Part 12

The serenades and aubades are among the most delicate and elegant of all the _canzuni d'amuri_; this is one, which contains a favourite fancy of peasant lovers:

Life of my life, who art my spirit and soul, By no suspicions be nor doubts oppressed, Love me, and scorn false jealousy's control-- I not a thousand hearts have in my breast, I had but one, and gave to thee the whole. Come then and see, if thou the truth wouldst test, Instead of my own heart, my love, my soul, Thou wilt thine image find within my breast!

Another poet treats somewhat the same idea in a drolly realistic way--

Last night I dreamt we both were dead, And, love! beside each other laid. Doctors and Surgeons filled the place To make autopsy of the case-- Knives, scissors, saws, with eager zest Of each laid open wide the breast:-- Dumfounded then was every one, Yours held two hearts, but mine had none!

The _canzuni_ differ very much as to adherence to the strict laws of rhyme and metre; more often than not assonants are readily accepted in place of rhymes, and their entire absence has been thought to cast a suspicion of education on the author of a song. One truly illiterate living folk-poet was, however, heard severely to criticise some of the printed _canzuni_ which were read aloud to him, on just this ground of irregularity of metre and rhyme. His name is Salvatore Calafiore, and he was employed a few years ago in a foundry at Palermo, where he was known among the workmen as "the poet." Being very poor, and having a young wife and family to support, he bethought himself of appealing to the proprietor of the foundry for a rise of wages, but the expedient was hazardous: those who made complaints ran a great chance of getting nothing by it save dismissal. So he offered up his petition in a little poem to this effect: "As the poor little hungry serpent comes out of its hole in search of food, heeding not the risk of being crushed, thus Calafiore, timorous and hard-pressed, O most just sir, asks of you help!" Calafiore was once asked what he knew about the classical characters whose names he introduced into his poems: he answered that some one had told him of them who knew little more of them than he did. He added that "Jove was God of heaven, Apollo god of music, Venus the planet of love, Cicero a good orator." On the whole, the folk-poets are not very lavish in mythological allusion; when they do make it, it is ordinarily fairly appropriate. "Wherever thou dost place thy feet," runs a Borgetto _canzuna_, "carnations and roses, and a thousand divers flowers, are born. My beautiful one, the goddess Venus has promised thee seven and twenty things--new gardens, new heavens, new songs of birds in the spot where thou dost take thy rest." The Siren is one of the ancient myths most in favour: at Partinico they sing:

Within her sea-girt home the Siren dwells And lures the spell-bound sailor with her lay, Amid the shoals the fated bark compels Or holds upon the reef a willing prey, None ever 'scape her toils, while sinks and swells Her rhythmic chant at close and break of day-- Thou, Maiden, art the Siren of the sea, Who with thy songs dost hold and fetter me.

It is rarely indeed that we can trace a couple of these lyrics to the same brain--we may not say "to the same hand," for the folk-poet's hand is taken up with striking the anvil or guiding the plough; to more intellectual uses he does not put it--yet expressing as they do emotions which are not only the same at bottom, but are here felt and regarded in precisely the same way, there results so much unity of design and execution, that, as we read, unawares the songs weave themselves into slight pastoral idylls--typical peasant romances in which real _contadini_ speak to us of the new life wrought in them by love. Even the repeated mention of the Sicilian diminutives of the names of Salvatore and Rosina helps the illusion that a thread of personal identity connects together many of the fugitive _canzuni_. Thus we are tempted to imagine Turiddu and Rusidda as a pair of lovers dwelling in the sunny Conca d'Oro--he "so sweet and beautiful a youth, that God himself must surely have fashioned him"--a youth with "black and laughing eyes, and a little mouth from whence drops honey:" she a maiden of

... quattordicianni, L'occhi cilestri e li capiddi biunni--

"fourteen years, celestial eyes, blonde hair;" to see her long tresses "shining like gold spun by the angels," one would think "that she had just fallen out of Paradise." "She is fairer than the foam of the sea"--

"My little Rose in January born, Born in the month of cold and drifted snow, Its whiteness stays thy beauty to adorn, Nought than thy velvet skin more white can show. Thou art the star that shines, tho' bright the morn, And casts on all around a silver glow."

But Rusidda's mother will have nothing to say to poor Turiddu; he complains, "Ah! God, what grief to have a tongue and not to be able to speak; to see her and dare not make any sign! Ah, God in heaven, and Virgin Mary, tell me what I am to do? I look at her, she looks at me, neither I nor she can say a word!" Then an idea strikes him; he gets a friend to take her a message: "When we pass each other in the street, we must not let the folk see that we are in love, but you will lower your eyes and I will lower my head; this shall be our way of saluting one another. Every saint has his day, we must await ours." Encouraged by this stratagem, Turiddu grows bold, and one dark night, when none can see who it is, he serenades his "little Rose:"

"Sleep, sleep, my hope, yea sleep, nor be afraid, Sleep, sleep, my hope, in confidence serene, For if we both in the same scales be weighed, But little difference will be found between. Have you for me unfeigned love displayed, My love for you shall greater still be seen. If we could both in the same scales be weighed, But small the difference would be found between."

He does not think the song nearly good enough for her: "I know not what song I can sing that is worthy of you," he says: he wishes he were "a goldfinch or a nightingale, and had no equal for singing;" or, better still, he would fain "have an angel come and sing her a song that had never before been heard of out Paradise," for in Paradise alone can a song be found appropriate to her. One day (it is Rusidda's fete-day), Turiddu makes a little poem, and says in it: "All in roses would I be clad, for I am in love with roses; I would have palaces and little houses of roses, and a ship with roses decked, and a little staircase all of roses, which I the fortunate one would ascend; but ere I go up it, I wish to say to you, my darling, that for you I languish." He watches her go to church: "how beautiful she is! Her air is that of a noble lady!" The mother lingers behind with her gossips, and Turiddu whispers to Rusidda, "All but the crown you look like a queen." She answers: "If there rode hither a king with his crown who said, 'I should like to place it on your head,' I should say this little word, 'I want Turiddu, I want no crown.'" Turiddu tells her he is sick from melancholy: "it is a sickness which the doctors cannot cure, and you and I both suffer from it. It will only go away the day we go to church together."

But there seems no prospect of their getting married; Turiddu sends his love four sighs, "e tutti quattru suspiri d'amuri:"

"Four sighs I breathe and send thee, Which from my heart love forces; Health with the first attend thee, The next our love discourses; The third a kiss comes stealing; The fourth before thee kneeling; And all hard fate accusing Thee to my sight refusing."

And now he has to go upon a long journey; but before he starts he contrives one meeting with Rusidda. "Though I shall no longer see you, we yet may hope, for death is the only real parting," he says. "I would have you constant, firm, and faithful; I would have you faithful even unto death." She answers, "If I should die, still would my spirit stay with you." A year passes; on Rusidda's _festa_ a letter arrives from Turiddu: "Go, letter mine, written in my blood, go to my dear delight; happy paper! you will touch the white hand of my love. I am far away, and cannot speak to her; paper, do you speak for me."

At last Turiddu returns--but where is Rusidda? "Ye stars that are in the infinite heavens, give me news of my love!"

Through the night "he wanders like the moon," he wanders seeking his love. In his path he encounters Brown Death. "Seek her no more," says this one; "I have her under the sod. If you do not believe me, my fine fellow, go to San Francesco, and take up the stone of the sepulchre: there you will find her." ... Alas! "love begins with sweetness and ends in bitterness."

The Sicilian's "Beautiful ideal" would seem to be the white rose rather than the red, in accordance, perhaps, with the rule that makes the uncommon always the most prized; or it may be, from a perception of that touch of the unearthly, that pale radiance which gives the fair Southerner a look of closer kinship with the pensive Madonna gazing out of her aureole in the wayside shrine, than with the dark damsels of the more predominant type. Some such angelical association attached to golden heads has possibly disposed the Sicilian folk-poet towards thinking too little of the national black eyes and olive-carnation colouring. Not that brunettes are wholly without their singers; one of these has even the courage to say that since his _bedda_ is brown and the moon is white, it is plain that the moon must leave the field vanquished. One dark beauty of Termini shows that she is quite equal to standing up for herself. "You say that I am black?" she cries, "and what of that? Black writing looks well on white paper, black spices are worth more than white curds, and while dusky wine is drunk in a glass goblet, the snow melts away unregarded in the ditch."[1] But the apologetic, albeit spirited tone of this protest, indicates pretty clearly that the popular voice gives the palm to milk-white and snowy faced maidens; the possessors of _capiddi biunni_ and _capidduzzi d'oru_ have no need to defend their charms, a hundred canzuni proclaim them irresistible. "Before everything I am enamoured of thy blonde tresses," says one lyrist. The luxuriant hair of the Sicilian women is proverbial. A story is told how, when once Palermo was about to surrender to the Saracens because there were no more bowstrings in the town, an abundant supply was suddenly produced by the patriotic dames cutting off their long locks and turning them to this purpose. The deed so inspired the Palermitan warriors that they speedily drove the enemy back, and the siege was raised. A gallant poet adds: "The hair of our ladies is still employed in the same office, but now it discharges no other shafts but those of Cupid, and the only cords it forms are cords of love."

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

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

It has been said that love begins with sweetness and ends in bitterness. What a fine world it would be were Brown Death the only agent in the bitter end of love! It is not so. Rusidda, who dies, is possibly more fortunate than Rusidda who is married. When bride and bridegroom return from the marriage rite, the husband sometimes solemnly strikes his wife in presence of the assembled guests as a sign of his henceforth unlimited authority. The symbol has but too great appropriateness. Even in what may be called a happy marriage, there is a formality akin to estrangement, once the knot is tied. Husband and wife say "voi" to each other, talking to a third person, they speak of one another as "he" and "she," as "mio cristiano," and "mia cristiana," never as "my husband" and "my wife." The wife sits down to table with the husband, but she scrupulously waits for him to begin first, and takes tiny mouthfuls as if she were ashamed of eating before him. Then, if the husband be out of humour, or if he thinks that the wife does not work hard enough (an "enough" which can never be reached), the nuptial blow is repeated in sad and miserable earnest. The woman will not even weep; she bears all in silence, saying meekly afterwards, "We women are always in the wrong, the husband is the husband, he has a right even to kill us since we live by him." These things have been recorded by one who loves the Sicilian peasant, and who has defended him against many unfounded charges. A hard case it would be for wedded Rusidda if she had not her songs and the sun to console her.

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

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

Meli's name is as oddly yoked with the title of _abate_ as Herrick's with the designation of clergyman. He does not seem, as a matter of fact, to have ever been an _abate_ at all. Once, when dining with a person influential at court, his host inquired why he did not ask to be appointed to a rich benefice then vacant. "Because," he replied, "I am not a priest." And it appeared that when a young man he had adopted the clerical habit for no other reason than that he intended to practise medicine, and wished to gain access to convents, and to make himself acceptable to the nuns. It was not an uncommon thing to do. The public generally dubbed him with the ecclesiastical title. Not long before his death, in 1815, he actually assumed the lesser orders, and in true Sicilian fashion, wrote some verses to his powerful friend to beg him to get him preferment, but he died too soon after to profit by the result. The Sicilians are very proud of Meli. It is for them alone probably to find much pleasure in his occasional odes--to others their noble sentiments will be rather suggestive of the _sinfonia eroica_ played on a flute; but the charm and lightness of his Anacreontic poems must be recognised by all who care for poetry. He had a nice feeling for nature too, as is shown in a sonnet of rare beauty:

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

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

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

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

Beau front, Petits yeux, Nez cancan, Bouche d'argent, Menton fleuri, Chichirichi.

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

Eye winker, Tom Tinker, Nose dropper. Mouth eater, Chinchopper, Chinchopper.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sweet, my child, in slumber lie, Father's dead, is dead and gone. Sleep then, sleep, my little son, Sleep, my son, and lullaby.

Thou for kisses dost not cry, Which thy cheeks he heaped upon. Sleep then, sleep, my pretty one, Sleep, my child, and lullaby.

We are lonely, thou and I, And with grief and fear I faint. Sleep then, sleep, my little saint, Sleep, my child, and lullaby.

Why dost weep? No father nigh. Ah, my God! tears break his rest. Darling, nestle to my breast, Sleep, my child, and lullaby.

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

Beneath these pilgrim weeds so coarse and worn A heart may still be found of priceless worth. The rose is ever coupled to the thorn. The spotless lily springs from blackest earth. Rubies and precious stones are only born Amidst the rugged rocks, uncouth and swarth. Then wonder not though till the end I wear Nought but this pilgrim raiment poor and bare.

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