My garlanded hair will attest my vow."
"Cook not your fowls, nor trim your dresses,
Put no flowers in your hair.
My dear rose pale, for your raven tresses
A branch of willow you may find and wear."
The fatal fight is done and over,
Three came back to tell the tale.
On the bloody field there lies thy lover,
And his winding sheet is his broken mail.
" Oh, cruel bird, I 'll curse your singing,
Fatal voice that tears my breast.
My mother the shroud will soon be bringing,
And in white grave clothes I 'll be drest."
POISONED JANOS.
"Whence comest thou with knitted brows,
My heart, my soul, my little son?"
" I come from my love's sister's house,
Dear lady mother.
Oh, my heart aches so,
Make ready my bed."
"What has she given you to eat,
My heart, my soul, my little son?"
"She gave me a crab with four feet, 1
1 The crab with four feet is the conventional poisonous food
in Hungarian folk-lore, as the toad is in English and the
spotted frog in French.
Dear lady mother.
Oh, my heart aches so,
Make ready my bed."
"How served she it for you to dine,
My heart, my soul, my little son?"
"She served it in a salver fine,
Dear lady mother.
Oh, my heart aches so,
Make ready my bed."
"Is it that makes you look so white,
My heart, my soul, my little son?"
" Yes, that will kill me ere the night,
Dear lady mother.
Oh, my heart aches so,
Make ready my bed."
"What will you leave your father gray,
My heart, my soul, my little son?"
"My brass-trimmed wagon, new and gay,
Dear lady mother.
Oh, my heart aches so,
Make ready my bed."
"What will you leave your brother brave,
My heart, my soul, my little son?"
"My four strong oxen he can have,
Dear lady mother.
Oh, my heart aches so,
Make ready my bed."
"What will you leave your brother fair,
My heart, my soul, my little son?"
"My four swift horses for his share,
Dear lady mother.
Oh, my heart aches so,
Make ready my bed."
"What will you leave your sister bright,
My heart, my soul, my little son?"
"My household vessels silver white,
Dear lady mother.
Oh, my heart aches so,
Make ready my bed."
" What will you leave your love's false kin,
My heart, my soul, my little son?"
"The fire of hell her heart within,
Dear lady mother.
Oh, my heart aches so,
Make ready my bed."
"What will you leave your mother dear,
My heart, my soul, my little son?"
"The grief and pain you 'll have to bear,
Dear lady mother.
Oh, my heart aches so,
Make ready my bed."
GYURI BANDI.
The rain falls in a few small drops,
Gyuri Bandi beside the gallows cries,
Beyond Szeged the woodman chops
The tree, from which the croaking raven flies.
Yet Gyuri Bandi naught has done
But twist his kerchief to a solid cord,
And knot it round his wife's neck bone,
To deck a tree for her sovereign lord.
His shirt and kilt he'd bade her lave,
That he might ride to his captain's abode.--
Then he bridled his steed so brave,
And away to his rose's bower he rode.
"Ah, mother dear, I have sinned a sin,
I've killed my wife with my love to go."--
Then Gyuri Bandi drank at the inn,
And slept in the cloak of Kasa his foe.
Gyuri Bandi was bound with chains,
From the judge's mouth his doom was told,
The gallows tree in winds and rains
Dandles and rocks him, alone and cold.
Gyuri Bandi had never thought
The wind would rock him on the gallows tree,
Even Kasa himself, whose blood he'd sought,
Was dismal at heart the sad sight to see.
THE MOTHER AND DAUGHTER.
"Soft shines the light of the evening star,
Beneath my window my love stands tall.
Dear mother, let me undo the bar,
My heart beats fast to come at his call."
"My darling rose, to the window glide,
Your honey lips let me deeply kiss,
A thousand sorrows in my heart abide,
With but a touch they 'll bloom in bliss."
"Mother, do you hear his magic call?
I have tied a bunch of roses red,
In his hat to shine above them all,
As pride of his kiss would lift my head."
"My daughter, you are too young for love,
Too soon it is for the matron's cap,
For a maiden's smile the world will move,
With lover's tears for joy's good hap."
" Dearest rose, to each other we're due,
We 'll marry the coming Easter morn,
Believe me, I 'll be more kind to you
Than both your parents since you were born.
"Mother, do you hear my lover's vow,
Believe me, my pearl will be my life.
Dear mother, let me go to him now,
I die to tell him I'll be his wife."
"My darling, don't trust to young men's speech,
He 'll love you while you are not his own,
But marriage its sorry lore will teach,
With a cudgel's blow to make you groan."
"I have seen my father beat you too,
But for all his blows you love him dear;
I'm sure I can love as well as you,
And no warning voice shall make me fear."
THE THREE ORPHANS.
"Where go ye, dear orphans three?"
"Far from this place for work to seek."
"Oh, do not go, dear orphans three,
For work you are too small and weak."
"Come, I will give you three small wands,
Upon your mother's grave to knock."
"Arise, arise, our mother dear,
Cold and ragged are your flock."
"I cannot rise, dear orphans three,
Within my shroud I'm dried to bone;
But you have now a second mother,
Who will tend you as her own."
"When she combs our tangled hair,
Her talons scratch and make us bleed,
And when she gives us food to eat,'
'T is with curses she would feed."
BUGA JAKAB.
"Why do you grumble, comrade, that there's nothing in your
purse?
God is good, his gifts are sure, keep up your heart from woe;
The winter it will soon be past, the bloom come to the furze,
And where our eyes look round us we will go."
"How can I help my sadness, lad, how can I drop my care?
All the ills of life I feel in my bosom sore;
I cannot sleep nor rest, nor breathe refreshing air,
My heart is in a well and covered o'er.
"My side is naked to the blast, my coat to rags is torn,
My shoulder blade is bleeding raw, where my belt will chafe,
My horse has lost a shoe behind, the others they are worn,
And I'm afraid that none of them are safe.
"In my mantle the rain has soaked, and rotted its strength
away,
I cannot hope for another; no one will make a gift;
have my wallet still, but bare and empty it must stay;
But that is not the worst of all my shrift.
"From my trimming of good wolf's fur the hair is falling out,
Across my flagon's mouth the spider has spun a sheet;
The joys of youth have left me; no one comes me about,
To wash my sweated shirt and make it neat."
"For all the ills of life, my friend, one lives as best one may.
The blest rays of the sunshine still warm my heart and
breast.
When I can't eat, I light my pipe, and puff my care away.
Poor fellows live; I live as do the rest."
THE FAIR ILONA.
"Heaven bless you,
Judge, my lord,
Keep your house
In safe accord."
"What kind fortune
Did you send
To my house
Your steps to bend?"
"I led my geese
To meadows green,
The judge's son
With stones was seen,
He killed my gosling
Of yellow sheen."
"What shall be paid,
Ilona fair,
For thy young gosling
The lad killed there?"
"For each of his feathers,
A ducat bright;
For each of his feet,
A spoon so white;
For his two wings
Two salvers dight;
For his warbling throat
A horn of might."
"If your demands
You place so high,
Upon the gallows
The lad must die."
"May the gallows tree
Be a rose, my lord,
And my two arms
Its strangling cord."
THE BRIGAND'S WIFE.
Often my father and mother I prayed
Not to send me up to the mountain high,
To the mountain cold, where the brigand strayed,
And waited to clutch me as I came nigh.
At this very hour at the highway cross,
He waits for the stranger to rob his gold,
The robbed has only his money's loss,
But the wretched robber his soul has sold.
In the morn I rise bloody clothes to lave,
In the early morn, where the stream runs still.
Why weepest thou, girl?"
No sorrows I have,
But my fire's sharp smoke has made my eyes fill."
THE GIRL AND THE SHEPHERD.
The night sinks softly on the plain,
The heifer's bell is still;
A lone pipe calls with magic strain--
The girl leans on the sill.
"Here on the prairie I am alone;
My cows and horses rest;"
The young girl to the plain has gone
With longing in her breast.
The master's herd is moving slow;
The young girl follows on;
Dear shepherd, spread your soft cloak now
The dewy earth upon."
The wheat has not filled out its ear,
But birds have picked the grain;
"See, mother, in the early year,
How love has brought me pain."
"My daughter, I will curse your name,
If you the shepherd wed."
"Mother, I'll bear your fiercest blame,
My heart will rest his head."
THE THREE SCARFS.
I've bought three scarfs of white;
I 'll be white as any swan,
And none will dare embrace me,
When the three white scarfs I don.
I've bought three scarfs of red;
I 'll be red as any rose;
My love will rain his kisses
When such a floweret blows.
I've bought three scarfs of gold;
I 'll be yellow as its hue;
I 'll glitter like a weathercock,
While all the world shines new.
I've bought three scarfs of brown;
I 'll be brown as any owl;
None will dare to ask a kiss
From such a timorous fowl.
THE LOVELIEST FLOWER OF ALL.
In the harvest field there are three flowers.
These words said the bright flower of corn:
I am the brightest that charms the hours,
I 'm gathered for the church, and they say I the flesh of
Christ new born.
In the harvest field there are three flowers,
These words said the flower of the vine:
I am the brightest in all the bowers,
I'm gathered for the church, and they say the red blood of
Christ is mine.
In the harvest field there are three flowers,
These words said the wee violet blue:
I am the brightest beneath the showers,
For the young maidens cull me to deck the hats of those they
love so true.
THE LONESOME ONE.
Before thy door the bright, green corn
Bends o'er the pebbly path,
Its blooming flowers are not yet born
Two doves coo in the math.
Comes tripping by a village lass:
Her skirts are wet with dew,
Has she been raking the moistened grass?
Oh, I am far from you.
My sweetheart, I'm as far from you
As I have been for years,
Of her I ask each stranger new,
No tidings reach my ears.
O'er the lone prairie the wind whistles cold,
The young shepherd sadly follows his way.
"Where is your flock?"
Oh, my sheep I have sold."
"Where is your gayety?"
Vanished away."
"Your sheep you have sold! Why did you so?"
"Because on earth I shall need nothing more."
"Why did your light heart to a sad one grow?"
"Because my false love has wounded it sore."
"God guard you, dear prairie, and comrades brave,
My reed pipe again I shall never play."
O'er the lone prairie the bitter winds rave,
The young shepherd sadly follows his way.
May beetle, golden beetle;
I do not ask when summer will come;
I do not ask how long I shall live,
I only ask for my rose in bloom.
May beetle, golden beetle;
I do not ask for the summer's light,
For a summer's fire in my heart has burned,
Since my rose first flamed upon my sight.
The time will come, the time will come,
When you will come to weep before the house;
When you will clasp the doorpost of the entrance,
In deep regret for your unfaithful vows.
The time will come, the time will come,
When you will come to weep before my door.
Perhaps I may a word or two say to you,
But not the words I said to you before.
When I was a gallant lad,
I'd come from my door with glee;
I'd thrill the air with shouts of joy,
And the world would know 5t was me.
Now I am a graybeard old,,
I come from my door with pain,
Let me shout as loud as I may,
No voice will answer again.
The petals of the white rose fall;
To-day another weds my rose.
Through the wood the violins call,
And my heart shuts tight with its woes.
The shining star adorns the night,
In vain for thee my heart has beat,
My star for me has quenched its light,
But in my heart its ray is sweet.
At Dobreesen flowers a fair rose-tree;
It bears a lovely perfumed rose,
But what is that lovely rose worth to me,
If far beyond my reach it blows.
The young postilion is sounding his horn,
He brings a letter from my dear.
But her letter of gold leaves me forlorn,
Since she comes not to meet me here.
Down there under the steep hillside,
A small apple-tree blooms in pride.
Its flowers are fair; its fruit is sweet,
A little maiden sits at its feet.
She tresses garlands of red and white;
On her breast they turn to silver bright.
She lifts her eyes to the heavens vast,
And sees a wide road winding past.
Its borders two like silver gleam,
The middle is a golden stream.
A lamb walks there with curly bell,
On each curl point tinkles a bell.
The wild duck broods in the reedy grass,
In the meadow rich ripens the corn,
But the place where lives a faithful lass
I never have found since I was born.
In the lonesome night the stars are falling,
The young man drags his feet toward the house.
Heavy in his heart are voices calling,
And hatred of the world his miseries arouse.
In the lonesome night the stars are falling,
In the white mansion the candle glimmers red.
Flowers strew the couch. Oh, the sight appalling!
The brown girl in her shroud lies stretched upon her bed.
They are sweeping the wide street.
The soldiers start marching down
A maid of sixteen, red and sweet,
Is following out of town.
The young captain turns and speaks
"What this means I must know."
She answers with tear-wet cheeks,
"I follow where'er you go."
The roads are thick with snow,
The black steed gallops wide.
His bridle reins hang low
In his mad master's ride.
The brigand on the steed
Breathes deep, and sadly sighs,
"I dreamed not, in my need,
She'd sell me to the spies.
"Of all the brigands cursed,
Who rob on the wide plain,
The soldiers seek me first,
To bind me with a chain.
"My father was a thief,
My grandfather likewise.
To honest life's relief,
How can such seed arise?"
FOLK-SONGS OF ROUMANIA.
|It gives one a strange idea of what treasures of primitive poetry and
music may yet be found among the peasantry of Europe, when a volume like
this--The Bard of the Dimbovitza, Roumanian Folk-Songs. Collected from
the Peasants by Helene Yacaresco. Translated by Carmen Sylva and Alma
Strettell--has been brought to light from the single district of
Roumania. The preface by Carmen Sylva (the Queen of Roumania), herself
an accomplished literary artist, says that these songs were collected
from the lips of peasant girls, the lute players, the reapers, and the
gypsies, by the young poetess Helene Yacaresco, in the district of
Roumania, in which her father's domain is situated. She spent four years
in collecting them, and even although her family has been known and
honored for centuries by the people, she encountered many difficulties
in endeavoring to induce the peasants to repeat their songs to her. "She
was forced to affect a desire to learn spinning that she might join the
girls at their spinning parties, and so overhear their songs more
easily; she hid in the tall maize to hear the reapers crooning; she
caught them from the lips of peasant women, of lute players Cobzars,' so
called from the name of their instrument, the cobza, or lute, of
gypsies, of fortune tellers; she listened for them by death-beds, by
cradles, at the dance, and in the tavern with inexhaustible patience."
The result is a volume which is not only equal in quality to that of the
finest folk-song and poetry which any European nation possesses, and
with a peculiar and original flavor of its own, revealing strong and
original national characteristics, but, one is tempted to say, with more
of the sublimated and naked essence of poetry than can be found in any
work of modern civilized poets. There are times when the vivid strength
of simple passions, expressed with the force of naked directness without
any weakening refinement of language, the feelings of a people to whom
love is a genuine and undisguised passion, in whom hatred burns the
blood and finds relief in the shot or the stab, to whom death is an
object of vital horror as the end of life and happiness, and to whom
religion is an embodiment of direct supernatural power, produce a
poetry, which reaches a force of expression and touches the heart with a
power to which all modern refinements of thought and language are unable
to attain. It is, in comparison, as if a cloud of unreality, the
emanations of artificial thoughts and sentiments, or the dust, as it
were, of ages, had fallen upon the native freshness of feeling and
language, and that civilized men were no longer able to feel so deeply
or to speak so clearly as those who had never been burdened with
knowledge, or the strength of whose emotions had not been diluted by the
restraints and refinements of civilization, transcendental religion, or
artificial society. There is, of course, a power and subtlety of thought
in minds which have inherited the world's wisdom and knowledge, and
their thoughts have a scope and extent to which those of unlettered
peasants are strangers, and their views of the problems of life and
humanity are as those of a man to a child; but the strength of their
feeling in simple passion is much diluted and their powers of expression
are correspondingly less, so far as vividness and simplicity are
concerned. As an illustration of the weakness of purely artistic
literature, whatever its beauty and skill, to touch the depths of
feeling like the purely unsophisticated language of the natural poets,
who simply endeavored to express their emotions without thought of form
or artistic melody, may be compared the closing aspiration of the famous
and beautiful serenade in Maud,--
She is coining, my own, my sweet;
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead;
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red,--
with the simple utterance of the Javanese lover in one of the natural
flowers of folk-song,--
I do not know when I shall die,
I have seen at Badoer many that were dead,
They were dressed in white shrouds, and
Were buried in the earth;
If I die at Badoer and am buried beyond the
Village eastward against the hill,
Where the grass is high,
Then will Adinda pass by there, and the border
Of her sarong will sweep softly along the grass,--
I shall hear it.
There are times when the vitality of poetry seems to be lost as one
feels the simple and direct power of some of these ancient songs which
spring from the heart and not from the head, and all modern verse
seems like the pale and artificial product of intellectuality, weakened
feeling, and language refined until it has lost its strength, and one is
almost tempted to believe that civilization is as fatal to poetry as it
is to religious enthusiasm. Of course this is not the case. The human
heart has not lost its strength of feeling nor its power of expression,
and modern poetry is greater in its power and wider in its scope than
folk-song. But it has lost some of the peculiar strength which comes
from simplicity of feeling and overmastering power of passion; and its
language, if it has many delicate shades of meaning, which that of
a primitive people has not, has lost the clearness and vividness of
expression of those whose words are few, but which are the creation of
their hearts and not of their intellects.
These folk-songs of Roumania are full of the pathos and strength of
simple passions, and they show a native poetical spirit and power of the
imagination which is rare in any nation. Doubtless many of them are old,
the inheritance of long tradition and familiar forms of expression, but
it is indicated that many of them are new, and that the stock is being
constantly added to by the force of a poetic inspiration, which is still
in full life and flower. We are told that many of the spinning songs are
improvisations, the girls all standing in a circle, the best spinner or
singer in the centre, and that she begins to improvise a song, which
is passed on for continuance with the distaff to any one whom she may
select. Doubtless these are on familiar themes and with familiar forms
of expression, like all folk-songs, but they show the vital spirit of
poetry still existing, and the bulk of more elaborate compositions is
probably still being added to. This fact confirms the belief, which
intelligent observers have noted, that the Roumanians and the kindred
peoples of this race have an intellectual power which is of an undecayed
and still progressive people, very different from the effete Ottomans
by whom they were so long oppressed, and that, if the future promised
an opportunity for original development, instead of absorption into
the Muscovite empire, they might produce a homogeneous and progressive
nation with original features and an independent contribution to
civilization. At any rate the volume gives evidence of remarkable
intellectual power among the Roumanian peasantry, and it may be hoped
that this treasure-trove will stimulate other researches, and the
discovery of a larger bulk of native poetry, if none of finer value.
Whether any touch of sentiment has been added in the translations with
the higher poetic form in some instances cannot, of course, be apparent,
but the internal evidence would indicate that essential faithfulness
has been preserved and that the substance is as genuine as the poetry is
original and powerful.
Some of the most striking songs in the collection are those of the
gypsies, which have a wild and fiery tone like the gypsy music which has
stirred the blood of refined civilization, as it has been performed by
orchestras with all the effect of modern instrumentation, in a way that
the most skillful composers have failed to do, and shows the element of
poetry and passion in that strange and exotic race. What stronger beauty
of expression or grace of feeling can be found than this?--
There where the path to the plain goes by,
Where deep in the thicket my hut doth lie,
Where corn stands green in the garden plot--
The brook ripples by so clearly there,
The way is so open, so white, and fair--
My heart's best beloved, he takes it not.
There where I sit by my door and spin,
While morning winds that blow out and in
With scent of roses enfold the spot,
When at evening I softly sing my lay,
That the wand'rer hears, as he goes his way--
My heart's best beloved, he hears it not.
There, where on Sunday I go alone
To the old, old well with the milk-white stone,
Where by the fence, in a nook forgot,
Rises a spring in the daisied grass,
That makes whoso drink of it love--alas!
My heart's best beloved, he drinks it not.
There, by my window, where day by day,
When the sunbeams first brighten the morning gray,
I lean and dream of my weary lot,
And wait his coming, and softly cry
Because of love's longing that makes one die--
My heart's best beloved, he dieth not.
A peculiar character in the Roumanian songs is that of the Heiduck,
a sort of combination, it would seem, of the knight-errant and the
brigand, with all the legendary attributes of beauty, strength, courage,
and generosity of the half-fabulous popular heroes of all nations. The
Song of the Heiduck has all the buoyant spirit and gayety appropriate to
such a figure, but is overshadowed also by a sort of elfin sadness and
the doom of a supernatural fate, which is chiefly to be found in those
nations which have a tinge of oriental mysticism, and is a marked
feature of the Roumanian folk-songs. The Celtic mysticism, where it
exists, is more strictly religious.
THE HEIDUCK'S SONG.
_I tell the forest the wonders I see in my dreams
And the forest loves to hear the tale of my dreaming
More than the song of birds,
More than the murmur of leaves._
The huts had well-nigh beguiled me to stay, for the windows
Stood wide, and the smiles of the maidens shone out from
within,
But the Heiduck am I--and I love the far-stretching roads
And the plain, and my galloping steed.
My mother gave birth to me, sure, on a sunshiny morning,
And had I but never known love, ah, how happy were I!
I sing at the hour when the moon climbs above the horizon;
The tales that the aged folk know, I can tell, every one,
And I make the young dance, when I sing, to the tune of
my ballads.
For I a strange woman have loved;
She comes every night to me now, and she kisses my forehead,
And asks if I love her still.
She carries a knife in her girdle--her eyes have a glitter
Like daggers--her hand is as white as the veil of a bride;
But her voice I have never heard--yet know I full surely,
She asks if I love her still.
In token thereof I have given her up my girdle,
My cap with its feathers gay,
My mantle with broid'ry brave, and my glitt'ring daggers.
And my songs, I have given them all to her, one by one,
Yet the gayest bring no smile to her face, and the saddest