhaps it will be thou, O dearest! who shall accomplish the vendetta!"

An unexpected yet logical development leads from the peaceful household cares, the joyous images of the familiar song, the playful picture of the baby boy in jacket and pointed hat, to a terrible recollection of deeds of shame and blood, long past, and perhaps half-forgotten by the rest of the family, but at which the old dame's breast still burns as she rocks the sleeping babe on whom is fixed her last passionate hope of vengeance fulfilled.

In the mountain villages scattered about the borders of the vast Sila forest, Calabrian mothers whisper to their babes, "brigantiellu miu, brigantiellu della mamma." They tell the little ones gathered round their knees legends of Fra Diavolo and of Talarico, just as Sardinian mothers tell the legend of Tolu of Florinas. This last is a story of to-day. In 1850, Giovanni Tolu married the niece of the priest's housekeeper. The priest opposed the marriage, and soon after it had taken place, in the absence of Tolu, he persuaded the young wife to leave her husband's house, never to return. Tolu, meeting his enemy in a lonely path, fired his pistol, but by some accident it did not go off, and the priest escaped with his life. Arrest and certain conviction, however, awaited Tolu, who preferred to take to the woods, where he remained for thirty years, a prince among outlaws. He protected the weak; administered a rude but wise justice to the scattered peasants of the waste country between Sassari and the sea; his swift horse was always ready to fly in search of their lost or stolen cattle; his gun was the terror of the thieves who preyed upon these poor people. In Osilo lived two families, hereditary foes, the Stacca and the Achena. An Achena offered Tolu five hundred francs to kill the head of the Stacca family. Tolu not only refused, he did not rest till he had brought about a reconciliation between the two houses. At last, in the autumn of 1880, the gendarmes, after thirty years' failure, arrested Tolu without a struggle at a place where he had gone to take part in a country _festa_. For two years he was kept untried in prison. In September 1882 he was brought before the Court of Assize at Frosinone. Not a witness could be found to testify against him. "Tolu," they said, "e un Dio." When asked by the President what he had to say in his defence, he replied: "I never fired first. The carabineers hunted me like a wild beast, because a price was set on my head, and like a wild beast I defended myself." The jury brought in a verdict of acquittal; and if any one wishes to make our hero's acquaintance, he has only to take ship for Sardinia and then find the way to the village of Florinas, where he is now peaceably living, beloved and respected by all who know him.

The Sardinian character has old-world virtues and old-world blemishes; if you live in the wilder districts you may deem it advisable to keep a loaded pistol on the table at meal-time; but then you may go all over the island without letters of introduction, sure of a hearty welcome, and an hospitality which gives to the stranger the best of everything that there is. If the Sardinian has an imperfect apprehension of the sacredness of other laws, he is blindly obedient to that of custom; when some progressive measure is proposed, he does not argue--he says quietly: "Custu non est secundu la moda nostra." No man sweeps the dust on antique time less than he. One of his distinctive traits is an overweening fondness of his children; the ever-marvellous baby is represented not only as the glory of its mother, but also as the light even of its most distant connexions--

Lullaby, sweet lullaby, You our happiness supply; Fair your face, and sweet your ways, You, your mother's pride and praise. As the coral, rare and bright, In your life does father live; You, of all the dear delight, All around you pleasure give.

All your ways, my pretty boy, Of your parents are the joy; You were born for good alone, Sunshine of the family! Wise, and kind to every one. Light of every kinsman's eye; Light of all who hither come, And the gladness of our home. Lullaby, sweet lullaby.

On the northern shore the people speak a tongue akin to that of the neighbouring isle, and the dialect of the south is semi-Spanish; but in the midland Logudoro the old Sard speech is spoken much as it is known to have been spoken a thousand years ago. It is simply a rustic Latin. Canon Spano's loving rather than critical labours have left Sardinia a fine field for some future folk-lore collector. The Sardinian is short in speech, copious in song. I asked a lad, just returned to Venetia from working in Sardinian quarries, if the people there had many songs? "Oh! tanti!" he answered, with a gesture more expressive than the words. He had brought back more than a touch of that malarious fever which is the scourge of the island and a blight upon all efforts to develop its rich resources. A Sardinian friend tells me that the Sard poet often shows a complete contempt for metrical rules; his poesy is apt to become a rhythmic chant of which the words and music cannot be dissevered. But the Logudorian lullabies are regular in form, their distinguishing feature being an interjection with an almost classical ring that replaces the _fa la nanna_ of Italy--

Oh! ninna and anninia! Sleep, baby boy; Oh! ninna and anninia! God give thee joy. Oh! ninna and anninia! Sweet joy be thine; Oh! ninna and anninia! Sleep, brother mine.

Sleep, and do not cry, Pretty, pretty one, Apple of mine eye, Danger there is none; Sleep, for I am by, Mother's darling son.

Oh! ninna and anninia! Sleep, baby boy; Oh! ninna and anninia! God give thee joy. Oh! ninna and anninia! Sweet joy be thine; Oh! ninna and anninia! Sleep, brother mine.

The singer is the little mother-sister: the child who, while the mother works in the fields or goes to market, is left in charge of the last-come member of the family, and is bound to console it as best she may, for the absence of its natural guardian. The baby is to her somewhat of a doll, just as to the children of the rich the doll is somewhat of a baby. She may be met without going far afield; anyone who has lived near an English village must know the curly-headed little girl who sits on the cottage door-step or among the meadow buttercups, her arms stretched at full length, round a soft, black-eyed creature, small indeed, yet not much smaller than herself. This, she solemnly informs you, is her baby. Not quite so often can she be seen now as before the passing of the Education Act, prior to which all truants fell back on the triumphant excuse, "I can't go to school because I have to mind my baby," some neighbouring infant brother, cousin, nephew, being producible at a moment's notice in support of the assertion. In those days the mere sight of a baby filled persons interested in the promotion of public instruction with wrath and suspicion. Yet womanhood would lose a sweet and sympathetic phase were the little mother-sister to wholly disappear. The songs of the child-nurse are of the slenderest kind; the tether of her imagination has not been cut by hope or memory. As a rule she dwells upon the important fact that mother will soon be here, and when she has said that, she has not much more to say. So it is in an Istriot song: "This is a child who is always crying; be quiet, my soul, for mother is coming back; she will bring thee nice milk, and then she will put thee in the crib to hushaby." A Tuscan correspondent sends me a sister-rhyme which is introduced by a pretty description of the grave-eyed little maiden, of twelve or thirteen years perhaps, responsible almost to sadness, who leans down her face over the baby brother she is rocking in the cradle; and when he stirs and begins to cry, sings softly the oft-told tale of how the dear mamma will come quickly and press him lovingly to her breast:

Che fa mai col volto chino, Quella tacita fanciulla? Sta vegliando il fratellino, Adagiato nella culla.

Ed il pargolo se desta, E il meschino prorompe in pianto, La bambina, mesta, mesta, Vuol chetarlo col suo canto:

Bambolino mio, riposa, Presto mamma tornera; Cara mamma che amorosa Al suo sen ti stringera.

The little French girl turns her thoughts to the hot milk and chocolate that are being prepared, and of which she no doubt expects to have a share:--

Fais dodo, Colin, mon p'tit frere, Fais dodo, t'auras du lolo. Le papa est en haut, qui fait le lolo, Le maman est en bas, qui fait le colo; Fais dodo, Colin, mon p'tit frere Fais dodo.

In enumerating the rewards for infantine virtue--which is sleep--I must not forget the celebrated hare's skin to be presented to Baby Bunting, and the "little fishy" that the English father, set to be nurse _ad interim_, promises his "babby" when the ship comes in; nor should I pass over the hopes raised in an inedited cradle song of French Flanders, which opens, like the Tuscan lullaby, with a short narration:

Un jour un' pauv' dentilliere En amicliton ch'un petiot garchun, Qui d'puis le matin n'fesions que blaire, Voulait l'endormir par une canchun.

In this barbarous _patios_, the poor lace-maker tells her "p'tit pocchin" (little chick) that to-morrow he shall have a cake made of honey, spices, and rye flour; that he shall be dressed in his best clothes "com' un bieau milord;" and that at "la Ducasse," a local _fete_, she will buy him a laughable Polchinello and a bird-organ playing the tune of the sugar-loaf hat. Toys are also promised in a Japanese lullaby, which the kindness of the late author of "Child-life in Japan" has enabled me to give in the original:

Nen-ne ko y[=o]--nen-ne ko y[=o] Nen-ne no mori wa--doko ye yuta Ano yama koyete--sato ye yuta Sato no miyage ni--nani morota Ten-ten taiko ni--sh[=o] no fuye Oki-agari koboshima--inu hari-ko.

Signifying in English:

Lullaby, baby, lullaby, baby Baby's nursey, where has she gone Over those mountains she's gone to her village; And from her village, what will she bring? A tum-tum drum, and a bamboo flute, A "daruma" (which will never turn over) and a paper dog.

Scope is allowed for unlimited extension, as the singer can go on mentioning any number of toys. The _Daruma_ is what English children call a tumbler; a figure weighted at the bottom, so that turn it how you will, it always regains its equilibrium.

More ethereal delights than chocolate, hare's skins, bird-organs, or even paper dogs (though these last sound irresistibly seductive), form the subject of a beautiful little Greek song of consolation: "Lullaby, lullaby, thy mother is coming back from the laurels by the river, from the sweet banks she will bring thee flowers; all sorts of flowers, roses, and scented pinks." When she does come back, the Greek mother makes such promises as eclipse all the rest: "Sleep, my child, and I will give thee Alexandria for thy sugar, Cairo for thy rice, and Constantinople, there to reign three years!" Those who see deep meaning in childish things will look with interest at the young Greek woman, who sits vaguely dreaming of empire while she rocks her babe. The song is particularly popular in Cyprus; the English residents there must be familiar with the melody--an air constructed on the Oriental scale, and only the other day set on paper. The few bars of music are like a sigh of passionate longing.

From reward to punishment is but a step, and next in order to the songs that refer to the recompense of good, sleepy children, must be placed those hinting at the serious consequences which will be the result of unyielding wakefulness. It must be confessed that retribution does not always assume a very awful form; in fact, in one German rhyme, it comes under so gracious a disguise, that a child might almost lie awake on purpose to look out for it:

Sleep, baby, sleep, I can see two little sheep; One is black and one is white, And, if you do not sleep to-night, First the black and then the white Will give your little toes a bite.

The translation is by "Hans Breitmann."

In the threatening style of lullaby, the bogey plays a considerable part. A history of the bogeys of all nations would be an instructive book. The hero of one people is the bogey of another. Wellington and Napoleon (or rather "Boney") served to scare naughty babies long after the latter, at least, was laid to rest. French children still have songs about "le Prince Noir," and the nurses sang during the siege of Paris:

As-tu vu Bismarck A la porte de Chatillon? Il lance les obus Sur le Pantheon.

The Moor is the nursery terror of many parts of Southern Europe; not, however, it would seem of Sicily--a possible tribute to the enlightened rule of the Kalifs. The Greeks do not enjoy a like immunity: Signor Avolio mentions, in his "Canti popolari di Noto," that besides saying "the wolf is coming," it is common for mothers to frighten their little ones with, "Zittiti, ca vienunu i Riece; Nu sciri ca 'ncianu ci su i Rieci" ("Hush, for the Greeks are coming: don't go outside for the Greeks are there.") Noto was the centre of the district where the ancient Sikeli made their last stand against Greek supremacy: a coincidence that opens the way to bold speculation, though the originals of the bogey Greeks may have been only pirates of times far less remote.

In Germany the same person distributes rewards and punishments: St Nicholas in the Rhenish provinces, Knecht Ruprecht in Northern and Central Germany, Julklapp in Pomerania. On Christmas eve, some one cries out "Julklapp!" from behind a door, and throws the gift into the room with the child's name pinned upon it. Even the gentle St Lucy, the Santa Claus of Lombardy, withholds her cakes from erring babes, and little Tuscans stand a good deal in awe of their friend the Befana; delightful as are the treasures she puts in their shoes when satisfied with their behaviour, she is credited with an unpleasantly sharp eye for youthful transgressions. She has a relative in Japan of the name of Hotii. Once upon a time Hotii, who belongs to the sterner sex, lived on earth in the garb of a priest. His birthland was China, and he had the happy fame of being extremely kind to children. At present he walks about Japan with a big sack full of good things for young people, but the eyes with which the back of his head is furnished, enable him to see in a second if any child misconducts itself. Of more dubious antecedents is another patron of the children of Japan, Kishi Mojin, the mother of the child-demons. Once Kishi Mojin had the depraved habit of stealing any young child she could lay hands on and eating it. In spite of this, she was sincerely attached to her own family, which numbered one thousand, and when the exalted Amida Niorai hid one of its members to punish her for her cruel practices, she grieved bitterly. Finally the child was given back on condition that Kishi Mojin would never more devour her neighbours' infants: she was advised to eat the fruit of the pomegranate whenever she had a craving for unnatural food. Apparently she took the advice and kept the compact, as she is honoured on the 28th day of every month, and little children are taught to solicit her protection. The kindness shown to children both in Japan and China is well known; in China one baby is said to be of more service in insuring a safe journey than an armed escort.

"El coco," a Spanish bogey, figures in a sleep-song from Malaga: "Sleep, little child, sleep, my soul; sleep, little star of the morning. My child sleeps with eyes open like the hares. Little baby girl, who has beaten thee that thine eyes look as if they had been crying? Poor little girl! who has made thy face red? The rose on the rose-tree is going to sleep, and to sleep goes my child, for already it is late. Sleep little daughter for the _coco_ comes."

The folk-poet in Spain reaps the advantage of a recognised freedom of versification; with the great stress laid upon the vowels, a consonant more or less counts for nothing:

A dormir va la rosa De los rosales; A dormir va mi nina Porque ya es tarde.

All folk-poets, and notably the English, have recourse to an occasional assonant, but the Spaniard can trust altogether to such. Verse-making is thus made easy, provided ideas do not fail, and up to to-day, they have not failed the Spanish peasant. He has not, like the Italian, begun to leave off composing songs. My correspondent at Malaga writes that at that place improvisation seems innate in the people: they go before a house and sing the commonest thing they wish to express. Love and hate they also turn into songs, to be rehearsed under the window of the individual loved or hated. There is even an old woman now living in Malaga who rhymes in Latin with extraordinary facility. To the present section falls one other lullaby--coo-aby, perhaps I ought to say, since the Spanish _arrullo_ means the cooing of doves as well as the lulling of children. It is quoted by Count Gubernatis:

Isabellita, do not pine Because the flowers fade away; If flowers hasten to decay Weep not, Isabellita mine.

Little one, now close thine eyes, Hark, the footsteps of the Moor! And she asks from door to door, Who may be the child who cries?

When I was as small as thou And within my cradle lying, Angels came about me flying And they kissed me on my brow.

Sleep, then, little baby, sleep: Sleep, nor cry again to-night, Lest the angels take to flight So as not to see thee weep.

"The Moor" is in this instance a benignant kind of bogey, not far removed from harmless "wee Willie Winkie" who runs upstairs and downstairs in his nightgown:

Tapping at the window, Crying at the lock, "Are the babes in their beds? For it's now ten o'clock."

These myths have some analogy with a being known as "La Dormette" who frequents the neighbourhood of Poitou. She is a good old woman who throws sand and sleep on children's eyes, and is hailed with the words:

Passez la Dormette, Passez par chez nous! Endormir gars et fillettes La nuit et le jou.

Now and then we hear of an angel who passes by at nightfall; it is not clear what may be his mission, but he is plainly too much occupied to linger with his fellow seraphs, who have nothing to do but to kiss the babe in its sleep. A little French song speaks of this journeying angel:

Il est tard, l'ange a passe, Le jour a deja baisse; Et l'on n'entend pour tout bruit Que le ruisseau qui s'enfuit. Endors toi, Mon fils! c'est moi. Il est tard et ton ami, L'oiseau blue, s'est endormi.

In Calabria, when a butterfly flits around a baby's cradle, it is believed to be either an angel or a baby's soul.

The pendulum of good and evil is set swinging from the moment that the infant draws its first breath. Angelical visitation has its complement in demonial influence; it is even difficult to resist the conclusion that the ministers of light are frequently outnumbered by the powers of darkness. In most Christian lands the unbaptised child is given over entirely to the latter. Sicilian women are loth to kiss a child before its christening, because they consider it a pagan or a Turk. In East Tyrol and Styria, persons who take a child to be baptised say on their return--"A Jew we took away, a Christian we bring back." Some Tyrolese mothers will not give any food to their babies till the rite has been performed. The unbaptised Greek is thought to be simply a small demon, and is called by no other designation than [Greek: srakos] if a boy, and [Greek: srakoula] if a girl. Once when a christening was unavoidably delayed, the parents got so accustomed to calling their little girl by the snake name, that they continued doing so even after she had been presented with one less equivocal. Dead unchristened babes float about on the wind; in Tyrol they are marshalled along by Berchte, the wife of Pontius Pilate; in Scotland they may be heard moaning on calm nights. The state to which their baby souls are relegated, is probably a lingering recollection of that into which, in pagan days, all innocent spirits were conceived to pass: an explanation that has also the merit of being as little offensive as any that can be offered. There is naturally a general wish to make baptism follow as soon as possible after birth--an end that is sometimes pursued regardless of the bodily risks it may involve. A poor woman gave birth to a child at the mines of Vallauria; it was a bitterly cold winter; the snow lay deep enough to efface the mountain tracks, and all moisture froze the instant it was exposed to the air. However, the grandmother of the new-born babe carried it off immediately to Tenda--many miles away--for the christening rite. As she had been heard to remark that it was a useless encumbrance, there were some who attributed her action to other motives than religious zeal; but the child survived the ordeal and prospered. In several parts of the Swiss mountains a baptism, like a funeral, is an event for the whole community. I was present at a christening in a small village lying near the summit of the Julier Pass. The bare, little church was crowded, and the service was performed with a reverent carefulness contrasting sharply with the mechanical and hurried performance of a baptism witnessed shortly before in a very different place, the glorious baptistry at Florence. It ended with a Lutheran hymn, sung sweetly without accompaniment, by five or six young girls. More than half of the congregation consisted of men, whose weather-tried faces were wet with tears, almost without exception. I could not find out that there was anything particularly sad in the circumstances of the case; the women certainly wore black, but then, the rule of attending the funerals even of mere acquaintances, causes the best dress in Switzerland to be always one suggestive of mourning. It seemed that the pathos of the dedication of a dawning life to the Supreme Good was sufficient to touch the hearts of these simple folk, starved from coarser emotion.

In Calabria it is thought unlucky to be either born or christened on a Friday. Saturday is likewise esteemed an inauspicious day, which points to its association with the witches' Sabbath, once the subject of numerous superstitious beliefs throughout the southern provinces of Italy. Not far from the battlefield near Benevento where Charles of Anjou defeated Manfred, grew a walnut tree, which had an almost European fame as the scene of Sabbatical orgies. People used to hang upon its branches the figure of a two-headed viper coiled into a ring, a symbol of incalculable antiquity. St Barbatus had the tree cut down, but the devil raised new shoots from the root and so it was renewed. Shreds of snake-worship may be still collected. The Calabrians hold that the cast-off skin of a snake is an excellent thing to put under the pillow of a sick baby. Even after their christening, children are unfortunately most susceptible to enchantment. When a beautiful and healthy child sickens and dies, the Irish peasant infers that the genuine baby has been stolen by fairies, and this miserable sprite left in its place. Two ancient antidotes have great power to counteract the effect of spells. One is the purifying Fire. In Scotland, as in Italy, bewitched children, within the memory of living men, have been set to rights by contact with its salutary heat. My relative, Count Belli of Viterbo, was "looked at" when an infant by a _Jettatrice_, and was in consequence put by his nurse into a mild oven for half-an-hour. One would think that the remedy was nearly as perilous as the practice of the lake-dwellers of cutting a little hole in their children's heads to let out the evil spirits, but in the case mentioned it seems to have answered well.

The other important curative agent is the purifying spittle. In Scotland and in Greece, any one who should exclaim, "What a beautiful child!" is expected to slightly spit upon the object of the remark, or some misfortune will follow. Ladies in a high position at Athens have been observed to do this quite lately. The Scotch and Greek uneasiness about the "well-faured" is by no means confined to those peoples; the same anxiety reappears in Madagascar; and the Arab does not like you to praise the beauty of his horse without adding the qualifying "an it please God." Persius gives an account of the precautions adopted by the friends of the infant Roman: "Look here--a grandmother or superstitious aunt has taken baby from his cradle and is charming his forehead and his slavering lips against mischief by the joint action of her middle finger and her purifying spittle; for she knows right well how to check the evil eye. Then she dandles him in her arms, and packs off the little pinched hope of the family, so far as wishing can do it, to the domains of Licinus, or to the palace of Cr[oe]sus. 'May he be a catch for my lord and lady's daughter! May the pretty ladies scramble for him! May the ground he walks on turn to a rose-bed.'" (Prof. Conington's translation.)

One of the rare lullabies that contain allusion to enchantment is the following Roumanian "Nani-nani":

Lullaby, my little one, Thou art mother's darling son; Loving mother will defend thee, Mother she will rock and tend thee, Like a flower of delight, Or an angel swathed in white.

Sleep with mother, mother well Knows the charm for every spell. Thou shalt be a hero as Our good lord, great Stephen, was, Brave in war, and strong in hand, To protect thy fatherland.

Sleep, my baby, in thy bed; God upon thee blessings shed. Be thou dark, and be thine eyes Bright as stars that gem the skies. Maidens' love be thine, and sweet Blossoms spring beneath thy feet.

The last lines might be taken for a paraphrase of--

....... puellae Hunc rapiant: quicquid calcaverit hic, rosa fiat.

The Three Fates have still their cult at Athens. When a child is three days old, the mother places by its cot a little table spread with a clean linen cloth, upon which she sets a pot of honey, sundry cakes and fruits, her wedding ring, and a few pieces of money belonging to her husband. In the honey are stuck three almonds. These are the preparations for the visit of the [Greek: Moirai]. In some places the Norns or Parcae have got transformed into the three Maries; in others they closely retain their original character. A perfect sample of the mixing up of pagan and Christian lore is to be found in a Bulgarian legend, which shows the three Fates weaving the destiny of the infant Saviour during a momentary absence of the Virgin--the whole scene occurring in the middle of a Balkan wood. In Sicily exists a belief in certain strange ladies ("donni-di-fora"), who take charge of the new-born babe, with or without permission. The Palermitan mother says aloud, when she lifts her child out of the cradle, "'Nnome di Dio!" ("In God's name!")--but she quickly adds _sotto voce_: "Cu licenzi, signuri miu!" ("By your leave, ladies").

At Noto, _Ronni-di-casa_, or house-women, take the place of the _Donni-di-fora_. They inhabit every house in which a fire burns. If offended by their host, they revenge themselves on the children: the mother finds the infant whom she left asleep and tucked into the cradle, rolling on the floor or screaming with sudden fright. When, however, the _Ronni-di-casa_ are amiably disposed, they make the sleeping child smile, after the fashion of angels in other parts of the world. Should they wish to leave an unmistakable mark of their good will, they twist a lock of the baby's hair into an inextricable tress. In England, elves were supposed to tangle the hair during sleep (_vide King Lear_: "Elf all my hair in knots;" and Mercutio's Mab speech). The favour of the Sicilian house-women is not without its drawbacks, for if by any mischance the knotted lock be cut off, they will probably twist the child's spine out of spite. "'Ccussi lu lassurii li Ronni-di-casa," says an inhabitant of Noto when he points out to you a child suffering from spinal curvature. The voice is lowered in mentioning these questionable guests, and there are Noticiani who will use any amount of circumlocution to avoid actually naming them. They are often called "certi signuri," as in this characteristic lullaby:

My love, I wish thee well; so lullaby! Thy little eyes are like the cloudless sky, My little lovely girl, my pretty one, Mother will make of thee a little nun: A sister of the Saviour's Priory Where noble dames and ladies great there be. Sleep, moon-faced treasure, sleep, the while I sing: Thou hadst thy cradle from the Spanish king. When thou hast slept, I'll love thee better still. (Sleep to my daughter comes and goes at will And in her slumber she is made to smile By certain ladies whom I dare not style.) Breath of my body, thou, my love, my care, Thou art without a flaw, so wondrous fair. Sleep then, thy mother's breath, sleep, sleep, and rest, For thee my very soul forsakes my breast. My very soul goes forth, and sore my heart: Thou criest; words of comfort I impart. Daughter, my flame, lie still and take repose, Thou art a nosegay culled from off the rose.

At Palermo, mothers dazzled their little girls with the prospect of entering the convent of Santa Zita or Santa Chiara. In announcing the birth of his child, a Sicilian peasant commonly says, "My wife has a daughter-abbess." "What! has your wife a daughter old enough to be an abbess?" has sometimes been the innocent rejoinder of a traveller from the mainland. The Convent of the Saviour, which is the destination of the paragon of beauty described in the above lullaby, was one of the wealthiest, and what is still more to the point, one of the most aristocratic religious houses in the island. To have a relation among its members was a distinction ardently coveted by the citizens of Noto; a town which once rejoiced in thirty-three noble families, one loftier than the other. The number is now cut down, but according to Signor Avolio such as remain are regarded with undiminished reverence. There are households in which the whole conversation runs on the _Barone_ and _Baronessa_, when not absorbed by the _Baronello_ and the _Baronessella_. It is just possible that the same phenomenon might be observed without going to Noto. _Tutto il mondo e paese_: a proverb which would serve as an excellent motto for the Folk-lore Society.

Outside Sicily the cradle-singer's ideal of felicity is rather matrimonial than monastic. The Venetian is convinced that who never loved before must succumb to her daughter's incomparable charms. It seems, by-the-by, that the "fatal gift" can be praised without fear or scruple in modern Italy; the visitors of a new-born babe ejaculate in a chorus, "Quant' e bellino! O bimbo! Bimbino!" and Italian lullabies, far more than any others, are one long catalogue of perfections, one drawn-out reiteration of the boast of a Greek mother of Terra d'Otranto: "There are children in the street, but like my boy there is not one; there are children before the house, but like my child there are none at all." The Sardinian who wishes to say something civil of a baby will not do less than predict that "his fame will go round the world." The cradle-singer of the Basilicata desires for her nursling that he may outstrip the sun and moon in their race. It has been seen that the Roumanian mother would have her son emulate the famous hero of Moldavia; for her daughter she cherishes a gentler ambition:

Sleep, my daughter, sleep an hour; Mother's darling gilliflower. Mother rocks thee, standing near, She will wash thee in the clear Waters that from fountains run, To protect thee from the sun.

Sleep, my darling, sleep an hour, Grow thou as the gilliflower. As a tear-drop be thou white, As a willow, tall and slight; Gentle as the ring-doves are, And be lovely as a star!

This _nani-nani_ calls to mind some words in a letter of Sydney Dobell's: "A little girl-child! The very idea is the most exquisite of poems! a child-daughter--wherein it seems to me that the spirit of all dews and flowers and springs and tender, sweet wonders 'strikes its being into bounds.'" "Tear drop" (_lacrimiora_) is the poetic Roumanian name for the lily of the valley. It may be needful to add that gilliflower is the English name for the clove-pink; at least an explanatory foot-note is now attached to the word in new editions of the old poets. Exiled from the polite society of "bedding plants"--all heads and no bodies--the "matted and clove gilliflowers" which Bacon wished to have in his garden, must be sought for by the door of the cottager who speaks of them fondly yet apologetically, as "old-fashioned things." To the folk-singers of the small Italy on the Danube and the great Italy on the Arno they are still the type of the choicest excellence, of the most healthful grace. Even the long stalk, which has been the flower's undoing, from a worldly point of view, gets praised by the unsophisticated Tuscan. "See," he says, "with how lordly an air it holds itself in the hand!" ("Guarda con quanta signoria si tiene in mano!")

The anguish of the Hindu dying childless has its root deeper down in the human heart than the reason he gives for it, the foolish fear lest his funeral rites be not properly performed. No man quite knows what it is to die who leaves a child in the world; children are more than a link with the future--they _are_ the future: the portion of ourselves that belongs not to this day but to to-morrow. To them may be transferred all the hopes sadly laid by, in our own case, as illusions; the "to be" of their young lives can be turned into a beautiful "arrangement in pink," even though experience has taught us that the common lot of humanity is "an Imbroglio in Whity-brown." Most parents do all this and much more; as lullabies would show were there any need for the showing of it. One cradle-song, however, faces the truth that of all sure things the surest is that sorrow and disappointment will fall upon the children as it has fallen upon the fathers. The song comes from Germany; the English version is by Mr C. G. Leland:

Sleep, little darling, an angel art thou! Sleep, while I'm brushing the flies from your brow. All is as silent as silent can be; Close your blue eyes from the daylight and me.

This is the time, love, to sleep and to play; Later, oh later, is not like to-day, When care and trouble and sorrow come sore You never will sleep, love, as sound as before.

Angels from heaven as lovely as thou Sweep round thy bed, love, and smile on thee now; Later, oh later, they'll come as to-day, But only to wipe all the tear-drops away.

Sleep, little darling, while night's coming round, Mother will still by her baby be found; If it be early, or if it be late, Still by her baby she'll watch and she'll wait.

The sad truth is there, but with what tenderness is it not hedged about! These Teutonic angels are worth more than the too sensitive little angels of Spain who fly away at the sight of tears. And the last verse conveys a second truth, as consoling as the first is sad; pass what must, change what may, the mother's love will not change or pass; its healing presence will remain till death; who knows? perhaps after. Signor Salomone-Marino records the cry of one, who out of the depths blesses the haven of maternal love:

Mamma, Mammuzza mia, vu' siti l'arma, Lu me rifugiu nni la sorti orrenna, Vui siti la culonna e la giurlanna, Lu celu chi vi guardi e vi mantegna!

The soul that directs and inspires, the refuge that shelters, the column that supports, the garland that crowns--such language would not be natural in the mouth of an English labourer. An Englishman who feels deeply is almost bound to hold his tongue; but the poor Sicilian can so express himself in perfect naturalness and simplicity.

There is a kind of sleep-song that has only the form in common with the rose-coloured fiction that makes the bulk of cradle literature. It is the song of the mother who lulls her child with the overflow of her own troubled heart. The child may be the very cause of her sorest perplexity: yet from it alone she gains the courage to live, from it alone she learns a lesson of duty:

"The babe I carry on my arm, He saves for me my precious soul."

A Corsican mother says to the infant at her breast, "Thou art my guardian angel!"--which is the same thought spoken in another way.

The most lovely of all sad lullabies is that written much more than two thousand years ago by Simonides of Ceos. Acrisius, king of Argos, was informed by an oracle that he would be killed by the son of his daughter Danae, who was therefore shut up in a tower, where Zeus visited her in the form of a shower of gold. Afterwards, when she gave birth to Perseus, Acrisius ordered mother and child to be exposed in a wicker chest or coffin on the open sea. This is the story which Simonides took as the subject of his poem:

Whilst the wind blew and rattled on the decorated ark, and the troubled deep tossed as though in terror--her own fair cheek also not unwet--around Perseus Danae threw her arms, and cried: "O how grievous, my child, is my trouble; yet thou sleepest, and with tranquil heart slumberest within this joyless house, beneath the brazen-barred, black-gleaming, musky heavens. Ah! little reckest thou, beloved object, of the howling of the tempest, nor of the brine wetting thy delicate hair, as there thou liest, clad in thy little crimson mantle! But even were this dire pass dreadful also to thee, yet lend thy soft ear to my words: Sleep on, my babe, I say; sleep on, I charge thee; nay, let the wild waters sleep, and sleep the immeasurable woe. Let me, too, see some change of will on thy part, Zeus, father! or if the speech be deemed too venturous, then, for thy child's sake, I pray thee pardon."

This is not a folk-song, but it has a prescriptive right to a place among lullabies.

Passing over the beautiful Widow's Song, quoted in a former essay, we come to some Basque lines, which bring before us the blank and vulgar ugliness of modern misery with a realism that would please M. Zola:

Hush, poor child, hush thee to sleep; (See him lying in slumber deep!) Thou first, then following I, We will hush and hushaby.

Thy bad father is at the inn; Oh! the shame of it, and the sin! Home at midnight he will fare, Drunk with strong wine of Navarre.

After each verse the singer repeats again and again: _Lo lo, lo lo_, on three lingering notes that have the plaintive monotony of the chiming of bells where there are but three in the belfry.

Almost as dismal as the Basque ditty is the English nursery rhyme:

Bye, O my baby! When I was a lady O then my poor baby didn't cry; But my baby is weeping For want of good keeping; Oh! I fear my poor baby will die!

--which may have been composed to fit in with some particular story, as was the tearful little song occurring in the ballad of Childe Waters:

She said: Lullabye, mine own dear child, Lullabye, my child so dear; I would thy father were a king, Thy mother laid on a bier.

One feels glad that that story ends happily in a "churching and bridal" that take place upon the same day.

I have the copy of a lullaby for a sick child, written down from memory by Signor Lerda, of Turin, who reports it to be popular in Tuscany:

Sleep, dear child, as mother bids: If thou sleep thou shalt not die! Sleep, and death shall pass thee by. Close worn eyes and aching lids, Yield to soft forgetfulness; Let sweet sleep thy senses press: Child, on whom my love doth dwell, Sleep, sleep, and thou shalt be well.

See, I strew thee, soft and light, Bed of down that cannot pain; Linen sheets have o'er it lain More than snow new-fallen white. Perfume sweet, health-giving scent, The meadows' pride, is o'er it sprent: Sleep, dear son, a little spell, Sleep, sleep, and thou shalt be well.

Change thy side and rest thee there, Beauty! love! turn on thy side, O my son, thou dost not bide As of yore, so fresh and fair. Sickness mars thee with its spite, Cruel sickness changes quite; How, alas! its traces tell! Yet sleep, and thou shalt be well.

Sleep, thy mother's kisses poured On her darling son. Repose; God give end to all our woes. Sleep, and wake by sleep restored, Pangs that make thee faint shall fly! Sleep, my child, and lullaby! Sleep, and fears of death dispel; Sleep, sleep, and thou shalt be well.

"Se tu dormi, non morrai!" In how many tongues are not these words spoken every day by trembling lips, whilst the heart seems to stand still, whilst the eyes dare not weep, for tears would mean the victory of hope or fear; whilst the watcher leans expectant over the beloved little wasted form, conscious that all that can be done has been done, that all that care or skill can try has been tried, that there are no other remedies to fall back upon, that there is no more strength left for battle, and that now, even in this very hour, sleep or his brother death will decide the issue.

When a Sicilian hears that a child is dead, he exclaims, "Glory and Paradise!" The phrase is jubilant almost to harshness; yet the underlying sentiment is not harsh. The thought of a dead child makes natural harmonies with thoughts of bright and shining things. A mother likes to dream of her lost babe as fair and spotless and little. If she is sad, with him it is surely well. He is gone to play with the Holy Boys. He has won the crown of innocence. There are folk-songs that reflect this radiancy with which love clothes dead children; songs for the last sleep full of all the confusion of fond epithets commonly addressed to living babies.

Only in one direction did my efforts to obtain lullabies prove fruitless. America has, it seems, no nursery rhymes but those which are still current in the Old World.[2] Mr Bret Harte told me: "Our lullabies are the same as in England, but there are also a few Dutch ones," and he went on to relate how, when he was at a small frontier town on the Rhine, he heard a woman singing a song to her child: it was the old story,--if the child would not sleep it would be punished, its shoes would be taken away; if it would go to sleep at once, Santa Claus would bring it a beautiful gift. Words and air, said Mr Bret Harte, were strangely familiar to him; then, after a moment's reflection, he remembered hearing this identical lullaby sung amongst his own kindred in the Far West of America.

[Footnote 1: The "Preaching of the children" took place as usual in the Christmas week of 1885, but as the convent in connection with the church of Santa Maria is about to be pulled down, I cannot tell whether the pretty custom will be adhered to in future. The church, however, which was also threatened with demolition, is now safe.]

[Footnote 2: This is confirmed by Mr W. Newell in his admirable book, "Games and Songs of American Children" (1885), which might be called with equal propriety, "Games and Songs of British Children." It is indeed the best collection of English nursery rhymes that exists. Thus America will have given the mother country the most satisfactory editions, both of her ballads (Prof. F. T. Child's splendid work, now in course of publication) and of her children's songs.]

FOLK-DIRGES.

There are probably many persons who could repeat by heart the greater portion of the last scene in the last book of the _Iliad_, and who yet have never been struck by the fact, that not its least excellence consists in its setting before us a carefully accurate picture of a group of usages which for the antiquity of their origin, the wide area of their observance, and the tenacity with which they have been preserved, may be fairly said to occupy an unique position amongst popular customs and ceremonials. First, we are shown the citizens of Troy bearing their vanquished hero within the walls amidst vehement demonstrations of grief: the people cling to the chariot wheels, or prostrate themselves on the earth; the wife and the mother of the dead tear their hair and cast it to the winds. Then the body is laid on a bed of state, and the leaders of a choir of professional minstrels sing a dirge, which is at times interrupted by the wailing of the women. When this is done, Andromache, Hecuba, and Helen in turn give voice each one to the feelings awakened in her by their common loss; and afterwards--so soon as the proper interval has elapsed--the body is burnt, wine being poured over the embers of the pyre. Lastly, the ashes are consigned to the tomb, and the mourners sit down to a banquet. "Such honours paid they to the good knight Hector;" and such, in their main features, are the funeral rites which may be presumed to date back to a period not only anterior to the siege of Troy, granting for the moment that event to have veritably taken place, but also previous to the crystallisation of the Greek or any other of the Indo-European nationalities which flowed westward from the uplands of the Hindu Kush. The custom of hymning the dead, which is just now what more particularly concerns us, once prevailed over most if not all parts of Europe; and the firmness of its hold upon the affections of the people may be inferred from the persistency with which they adhered to it, even when it was opposed not only by the working of the gradual, though fatal, law of decay to which all old usages must in the end submit, but also by the active interposition of persons in authority. Charlemagne, for instance, tried to put it down in Provence--desiring that all those attending funerals, who did not know by rote any of the appropriate psalms, should recite aloud the _Kyrie eleison_ instead of singing "profane songs" made to suit the occasion. But the edict seems to have met with a signal want of success; for some five hundred years after it was issued, the Provencals still hired Praeficae, and still introduced within the very precincts of their churches, whole choirs of lay dirge-singers, frequently composed of young girls who were stationed in two companies, that chanted songs alternately to the accompaniment of instrumental music; and this notwithstanding that the clergy of Provence showed the strongest objection to the performance of observances at funerals, other than such as were approved by ecclesiastical sanction. The custom in question bears an obvious affinity to Highland coronachs and Irish keens, and here in England there is reason to believe it to have survived as late as the seventeenth century. That Shakespeare was well acquainted with it is amply testified by the fourth act of _Cymbeline_; for it is plain that the song pronounced by Guiderius and Arviragus over the supposed corpse of Imogene was no mere poetic outburst of regret, but a real and legitimate dirge, the singing or saying of which was held to constitute Fidele's obsequies. In the Cotton Library there is a MS., having reference to a Yorkshire village in the reign of Elizabeth, which relates: "When any dieth, certaine women sing a song to the dead bodie recyting the jorney that the partye deceased must goe." Unhappily the English Neniae are nearly all lost and forgotten; I know of no genuine specimen extant, except the famous Lyke Wake (_i.e._, Death Watch) dirge beginning:

This ae nighte, this ae nighte, _Everie nighte and alle_, Fire and sleete and candle lighte, _And Christe receive thy saule_, &c.

To the present day we find practices closely analogous with those recounted in the _Iliad_ scattered here and there from the shores of the Mediterranean to the banks of Lake Onega; and the Trojan threnody is even now reproduced in Ireland, in Corsica, Sardinia, and Roumania, in Russia, in Greece, and South Italy. Students who may be tempted to make observations on this strange survival of the old world, will do well, however, to set about it at once, in parts which are either already invaded or else threatened with an imminent invasion of railways, for the screech of the engine sounds the very death-knell of ancient customs. Thus the Irish practice of keening is becoming less and less general. On recently making inquiries of a gentleman residing in Leinster, I learnt that it had gone quite out in that province; he added that he had once seen keeners at a funeral at Clonmacnoise (King's County), but was told they came from the Connaught side of the Shannon. The keens must not be confused with the peculiar wail or death-cry known as the Ullagone; they are articulate utterances, in a strongly marked rhythm, extolling the merits of the dead, and reproaching him for leaving his family, with much more in the same strain. The keeners may or may not be professional, and the keens are more often of a traditional than of an improvised description. One or two specimens in Gaelic have appeared in the _Journal of the Irish Archaeological Association_, but on the whole the subject is far from having received the attention it deserves. The Irish keeners are invariably women, as also are all the continental dirge-singers of modern times. Whether by reason of the somewhat new-fashioned sentiment which forbids a man to exhibit his feelings in public, or from other motives not unconnected with selfishness, the onus of discharging the more active and laborious obligations prescribed in popular funeral rites has bit by bit been altogether shifted upon the shoulders of the weaker sex; _e.g._, in places where scratching and tearing of the face forms part of the traditional ritual, the women are expected to continue the performance of this unpleasant ceremony which the men have long since abandoned. Together with the dirge, a more or less serious measure of self-disfigurement has come down from an early date. An Etruscan funeral urn, discovered at Clusi, shows an exact picture of the hired mourners who tear their hair and rend their garments, whilst one stands apart, in a prophetic attitude, and declaims to the accompaniment of a flute. Of the precise origin of the employment of Public Wailers, or Praeficae, not much has been ascertained. One distinguished writer on folk-lore suggests that it had its rise not in any lack of consideration for the dead, but in the apprehension lest the repose of their ghosts should be disturbed by a display of grief on the part of those who had been nearest and dearest to them in life; and his theory gains support in the abundant evidence forthcoming to attest the existence of a widely-spread notion that the dead are pained, and even annoyed and exasperated, by the tears of their kindred. Traces of this belief are discoverable in Zend and Hindu writings; also amongst the Sclavs, Germans, and Scandinavians--and, to look nearer home, in Ireland and Scotland. On the other hand, it is possible that the business of singing before the dead sprang from the root of well-nigh every trade--that its duties were at first exclusively performed by private persons, and their passing into public hands resulted simply from people finding out that they were executed with less trouble and more efficiency by a professional functionary; a common-place view of the matter which is somewhat borne out by the circumstance, that whenever a member of the family is qualified and disposed to undertake the dirge-singing, there seems to be no prejudice against her doing so. It is often far from easy to determine whether such or such a death-song was composed by a hired praefica who for the time being assumed the character of one of the dead man's relatives, or by the latter speaking in her own person.

In Corsica, the wailing and chanting are kept up, off and on, from the hour of death to the hour of burial. The news that the head of a family has expired is quickly communicated to his relations and friends in the surrounding hamlets, who hasten to form themselves into a troop or band locally called the Scirrata, and thus advance in procession towards the house of mourning. If the death was caused by violence, the scirrata makes a halt when it arrives in sight of the village; and then it is that the Corsican women tear their hair and scratch their faces till the blood flows--just as do their sisters in Dalmatia and Montenegro. Shortly after this, the scirrata is met by the deceased's fellow-villagers, accompanied by all his near relatives with the exception of the widow, to whose abode the whole party now proceeds with loud cries and lamentations. The widow awaits the scirrata by the door of her house, and, as it draws near, the leader steps forward and throws a black veil over her head to symbolise her widowhood; the term of which must offer a dreary prospect to a woman who has the misfortune to lose her husband while she is still in the prime of life, for public opinion insists that she remain for years in almost total seclusion. The mourners and as many as can enter the room assemble round the body, which lies stretched on a table or plank supported by benches; it is draped in a long mantle, or it is clothed in the dead man's best suit. Now begins the dirge, or Vocero. Two persons will perhaps start off singing together, and in that case the words cannot be distinguished; but more often only one gets up at a time. She will open her song with a quietly-delivered eulogy of the virtues of the dead, and a few pointed allusions to the most important events of his life; but before long she warms to her work, and pours forth volleys of rhythmic lamentation with a fire and animation that stir up the women present into a frenzied delirium of grief, in which, as the praefica pauses to take breath, they howl, dig their nails into their flesh, throw themselves on the ground, and sometimes cover their heads with ashes. When the dirge is ended they join hands and dance frantically round the plank on which the body lies. More singing takes place on the way to the church, and thence to the graveyard. After the funeral the men do not shave for weeks, and the women let their hair go loose and occasionally cut it off at the grave--cutting off the hair being, by the way, a universal sign of female mourning; it was done by the women of ancient Greece, and it is done by the women of India. A good deal of eating and drinking brings the ceremonials to a close. If the bill of fare comes short of that recorded of the funeral feast of Sir John Paston, of Barton, when 1300 eggs, 41 pigs, 40 calves, and 10 nete were but a few of the items--nevertheless the Corsican baked meats fall very heavily upon the pockets of such families as deem themselves compelled to "keep up a position." Sixty persons is not an extraordinary number to be entertained at the banquet, and there is, over and above, a general distribution of bread and meat to poorer neighbours. Mutton in summer, and pork in winter, are esteemed the viands proper to the occasion. In happy contrast to all this lugubrious feasting is the simple cup of milk drunk by each kinsman of the shepherd who dies in the mountains; in which case his body is laid out, like Robin Hood's, in the open air, a green sod under his head, his loins begirt with the pistol belt, his gun at his side, his dog at his feet. Curious are the superstitions of the Corsican shepherds touching death. The dead, they say, call the living in the night time, and he who answers will soon follow them; they believe, too, that, if you listen attentively after dark, you may hear at times the low beating of a drum, which announces that a soul has passed.

A notable section of the voceri treats of that insatiable thirst after vengeance which formerly provided as fruitful a theme to French romancers as it presented a perplexing problem to French legislators. In these dirges we see the vendetta in its true character, as the outgrowth and relic of times when people were, in self-defence, almost coerced into lawlessness through the perpetual miscarriage of constituted justice, and they enable us to better understand the process by which what was at the outset something of the nature of a social necessity, developed into the ruling passion of the race, and led to the frightful abuses that are associated with its name. All that he held sacred in heaven or on earth became bound up in the Corsican's mind with the obligation to avenge the blood of his kindred. Thus he made Hate his deity, and the old inexorable spirit of the Greek _Oresteia_ lived and breathed in him anew, the Furies themselves finding no bad counterpart in the frenzied women who officiated at his funeral rites. As is well known, when no man was to be found to do the deed a woman would often come forward in his stead, and this not only among the lower orders, but in the highest ranks of society. A lady of the noble house of Pozzo di Borgo once donned male attire, and in velvet-tasselled cap, red doublet, high sheepskin boots, with pistol, gun, and dagger for her weapons, started off in search of an assassin at the head of a band of partisans. When he was caught, however, after the guns had been two or three times levelled at his breast, she decided to give him his life. Another fair avenger whose name has come down to us was Maria Felice di Calacuccia, of Niolo. Her vocero may be cited here as affording a good idea of the tone and spirit of the vendetta dirges in general.

"I was spinning at my distaff when I heard a loud noise; it was a gun-shot, it re-echoed in my heart. It seemed to say to me: 'Fly! thy brother dies.' I ran into the upper chamber. As I unlatched the door, 'I am struck to the heart,' he said; and I fell senseless to the ground. If I too died not, it was that one thought sustained me. Whom wouldst thou have to avenge thee? Our mother, nigh to death, or thy sister Maria? If Lario was not dead surely all this would not end without bloodshed. But of so great a race, thou dost only leave thy sister: she has no cousins, she is poor, an orphan, young. Still be at rest--to avenge thee, she suffices!"

A dramatic vocero, dealing with the same subject, is that of the sister of Canino, a renowned brigand, who fell at Nazza in an encounter with the military. She begins by regretting that she has not a voice of thunder wherewith to rehearse his prowess. Alas! one early morning the soldiers ("barbarous set of bandits that they are!") sallied forth on his pursuit, and pounced upon him like wolves upon a lamb. When she heard the bustle of folks going to and fro in the street, she put her head out of window and asked what it was all about. "Thy brother has been slaughtered in the mountains," they reply. Even so it was; his arquebuse was of no use to him; no, nor his dagger, nor his pistol, nor yet his amulet. When they brought him in, and she beheld his wounds, the bitterness of her grief redoubled. Why did he not answer her--did he lack heart to do so? "Canino, heart of thy sister," she cries, "how thou art grown pale! Thou that wert so stalwart and so full of grace, thou who didst appear like unto a nosegay of flowers. Canino, heart of thy sister, they have taken thy life. I will plant a blackthorn in the land of Nazza, that none of our house may henceforth pass that way--for there were not three or four, but seven men against one. Would I could make my bed at the foot of the chestnut tree beneath whose shade they fired upon thy breast. I desire to cast aside these women's skirts, to arm me with poniard, and pistol, and gun, to gird me with the belt and pouch; Canino, heart of thy sister, I desire to avenge thy death." In the lamentations over one Matteo, a doctor who was murdered in 1745, we have an example of the songs improvised along the road to the grave. This time there are plenty of male relatives--brothers, brothers-in-law, and cousins--to accomplish the vendetta. The funeral procession passes through the village where the crime was committed, and one of the inhabitants, perhaps as a peace-offering, invites the whole party to come in and refresh themselves. To this a young girl replies: "We want none of your bread and wine; what we do want is your blood." She invokes a thunderbolt to exterminate every soul in the blood-guilty place. But an aged dame interposes, for a wonder, with milder counsels; she bids her savage sisters calm their wrath: "Is not Matteo in heaven with the Lord? Look at his winding sheet," says she, "and learn from it that Christ dwells above, who teaches forgiveness. The waters are troubled enough already without your goading on your men to violence." It is not unlikely that the Corsicans may have been in the habit, like the Irish, of intentionally parading the coffin of a murdered man past the door of the suspected murderer, in order that they might have a public opportunity of branding the latter with infamy.

Having glanced at these hymns of the avenger, we will turn to the laments expressive of grief unmixed with threats or anger. In these, also, Corsica is very rich. Sometimes it is a wife who deplores her husband struck down by no human hand, but by fever or accident. In one such vocero the widow pathetically crowds epithet on epithet, in the attempt to give words to her affection and her sorrow. "You were my flower, my thornless rose, my stalwart one, my column, my brother, my hope, my prop, my eastern gem, my most beautiful treasure," she says to her lost "Petru Francescu!" She curses fate which in a brief moment has deprived her of her paladin--she prayed so hard that he might be spared, but it was all in vain. He was laid low, the greatly courageous one, who seemed so strong! Is it indeed true, that he, the clever-headed, the handy-handed, will leave his Nunziola all alone? Then she bids Mari, her little daughter, come hither to where papa lies, and beg him to pray God in paradise that she may have a better lot than her little mother. She wishes her eyes may change into two fountains ere she forgets his name; for ever would she call him her Petru Francescu. But most of all she wishes that her heart might break so that her poor little soul could go with his, and quit this treacherous world where is no more joy. The typical keen given in Carleton's _Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry_ is so like Nunziola's vocero, that in parts it might be taken for a translation of it. Sometimes it is a plaint of a mother whose child has met the fate of those "whom the gods love." That saying about the gods has its equivalent in the Corsican lines:

Chi nasci pe u paradisu A stu mondu un po' imbecchia,

which occur in the lament of La Dariola Danesi, of Zuani, who mourns her sixteen-year-old daughter Romana. Decked in feast-day raiment the damsel sleeps in the rest of death, after all her sufferings. Her sweet face has lost its hues of red and white; it is like a gone-out sun. Romana was the fairest of all the young girls, a rose among flowers; the youths of the country round were consumed by love of her, but in her presence they were filled with decorous respect. She was courteous to all, familiar with none; in church everybody gazed at her, but she looked at no one; and the minute mass was over she would say: "Mamma, let us go." Never can the mother be consoled, albeit she knows her darling fares well up there in heaven where all things smile and are glad. Of a surety this earth was not worthy to contain so fair a face. "Ah! how much more beautiful Paradise will be now she is in it!" cries the voceratrice, with the sublime audacity of maternal love. In another dirge we have pictured a troop of girls coming early to the house of Maria, their young companion, to escort her to the Church of St Elia: for this morning the father of her betrothed has settled the marriage portion, and it is seemly that she should hear mass, and make an offering of wax tapers. But the maiden's mother comes forth to tell the gladsome band that to-day's offering to St Elia is not of waxen tapers; it is a peerless flower, a bouquet adorned with ribands--surely the saint will be well pleased with such a fine gift! For the bride elect lies dead; who will now profit by her possessions--the twelve mattresses, the twenty-four lambs? "I will pray the Virgin," says the mother, "I will pray my God that I may go hence this morning, pressing my flower to my heart." The playfellows bathe Maria's face with tears: sees she not those who loved her? Will she leave them in their sadness? One runs to pluck flowers, a second to gather roses; they twine her a garland, a bridal crown--will she depart all the same, lying upon her bier? But, after all, why should there be all this grief? "To-day little Maria becomes the spouse of the Lord; with what honour will she not be greeted in paradise!" Alas for broken hearts! they were never yet healed by that line of argument. Up the street steals the chilling sound of the funeral chant, _Ora pro ea_. They are come to bear the maiden to St Elia's Church; the mother sinks to the ground; fain would she follow the body to the grave, but she faints with sorrow; only her streaming tears can pay the tribute of her love.

It will be observed that it is usual for the survivors to be held up as objects of pity rather than the dead, who are generally regarded as well off; but now and then we come across less optimist presages of the future life. A woman named Maddele complains that they have taken her blonde daughter, her snow-white dove, her "Chili, cara di Mamma," to the worst possible of places, where no sun penetrates, and no fire is lit.

Sometimes to a young girl is assigned the task of bewailing her playmate. "This morning my companion is all adorned," begins a maiden dirge-singer; "one would think she was going to be married." But the ceremony about to take place differs sadly from that other. The bell tolls slowly, the cross and banner arrive at the door; the dead companion is setting out on a long journey, she is going to find their ancestors--the voceratrice's father, and her uncle the cure--in the land whither each one must go in his turn and remain for ever. Since she has made up her mind thus to change country and climate (though it be all too soon, for she has not yet done growing), will she at any rate listen for an instant to her friend of other days? She wishes to give her a little letter to carry to her father; and, besides the letter, she would like her to take him a message, and give him news of the family he left so young, all weeping round his hearth. She is to tell him that all goes well; that his eldest daughter is married and has a boy, a flowering lily, who already knows his father, and points at him with his finger. The boy is called after the grandpapa, and old friends declare him to be his very image. To the cure she is to say that his flock flourish and do not forget him. Now the priest enters, bringing the holy water; everyone lifts his hat; they bear the body away: "Go to heaven, dear; the Lord awaits you."

It is hardly necessary to add that the voceri of Corsica are without exception composed in the native speech of the country, which the accomplished scholar, lexicographer, and poet, Niccolo Tommaseo, spoke of with perfect truth as one of "the most Italian of the dialects of Italy." The time may come when the people will renounce their own language in favour of the idiom of their rulers, but it has not come yet; nor do they show much disposition to abandon their old usages, as may be guessed from the fact that even in their Gallicanised capital the dead are considered slighted if the due amount of wailing is left undone.

The Sardinian Attitido--a word which has been thought to have some connection with the Greek [Greek: ototoi], and the Latin _atat_--is made on exactly the same pattern as the Corsican vocero. I have been told on trustworthy authority that in some districts in the island the keening over a married man is performed not by a dirge-singer but by his own children, who chant a string of homely sentences, such as: "Why art thou dead, papa? Thou didst not want for bread or wine!" A practice may here be mentioned which recalls the milk and honey and nuts of the Roman Inferiae, and which, so far as I am aware, lingers on nowhere excepting Sardinia; the attidora whilst she sings, scatters on the bier handfuls of almonds or--if the family is well-to-do--of sweetmeats, to be subsequently buried with the body.

Very few specimens of the attitido have found their way into print; but amongst these few, in Canon Spano's _Canti popolari Tempiesi_, there is one that is highly interesting. Doubts have been raised as to whether the bulk of the songs in Canon Spano's collection are of purely illiterate origin; but even if the author of the dirge to which I allude was guilty of that heinous offence in the eyes of the strict folk-lore gleaner--the knowledge of the alphabet--it must still be judged a remarkable production. The attidora laments the death of a much-beloved bishop:--

"It was the pleasure of this good father, this gentle pastor," she says, "at all hours to nourish his flock; to the bread of the soul he joined the bread of the body. Was the wife naked, her sons starving and destitute? He laboured unceasingly to console them all. The one he clothed, the others he fed. None can tell the number of the poor whom he succoured. The naked came to him that they might be clothed, the hungry came to him that they might be fed, and all went their way comforted. How many had suffered hunger in the winter's cold, had not his tender heart proffered them help! It was a grand sight to behold so many poor gathered together in his house--above, below, they were so numerous there was no room to pass. And these were the comers of every day. I do not count those to whom once a month he supplied the needful food, nor yet those other poor to whose necessities he ministered in secret. By the needy rogue he let himself be deceived with shut eyes: he recognised the fraud, but he esteemed it gain so to lose. Ah, dear father, father to us all, I ought not to weep for thee! I mourn our common bereavement, for thy death this day has been a blow to all of us, even to the strongest men."

It would be hard to conceive a more lovely portrait of the Christian priest; it is scarcely surpassed by that of Monseigneur Bienvenu in _Les Miserables_, of whose conduct in the matter of the silver candlesticks we are not a little reminded by the good Sardinian bishop's compassion for the needy rogue. Neither the one nor the other realises an ideal which would win the unconditional approval of the Charity Organisation Society, and we must perhaps admit that humane proclivities which indirectly encourage swindling are more a mischief than an advantage to the State. Yet who can be insensible to the beauty of this unconquerable pity for the evil-doer, this charity that believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things? Who can say how much it has done to make society possible, to keep the world on its wheels? It is the bond that binds together all religions. Six thousand years ago the ancient Egyptian dirge-singers chanted before their dead: "There is no fault in him. No answer riseth up against him. In the truth he liveth, with the truth he nourisheth himself. The gods are satisfied with all he hath done.... He succoured the afflicted, he gave bread to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, he sheltered the outcast, his doors were open to the stranger, he was a father to the fatherless."

The part of France where dirge-singing stayed the longest seems to have been the south-west. The old women of Gascony still preserve the memory of a good many songs, some of which have been fortunately placed on record by M. Blade in his collection of Gascon folk-lore. The Gascon dirge is a kind of prose recitative made up of distinct exclamations that fall into irregular strophes. Each has a burden of this description:

Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Praube! Ah! Praube! Moun Diu! Moun Diu! Moun Diu!

The wife mourns for the loss of "Praube Jan;" when she was a young girl she loved only him. "No, no! I will not have it! I will not have them take thee to the graveyard!" "What will become of us?" asks the daughter; "my poor mother is infirm, my brothers and sisters are too small; there is only me to rule the house." The mother bewails her boy: "Poor little one! I loved thee so much, thou wert so pretty, thou wert so good. Thou didst work so well; all I bid thee do, thou didst; all I told thee, didst thou believe; thou wert very young, yet already didst thou earn thy bread. Poor little one, thou art dead; they carry thee to the grave, with the cross going before. They put thee into the earth.... Poor little one, I shall see thee no more; never! never! never! Thou goest and I stay. My God! thou wilt be very lonely in the graveyard this night; and I, I shall weep at home."

If we transport ourselves to the government of Olonetz, we discover the first cousin of the Corsican voceratrice in the Russian Voplenitsa ("the sobbing one"). But the jurisdiction of this functionary is of wider extent; she is mistress of the ceremonies at marriages as well as at funerals, and in both cases either improvises new songs or adapts old ones. Mr Ralston has familiarised English readers with some excellent samples of the Russian neniae in his work on the _Songs of the Russian People_. In Montenegro dirge-singing survives in its most primitive form. During the war of 1877 there were frequent opportunities of observing it. One such occurred at Ostrog. A wounded man arrived at that place, which was made a sort of hospital station, with his father and mother, his sisters and a brother. Another brother and a cousin had fallen by his side in the last fight--the Montenegrins have always gone into battle in families--and the women had their faces covered with scratches, self-inflicted in their mourning for these kindred. The man was young, lively, and courageous; he might have got well but there were no surgical instruments to extract the ball in his back, and so in a day or two he was dead. At three in the morning the women began shrieking in spite of the orders given by the doctors in the interest of the other wounded; the noise was horrible, and no sooner were they driven away than they came back and renewed it. The Prince, who has tried to put down the custom as barbarous, was quartered at Ostrog, and he succeeded in having the wailers quieted for a moment, but when the body was borne to the cemetery the uproar began again. The women beat their breasts, scratched their faces, and screamed at a pitch that could be heard a mile off. It is usual to return to the house where the person died--they made their way therefore back into the hospital (the Prince being absent), and it was only after immense efforts on the part of the sisters of charity and those who were in authority that they were expelled. Then they seated themselves in the courtyard, and continued beating their breasts and reciting their death-song. An eyewitness of the scene described the dirge as a monotonous chant. One of the dead man's sisters had worked herself up into a state of hysterical frenzy, in which she seemed to have lost all control over her words and

## actions; she led the dirge, and her rhythmic ejaculations flowed forth

as if she had no power to contain them. The father and brother went to salute the Prince the day after the funeral; the old man appeared to be extremely cheerful, but was doggedly inattentive to the advice to go home and fight no more, as his family had suffered enough losses. He had a son of ten, he said, who could accompany him now as there was a gun to spare, which before had not been the case. He wished he had ten sons to bring them all to fight the Turks.

The Sclavs are everywhere very strict in all that regards the cult of the dead, and the observances which have to be gone through by Russians who have lost friends or relations are by no means confined to the date of death and burial. Even when they have experienced no personal loss, they are still thought called upon to visit the cemeteries on the second Tuesday after Easter, and howl lustily over the tombs of their ancestors. Nor would it be held sufficient to strew flowers upon the graves, as is done on the Catholic All Souls' day; the most orthodox ghosts want something more substantial, and libations of beer and spirits are poured over their resting-places. Furthermore, disagreeable consequences have been said to result upon an omission of like marks of respect due to "the rude forefathers of the hamlet;" there is no making sure that a highly estimable individual will not, when thus incensed, re-enter an appearance on life's stage in the shape of a vampire. A small volume might be written on the preventive measures adopted to procure immunity from such-like visitations. The people of Havellend and Altmark put a small coin into the mouths of the dead in the hope that, so appeased, they will not assume vampire form; but this time the superstition, like a vast number of others, is clearly a later invention to explain a custom, the original significance of which is forgotten. The peasants of Roumelia also place pieces of money in the coffins, not as an insurance against vampires--who they think may be best avoided by burning instead of burying the mortal remains of any person they credit with the prospect of becoming one--but to pay the entrance fee into Paradise; a more authentic version of the old fable. The setting apart of a day, fixed by the Church or varying according to private anniversaries, for the special commemoration of the dead, is a world-wide custom.

If, as Mr Herbert Spencer thinks, the rudimentary form of all religion is the propitiation of dead ancestors who are supposed still to exist, some kind of _fete des morts_ was probably the oldest of religious feasts. A theory has been started, to the effect that the time of its appointment has been widely influenced by the rising of the Pleiades, in support of which is cited the curious fact that the Australians and Society Islanders keep the celebration in November, though with them November is a spring month. But this may be no more than a coincidence. In ancient Rome, in Russia, in China, the tendency has been to commemorate the dead in the season of resurrection.

The Letts and Esthonians observe the Feast of Souls, by spreading a banquet of which they suppose their spirit relatives to partake; they put torches on the graves to light the ghosts to the repast, and they imagine every sound they hear through the day to be caused by the movements of the invisible guests. Both these people celebrate death-watches with much singing and drinking, the Esthonians addressing long speeches to the dead, and asking him why he did not stay longer, if his puddro (gruel) was not to his taste, &c., precisely after the style of the keeners of less remote parts. In some countries the entire system of life would seem to be planned and organised mainly with a view to honouring the dead. In Albania, for example, one of the foremost objects pursued by the peasantry is that of marrying their daughters near home; not so much from any affectionate unwillingness to part with them, as in order to secure their attendance at the _vai_ or lamentations which take place on the death of a member of the family; and so rigorous are the mourning regulations, that even married women who have lost their fathers remain year after year shut up in houses deprived of light and draped in black--they may not even go out to church. The Albanian keens are not always versified; they sometimes consist simply in the endless reiteration of a single phrase. M. Auguste Dozon reports that he was at one time constantly hearing "les hurlements" of a poor Mussulman widow who bewailed two sons; on certain anniversaries she took their clothes out of a chest, and, placing them before her, she repeated, without intermission, [Greek: Chalasia mon]. The Greeks have the somewhat analogous practice, on the recurrence of the death-days of their dear ones, of putting their lips close to the graves and whispering to their silent tenants that they still love them.

The near relations in Greece leave their dwelling, as soon as they have closed the eyes of the dead, to take refuge in the house of a friend, with whom they sojourn till the more distant connections have had time to arrive, and the body is dressed in holiday gear. Then they return, clothe themselves in white dresses, and take up their position beside the bier. After some inarticulate wailing, which is strenuously echoed back by the neighbours, the dirge is sung, the chief female mourner usually leading off, and whosoever feels disposed following wake. When the body is lowered into the earth, the best-beloved of the dead--his mother or perhaps his betrothed--stoops down to the ground and imploringly utters his name, together with the word "Come!" On his making no reply, he is declared to be indeed dead, and the grave is closed.[1] The usage points to a probability that all the exhortations to awaken and to return with which the dirges of every nation are interlarded are remnants of ancient makeshifts for a medical certificate of death; and we may fancy with what breathless excitement these apostrophes were spoken in former days when they were accompanied by an actual, if faint, expectation that they would be heard and answered. It is conceivable that the complete system of making as much noise as possible at funerals may be derived from some sort of notion that the uproar would wake the dead if he were not dead at all, but sleeping. As elsewhere, so in Greece, the men take no part in the proceedings beyond bidding one last farewell just before they retire from the scene. Praeficae are still employed now and then; but the art of improvisation seems to be the natural birthright of Greek peasant women, nor do they require the inspiration of strong grief to call their poetic gifts into operation; it is stated to be no unusual thing to hear a girl stringing elegies over some lamb, or bird, or flower, which may have died, while she works in the fields. The Greeks send communications and even flowers by the dead to the dead: "Now is the time," the folk-poet makes one say whose body is about to be buried, "for you to give me any messages or commissions; and if your grief is too poignant for utterance, write it down on paper and bring me the letter." The Greek neniae are marked by great vigour and variety of imagery as is apparent in the subjoined extract from the dirge of a poor young country-woman who was left a widow with two children:--

"The other day I beheld at our threshold a youth of lofty stature and threatening mien; he had out-stretched wings of gleaming white, and in his hand was a sword. 'Woman, is thy husband in the house?' 'Yes; he combs our Nicos' hair, and caresses him so he may not cry. Go not in, terrible youth; do not frighten our babe.' The white-winged would not listen; I tried to drive him back, but I could not; he darted past me, and ran to thy side, O my beloved. Hapless one, he smote thee; and here is thy little son, thy tiny Nicos, whom likewise he was fain to strike." ...

So vivid was the impression created by the woman's fantasy that some of the spectators looked towards the door, half expecting the white-winged visitant to advance in their midst; others turned to the child, huddled by his mother's knees. She, coming down from flights of imagination to the bitter realities of her condition, exclaimed, as she flung herself sobbing upon the bier: "How can I maintain the children? How will they be able to live? What will they not suffer in the contrast between the rough lot in store for them and the tender care which guarded them in the happy days when their father lived?" At last, worn out by the force of her emotions, she sank senseless to the floor. The laments of widows, which are very rare in some localities, are often to be met with in Greece. In one of them we come upon an original idea respecting the requirements of spirits: the singer prays that her tears may swell into a lake or a sea, so they may trickle through the earth to the nether regions, to moisten those who get no rain, to be drink to those who thirst, and--to fill up the dry inkstands of the writers! "Then will they be able to chronicle the chagrins of the loved ones who cross the river, taste its wave, and forget their homes and their poor orphans." Every species of Grecian peasant-song abounds in classical reminiscences, which are easy to identify, although they betray some mental confusion of the attributes and functions belonging to the personages of antiquity. Of all the early myths, that of the Stygian ferryman is the one which has shown greatest longevity. Far from falling into oblivion, the son of Erebus has gone on diligently accumulating honours till he has managed to get the arbitrament of life and death into his power, and to enlist the birds of the air as a staff of spies, to give him prompt information should any unlucky individual refer to him in a tone of mockery or defiance. Perhaps this is not development but reversion. Charon may have been a great Infernal deity before he was a boatman. The Charun of the Etruscans could destroy life and torment the guilty--the office of conducting shades to the other world forming only one part of his duties.

The opinion of Achilles, that it was better to be a slave amongst men than a king over ghosts, is very much that which prevails in the Greece of to-day. Visions of a Christian paradise above the skies have much less hold on the popular mind than dread of a pagan Tartarus under the earth; and that full conviction that after all it was a very bad thing to die, that tendency to attach a paramount value to life, _per se_, and _quand meme_, which constituted so significant a feature of the old Greeks, is equally characteristic of their modern representatives. The next world of the Romaic songs is far from being a place "where all smiles and is glad;" the forebodings of the Corsican's Chilina's mother are common enough here in Greece. "Rejoice in the present world, rejoice in the passing day," runs a [Greek: myrologion], quoted by Fauriel; "to-morrow you will be under the sod, and will behold the day no more." Down in Tartarus youths and maidens spend their time dismally in asking if there be yet an earth and a sky up above. Are there still churches and golden icons? Do people continue to work at their several trades? "Blessed are the mountains and the pastures," it is said, "where we meet not Charon." The parents of a dying girl ask of her why she is resolved to hasten into the other world where the cock crows not, and the hen clucks not; where there is no water and no grass, and where the hungry find it impossible to eat, and the tired are incapable of sleep. Why is she not content to abide at home? The girl replies she cannot, for yesterday, in the late evening, she was married, and her consort is the tomb. That is the peasant elegist's way of speaking of a sudden death, caused very likely by the chill of nightfall. Of another damsel, who succumbed to a long illness, "who had suffered as none before suffered under the sun," he narrates how she pressed her father's hand to her heart, saying: "Alas! my father, I am about to die." She clasped her mother's hand to her breast, saying: "Alas! my mother, I am about to die." Then she sent for her betrothed, and she bent over him and kissed him, and whispered softly into his ear: "Oh, my friend, when I am dead deck my grave as you would have decked my nuptial bed." We find in Greek poesy the universal legend of the lover who kills himself on hearing of the death of his mistress; but, as a rule, the regret of survivors is depicted as neither desperate nor durable. Long ago, three gallant youths plotted together to contrive an escape from Hades, and a fair-haired maiden prayed that they would take her with them; she did so wish to see her mother mourning her loss, her brothers weeping because she is no more. They answered: "As to thy brothers, poor girl, they are dancing, and thy mother diverts herself with gossiping in the street." The mournfully beautiful music that Schubert wedded to Claudius's little poem _Der Tod und das Maedchen_ might serve as melodious expression to many a one of these Grecian lays of dead damsels. Death will not halt because he hears a voice crying: "Tarry, I am still so young!" The future is as irrevocably fixed as the past; and if fate deals hardly by mortals, there is nothing to fall back upon but the sorry resignation of despair; such is the sombre folk philosophy of the land of eternal summer. Perhaps it is the very brightness of the sky and air that makes the quitting of this mortal coil so unspeakably grievous. The most horribly painful idea associated with death in the mind of the modern as of the ancient Greek is the idea of darkness, of separation from what Dante, yet more Greek than Italian in his passionate sun-worship, describes in a line which seems somehow to hold incarnate the thing it tells of--

... l'aer dolce che dal sol s'allegra.

It is worth noting that, whether the view entertained of immortality be cheerful or the reverse, in the songs of Western nations the disembodied soul is universally taken to be the exact duplicate of the creature of flesh and blood, in wants, tastes, and semblance. The European folk-singer could no more grasp a metaphysical conception of the eternity of spirit, such as that implied in the grand Indian dirge which craves everlasting good for the "unborn part" in man, than he would know what to make of the scientific theory of the indestructibility of matter shadowed forth in the ordinary Sanskrit periphrases for death, signifying "the resolution of the body into its five elementary constituents."

Among the Greek-speaking inhabitants of Southern Italy a peculiar metre is set apart to the composition of the neniae, and the office of public wailer is transmitted from mother to daughter; so that the living praeficae are the lineal descendants of the praeficae who lived of old in the Grecian Motherland. Unrivalled in the matter of her improvisations as in the manner of their delivery, the hereditary dirge-singer no doubt, like a good actress, keenly realises at the moment the sorrow not her own, of which she undertakes the interpretation in return for a trifling gratuity, and to her hearers she appears as the genius or high priestess of woe: she excites them into a whirlwind of ecstatic paroxysms not greatly differing from kindred phenomena vouched for by the historians of religious mysticism. There are, however, one or two of the Graeco-Italic death-songs which bear too clear and touching a stamp of sincerity for us to attribute them even to the most skilled of hired "sobbing ones." There is no savour of vicarious mourning in the plaint of the desolate girl, who says to her dead mother that she will wait for her, so that she may tell her how she has passed the day: at eight she will await her, and if she does not come she will begin to weep; at nine she will await her, and if she comes not she will grow black as soot; at ten she will await her, and if she does not come at ten she will turn to earth, to earth that may be sown in. And it is difficult to believe that aught save the anguish of a mother's broken heart could have quickened the senses of an ignorant peasant to the tragic intensity of the following lament:

Now they have buried thee, my little one, Who will make thy little bed? Black Death will make it for me For a very long night. Who will arrange thy pillows, So thou mayst sleep softly? Black Death will arrange them for me With hard stones. Who will awake thee, my daughter, When day is up? Down here it is always sleep, Always dark night. This my daughter was fair. When I went (with her) to high mass, The columns shone, The way grew bright.

The neniae of Terra d'Otranto and of Calabria are not uncommonly composed in a semi-dramatic form. Professor Comparetti cites one, in which the friend of a dead girl is represented as going to pay her a visit, in ignorance of the misfortune that has happened. She sees a crowd at the door, and she exclaims: "How many folks are in thy house! they come from all the neighbourhood; they are bidden by thy mother, who shows thee the bridal array!" But on crossing the threshold she finds that the shutters are closed: "Alas!" she cries, "I deceive myself--I enter into darkness." Again she repeats: "How many folks are in thy house! All Corigliano is there." The mother says: "My daughter has bidden them by the tolling of the bell." Then the daughter is made to ask: "What ails thee, what ails thee, my mother? wherefore dost thou rend thy hair?" The mother rejoins: "I think of thee, my daughter, of how thou liest down in darkness." "What ails thee, what ails thee, my mother, that all around one can hear thee wailing?" "I think of thee, my daughter, of how thou art turned black as soot." A sort of chorus is appended: "All, all the mothers weep and rend their hair: let them weep, the poor mothers who lose their children." Here are the last four lines as they were originally set on paper:

Ole sole i mane i cluene Isirnune anapota ta maddia, Afi na clapsune tio mane misere Pu ichannune ta pedia!

Professor Comparetti has shaped them into looking more like Greek:

[Greek: Olais, holais e manai eklaioune Esyrnoune anapoda ta mallia Aphese na klapsoune tais manais] _misere_ [Greek: Pou echanoune ta paidia!]

In his "Tour through the Southern Provinces of the Kingdom of Naples," the Hon. R. Keppel Craven gave an account of a funeral at Corigliano. The deceased, a stout, swarthy man of about fifty, had been fond of field sports; he was, therefore, laid on his open bier in the dress of a hunter. When the procession passed the house of a friend of the dead man, it halted as a mark of respect, and the friend got up from his dinner and looked out for a few minutes, afterwards philosophically returning to the interrupted meal. The busy people in the street, carpenters, blacksmiths, cobblers, and fruitsellers, paused from their several occupations--all carried on, as usual, in the open air, when the dismal chant of the priests announced the approach of the funeral, resuming them with redoubled energy as soon as it had moved on. A group of weeping women led the widow, whose face was pale and motionless as a statue; her black tresses descended to her knees, and at regular intervals she pulled out two or three hairs--the women instantly taking hold of her hands and replacing them by her side, where they hung till the operation was next repeated.

The practice of plucking out the hair was so general in the last century that even at Naples the old women had hardly a hair left from out-living many relations. It was proper also to observe the day of burial as a fast day. Two unlucky women near Salerno lost their characters for ever because the dog of a visitor who had come to condole, sniffed out a dish of tripe which had been hastily thrust into a corner.

The Italian, or rather Calabrese-speaking population of Calabria, call their preficae--where they still have any--_Reputatrici_. Some remarkable songs have been collected in the commune of Pizzo, the place of dubious fame by whose peasants Murat was caught and betrayed. There is something Dantesque in the image of Death as _'nu gran levreri_ crouching in a mountain defile:

Joy, I saw death; Joy, I saw her yesterday; I beheld her in a narrow way, like unto a great greyhound, and I was very curious. "Death, whence comest thou?" "I am come from Germany, going thence to Count Roger. I have killed princes, counts, and cavaliers; and now I am come for a young maiden so that with me she may go".

Weep, mamma, weep for me, weep and never rest; weep for me Sunday, Easter, and Christmas Day; for no more wilt thou see thy daughter sit down at thy board to eat, and no more shalt thou await me.

One conclusion forced upon us incidentally by folk-dirges must seem strange when we remember how few are the cultured poetesses who have attained eminence--to wit, that with the unlettered multitude the poetic faculty is equally the property of women as of men.

In various parts of Italy the funerals of the poor are conducted exclusively by those of like sex with the dead--a custom of which I first took note at Varese in the year 1879. The funeral procession came up slowly by the shady paths near the lake; long before it appeared one could hear the sound of shrill voices chanting a litany. When it got near to the little church of S. Vittore, it was seen that only women followed the bier, which was carried by women. "Una povera donna morta in parto," said a peasant standing by, as she pointed to the coffin with a gesture of sympathy. The mourners had black shawls thrown over their heads and bore tapers. A sight yet stranger to unaccustomed eyes is the funeral of a child at Spezia. A number of little girls, none older than eleven or twelve, some as young as five, carry the small coffin to the cemetery. Some of the children hold candles; they are nicely dressed in their best frocks; the sun plays on their bare black or golden curls. They have the little serious look of children engaged in some business of work or play, but no look of gloom or sadness. The coffin is covered with a white pall on which lies a large nosegay. No priests or elder persons are there except one man, walking apart, who has to see that the children go the right way. About twenty children is the average number, but there may be sometimes a hundred. When they return, running across the grass between the road and the sea-wall, they tumble over one another in the scramble to snatch daisies from the ground.

It is still common in Lombardy to ring the bells _d'allegrezza_ on the death of an infant, "because its soul goes straight to Paradise." This way of ringing, or, rather, chiming, consists in striking the bell with a clapper held in the hand, when a light, dancing sound is produced, something like that of hand-bells. On a high _festa_ all the bells are used; for dead babies, only two. I have often heard the sad message sounding gaily from the belfry at Salo.

Were I sure that all these songs of the Last Parting would have for others the same interest that they have had for me, I should be tempted to add a study dedicated solely to the dirges of savage nations and of those nations whose civilization has not followed the same course as ours. I must, at all events, indicate the wonderfully strange and wild Polynesian "Death-talks" and "Evas" (dirges proper) collected by the Rev. W. W. Gill. The South Pacific Islanders say of the dying, "he is passing over the sea." Their dead set out in a canoe on a long and perilous voyage to the regions of the sun-setting. When they get there, alas!--when they reach the mysterious spirit-land, a horrid doom awaits them: children and old men and women--all, in short, who have not died in battle, are devoured by a dreadful deity, and perish for ever. But this fate does not overtake them immediately; for a time they remain in a shadowy intermediate state till their turn comes. The spirit-journey is described in a dirge for two little children, composed by their father about the year 1796:

"Thy god,[2] pet-child, is a bad one; For thy body is attenuated; This wasting sickness must end thy days. Thy form, once so plump, now how changed! Ah! that god, that bad god! Inexpressibly bad, my child!

* * * * *

Thou hast entered the expanse; And wilt visit 'the land of red parrot feathers,' Where O[=a]rangi was once a guest. Thou feedest now on ocean spray, And sippest fresh water out of the rocks, Travelling over rugged cliffs, To the music of murmuring billows. Thy exile spirit is overtaken By darkness at the ocean's edge. Fourapapa[3] there sleeps. All three[4] Stood awhile to gaze wistfully At the glories of the setting sun."

There is much more, but this is perhaps sufficient to show the

## particular note struck.

I will give, in its entirety, one more dirge--the death-chant of the tribe of Badagas, in the Neilgherry Hills--because it is unique, so far as I know, in reversing the rule _de mortius_, and in charging, instead, the dead man with every sin, to make sure that none are omitted of which he is actually guilty. It is accompanied by a singular ceremony. An unblemished buffalo-calf is led into the midst of the mourners, and as after each verse they catch up and repeat the refrain, "It is a sin!" the performer of the dirge lays his hand upon the calf, to which the guilt is transferred. At the end the calf is let loose; like the Jewish scape-goat, it must be used for no secular work; it bears the sins of a human being, and is sacred till death. The English version is by Mr C. E. Gover, who has done so much for the preservation of South-Indian folk-songs.

INVOCATION.

In the presence of the great Bassava, Who sprang from Banige the holy cow.

The dead has sinned a thousand times. E'en all the thirteen hundred sins That can be done by mortal men May stain the soul that fled to-day. Stay not their flight to God's pure feet. Chorus--Stay not their flight.

He killed the crawling snake Chorus--It is a sin.

The creeping lizard slew. It is a sin.

Also the harmless frog. It is a sin. Of brothers he told tales. It is a sin. The landmark stone he moved. It is a sin. Called in the Sircar's aid.[5] It is a sin. Put poison in the milk. It is a sin. To strangers straying on the hills, He offered aid but guided wrong. It is a sin. His sister's tender love he spurned And showed his teeth to her in rage. It is a sin. He dared to drain the pendent teats Of holy cow in sacred fold. It is a sin. The glorious sun shone warm and bright He turned its back towards its beams.[6] It is a sin. Ere drinking from the babbling brook, He made no bow of gratitude. It is a sin. His envy rose against the man Who owned a fruitful buffalo. It is a sin. He bound with cords and made to plough The budding ox too young to work. It is a sin. While yet his wife dwelt in his house He lusted for a younger bride. It is a sin. The hungry begged--he gave no meat, The cold asked warmth--he lent no fire. It is a sin. He turned relations from his door, Yet asked unworthy strangers home. It is a sin. The weak and poor called for his aid, He gave no alms, denied their woe. It is a sin. When caught by thorns, in useless rage He tore his cloth from side to side. It is a sin. The father of his wife sat on the floor Yet he reclined on bench or couch. It is a sin. He cut the bund around a tank, Set free the living water's store. It is a sin.

What though he sinned so much, Or that his parents sinned? What though the sins' long score Was thirteen hundred crimes? O let them every one, Fly swift to Bas'va's feet. Chorus--Fly swift.

The chamber dark of death Shall open to his soul. The sea shall rise in waves; Surround on every side, But yet that awful bridge No thicker than a thread, Shall stand both firm and strong. The dragon's yawning mouth Is shut--it brings no fear. The palaces of heaven Throw open wide their doors. Chorus--Open wide their doors.

The thorny path is steep, Yet shall his soul go safe. The silver pillar stands So near--he touches it. He may approach the wall The golden wall of heaven. The burning pillar's flame Shall have no heat for him. Chorus--Shall have no heat.

Oh let us never doubt That all his sins are gone, That Bassava forgives. May it be well with him! Chorus--May it be well! Let all be well with him! Chorus--Let all be well.

Surely an impressive burial service to have been found in use amongst a poor little obscure tribe of Indian mountaineers!

It cannot be said that this moral attitude is often reached. Research into funeral rites, of whatever nature, confronts us with much that would be ludicrous were it not so very pitiful, for humanity has displayed a fatal tendency to rush into the committal of ghastly absurdities by way of showing the most sacred kind of grief. Yet, take them all in all, the death laments of the people form a striking and beautiful manifestation of such homage as "Life may give for love to death."

[Footnote 1: "Calling the dead" was without doubt once general amongst all classes--which may be true of all the customs that we are now inclined to associate with only the very poor. In the striking mediaeval ceremonial performed at the entombment of King Alfonso in the vault at the Escurial, the final act was that of the Lord Chamberlain, who unlocked the coffin, and in the midst of profound silence shouted into the king's ear, "Senor, Senor, Senor." After which he rose, saying, "His majesty does not answer. Then it is true the king is dead."]

[Footnote 2: The child's "personal fate."]

[Footnote 3: The brother.]

[Footnote 4: A little sister had died before.]

[Footnote 5: He had recourse to the Rajahs, whose courts under the old regime, had become a byeword for oppression and corruption.]

[Footnote 6: Compare _Inferno_, Canto vii.]

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Symonds, T. Addington. Sketches in Italy and Greece.

(Popular Songs of Tuscany.) 1874.

Thorpe, B. Northern Mythology. 1851.

Tigri, G. Canti Popolari Toscani. Terza ediz. 1869.

Tommaseo, N. Canti Popolari Toscani, Corsi, Illirici, Greci. 1841.

TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.

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Transcriber's Note:

This book contains some dialect and/or older grammatical constructions, some old French (and bits of other languages), which have all been retained.

For example:

Footnote 2, Page l (from p. xvii): "Sire cuens," ... "C'est vilanie;" ('T was villany:) ... "Ma feme ne me rit mie." ... "Vez com vostre male plie, Ele est bien de vent farsie." ... Deux chapons por deporter A la sause aillie; etc.

Page 20: 'the girl leaning out of window to tell her piece of news' is as printed. The transcriber does not know if 'a window' or 'the window' or just 'window' was intended.

Page 24: 'Nella' would be the genitive of 'Nello'. In some European languages, the Proper nouns are also declined. ["... it is Count Nello, my father, he who fain would wed me." "Who speaks of Count Nella...."]

Page 145: "E te' cca 'na timpulata!" occurs in another document as: "E te 'cca 'na timpulata!", and in another as "E te' 'cca 'na timpulata!"

Many French accents are missing from the English text, e.g. Page 181: "Mistral ... paints the Provence of the valley of the Rhone, ..."

Page 335: 'compact' is correct; = 'agreement'. (Apparently she took the advice and kept the compact)

Page 348: "nni" in "Lu me rifugiu nni la sorti orrenna," is as printed. It may not be an error.

This book also contains some Greek words, and passages of Greek. which have been transliterated into Latin text, e.g. [Greek: nenitos]

Errata:

Sundry damaged or missing punctuation has been repaired.

Page 62: 'portait' corrected to 'portrait'. (he might at least possess his portrait).

Page 84: 'befel' corrected to 'befell'. (the fate that befell a French professorship of Armenian)

Page 172: 'hushand' corrected to 'husband'. (and shortly after her husband had extricated her she became a mother).

Page 226: 'daugher' corrected to 'daughter'. ("And a cup of poison, my daughter.")

Page 335: 'compact' is correct. = 'agreement'. (Apparently she took the advice and kept the compact,)

Page 335: n[~i]na corrected to nina. (A dormir va mi nina).

Page 337: "wee Willie Winkile" corrected to "wee Willie Winkie" ("wee Willie Winkie" who runs upstairs and downstairs in his nightgown:)

Page 341: 'cardle' corrected to 'cradle'. (aunt has taken baby from his cradle)

Page 343: 'The' corrected to 'They'. (They are often called "certi signuri,")