ARMENIAN FOLK-SONGS._Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs (1886)

Obscure in their origin, and for the most part having at first had no

such auxiliary as written record to aid their preservation, the single

fact of the existence of folk-songs may in general suffice to proclaim

them the true articulate voice of some sentiment or feeling, common to

the large bulk of the people whence they emanate. It is plain that the

fittest only can survive--only such as are truly germane to those who

say or sing them. A herdsman or tiller of the soil strings together

a few verses embodying some simple thought which came into his head

whilst he looked at the green fields or the blue skies, or it may

be as he acted in a humble way as village poet-laureate. One or two

friends get them by heart, and possibly sing them at the fair in

the next hamlet: if they hit, others catch them up, and so the song

travels for miles and miles, and may live out generations. If not, the

effusion of our poetical cowherd dies away quite silently--not much to

his distress, for had its fate been more propitious its author would

probably have been very little the wiser. One celebrated poet, and I

think but one, has in our own times begun his career in like manner

with the unknown folk-singer. The songs of Sandor Petoefi were popular

over the breadth of the Hungarian Puszta before ever they appeared in

print; and those who know him, know how faithfully he breathes forth

the soul of the Magyar race. In a certain sense it is true that every

real poet is the spokesman of his people. No two works, for instance,

are so characteristic of their respective countries as the _Divina

Commedia_ and _Faust_. Still, the hands of genius idealise what they

touch; the great poet personifies rather than reflects his people,

and if he serves them as representative, it is in an august, imperial

fashion within the Senate House of Fame, outside whose doors the

multitude hustles and seethes. When we want to see this multitude as

in a mirror, to judge its common instincts and impulses that go very

far to cast the nation in the type which makes it what it is, it is a

safer and surer plan to search out its own spontaneous and untutored

songs than to consult the master work attached to immortal names.

How far the individuality of a race is decided or modified by

the natural phenomena in which it is placed is a nice point for

discussion, and one not to be disposed of by off-hand generalities.

In what consists the sympathetic link, sometimes weak and scarcely

perceptible, at others visibly strong, between man and nature?

Why does the emigrated mountaineer, settled in comfort, ease,

and prosperity in some great metropolis, wake up one day with the

knowledge that he must begone to the wooden chalet with the threat of

the avalanche above and the menace of the flood below--or he must die?

Is it force of early association, habit, or fancy? Why is the wearied

town-tied brain-worker sensible of a nostalgia hardly less poignant

when he calls to mind how the fires of day kindled across some scene

of snow or sea with which his eyes were once familiar? Is it nothing

more than the return of a long ago experienced admiration? I think

that neither physicist nor psychologist--and both have a right to be

heard in the matter--would answer that the cause of these sensations

was to be thus shortly defined. Again ask the artist what the Athenian

owed to the purity and proportion of the lines of Grecian landscape,

what the Italian stole from the glow and glory of meridional light

and colour--what the Teuton learnt from the ascending spires of Alpine

ice? Was it that they saw and copied? Or rather, that Nature's spirit,

vibrating through the pulses of their being, moulded into form the

half-divine visions of master-sculptor, painter, architect?

It does not, however, require to go deeper than the surface of

things in order to understand that a peoples' songs must be largely

influenced by the accidents of natural phenomena, and especially where

climate and physical conformation are such as must perforce stir and

stimulate the imaginative faculties of the masses. We have an instance

to the point in the ballads of the "mountainous island" bounded by

seas and plains, which the natives call Hayasdan and we Armenia. The

wondering emotion aroused by a first descent from the Alps into Italy

is well known; to not a few of the mightiest of northern poets this

journey has acted like a charm, a revelation, an awakening to

fuller consciousness. In Armenia, the incantation of a like natural

antithesis is worked by the advent of its every returning spring: a

sluggard of a season that sleeps on soundly till near midsummer, but

comes forth at last fully clothed in the gorgeous raiment of a king.

In days gone by the Armenian spring was dedicated to the goddess

Anahid, and as it broke over the land the whole people joined in

joyful celebration of the feast of Varthavar or "Rose-blossoms,"

which since Christian times has been transformed into the three days'

festival of the Transfiguration. Beautiful is the face of the country

when the tardy sun begins to make up for lost time, as though his very

life depended on it; shooting down his beams with fiery force through

the rarefied ether, melting away the snows, and ripening all at once

the grain and grapes, the wild fig, apricot and olive, mulberry and

pomegranate. What wonder that the Armenian loves the revivifying lamp

of day, that he turns the dying man towards it, and will not willingly

commit his dead to the earth if some bright rays do not fall into the

open grave! At the sun's reveille there is a general resurrection of

all the buried winter population--women and children, cows and sheep,

pink-eyed lemmings, black-eyed caraguz, and little kangaroo-shaped

jerboas. Out, too, from their winter lairs come wolf and bear, hyena

and tiger, leopard and wild boar. The stork returns to his nest on the

broad chimney-pot, and this is what the peasant tells him of all that

has happened in his absence:

Welcome, Stork!

Thou Stork, welcome;

Thou hast brought us the sign of spring,

Thou hast made our heart gay.

Descend, O Stork!

Descend, O Stork, upon our roof,

Make thy nest upon our ash-tree.

I will tell thee my thousand sorrows,

The sorrows of my heart, the thousand sorrows,

Stork, when thou didst go away,

When thou didst go away from our tree,

Withering winds did blow,

They dried up our smiling flowers.

The brilliant sky was obscured,

That brilliant sky was cloudy:

From above they were breaking the snow in pieces:

Winter approached, the destroyer of flowers.

Beginning from the rock of Varac,

Beginning from that rock of Varac,

The snow descended and covered all;

In our green meadow it was cold.

Stork, our little garden,

Our little garden was surrounded with snow;

Our green rose trees

Withered with the snow and the cold.

But now the rose trees in the garden are green again, and out abroad

wild flowers enamel the earth. Down pour the torrents of melted snow

off Mount Ararat, down crash the avalanches of ice and stones

let loose by the sun's might; wherever an inch of soil or rock is

uncovered it becomes a carpet of blossom. High up, even to 13,000 feet

above the sea-level, the deep violet aster, the saxifrage, and crocus,

and ranunculus, and all our old Alpine acquaintances, form a dainty

morsel for the teeth, or a carpet for the foot, of swift capricorn

or not less agile wild sheep. A little lower, amidst patches of yet

frozen snow, hyacinths scent the air, yellow squills and blue anemones

peep out, clumps of golden iris cluster between the rocks. There, too,

is the "Fountain's Blood," or "Blood of the Seven Brothers," as the

Turk would say, with its crimson, leafless stalk and lily-like bloom,

the reddest of all red flowers. Upon the trees comes the sweet white

_kasbe_, a kind of manna much relished by the inhabitants. Amongst the

grass grow the Stars of Bethlehem, to remind us, as tradition has it,

that hard by on Ararat--beyond question the great centre of Chaldean

Star-worship--the wise men were appointed to watch for the appearance

of a sign in the heavens, and that thence they started in quest of

the place "where the young child lay." Tulips also abound; if we

may credit the legend, they had their origin in the Armenian town

of Erzeroom, springing from the life-blood of Ferdad when he threw

himself from the rocks in despair at a false alarm of the death of his

beloved Shireen.

Erzeroom is by common consent in these parts the very site of the

Garden of Eden. For many centuries, affirms the Moslem, the flowers

of Paradise might yet be seen blossoming round the source of the

Euphrates not far from the town. But, alas! when the great Persian

King Khosref Purveez, the rival of the above-mentioned Ferdad, was

encamped in that neighbourhood, he was rash enough to spurn a message

from the young Prophet Mohammed, offering him protection if he

would embrace the faith of Islam. What booted the protection of an

insignificant sectary to him? thought the Shah-in-Shah, and tossed the

letter into the Euphrates. But Nature, horrified at the sacrilegious

deed, dried up her flowers and fruits, and even parched the sources

of the river itself; the last relic of Eden became a waste. There is a

plaintive Armenian elegy composed in the person of Adam sitting at

the gate of Paradise, and beholding Cherubim and Seraphim entering the

Garden of which he once was king, "yea, like unto a powerful king!"

The poet puts into Adam's mouth a new line of defence; he did not eat

of the fruit, he says, until after he had witnessed its fatal effects

upon Eve, when, seeing her despoiled of all her glory, he was touched

with pity, and tasted the immortal fruit in the hope that the Creator

contemplating them both in the same wretched plight might with

paternal love take compassion on both. But vain was the hope; "the

Lord cursed the serpent and Eve, and I was enslaved between them." "O

Seraphim!" cries the exiled father of mankind:

When ye enter Eden, shut not the gate of Paradise; place me

standing at the gate; I will look in a moment, and then bring

me back.

Ah! I remember ye, O flowers and sweet-swelling fountains. Ah!

I remember ye O birds, sweet-singing--and ye, O beasts:

Ye who enjoy Paradise, come and weep over your king; ye who

are in Paradise planted by God, elected from the earth of

every kind and sort.

High above the hardiest saxifrage tower the three thousand feet of

everlasting snows that crown Mount Ararat. The Armenians call it

Massis or "Mother of the World," and old geographers held that it was

the centre of the earth, an hypothesis supported by various ingenious

calculations. The Persians have their own set of legends about it;

they say that Ararat was the cradle of the human race, and that at one

time it afforded pasture up to the apex of its dome; but upon man's

expulsion from Eden, Ahriman the serpent doomed the whole country to

a ten months' winter. As to the semi-scriptural traditions gathered

round the mountain, there is no end to them. "And the ark rested

in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the

mountains of Ararat," so says the Bible, and it is an article of faith

with the Armenian peasant that it is still somewhere up at the top,

only not visible. He is extremely loth to believe that anybody has

actually attained the summit. Parrot's famous ascent was long regarded

as the merest fable. At the foot of Ararat was a village named

Argoory, or "he planted the vine," where Noah's vineyard is pointed

out to this day, though the village itself was destroyed in 1840, when

the mountain woke up from its long slumbers and rolled down its side a

stream of boiling lava; but we are told that, owing to the sins of the

world, the vines no longer bear fruit. Close at hand is Manard, "the

mother lies here," alluding to the burial-place of Noah's wife, and

yonder is Eravan or "Visible," the first dry land which Noah perceived

as the waters receded. Armenian choniclers relate that when after

leaving the ark the descendants of Noah dispersed to different

quarters, one amongst them, by name Haig, the great-grandson of

Japhet, settled with his family in Mesopotamia, where he probably took

part in the building of the Tower of Babel. Later, however, upon Belus

acquiring dominion over the land, Haig found his rule so irksome to

himself and his clan that they migrated back in a body of 300 persons

to Armenia, much to the displeasure of Belus, who summoned them to

return, and when they refused, despatched a large army to coerce them

into obedience. Haig collected his men on the shores of Van, and thus

sagaciously addressed them:

When we meet with the army of Belus, let us attempt to draw

near where he lies surrounded by his warriors; either we shall

be killed, and our camp equipments and baggage will fall into

his hands, or, making a show of the strength of our arm, we

shall defeat his army, and victory will be ours.

These tactics proved completely successful, and Belus fell mortally

wounded by an arrow from Haig's bow. Having in this way disposed of

his enemies, the patriarch was able before he died to consolidate

Hayasdan into a goodly kingdom, which he left to the authority of his

son Armenag.

After the reign of Haig the thread of Armenian annals continues

without break or hitch; it must be admitted that no people, not even

the Jews, boast a history which "begins with the beginning" in a more

thorough way, nor does the work of any chronicler proceed in a more

methodical and circumstantial manner than that of Moses of Khoren, the

Herodotus of Armenia. As is well known, Moses, writing in the fifth

century, founded his chronicle upon a work undertaken about five

hundred years before by one Marabas Cattina, a Syrian, at the request

of the great Armenian monarch Vagshaishag. Marabas stated that his

record was based upon a manuscript he had discovered in the archives

of Nineveh which bore the indorsement, "This book, containing the

annals of ancient history, was translated from the Chaldean into

Greek, by order of Alexander the Great." Whatever may be the precise

amount of credence to which the Chronicle of Moses is entitled,

all will agree that it narrates the story of a high-spirited and

intelligent people whom the alternating domination of Greek and

Persian could not cower into relinquishing the substance of their

liberties, and whose efforts, in the main successful, on behalf of

their cherished independence, were never more vigorous than at times

when their triumph seemed farthest off. For nearly a thousand years

after the date of Moses of Khoren, his people maintained their

autonomy, and whether we look before or after the flight of the last

Armenian king before the soldiers of the Crescent, we must acknowledge

that few nations have fought more valiantly for their political

rights, whilst yet fewer have suffered more severely for their

fidelity to their faith. It is the pride of the Armenians that theirs

was the first country which adopted the Christian religion; it may

well be their pride also, that they kept their Christianity in

the teeth of persecutions which can only find a parallel in those

undergone by the Hebrew race.

Armenia is naturally rich in early Christian legends, of which the

most curious is perhaps that of the correspondence alleged to have

occurred between Our Lord and Abgar, king of Hayasdan. The latter,

it is said, having sent messengers to transact some business with the

Roman generals quartered in Palestine, received on their return such

accounts of the miracles performed by Jesus of Nazareth as convinced

him either that Christ was God come down upon the earth, or that

he was the son of God. Suffering from a grave malady, and hearing,

moreover, that the Jews had set their hearts on doing despite to the

Prophet who had risen in their midst, Abgar wrote a letter beseeching

Christ to come to his capital and cure him of his sickness. "My city

is indeed small," this letter naively concludes, "but it is sufficient

to contain us both." The king also sent a painter to Jerusalem, so

that if Our Lord could not come to Edessa he might at least possess

his portrait. The painter was one day endeavouring to fulfil his

mission when he was observed by Christ, who passing a handkerchief

over his face, gave it to the Armenian impressed with the likeness of

his features. The response to Abgar's letter was written by St Thomas,

who said, on behalf of his Divine Master, that his work lay elsewhere

than in Armenia, but that after his Ascension he would send an Apostle

to enlighten the people of that country. This correspondence, though

now not accepted as authentic out of Armenia, was mentioned by some

of the earliest Church historians, and it is asserted that one of the

letters has been found written on papyrus in an Egyptian tomb.

Christianity seems to have made some way in Armenia in the second

century, but to what extent is unknown. What is certain is, that

in the third century, St Gregory the Illuminator, after having been

tortured in twelve different ways by King Tiridates for refusing

to worship the goddess Anahid, and kept at the bottom of a well for

fourteen years, was taken out of it in consequence of a vision of the

king's sister, and converted that monarch and all his subjects along

with him. St Gregory is held in boundless reverence by the Armenians;

he is almost looked upon as a divine viceroy, as will be seen from the

following canzonette which Armenian children are taught to sing:

The light appears, the light appears!

The light is good:

The sparrow is on the tree,

The hen is on the perch,

The sleep of lazy men is a year,

Workman, rise and begin thy work!

The gates of heaven are opened,

The throne of gold is erected,

Christ is sitting on it;

The Illuminator is standing,

He has taken the golden pen,

He has written great and small.

Sinners are weeping,

The just are rejoicing.

The poet of the people nowhere occupies himself with casting about for

a fine subject; he writes of what he feels and of what he sees.

The Armenian peasant sees the snow in winter; in summer he sees

the flowers and the birds--only birds and flowers are to him the

pleasanter sight, so he sings more about them. He rarely composes

any verse without a flower or a bird being mentioned in it; all his

similes are ornithological or botanical, and by them he expresses

the tenderest emotions of his heart. There is a pathos, a simplicity

really exquisite in the conception of some of these little

bird-and-flower pieces, as, for example, in the subjoined "Lament of a

Mother" over her dead babe:

I gaze and weep, mother of my boy,

I say alas and woe is me wretched!

What will become of wretched me,

I have seen my golden son dead!

They seized that fragrant rose

Of my breast, and my soul fainted away;

They let my beautiful golden dove

Fly away, and my heart was wounded.

That falcon Death seized

My dear and sweet-voiced turtle dove and wounded me.

They took my sweet-toned little lark

And flew away through the skies!

Before my eyes they sent the hail

On my flowering green pomegranate,

My rosy apple on the tree,

Which gave fragrance among the leaves.

They shook my flourishing beautiful almond tree,

And left me without fruit;

Beating it they threw it on the ground

And trod it under foot into the earth of the grave.

What will become of wretched me!

Many sorrows surrounded me.

O, my God, receive the soul of my little one

And place him at rest in the bright heaven!

The birds of Armenia are countless in their number and variety, from

vulture to wren; there are so many of them that a man (it is said

poetically) may ride for miles and miles and never see the ground,

which they entirely cover, except over the small space from which

they fly up with a deafening whizz to make a passage for his horse. At

times the plains have the appearance of being dyed rose-colour through

the swarms of the gorgeous red goose which congregate upon them,

whilst here and there a whitish spot is formed by a troop of his

grey-coated relatives. It seems that the Armenian has found out why

it was the wild goose and the tame one separated from each other. Once

upon a time, when all were wild and free, one goose said to another on

the eve of a journey, "Mind you are ready, my friend, for, Inshallah

(please God), I set out to-morrow morning." "And so will I," he

profanely replied, "whether it pleases God or not." Sure enough next

morning both geese were up betimes, and the religious one spread out

his wings and sailed off lightly towards the distant land. But, lo!

when the impious goose tried to do likewise, he flapped and flapped

and could not stir from the ground. So a countryman caught him, and he

and his children for ever fell into slavery.

The partridge is a great favourite of the Armenian, who does not tire

of inventing lyrics in its honour. Here is a specimen:

The sun beats from the mountain's top,

Pretty, pretty:

The partridge comes from her nest;

She was saluted by the flowers,

She flew and came from the mountain's top.

Ah! pretty, pretty,

Ah! dear little partridge!

When I hear the voice of the partridge

I break my fast on the house-top:

The partridge comes chirping

And swinging from the mountain's side.

Ah! pretty, pretty,

Ah! dear little partridge!

Thy nest is enamelled with flowers,

With basilico, narcissus, and water-lily:

Thy place is full of dew,

Thou delightest in the fragrant odour.

Ah! pretty, pretty,

Ah! dear little partridge!

Thy feathers are soft,

Thy neck is long, thy beak little,

The colour of thy wing is variegated:

Thou art sweeter than the dove.

Ah! pretty, pretty,

Ah! dear little partridge!

When the little partridge descends from the tree,

And with his sweet voice chirps,

He cheers all the world,

He draws the heart from the sea of blood.

Ah! pretty, pretty,

Ah! dear little partridge.

All the birds call thee blessed,

They come with thee in flocks,

They come around thee chirping:

In truth there is not one like thee.

Ah! pretty, pretty,

Ah! beautiful little partridge!

Another song gives the piteous plaint of an unhappy partridge who was

snared and eaten. "Like St Gregory, they let me down into a deep

well; then they took me up and sat round a table, and they cut me into

little pieces, like St James the Intercised." The crane, who, with

the stork, brings the promise of summer on his wing, receives a warm

welcome, and when the Armenian sees a crane in some foreign country he

will say to him:--

Crane, whence dost thou come? I am the servant of thy voice.

Crane, hast thou not news from our country? Hasten not to thy

flock; thou wilt arrive soon enough! Crane, hast thou not news

from our country?

I have left my possessions and vineyard and come hither. How

often do I sigh; it seems that my soul is taken from me.

Crane, stay a little, thy voice is in my soul. Crane, hast

thou not news from our country? My God, I ask of thee grace

and favour, the heart of the pilgrim is wounded, his lungs are

consumed; the bread he eats is bitter, the water he drinks is

tasteless. Crane, hast thou not news from our country?

Thou comest from Bagdad, and goest to the frontiers. I will

write a little letter and give it to thee. God will be the

witness over thee; thou wilt carry it and give it to my dear

ones.

I have put in my letter that I am here, that I have never even

for a single day been happy. O, my dear ones, I am always

anxious for you! Crane, hast thou not news from our country?

The autumn is near, and thou art ready to go: thou hast

joined a large flock: thou hast not answered me, and thou art

flown! Crane, go from our country and fly far away!

The nameless author of these lines has had Dante's thought:

Tu proverai si come sa di sale

Lo pane altrui ...

It is strange that the Armenians should be at once one of the most

scattered peoples on the face of the earth, and one of the most

passionately devoted to their fatherland.

It should not be forgotten, when reading these Armenian bird-lays,

that an old belief yet survives in that country that the souls of the

blessed dead fly down from heaven, in the shape of beautiful birds,

and perching in the branches of the trees, look fondly at their dear

ones on earth as they pass beneath. When the peasant sees the birds

fluttering above overhead in the wood he will on no account molest

them, but says to his boy, "That is your dear mother, your little

brother, your sister--be a good child, or it will fly away and never

look at you again with its sweet little eyes."

The clear cool streams and vast treacherous salt lakes of Armenia

are not without their laureates. Thus sings the bard of a mountain

rivulet:

"Down from yon distant mountain

The water flows through the village, Ha!

A dark boy comes forth,

And washing his hands and face,

Washing, yes washing,

And turning to the water, asked, Ha!

Water, from what mountain dost thou come?