There where I lay asleep came Fortune in,
She came the while I slept and bid me wake,
"What dost thou now?" she said, "companion mine?
What dost thou now? Wilt thou then love forsake?
Arise," she said, "and take this violin,
And play till every stone thereat shall wake."
I was asleep when Fortune came to me,
And bid me rise, and led me unto thee!
These songs come from different villages; from Caballino and Morciano
in Calabria, from Corigliano and Calimera in Terra d'Otranto; the two
last are in the Greek dialect spoken in the latter district. There are
a great many more, in all of which the same sweet and serious type
is preserved; but the above quintet suffices to give a notion of this
modern Magna-Graecian Idyll of Fortune.
[Footnote 1: In a Breton variant the "Bon Dieu" is the first
to offer himself as sponsor, but is refused by the peasant,
"Because you are not just; you slay the honest bread-winner
and the mother whose children can scarce run alone, and you
let folks live who never brought aught but shame and sorrow on
their kindred." Death is accepted, "Because at least you take
the rich as well as the poor, the young as well as the old."
The German tale of "Godfather Death" begins in the same way,
but ends rather differently, as it is the godson and not the
father who is shown the many candles, and who vainly requests
Death to give him a new one instead of his own which is nearly
burnt out. A poem by Hans Sachs (1553) contains reference to
the legend, of which there are also Provencal and Hungarian
versions.]
[Footnote 2: Laura Gonzenbach was the daughter of the Swiss
Consul at Messina, where she was born. At an early age she
developed uncommon gifts, and she was hardly twenty when she
made her collection of Sicilian stories, almost exclusively
gathered from a young servant-girl who did not know how to
write or read. It was with great difficulty that a publisher
was found who would bring out the book. Fraeulein Gonzenbach
married Colonel La Racine, a Piedmontese officer, and died
five or six years ago, being still quite young. A relation of
hers, from whom I have these particulars, was much surprised
to hear that the _Sicilianische Maerchen_ is widely known as
one of the best works of its class. It is somewhat singular
that the preservation of Italian folk-tales should have been
so substantially aided by two ladies not of Italian origin:
Fraeulein Gonzenbach and Miss R. H. Busk, author of "The
Folk-lore of Rome."]