Part 20

The marriage of Mary Queen of Scots and James Bothwell was celebrated on the 16th of May; an unknown hand wrote upon the gate of Holyrood Palace Ovid's warning:

Si te proverbia tangunt, Mense malas Maio nubere vulgus ait.

Of English songs treating of that "observance" or "rite" of May to which Chaucer and Shakespeare bear witness, there are unfortunately few. The old nursery rhyme:

Here we go a-piping, First in spring and then in May,

tells the usual story of house-to-house visiting and expected largess. In Devonshire, children used to take round a richly-dressed doll; such a doll is still borne in triumph by the children of Great Missenden, Bucks, where a doggerel is sung, of which these are the concluding verses:

A branch of May I have you brought, And at your door I stand; 'Tis but a spray that's well put out By the works of the mighty Lord's hand.

If you have got no strong beer, We'll be content with small; And take the goodwill of your house, And give good thanks for all.

God bless the master of this house, The mistress also; Likewise the little children That round the table go.

My song is done, I must be gone, No longer can I stay; God bless you all, both great and small, And send you a joyful May.

The poets of Great Missenden not being prolific, the two middle stanzas are used at Christmas as well as on May-day.

May-poles were prohibited by the Long Parliament of 1644, being denounced as a "heathenish vanity generally abused to superstition and wickedness." A long while before, the Roman Floralia, the feast when people carried green boughs and wore fresh garlands, had been put down for somewhat the same reasons. With regard to May-poles I am not inclined to think too harshly of them. They died hard: an old Essex man told me on his death-bed of how when he was a lad the young folks danced regularly round the May-pole on May-day, and in his opinion it was a good time. It was a time, he went on to say, when the country was a different thing; twice a day the postillion's horn sounded down the village street, the Woolpack Inn was often full even to the attics in its pretty gabled roof, all sorts of persons of quality fell out of the clouds, or to speak exactly, emerged from the London coach. The life of the place seemed to be gone, said my friend, and yet "the place" is in the very highest state of modern prosperity.

The parade of sweeps in bowers of greenery lingered on rather longer in England than May-poles. It is stated to have originated in this way. Edward Wortley Montagu (born about 1714), who later was destined to win celebrity by still stranger freaks, escaped when a boy from Westminster School and borrowed the clothes of a chimney sweep, in whose trade he became an adept. A long search resulted in his discovery and restoration to his parents on May 1; in recollection of which event Mrs Elizabeth Montagu is said to have instituted the May-day feast given by her for many years to the London chimney-sweepers.

In the country west of Glasgow it is still remembered how once the houses were adorned with flowers and branches on the first of May, and in some parts of Ireland they still plant a May-tree or May-bush before the door of the farmhouse, throwing it at sundown into a bonfire. The lighting of fires was not an uncommon feature of May-day observance, but it is a practice which seems to me to have strayed into that connection from its proper place in the great festival of the summer solstice on St John's Eve. Among people of English speech, May-day customs are little more than a cheerful memory. Herrick wrote:

Wash, dress, be brief in praying, Few beads are best when once we go a-maying.

People neglect their "beads" or the equivalents now from other motives.

May night is the German Walpurgis-nacht. The witches ride up to the Brocken on magpies' tails, not a magpie can be seen for the next twenty-four hours--they are all gone and they have not had time to return. The witches dance on the Brocken till they have danced away the winter's snow. May-brides and May-kings are still to be heard of in Germany, and children run about on May-day with buttercups or with a twist of bread, a _Bretzel_, decked with ribbons, or holding imprisoned may-flies, which they let loose whilst they sing:

Maikaeferchen fliege, Dein Vater ist in kriege, Deine Mutter ist in Pommerland, Pommerland ist abgebrannt, Maikaeferchen fliege.

May chafer must fly away home, his father is at the wars, his mother is in Pomerania, Pomerania is all burnt. May chafer in short is the brother of our ladybird. Dr Karl Blind is of opinion that "Pommerland" is a later interpolation for "Holler-land"--the land of Freya--Holda, the Teutonic Aphrodite; and he and other German students of mythology see in the conflagration an allusion to the final end and doom of the kingdom of the gods. It is pointed out that the ladybird was Freya's messenger, whose business it was to call the unborn from their tranquil sojourn amongst celestial flowers, into the storms of human existence. There is an airy May chafer song in Alsace--Teutonic in tradition, though French in tongue:

Avril, tu t'en vas, Car Mai vient la-bas, Pour balayer ta figure De pluie, aussi de froidure. Hanneton, vole! Hanneton, vole!

Au firmament bleu Ton nid est en feu, Les Turcs avec leur epee Viennent tuer ta couvee. Hanneton, vole! Hanneton, vole!

Dr Blind recollects taking part, as a boy, in an extremely curious children's drama, which is still played in some places in the open air. It is an allegory of the expulsion of winter, who is killed and burnt, and of the arrival of summer, who comes decked with flowers and garlands. The children repeat:

Now have we chased death away, And we bring the summer weather; Summer dear and eke the May, And the flowers all together: Bringing summer we are come, Summer tide and sunshine home.

With this may be compared an account given by Olaus Magnus, a Swedish writer of the fifteenth century, of how May Day was celebrated in his time. "A number of youths on horseback were drawn up in two lines facing each other, the one party representing 'Winter' and the other 'Summer.' The leader of the former was clad in wild beasts' skins, and he and his men were armed with snow-balls and pieces of ice. The commander of the latter--'Maj Greve,' or Count May--was, on the contrary, decorated with leaves and flowers, and his followers had for weapons branches of the birch or linden tree, which, having been previously steeped in water, were then in leaf. At a given signal, a sham fight ensued between the opposing forces. If the season was cold and backward, 'Winter' and his party were impetuous in their attack, and in the beginning the advantage was supposed to rest with them; but if the weather was genial, and the spring had fairly set in, 'Maj Greve' and his men carried all before them. Under any circumstances, however, the umpire always declared the victory to rest with 'Summer.' The winter party then strewed ashes on the ground, and a joyous banquet terminated the game." Mr L. Lloyd, author of "Peasant Life in Sweden" (1870), records some lines sung by Swedish children when collecting provisions for the _Maj gille_ or May feast, which recall the "Swallow-song":

"Best loves from Mr and Mrs Magpie, From all their eggs and all their fry, O give them alms, if ever so small, Else hens and chickens and eggs and all, A prey to 'Piet' will surely fall."

The Swedes raise their _Maj st[)a]ng_ or May-pole, not on May, but on St John's Eve, a change due, I suspect, to the exigencies of the climate.

German _Mailieder_ are one very much like the other; they are full of the simple gladness of children who have been shut up in houses, and who now can run about in the sunny air. I came across the following in Switzerland:

"Alles neu macht der Mai, Macht die Seele frisch und frei. Lasst dans Haus! Kommt hinaus! Windet einen Strauss!

"Rings erglaenzet Sonnenschein, Dustend pranget Flur und Hain. Voegel-sang, Lust'ger Klang Toent den Wald entlang."

In Lorraine girls dressed in white go from village to village stringing off couplets, in which the inhabitants are turned into somewhat unmerciful ridicule. The girls of this place enlighten the people of that as to their small failings, and so _vice versa_. All the winter the village poets harvest the jokes made by one community at the expense of another, in order to shape them into a consecutive whole for recital on May Day. The girls are rewarded for their part in the business by small coin, cakes and fruit. The May-songs of Lorraine are termed "Trimazos," from the fact that they are always sung to the refrain,

"O Trimazot, c'at lo Maye; O mi-Maye! C'at lo joli mois de Maye, C'at lo Trimazot."

The derivation of _Trimazo_ is uncertain; someone suggested that _Tri_ stands for three, and _mazo_ for maidens; but I think _mazo_ is more likely to be connected with the Italian _mazzo_, "nosegay." The word is known outside Lorraine: at Islettes children say:

"Trimazot! en nous allant Nous pormenes eddans les champs Nous y ons trouve les bles si grands Les Aubepin' en fleurissant."

They beg for money to buy a taper for the Virgin's altar; for it must not be forgotten that the month of May is the month of Mary. The villagers add a little flour to their pious offering, so that the children may make cakes. Elsewhere in Champagne young girls collect the taper money; they cunningly appeal to the tenderness of the young mother by bringing to her mind the hour "when she takes her pretty child up in the morning and lays him to sleep at night." There was a day on which the girls of the neighbourhood of Remiremont used to way-lay every youth they met on the road to the church of Dommartin and insist on sticking a sprig of rosemary or laurel in his cap, saying, "We have found a fine gentleman, God give him joy and health; take the May, the pretty May!" The fine gentleman was requested to give "what he liked" for the dear Virgin's sake. In the department of the Jura there are May-brides, and in Bresse they have a May-queen who is attended by a youth, selected for the purpose, and by a little boy who carries a green bough ornamented with ribands. She heads the village girls and boys, who walk as in a marriage procession, and who receive eggs, wine, or money. A song still sung in Burgundy recalls the prae-revolutionary aera and the respect inspired by the seigneurial woods:--

"Le voila venu le joli mois, Laissez bourgeonner le bois; Le voila venu le joli mois, Le joli bois bourgeonne. Il faut laisser bourgeonner le bois, Le bois du gentilhomme."

The young peasants of Poitou betake themselves to the door of each homestead before the dawn of the May morning and summon the mistress of the house to waken her daughters:--

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

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

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

Voici venu le mois des fleurs Des chansons et des senteurs; Le mois qui tout enchante Le mois de douce attente. Le buisson reprend ses couleurs Au bois l'oiseau chante.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Un cuartito para la Maya, Que no tiene manto ni saya."

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

Lorenzo de' Medici says in one of his ballads:

Se tu vuo' appiccare un maio. A qualcuna che tu ami....

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

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

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

'Twas in the Calends of the month of May, I went into the garden for a flower, A wild bird there I saw upon a spray, Singing of love with skilled melodious power. O little bird, who dost from Florence speed Teach me whence loving doth at first proceed? Love has its birth in music and in songs Its end, alas! to tears and grief belongs.

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

The child's or lover's play of words in this last baffles all attempt at translation: it is not sense but sweetness, not poetry but music. It is as much without rule or study or conventionality as the song of birds when in Italian phrase, _fanno primavera_.

In the Province of Brescia the Thursday of Mid-Lent is kept by what is called "Burning the old women." A doll made of straw or rags, representing the oldest woman, is hung outside the window; or, if in a street, suspended from a cord passed from one side to the other. Everyone makes the tour of town or village to see _le Vecchie_ who at sundown are consigned to the flames, generally with a distaff placed in their hands. It is a picturesque sight at Salo, when the bonfires blaze at different heights up the hills, casting long reflections across the clear lake-water. The sacrifice is consummated--but what sacrifice? I was at first disposed to simply consider the "old woman" as a type of winter, but I am informed that by those who have studied relics of the same usage in other lands, she is held to be a relative of the "harvest-man" or growth-genius, who must be either appeased or destroyed. Yet a third interpretation occurs to me, which I offer for what it is worth. Might not the _Vecchia_ be the husk which must be cast off before the miracle of new birth is accomplished? "The seed that thou sowest shall not quicken unless it die." Hardly any idea has furnished so much occasion for symbolism as this, that life is death, and death is life.

Professor d'Ancona believes, that to the custom of keeping May by singing from house to house and collecting largess of eggs or fruit or cheese, may be traced the dramatic representations, which, under the name of _Maggi_, can still be witnessed in certain districts of the Tuscan Hills and of the plain of Pisa. These May-plays are performed any Sunday in Spring, just after Mass; the men, women, and children, hastening from the church-door to the roughly-built theatre which has the sky for roof, the grey olives and purple hills for background. The verses of the play (it is always in verse) are sung to a sort of monotonous but elastic chant, in nearly every case unaccompanied by instruments. No one can do more than guess when that chant was composed; it may have been five hundred years ago and it may have been much more. Grief or joy, love and hate, all are expressed upon the same notes. It is possible that some such recitative was used in the Greek drama. A play that was not sung would not seem a play to the Tuscan contadino. The characters are acted by men or boys, the peasants not liking their wives and daughters to perform in public. A considerable number of _Maggi_ exist in print or in MS. carefully copied for the convenience of the actors. The subjects range from King David to Count Ugolino, from the siege of Troy to the French Revolution. They seem for most part modern compositions, cast in a form which was probably invented before the age of Dante.

THE IDEA OF FATE IN SOUTHERN TRADITIONS.

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

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

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

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