"There was a grand signore
Who had a daughter fair;
He longed to see her happy,
And wished that she were wed.
"'Oh, father! I would not marry,
I have vowed to have for my husband
One with teeth as red as coral.
Oh! find him for me,' she said.
"'My daughter, it is not possible,
You wring and pain my heart.
Ere I die and pass away
I would fain be at peace,' said he.
"One day there appeared before her
A knight of goodly seeming,
His teeth were red as coral.
Said the beautiful Amelia,
'There is the spouse for me.'
"'I will marry her,' said the knight,
'And bear her with me away.'
'Tell me where wilt thou take her,
Thou strange and unknown man.
I do not refuse her to thee,
But whither wilt thou roam?'
"He married fair Amelia,
And carried her far away.
"Where is the house thou dwell'st in?
And say where is thy home?'
"He took her to a cabin,
All leaves and sticks and hay,
'My true name is Ortello.
To-night, at the hour of midnight,
I will carry thee away.
"'I will bear thee to the graveyard
To dig up the newly dead;
Then if thou hast thirst or hunger
Thou mayst suck the blood of the corpses,'
To her the Sorcerer said.
"She wept in desperate sorrow,
She wrung her lily hand,
But she was lost for ever,
And in the witches' band."
This was, and is, a very rude ballad; its moral appears to be that
feminine caprice and disregard of parental love must be punished. It is
very remarkable as having to perfection that Northern or German element
which Goethe detected in a Neapolitan witch-song given in his Italian
journey. {224} It has also in spirit, and somewhat strangely in form,
that which characterises one of Heine's most singular songs. It
impresses me, as I was only yesterday impressed in the Duomo of Siena at
finding, among the wood-carvings in the choir, Lombard grotesques which
were markedly Teutonic, having in them no trace of anything Italian.
"Quaint mysteries of goblins and strange things,
We scarce know what--half animal half vine,
And beauteous face upon a toad, from which
Outshoots a serpent's tail--the Manicore,
A mixture grim of all things odd and wild,
The fairy-witch-like song of German eld."