Part 9

To the idealised vision that goes along with hereditary culture a large town may seem an impressive spectacle. For Wordsworth, worshipper of nature though he was, earth had not anything to show more fair than London from Westminster Bridge, and Victor Hugo found endless inspiration on the top of a Parisian omnibus. As shrines of art, as foci of historic memories, even simply as vast aggregates of human beings working out the tragi-comedy of life, great cities have furnished the key-note to much fine poetry. But it is different with the letterless masses. The student of literature, who turns to folk-songs in search of a new enjoyment, will meet with little to attract him in urban rhymes; if there are many that present points of antiquarian interest, there are few that have any kind of poetic worth. The people's poetry grows not out of an ideal world of association and aspiration, but from the springs of their life. They cannot see with their minds as well as with their eyes. What they do see in most great towns is the monotonous ugliness which surrounds their homes and their labour. Then again, it is a well-known fact that with the people loss of individuality means loss of the power of song; and where there is density of population there is generally a uniformity as featureless as that of pebbles on the sea beach. Still to the rule that folk-poesy is not a thing of town growth one exception has to be made. Venice, unique under every aspect, has songs which, if not of the highest, are unquestionably of a high order. The generalising influences at play in great political centres have hardly affected the inhabitants of the city which for a thousand years of independence was a body politic complete in itself. Nor has Venetian common life lacked those elements of beauty without whose presence the popular muse is dumb. The very industries of the Venetians were arts, and when they were young and spiritually teachable, their chief bread-winning work of every day was Venice--her ducal chapel, her campanile, her palaces of marble and porphyry. In the process of making her the delight of after ages, they attended an excellent school of poetry.

The gondolier contemporary with Byron was correctly described as songless. At a date closely coinciding with the overthrow of Venetian freedom, the boatmen left off waking the echoes of the Grand Canal, except by those cries of warning which, no one can quite say why, so thrill and move the hearer. It was no rare thing to find among the Italians of the Lombardo-Venetian provinces the old pathetic instinct of keeping silence before the stranger. I recollect a story told me by one of them. When he was a boy, Antonio--that was his name--had to make a journey with two young Austrian officers. They took notice of the lad, who was sprightly and good-looking, and by and by they asked him to sing. "Canta, canta, il piccolo," said they; "sing us the songs of Italy." He refused. They insisted, and, coming to a tavern, they gave him wine, which sent the blood to his head. So at last he said, "Very well, I will sing you the songs of Italy." What he sang was one of the most furiously anti-Austrian songs of '48. "Ah! taci, taci il piccolo!" cried the officers, but the "piccolo" would not be quiet until he had sung the whole revolutionary repertory. The Austrians knew how to appreciate the boy's spirit, for they pressed on him a ten franc piece at parting.

To return to Venice. In the year 1819 an English traveller asked for a song of a man who was reported to have once chanted Tasso _alla barcaruolo_; the old gondolier shook his head. "In times like these," he said, "he had no heart to sing." Foreign visitors had to fall back on the beautiful German music, at the sound of which Venetians ran out of the Piazza, lest they might be seduced by its hated sweetness. Meanwhile the people went on singing in their own quarters, and away from the chance of ministering to their masters' amusement. It is even probable that the moral casemate to which they fled favoured the preservation of their old ways, that of poetising included. Instead of aiming at something novel and modern, the Venetian wished to be like what his fathers were when the flags on St Mark's staffs were not yellow and black. So, like his fathers, he made songs and sang songs, of which a good collection has been formed, partly in past years, and partly since the black-and-yellow standard has given place, not, indeed, to the conquered emblems of the Greek isles, but to the colours of Italy, reconquered for herself.

Venetian folk-poesy begins at the cradle. The baby Venetian, like most other babies, is assured that he is the most perfect of created beings. Here and there, underlying the baby nonsense, is a dash of pathos. "Would you weep if I were dead?" a mother asks, and the child is made to answer, "How could I help weeping for my own mamma, who loves me so in her heart?" A child is told that if he asks his mother, who is standing by the door, "What are you doing there?" she will reply, "I am waiting for thy father; I wait and wait, and do not see him coming; I think I shall die thus waiting." The little Venetian has the failings of baby-kind all the world over; he cries and he laughs when he ought to be fast asleep. His mother tells him that he was born to live in Paradise; she is sure that the angels would rejoice in her darling's beauty. "Sleep well, for thy mother sits near thee," she sings, "and if by chance I go away, God will watch thee when I am gone."

A christening is regarded in Venice as an event of much social as well as religious importance. By canon law the bonds of relationship established by godfatherhood count for the same as those of blood, for which reason the Venetian nobles used to choose a person of inferior rank to stand sponsor for their children, thus escaping the creation of ties prohibitive of marriage between persons of their own class. In this case the material responsibilities of the sponsor were slight--it was his part to take presents, and not to make them. By way of acknowledging the new connection, the child's father sent the godfather a marchpane, that cake of mystic origin which is still honoured and eaten from Nuremberg to Malaga. With the poor, another order of things is in force. The _compare de l'anelo_--the person who acted as groomsman at the marriage--is chosen as sponsor to the first-born child. His duties begin even before the christening. When he hears of the child's birth, he gets a piece of meat, a fowl, and two new-laid eggs, packs them in a basket, and despatches them to the young mother. Eight days after the birth comes the baptism. On returning from the church, the sponsor, now called _compare de San Zuane_, visits the mother, before whom he displays his presents--twelve or fifteen lire for herself; for the baby a pair of earrings, if it be a girl; and if a boy, a pair of boy's earrings, or a single ornament to be worn in the right ear. Henceforth the godfather is the child's natural guardian next to its parents; and should they die, he is expected to provide for it. Should the child die, he must buy the _zogia_ (the "joy"), a wreath of flowers now set on the coffins of dead infants, but formerly placed on their heads when they were carried to the grave-isle in full sight of the people. This last custom led to even more care being given to the toilet of dead children than what might seem required by decency and affection. To dress a dead child badly was considered shameful. Tradition tells of what happened to a woman who was so miserly that she made her little girl a winding-sheet of rags and tatters. When the night of the dead came round and all the ghosts went in procession, the injured babe, instead of going with the rest, tapped at its mother's door and cried, "Mamma, do you see me? I cannot go in procession because I am all ragged." Every year on the night of the dead the baby girl returned to make the same reproach.

Venetian children say before they go to bed:

Bona sera ai vivi, E riposo ai poveri morti; Bon viagio ai naveganti E bona note ai tuti quanti.

There is a sort of touching simplicity in this; and somehow the wish of peace to the "poor dead" recalls a line of Baudelaire's--

Les morts, les pauvres morts, ont de grandes douleurs.

But as a whole, the rhymes of the Venetian nursery are not interesting, save from their extreme resemblance to the nursery rhymes of England, France, or any other European country. They need not, therefore, detain us.

Twilight is of an Eastern brevity on the Adriatic shore, both in nature and in life. The child of yesterday is the man of to-day, and as soon as the young Venetian discovers that he has a heart, he takes pains to lose it to a _Tosa_ proportionately youthful. The Venetian and Provencal word _Tosa_ signifies maiden, though whether the famous Cima Tosa is thus a sister to the Jungfrau is not sure, some authorities believing it to bear the more prosaic designation of baldheaded ("Tonsurata"). Our young Venetian may perhaps be unacquainted with the girl he has marked out for preference. In any case he walks up and down or rows up and down assiduously under her window. One night he will sing to a slow, languorous air--possibly an operatic air, but so altered as to be not easy of recognition--"I wish all good to all in this house, to father and to mother and as many as there be; and to Marieta who is my beloved, she whom you have in your house." The name of the singer is most likely Nane, for Nane and Marieta are the commonest names in Venice, which is explained by the impression that persons so called cannot be bewitched, a serious advantage in a place where the Black Art is by no means extinct. The maiden long remembers the night when first her rest was disturbed by some such greeting as the above. She has rendered account of her feelings:

Ah! how mine eyes are weighed in slumber deep! Now all my life it seems has gone to sleep; But if a lover passes by the door, Then seems it this my life will sleep no more.

It does not do to appropriate a serenade with too much precipitation. Don Quixote gave it as his experience that no woman would believe that a poem was written expressly for her unless it made an acrostic on her name spelt out in full. Venetian damsels proceed with less caution: hence now and then a sad disappointment. A girl who starts up all pit-a-pat at the twanging of a guitar may be doomed to hear the cruel sentence pronounced in Lord Houghton's pretty lyric:

"I am passing--Preme--but I stay not for you! Preme--not for you!"

Even more unkind are the literal words of the Venetian: "If I pass this way and sing as I pass, think not, fair one, that it is for you--it is for another love, whose beauty surpasses yours!"

A brother or a friend occasionally undertakes the serenading. He is not paid like the professional Trovador whom the Valencian lover engages to act as his interpreter. He has no reward in view but empty thanks, and it is scarcely surprising if on damp nights he is inclined to fall into a rather querulous vein. "My song is meant for the _Morosa_ of my companion," says one of these accommodating minstrels. "If only I knew where she was! But he told me that she was somewhere in here. The rain is wetting me to the skin!" Another exclaims more cheerfully, "Beautiful angel, if it pleases God, you will become my sister-in-law!"

After the singing of the preliminary songs, Nane seeks a hint of the effect produced on the beloved Marieta. As she comes out of church, he makes her a most respectful bow, and if it be returned ever so slightly, he musters up courage, and asks in so many words whether she will have him. Marieta reflects for about three days; then she communicates her answer by sign or song. If she does not want him, she shuts herself up in the house and will not look out for a moment. Nane begs her to show her face at the window: "Come, oh! come! If thou comest not 'tis a sign that thou lovest me not; draw my heart out of all these pangs." Marieta, if she is quite decided, sings back from behind the half-closed shutters, "You pass this way, and you pass in vain: in vain you wear out shoes and soles; expect no fair words from me." It may be that she confesses to not knowing her own mind: "I should like to be married, but I know not to whom: when Nane passes, I long to say 'Yes;' when Toni passes, I am fain to look kindly at him; when Bepi passes, I wish to cry, God bless you!" Or again, it may be that her heart is not hers to give:

Wouldst thou my love? For love I have no heart; I had it once, and gave it once away; To my first love I gave it on a day ... Wouldst thou my love? For love I have no heart.

In the event of the girl intimating that she is disposed to listen to her _Moroso_ if all goes well, he turns to her parents and formally asks permission to pay his addresses to their daughter. That permission is, of course, not always granted. If the parents have thoughts of a wealthier match, the poor serenader finds himself unceremoniously sent about his business. A sad state of things ensues. Marieta steals many a sorrowful glance at the despised Nane, who, on his side, vents his indignation on the authors of her being in terms much wanting in respect. "When I behold thee so impassioned," he cries, "I curse those who have caused this grief; I curse thy papa and thy mamma, who will not let us make love." No idea is here implied of dispensing with the parental fiat; the same cannot be said of the following observations: "When I pass this house, my heart aches. The girl wills me well, her people will me ill; her people will not hear of it, nor, indeed, will mine. So we have to make love secretly. But that cannot really be done. He who wishes for a girl, goes and asks for her--out of politeness. He who wants to have her, carries her off." It would seem that the maiden has been known to be the first to incite rebellion:

Do, my beloved, as other lovers do, Go to my father, and ask leave to woo; And if my father to reply is loth, Come back to me, for thou hast got my troth. When the parents have no _prima facie_ objection to the youth, they set about inquiring whether he bears a good character, and whether the girl has a real liking for him. These two points cleared up satisfactorily, they still defer their final answer for some weeks or months, to make a trial of the suitor and to let the young people get better acquainted. The lover, borne up by hope, but not yet sure of his prize, calls to his aid the most effective songs in his repertory. The last thing at night Marieta hears:--

Sleep thou, most fair, in all security, For I have made me guardian of thy gate, Safe shalt thou be, for I will watch and wait; Sleep thou, most fair, in all security.

The first thing in the morning she is greeted thus:

Art thou awake, O fairest, dearest, best? Raise thy blond head and bid thy slumbers fly; This is the hour thy lover passes by, Throw him a kiss, and then return to rest.

If she has any lurking doubts of Nane's constancy she receives the assurance, "One of these days I will surely make thee my bride--be not so pensive, fairest angel!" If, on the other hand, Nane lacks complete confidence in her affection, he appeals to her in words resembling I know not what Eastern love-song: "Oh, how many steps I have taken to have thee, and how many more I would take to gain thee! I have taken so many, many steps that I think thou wilt not forsake me."

The time of probation over, the girl's parents give a feast, to which the youth and his parents are invited. He brings with him, as a first offering, a small ring ornamented with a turquoise or a cornelian. Being now the acknowledged lover, he may come and openly pay his court every Sunday. On Saturday Marieta says to herself, "_Ancuo xe sabo, doman xe festa_--to-morrow is fete day, and to-morrow I expect Nane!" Then she pictures how he will come "dressed for the _festa_ with a little flower in his hand;" and her heart beats with impatience. If, after all, by some chance--who knows? by some faithlessness perhaps--he fails to appear, what grief, what tears! Marieta's first thought when she rises on Sunday morning is this: "No one works to-day for it is _festa_; I pray you come betimes, dearest love!" Then comes the second thought: "If he does not come betimes, it is a sign that he is near to death; if later I do not see him, it is a sign that he is dead." The day passes, evening is here--no Nane! "Vespers sound and my love comes not; either he is dead, or" (the third and bitterest thought of all) "a love-thief has stolen him from me!"

Some little while after the lover has been formally accepted, he presents the maiden with a plain gold ring called _el segno_, and a second dinner or supper takes place at her parent's house, answering to the German betrothal feast; henceforth he is the _sposo_ and she the _novizza_, and, as in Germany, people look on the pair as very little less than wedded. The new bride gives the bridegroom a silk handkerchief, to which allusion is made in a verse running, "What is that handkerchief you are wearing? Did you steal it or borrow it? I neither stole it nor borrowed it; my _Morosa_ tied it round my neck." At Easter the _sposo_ gives a cake and a couple of bottles of Cyprus or Malaga; at Christmas a box of almond sweetmeats and a little jug of _mostarda_ (a Venetian _specialite_ composed of quinces dressed in honey and mustard); at the feast of St Martin, sweet chestnuts; at the feast of St Mark, _el bocolo_--that is, a rosebud, emblematical of the opening year. The lover may also employ his generosity on New Year's day, on the girl's name-day, and on other days not specified, taking in the whole 365. Some maidens show a decided taste for homage in kind. "My lover bids me sing, and to please him I will do it," observes one girl, thus far displaying only the most disinterested amiability. But presently she reveals her motives: "He has a ring with a white stone; when I have sung he will give it to me." A less sordid damsel asks only for a bunch of flowers; it shall be paid for with a kiss, she says. Certain things there are which may be neither given nor taken by lovers who would not recklessly tempt fate. Combs are placed under the ban, for they may be made to serve the purposes of witchcraft; saintly images and church-books, for they have to do with trouble and repentance; scissors, for scissors stand for evil speaking; and needles, for it is the nature of needles to prick.

Whether through the unwise exchange of these prohibited articles, or from other causes, it does sometimes happen that the betrothed lovers who have been hailed by everybody as _novizza_ and _sposo_ yet manage to fall out beyond any hopes of falling in again. If it is the youth's fault that the match is broken off, all his presents remain in the girl's undisputed possession; if the girl is to blame, she must send back the _segno_ and all else that she has received. It is said that in some districts of Venetia the young man keeps an accurate account of whatever he spends on behalf of his betrothed, and in the case of her growing tired of him, she has to pay double the sum total, besides defraying the loss incurred by the hours he has sacrificed to her, and the boots he has worn out in the course of his visits.

It is more usual, as well as more satisfactory, for the betrothal to be followed in due time by marriage. After the _segno_ has been "passed," the _sposo_ sings a new song. "When," asks he, "will be the day whereon to thy mamma I shall say 'Madona;' to thy papa 'Missier;' and to thee, darling, 'Wife'?" "Madona" is still the ordinary term for mother-in-law at Venice; in Tuscan songs the word is also used in that sense, though it has fallen out of common parlance. Wherever it is to be found, it points to the days when the house-mother exercised an unchallenged authority over all members of the family. Even now the mother-in-law of Italian folk-songs is a formidable personage; to say the truth, there is no scant measure of self-congratulation when she happens not to exist. "Oh! Dio del siel, mandeme un ziovenin senza madona!" is the heartfelt prayer of the Venetian girl.

If the youth thinks of the wedding day as the occasion of forming new ties--above all that dearest tie which will give him his _anzola bela_ for his own--the maiden dreams of it as the _zornada santa_; the day when she will kneel at the altar and receive the solemn benediction of the church upon entering into a new station of life. "Ah! when shall come to pass that holy day, when the priest will say to me, 'Are you content?' when he shall bless me with the holy water--ah! when shall it come to pass?"

It has been noticed that the institution of marriage is not regarded in a very favourable light by the majority of folk-poets, but Venetian rhymers as a rule take an encouraging view of it. "He who has a wife," sings a poet of Chioggia, "lives right merrily _co la sua cara sposa in compagnia_." Warning voices are not, however, wanting to tell the maiden that wedded life is not all roses: "You would never want to be married, my dear, if you knew what it was like," says one such; while another mutters, "Reflect, girls, reflect, before ye wed these gallants; on the Ponte di Rialto bird cages are sold."

The marriage generally comes off on a Sunday. Who weds on Monday goes mad; Tuesday will bring a bad end; Wednesday is a day good for nothing; Thursday all manner of witches are abroad; Friday leads to early death; and, as to Saturday, you must not choose that, _parche de sabo piove_, "because on Saturday it rains!"

The bride has two toilets--one for the church, one for the wedding dinner. At the church she wears a black veil, at the feast she appears crowned with flowers. After she is dressed and before the bridegroom arrives, the young girl goes to her father's room and kneeling down before him, she prays with tears in her eyes to be forgiven whatever grief she may have caused him. He grants her his pardon and gives her his blessing. In the early dawn the wedding party go to church either on foot or in gondolas, for it is customary for the marriage knot to be tied at the conclusion of the first mass. When the right moment comes the priest puts the _vera_, or wedding ring, on the tip of the bride's finger, and the bridegroom pushes it down into its proper place. If the _vera_ hitches, it is a frightfully bad omen. When once it is safely adjusted, the best man steps forward and restores to the bride's middle finger the little ring which formed the lover's earliest gift; for this reason he is called _compare de l'anelo_, a style and title he will one day exchange for that of _compare de San Zuane_.