... A nurse's song
Of lullaby, to bring her babe asleep.
Infancy is a great mystery. We know that we each have gone over that
stage in human life, though even this much is not always quite easy to
realise. But what else do we know about it? Something by observation,
something by intuition; by experience hardly anything at all. We have
as much personal acquaintance with a lake-dwelling or stone age infant
as with our proper selves at the time when we were passing through the
"avatar" of babyhood. The recollections of our earliest years are at
most only as the confused remembrance of a morning dream, which at one
end fades into the unconsciousness of sleep, whilst at the other it
mingles with the realities of awaking. And yet, as a fact, we did not
sleep through all the dawn of our life, nor were we unconscious; only
we were different from what we now are; the term "thinking animal" did
not then fit us so well. We were less reasonable and less material.
Babies have a way of looking at you that makes you half suspect that
they belong to a separate order of beings. You speculate as to whether
they have not invisible wings, which drop off afterwards as do the
birth wings of the young ant. There is one thing, however, in which
the baby is very human, very manlike. Of all newborn creatures he is
the least happy. You may sometimes see a little child crying softly
to himself with a look of world woe on his face that is positively
appalling. Perhaps human existence, like a new pair of shoes, is very
uncomfortable till one gets accustomed to it. Anyhow the child, being
for some reason or reasons exceedingly disposed to vex its heart,
needs much soothing. In one highly civilised country a good many
mothers are in the habit of going to the nearest druggist for the
means to tranquillise their offspring, with the result that these
latter are not unfrequently rescued from the sea of sorrows in the
most final and expeditious way. In less advanced states of society
another expedient has been resorted to from time immemorial--to wit,
the cradle song.
Babies show an early appreciation of rhythm. They rejoice in measured
noise, whether it takes the form of words, music, or the jingle of a
bunch of keys. In the way of poetry I am afraid they must be admitted
to have a perverse preference for what goes by the name of sing-song.
It will be a long time before the infantine public are brought round
to Walt Whitman's views on versification. For the rest, they are not
very severe critics. The small ancient Roman asked for nothing better
than the song of his nurse--
Lalla, lalla, lalla,
Aut dormi, aut lacta.
This two-line lullaby constitutes one of the few but sufficing proofs
which have come down to us of the existence among the people of old
Rome of a sort of folk verse not by any means resembling the Latin
classics, but bearing a considerable likeness to the _canti popolari_
of the modern Italian peasant. It may be said parenthetically that
the study of dialect tends altogether to the conviction that there are
country people now living in Italy to whom, rather than to Cicero, we
should go if we want to know what style of speech was in use among
the humbler subjects of the Caesars. The lettered language of the
cultivated classes changes; the spoken tongue of the uneducated
remains the same; or, if it too undergoes a process of change, the
rate at which it moves is to the other what the pace of a tortoise
is to the speed of an express train. About eight hundred years ago
a handful of Lombards went to Sicily, where they still preserve the
Lombard idiom. The Ober-Engadiner could hold converse with his remote
ancestors who took refuge in the Alps three or four centuries before
Christ; the Aragonese colony at Alghero, in Sardinia, yet discourses
in Catalan; the Roumanian language still contains terms and
expressions which, though dissimilar to both Latin and standard
Italian, find their analogues in the dialects of those eastward-facing
"Latin plains" whence, in all probability, the people of Roumania
sprang. But we must return to our lullabies.
There exists another Latin cradle song, not indeed springing from
classical times, but which, were popular tradition to be trusted,
would have an origin greatly more illustrious than that of the laconic
effusion of the Roman nurse. It is composed in the person of the
Virgin Mary, and was, in bygone days, believed to have been actually
sung by her. Authorities differ as to its real age, some insisting
that the peculiar structure of the verse was unknown before the 12th
century. There is, however, good reason to think that the idea of
composing lullabies for the Virgin belongs to an early period.
Dormi, fili, dormi! mater
Cantat unigenito:
Dormi puer, dormi! pater
Nato clamat parvulo:
Millies tibi laudes canimus
Mille, mille, millies.
Lectum stravi tibi soli,
Dormi, nate bellule!
Stravi lectum foeno molli:
Dormi mi animule.
Millies tibi laudes canimus
Mille, mille, millies.
Dormi, decus et corona!
Dormi, nectar lacteum!
Dormi, mater dabo dona,
Dabo favum melleum.
Millies tibi laudes canimus
Mille, mille, millies.
Dormi, nate mi mellite!
Dormi plene saccharo,
Dormi, vita, meae vitae,
Casto natus utero.
Millies tibi laudes canimus
Mille, mille, millies.
Quidquid optes, volo dare;
Dormi, parve pupule
Dormi, fili! dormi carae,
Matris deliciolae!
Millies tibi laudes canimus
Mille, mille, millies.
Dormi cor, et meus thronus;
Dormi matris jubilum;
Aurium caelestis sonus,
Et suave sibilum!
Millies tibi laudes canimus
Mille, mille, millies.
Dormi fili! dulce, mater
Duke melos concinam;
Dormi, nate! suave, pater,
Suave carmen accinam.
Millies tibi laudes canimus
Mille, mille, millies.
Ne quid desit, sternam rosis,
Sternam foenum violis,
Pavimentum hyacinthis
Et praesepe liliis.
Millies tibi laudes canimus
Mille, mille, millies.
Si vis musicam, pastores
Convocabo protinus;
Illis nulli sunt priores;
Nemo canit castius.
Millies tibi laudes canimus
Mille, mille, millies.
Everybody who is in Rome at Christmas-tide makes a point of visiting
Santa Maria in Ara C[oe]li, the church which stands to the right of
the Capitol, where once the temple of Jupiter Feretrius is supposed
to have stood. What is at that season to be seen in the Ara C[oe]li is
well enough known--to one side a "presepio," or manger, with the ass,
the ox, St Joseph, the Virgin, and the Child on her knee; to the other
side a throng of little Roman children rehearsing in their infantine
voices the story that is pictured opposite.[1] The scene may be taken
as typical of the cult of the Infant Saviour, which, under one form
or another, has existed distinct and separable from the main stem of
Christian worship ever since a Voice in Judaea bade man seek after the
Divine in the stable of Bethlehem. It is almost a commonplace to say
that Christianity brought fresh and peculiar glory alike to infancy
and to motherhood. A new sense came into the words of the oracle--
Thee in all children, the eternal Child ...
And the mother, sublimely though she appears against the horizon of
antiquity, yet rose to a higher rank--because the highest--at the
founding of the new faith. Especially in art she left the second place
that she might take the first. The sentiment of maternal love, as
illustrated, as transfigured, in the love of the Virgin for her Divine
Child, furnished the great Italian painters with their master motive,
whilst in his humble fashion the obscure folk-poet exemplifies the
selfsame thought. I am not sure that the rude rhymes of which the
following is a rendering do not convey, as well as can be conveyed in
articulate speech, the glory and the grief of the Dresden Madonna:
Sleep, oh sleep, dear Baby mine,
King Divine;
Sleep, my Child, in sleep recline;
Lullaby, mine Infant fair,
Heaven's King
All glittering,
Full of grace as lilies rare.
Close thine eyelids, O my treasure,
Loved past measure,
Of my soul, the Lord, the pleasure;
Lullaby, O regal Child,
On the hay
My joy I lay;
Love celestial, meek and mild.
Why dost weep, my Babe? alas!
Cold winds that pass
Vex, or is 't the little ass?
Lullaby, O Paradise;
Of my heart
Though Saviour art;
On thy face I press a kiss.
Wouldst thou learn so speedily,
Pain to try,
To heave a sigh?
Sleep, for thou shalt see the day
Of dire scath,
Of dreadful death,
To bitter scorn and shame a prey.
Rays now round thy brow extend,
But in the end
A crown of cruel thorns shall bend.
Lullaby, O little one,
Gentle guest
Who for thy rest
A manger hast, to lie upon.
Born in winter of the year,
Jesu dear,
As the lost world's prisoner.
Lullaby (for thou art bound
Pain to know,
And want and woe),
Mid the cattle standing round.
Beauty mine, sleep peacefully;
Heaven's monarch! see,
With my veil I cover thee.
Lullaby, my Spouse, my Lord,
Fairest Child
Pure, undefiled,
Thou by all my soul adored.
Lo! the shepherd band draws nigh;
Horns they ply
Thee their Lord to glorify.
Lullaby, my soul's delight,
For Israel,
Faithless and fell,
Thee with cruel death would smite.
Now the milk suck from my breast,
Holiest, best,
Thy kind eyes thou openest.
Lullaby, the while I sing;
Holy Jesu
Now sleep anew,
My mantle is thy sheltering.
Sleep, sleep, thou who dost heaven impart
My Lord thou art;
Sleep, as I press thee to my heart.
Poor the place where thou dost lie,
Earth's loveliest!
Yet take thy rest;
Sleep my Child, and lullaby.
It would be interesting to know if Mrs Browning ever heard any one of
the many variants of this lullaby before writing her poem "The Virgin
Mary to the Child Jesus." The version given above was communicated to
me by a resident at Vallauria, in the heart of the Ligurian Alps. In
that district it is sung in the churches on Christmas Eve, when out
abroad the mountains sleep soundly in their snows and a stray wolf
is not an impossible apparition, nothing reminding you that you are
within a day's journey of the citron groves of Mentone.
There are several old English carols which bear a strong resemblance
to the Italian sacred lullabies. One, current at least as far back as
the time of Henry IV., is preserved among the Sloane MSS.:
Lullay! lullay! lytel child, myn owyn dere fode,
How xalt thou sufferin be nayled on the rode.
So blyssid be the tyme!
Lullay! lullay! lytel child, myn owyn dere smerte,
How xalt thou sufferin the scharp spere to Thi herte?
So blyssid be the tyme!
Lullay! lullay! lytel child, I synge all for Thi sake,
Many on is the scharpe schour to Thi body is schape.
So blyssid be the tyme!
Lullay! lullay! lytel child, fayre happis the befalle,
How xalt thou sufferin to drynke ezyl and galle?
So blyssid be the tyme!
Lullay! lullay! lytel child, I synge al beforn
How xalt thou sufferin the scharp garlong of thorn?
So blyssid be the tyme!
Lullay! lullay! lytel child, gwy wepy Thou so sore,
Thou art bothin God and man, gwat woldyst Thou be more?
So blyssid be the tyme!
Here, as in the Piedmontese song, the "shadow of the cross" makes its
presence distinctly felt, whereas in the Latin lullaby it is wholly
absent. Nor are there any dark or sad forebodings in the fragment:
Dormi Jesu, mater ridet,
Quae; tam dulcem somnum videt,
Dormi, Jesu blandule.
Si non dormis, mater plorat,
Inter fila cantans orat:
Blande, veni Somnule.
Many Italian Christmas cradle songs are in this lighter strain.
In Italy and Spain a _presepio_ or _nacimento_ is arranged in
old-fashioned houses on the eve of Christmas, and all kinds of songs
are sung or recited before the white image of the Child as it lies in
its bower of greenery. "Flower of Nazareth sleep upon my breast, my
heart is thy cradle," sing the Tuscans, who curiously call Christmas
"the Yule-log Easter." In Sicily a thousand endearing epithets are
applied to the Infant Saviour: "figghiu duci," "Gesiuzzi beddu,"
"Gesiuzzi picchiureddi." The Sicilian poet relates how once, when the
Madunazza was mending St Joseph's clothes, the Bambineddu cried in His
cradle because no one was attending to Him; so the archangel Raphael
came down and rocked Him, and said three sweet little words to Him,
"Lullaby, Jesus, Son of Mary!" Another time, when the Child was older
and the mother was going to visit St Anne, he wept because He wished
to go too. The mother let Him accompany her on condition that He would
not break St Anne's bobbins. Yet another time the Virgin went to the
fair to buy flax, and the Child said that He too would like to have
a fairing. The Virgin buys Him a tambourine, and angels descend to
listen to His playing. Such stories are endless; some, no doubt, are
invented on the spur of the moment, but the larger portion are scraps
of old legendary lore. Not a few of the popular beliefs, relating to
the Infant Jesus may be traced to the apocryphal Gospels, which were
extensively circulated during the earlier Christian centuries.
There is, for instance, a Provencal song containing the legend of an
apple-tree that bowed its branches to the Virgin, which is plainly
derived from this source. Speaking of Provence, one ought not to
forget the famous "Troubadour of Bethlehem," Saboly, who was born in
1640, and who composed more than sixty _noels_. Five pretty lines of
his form an epitome of sacred lullabies:
Faudra dire, faudra dire,
Quauco cansoun,
Au garcoun,
A la facoun
D'aquelo de _soum-soum_.
George Wither deserves remembrance here for what he calls a "Rocking
hymn," written about the year of Saboly's birth. "Nurses," he says,
"usually sing their children asleep, and through want of pertinent
matter they oft make use of unprofitable, if not worse, songs; this
was therefore prepared that it might help acquaint them and their
nurse children with the loving care and kindness of their Heavenly
Father." Consciously or unconsciously, Wither caught the true spirit
of the ancient carols in the verses--charming in spite, or perhaps
because of their demure simplicity--which follow his little exordium:
Sweet baby, sleep: what ails my dear;
What ails my darling thus to cry?
Be still, my child, and lend thine ear,
To hear me sing thy lullaby.
My pretty lamb, forbear to weep;
Be still, my dear; sweet baby, sleep.
Thou blessed soul, what canst thou fear?
What thing to thee can mischief do?
Thy God is now thy Father dear,
His holy Spouse thy mother too.
Sweet baby, then forbear to weep;
Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep....
Whilst thus thy lullaby I sing,
For thee great blessings ripening be;
Thine eldest brother is a king,
And hath a kingdom bought for thee.
Sweet baby, then forbear to weep;
Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. &c., &c.
Count Gubernatis, in his "Usi Natalizj," quotes a popular Spanish
lullaby, addressed to any ordinary child, but having reference to the
Holy Babe:
The Baby Child of Mary,
Now cradle He has none;
His father is a carpenter,
And he shall make Him one.
The lady good St Anna,
The lord St Joachim,
They rock the Baby's cradle,
That sleep may come to Him.
Then sleep thou too, my baby,
My little heart so dear;
The Virgin is beside thee,
The Son of God is near.
When they are old enough to understand the meaning of words, children
are sure to be interested up to a certain point by these saintly
fables, but, taken as a whole, the songs of the South give us the
impression that the coming of Christmas kindles the imagination of the
Southern mother rather than that of the Southern child. On the north
side of the Alps it is otherwise; there is scarcely need to say that
in the Vaterland, Christmas is before all the children's feast. We,
who have borrowed many of the German yule-tide customs, have left out
the "Christkind;" and it is well that we have done so. Transplanted
to foreign soil, that poetic piece of extra-belief would have become a
mockery. As soon try to naturalise Kolyada, the Sclavonic white-robed
New-year girl. The Christkind in His mythical attributes is nearer to
Kolyada than to the Italian Bambinello. He belongs to the people, not
to the Church. He is not swathed in jewelled swaddling clothes; His
limbs are free, and He has wings that carry Him wheresoever good
children abide. There is about Him all the dreamy charm of lands where
twilight is long and shade and shine intermingle softly, and where the
earth's wintry winding-sheet is more beautiful than her April bride
gown. The most popular of German lullabies is a truly Teutonic mixture
of piety, wonder-lore, and homeliness. Wagner has introduced the
music to which it is sung into his "Siegfried-Idyl." I have to thank a
Heidelberg friend for the text:
Sleep, baby, sleep:
Your father tends the sheep;
Your mother shakes the branches small,
Whence happy dreams in showers fall:
Sleep, baby, sleep.
Sleep, baby, sleep:
The sky is full of sheep;
The stars the lambs of heaven are,
For whom the shepherd moon doth care:
Sleep, baby, sleep.
Sleep, baby, sleep:
The Christ Child owns a sheep;
He is Himself the Lamb of God;
The world to save, to death He trod:
Sleep, baby, sleep.
Sleep, baby, sleep:
I'll give you then a sheep
With pretty bells, and you shall play
And frolic with him all the day:
Sleep, baby, sleep.
Sleep, baby, sleep:
And do not bleat like sheep,
Or else the shepherd's dog will bite
My naughty, little, crying spright:
Sleep, baby, sleep.
Sleep, baby, sleep:
Begone, and watch the sheep,
You naughty little dog! Begone,
And do not wake my little one:
Sleep, baby, sleep.
In Denmark children are sung to sleep with a cradle hymn which is
believed (so I am informed by a youthful correspondent) to be "very
old." It has seven stanzas, of which the first runs, "Sleep sweetly,
little child; lie quiet and still; as sweetly sleep as the bird in the
wood, as the flowers in the meadow. God the Father has said,
'Angels stand on watch where mine, the little ones, are in bed.'" A
correspondent at Warsaw (still more youthful) sends me the even-song
of Polish children:
The stars shine forth from the blue sky;
How great and wondrous is God's might;
Shine, stars, through all eternity,
His witness in the night.
O Lord, Thy tired children keep:
Keep us who know and feel Thy might;
Turn Thine eye on us as we sleep,
And give us all good-night.
Shine, stars, God's sentinels on high,
Proclaimers of His power and might;
May all things evil from us fly:
O stars, good-night, good-night!
Is this "Dobra Noc" of strictly popular origin? From internal evidence
I should say that it is not. It seems, however, to be extremely
popular in the ordinary sense of the word. Before me lie two or three
settings of it by Polish musicians.
The Italians call lullabies _ninne-nanne_, a term used by Dante when
he makes Forese predict the ills which are to overtake the dames of
Florence:
E se l'anteveder qui non m' inganna,
Prima fien triste che le guance impeli
Colui che mo si consola con _nanna_.
Some etymologists have sought to connect "nanna" with _neniae_ or
[Greek: nenitos], but its most apparent relationship is with [Greek:
nannarismata], the modern Greek name for cradle songs, which is
derived from a root signifying the singing of a child to sleep.
The _ninne-nanne_ of the various Italian provinces are to be found
scattered here and there through volumes of folk poesy, and no attempt
has yet been made to collate and compare them. Signor Dal Medico did
indeed publish, some ten years ago, a separate collection of Venetian
nursery rhymes, but his initiative has not been followed up. The
difficulty I had in obtaining the little work just mentioned is
characteristic of the way in which Italian printed matter vanishes
out of all being; instead of passing into the obscure but secure limbo
into which much of English literature enters, it attains nothing
short of Nirv[=a]na--a happy state of non-existence. The inquiries of
several Italian book-sellers led to no other conclusion than that the
book in question was not to be had for love or money; and most likely
I should still have been waiting for it were it not for the courtesy
of the Baron Giovanni di Sardagna, who, on hearing that it was wanted
by a student of folk-lore, borrowed from the author the only copy in
his possession and made therefrom a verbatim transcript. The following
is one of Signor Dal Medico's lullabies:
Hush! lulla, lullaby! So mother sings;
For hearken, 'tis the midnight bell that rings.
But, darling, not thy mother's bell is this:
St Lucy's priests it calls to prayer, I wis.
St Lucy gave thee eyes--a matchless pair--
And gave the Magdalen her golden hair;
Thy cheeks their hue from heaven's angels have;
Her little loving mouth St Martha gave.
Love's mouth, sweet mouth, that Florence hath for home,
Now tell me where love springs, and how doth come?...
With music and with song doth love arise,
And then its end it hath in tears and sighs.
The question and answer as to the beginning and end of love run
through all the songs of Italy, and in nearly every case the reply
proceeds from Florence. The personality of the answerer changes:
sometimes it is a little wild bird; on one occasion it is a preacher.
And the idea has been suggested that the last is the original form,
and that the Preacher of Florence who preaches against love is none
other than Jeronimo Savonarola.
In an Istriot variant of the above song, "Santa Luceia" is spoken of
as the Madonna of the eyes; "Santa Puluonia" as the Madonna of the
teeth: we hear also something of the Magdalene's old shoes and of the
white lilies she bears in her hands. It is not always quite clear
upon what principle the folk-poet shapes his descriptions of religious
personages; if the gifts and belongings he attributes to them are
at times purely conventional, at others they seem to rest on no
authority, legendary or historic. Most likely his ideas as to
the personal appearance of such or such a saint are formed by the
paintings in the church where he is accustomed to go to mass; it
is probable, too, that he is fond of talking of the patrons of his
village or of the next village, whose names are associated with the
_feste_, which as long as he can recollect have constituted the great
annual events of his life. But two or three saints have a popularity
independent of local circumstance. One of these is Lucy, whom the
people celebrate with equal enthusiasm from her native Syracuse to the
port of Pola. Perhaps the maiden patroness of the blessed faculty of
vision has come to be thought of as a sort of gracious embodiment
of that which her name signifies: of the sweet light which to the
southerner is not a mere helpmate in the performance of daily tasks,
but a providential luxury. Concerning the earthly career of their
favourite, her peasant votaries have vague notions: once when a
French traveller in the Apennines suggested that St Januarius might be
jealous of her praises, he received the answer, "_Ma che, excellenza_,
St Lucy was St Januarius' wife!"
In Greece we find other saints invoked over the baby's cradle. The
Greek of modern times has his face, his mind, his heart, set in an
undeviating eastward position. To holy wisdom and to Marina, the
Alexandrian martyr, the Greek mother confides her cradled darling:
Put him to bed, St Marina; send him to sleep, St Sophia! Take
him out abroad that he may see how the trees flower and how
the birds sing; then come back and bring him with you, that
his father may not ask for him, may not beat his servants,
that his mother may not seek him in vain, for she would weep
and fall sick, and her milk would turn bitter.
At Gessopalena, in the province of Chieti (Abruzzo Citeriore) there
would seem to be much faith in numbers. Luke and Andrew, Michael and
Joseph, Hyacinth and Matthew are called in, and as if these were not
enough to nurse one baby, a summons is sent to _Sant Giusaffat_, who,
as is well known, is neither more nor less than Buddha introduced into
the Catholic calendar.
Another of Signor Dal Medico's _ninne-nanne_ presents several points
of interest:
O Sleep, O Sleep, O thou beguiler, Sleep,
Beguile this child, and in beguilement keep,
Keep him three hours, and keep him moments three;
Until I call beguile this child for me.
And when I call I'll call:--My root, my heart,
The people say my only wealth thou art.
Thou art my only wealth; I tell thee so.
Now, bit by bit, this boy to sleep will go;
He falls and falls to sleeping bit by bit,
Like the green wood what time the fire is lit,
Like to green wood that never flame can dart,
Heart of thy mother, of thy father heart!
Like to green wood, that never flame can shoot.
Sleep thou, my cradled hope, sleep thou, my root,
My cradled hope, my spirit's strength and stay;
Mother, who bore thee, wears her life away;
Her life she wears away, and all day long
She goes a-singing to her child this song.
Now, in the first place, the comparison of the child's gradual falling
asleep with the slow ignition of fresh-cut wood is the common property
of all the populations whose ethnical centre of gravity lies in
Venice. I have seen an Istriot version of it, and I heard it sung by a
countrywoman at San Martino di Castrozza in the Trentino; so that, at
all event, _Italia redenta_ and _irredenta_ has a community of song.
The second thing that calls for remark is the direct invocation
of sleep. A distinct little group of cradle ditties displays this
characteristic. "Come, sleep," cries the Grecian mother, "come, sleep,
take him away; come sleep, and make him slumber. Carry him to the
vineyard of the Aga, to the gardens of the Aga. The Aga will give
him grapes; his wife, roses; his servant, pancakes." A second Greek
lullaby must have sprung from a luxuriant imagination. It comes from
Schio:
Sleep, carry off my son, o'er whom three sentinels do watch,
Three sentinels, three warders brave, three mates you cannot match.
These guards: the sun upon the hill, the eagle on the plain,
And Boreas, whose chilly blasts do hurry o'er the main.
--The sun went down into the west, the eagle sank to sleep,
Chill Boreas to his mother sped across the briny deep.
"My son, where were you yesterday? Where on the former night?
Or with the moon or with the stars did you contend in fight?
Or with Orion did you strive--though him I deem a friend?"
"Nor with the stars, nor with the moon, did I in strife contend,
Nor with Orion did I fight, whom for your friend I hold,
But guarded in a silver cot a child as bright as gold."
The Greeks have a curious way of looking at sleep: they seem absorbed
in the thought of what dreams may come--if indeed the word dream
rightly describes their conception of that which happens to the soul
while the body takes its rest--if they do not rather cling to some
vague notion of a real severance between matter and spirit during
sleep.
The mothers of La Bresse (near Lyons) invoke sleep under the name of
"le souin-souin." I wish I could give here the sweet, inedited melody
which accompanies these lines:
Le poupon voudrait bien domir;
Le souin-souin ne veut pas venir.
Souin-souin, vene, vene, vene;
Souin-souin, vene, vene, donc!
The Chippewaya Indians were in the habit of personifying sleep as an
immense insect called Weeng, which someone once saw at the top of a
tree engaged in making a buzzing noise with its wings. Weeng produced
sleep by sending fairies, who beat the foreheads of tired mortals with
very small clubs.
Sleep acts the part of questioner in the lullaby of the Finland
peasant woman, who sings to her child in its bark cradle: "Sleep,
little field bird; sleep sweetly, pretty redbreast. God will wake thee
when it is time. Sleep is at the door, and says to me, 'Is not there
a sweet child here who fain would sleep? a young child wrapped
in swaddling clothes, a fair child resting beneath his woollen
coverlet?'" A questioning sleep makes his appearance likewise in a
Sicilian _ninna_:--
My little son, I wish you well, your mother's comfort when in grief.
My pretty boy, what can I do? Will you not give one hour's relief?
Sleep has just past, and me he asked if this my son in slumber lay.
Close, close your little eyes, my child; send your sweet breath far
leagues away.
You are the fount of rose water; you are with every beauty fraught.
Sleep, darling son, my pretty one, my golden button richly wrought.
A vein of tender reproach is sprung in that inquiry, "Ca n' ura ri
riposu 'un vuo rari?" The mother appeals to the better feeling, to
the Christian charity as it were, of the small but implacable tyrant.
Another time she waxes yet more eloquent. "Son, my comfort, I am not
happy. There are women who laugh and enjoy themselves while I chafe my
very life out. Listen to me, child; beautiful is the lullaby and all
the folk are asleep--but thou, no! My wise little son, I look about
for thy equal; nowhere do I find him. Thou art mamma's consolation.
There, do sleep just a little while." So pleads the Sicilian; her
Venetian sister tries to soften the obduracy of her infant by still
more plaintive remonstrances. "Hushaby; but if thou dost not sleep,
hear me. Thou hast robbed me of my heart and of all my sentiments. I
really do not know for what cause thou lamentest, and never will have
done lamenting." On this occasion the appeal seems to be made to some
purpose, for the song concludes, "The eyes of my joy are closing; they
open a little and then they shut. Now is my joy at peace with me and
no longer at war." So happy an issue does not always arrive. It may
happen that the perverse babe flatly refuses to listen to the mother's
voice, sing she never so sweetly. Perhaps he might have something
to say for himself could he but speak, at any rate in the matter of
mid-day slumbers. It must no doubt be rather trying to be called upon
to go straight to sleep just when the sunbeams are dancing round and
round and wildly inviting you to make your first studies in optics.
Most often the long-suffering mother, if she does not see things in
this light, acts as though she did. Her patience has no limit; her
caresses are never done; with untiring love she watches the little
wakeful, wilful culprit--
Chi piangendo e ridendo pargoleggia....
But it is not always so; there are times when she loses all patience,
and temper into the bargain. Such a contingency is only too faithfully
reflected in a Sicilian _ninna_ which ends with the utterance of a
horrible wish that Doctor Death would come and quiet the recalcitrant
baby once for all. I ought to add that this same murderous lullaby is
nevertheless brimful of protestations of affection and compliments;
the child is told that his eyes are the finest imaginable, his cheeks
two roses, his countenance like the moon's. The amount of incense
which the Sicilian mother burns before her offspring would suffice
to fill any number of cathedrals. Every moment she breaks forth into
words such as, "Hush! child of my breath, bunch of jasmine, handful of
oranges and lemons; go to sleep, my son, my beauty: I have got to take
thy portrait." It has been remarked that a person who resembled an
orange would scarcely be very attractive, whence it is inferred that
the comparison came into fashion at the date when the orange tree was
first introduced into Sicily and when its fruit was esteemed a rare
novelty. A little girl is described as a spray of lilies and a bouquet
of roses. A little boy is assured that his mother prefers him to gold
or fine silver. If she lost him where would she find a beloved son
like to him? A child dropped out of heaven, a laurel garland, one
under whose feet spring up flowers? Here is a string of blandishments
prettily wound up in a prayer:
Hush, my little round-faced daughter; thou art like the stormy sea.
Daughter mine of finest amber, godmother sends sleep to thee.
Fair thy name, and he who gave it was a gallant gentleman.
Mirror of my soul, I marvel when thy loveliness I scan.
Flame of love, be good. I love thee better far than life I love.
Now my child sleeps. Mother Mary, look upon her from above.
The form taken by parental flattery shows the tastes of nations and of
individuals. The other day a young and successful English artist was
heard to exclaim with profound conviction, whilst contemplating his
son and heir, twenty-four hours old, "There is a great deal of _tone_
about that baby!"
The Hungarian nurse tells her charge that his cot must be of rosewood
and his swaddling clothes of rainbow threads spun by angels. The
evening breeze is to rock him, the kiss of the falling star to awake
him; she would have the breath of the lily touch him gently, and the
butterflies fan him with their brilliant wings. Like the Sicilian, the
Magyar has an innate love of splendour.
Corsica has a _ninna-nanna_ into which the whole genius of its people
seems to have passed. The village, _fetes_, with dancing and music,
the flocks and herds and sheep-dogs, even the mountains, stars, and
sea, and the perfumed air off the _macchi_, come back to the traveller
in that island as he reads--
Hushaby, my darling boy;
Hushaby, my hope and joy.
You're my little ship so brave
Sailing boldly o'er the wave;
One that tempests doth not fear,
Nor the winds that blow from high.
Sleep awhile, my baby dear;
Sleep, my child, and hushaby.
Gold and pearls my vessel lade,
Silk and cloth the cargo be,
All the sails are of brocade
Coming from beyond the sea;
And the helm of finest gold,
Made a wonder to behold.
Fast awhile in slumber lie;
Sleep, my child, and hushaby.
After you were born full soon
You were christened all aright;
Godmother she was the moon,
Godfather the sun so bright;
All the stars in heaven told
Wore their necklaces of gold.
Fast awhile in slumber lie;
Sleep, my child, and hushaby.
Pure and balmy was the air,
Lustrous all the heavens were;
And the seven planets shed
All their virtues on your head;
And the shepherds made a feast
Lasting for a week at least.
Fast awhile in slumber lie;
Sleep, my child, and hushaby.
Nought was heard but minstrelsy,
Nought but dancing met the eye,
In Cassoni's vale and wood
And in all the neighbourhood;
Hawk and Blacklip, stanch and true,
Feasted in their fashion too.
Fast awhile in slumber lie;
Sleep, my child, and hushaby.
Older years when you attain,
You will roam o'er field and plain;
Meadows will with flowers be gay,
And with oil the fountains play,
And the salt and bitter sea
Into balsam changed be.
Fast awhile in slumber lie;
Sleep, my child, and hushaby.
And these mountains, wild and steep,
Will be crowded o'er with sheep,
And the wild goat and the deer
Will be tame and void of fear;
Vulture, fox, and beast of prey,
From these bounds shall flee away.
Fast awhile in slumber lie;
Sleep, my child, and hushaby.
You are savory, sweetly blowing,
You are thyme, of incense smelling,
Upon Mount Basella growing,
Upon Mount Cassoni dwelling;
You the hyacinth of the rocks
Which is pasture for the flocks.
Fast awhile in slumber lie;
Sleep, my child, and hushaby.
At the sight of a new-born babe the Corsican involuntarily sets to
work making auguries. The mountain shepherds place great faith in
divination based on the examination of the shoulder-blades of animals:
according to the local tradition the famous prophecy of the greatness
of Napoleon was drawn up after this method. The nomad tribes of
Central Asia search the future in precisely the same way. Corsican
lullabies are often prophetical. An old woman predicts a strange sort
of millennium, to begin with the coming of age of her grandson:
"There grew a boy in Palneca of Pumonti, and his dear
grandmother was always rocking his cradle, always wishing him
this destiny:--
"Sleep, O little one, thy grandmother's joy and gladness, for
I have to prepare the supper for thy dear little father, and
thy elder brothers, and I have to make their clothes.
"When thou art older, thou wilt traverse the plains, the grass
will turn to flowers, the sea-water will become sweet balm.
"We will make thee a jacket edged with red and turned up in
points, and a little peaked hat, trimmed with gold braid.
"When thou art bigger, thou wilt carry arms; neither soldier
nor gendarme will frighten thee, and if thou art driven up
into a corner, thou wilt make a famous bandit.
"Never did woman of our race pass thirteen years unwed, for
when an impertinent fellow dared so much as look at her, he
escaped not two weeks unless he gave her the ring.
"But that scoundrel of Morando surprised the kinsfolk,
arrested them all in one day, and wrought their ruin. And the
thieves of Palneca played the spy.
"Fifteen men were hung, all in the market-place: men of great
worth, the flower of our race. Perhaps it will be thou, O
dearest! who shall accomplish the vendetta!"
An unexpected yet logical development leads from the peaceful
household cares, the joyous images of the familiar song, the playful
picture of the baby boy in jacket and pointed hat, to a terrible
recollection of deeds of shame and blood, long past, and perhaps
half-forgotten by the rest of the family, but at which the old dame's
breast still burns as she rocks the sleeping babe on whom is fixed her
last passionate hope of vengeance fulfilled.
In the mountain villages scattered about the borders of the vast Sila
forest, Calabrian mothers whisper to their babes, "brigantiellu miu,
brigantiellu della mamma." They tell the little ones gathered round
their knees legends of Fra Diavolo and of Talarico, just as Sardinian
mothers tell the legend of Tolu of Florinas. This last is a story
of to-day. In 1850, Giovanni Tolu married the niece of the priest's
housekeeper. The priest opposed the marriage, and soon after it had
taken place, in the absence of Tolu, he persuaded the young wife to
leave her husband's house, never to return. Tolu, meeting his enemy
in a lonely path, fired his pistol, but by some accident it did not
go off, and the priest escaped with his life. Arrest and certain
conviction, however, awaited Tolu, who preferred to take to the
woods, where he remained for thirty years, a prince among outlaws.
He protected the weak; administered a rude but wise justice to the
scattered peasants of the waste country between Sassari and the sea;
his swift horse was always ready to fly in search of their lost or
stolen cattle; his gun was the terror of the thieves who preyed upon
these poor people. In Osilo lived two families, hereditary foes, the
Stacca and the Achena. An Achena offered Tolu five hundred francs to
kill the head of the Stacca family. Tolu not only refused, he did
not rest till he had brought about a reconciliation between the two
houses. At last, in the autumn of 1880, the gendarmes, after thirty
years' failure, arrested Tolu without a struggle at a place where he
had gone to take part in a country _festa_. For two years he was kept
untried in prison. In September 1882 he was brought before the Court
of Assize at Frosinone. Not a witness could be found to testify
against him. "Tolu," they said, "e un Dio." When asked by the
President what he had to say in his defence, he replied: "I never
fired first. The carabineers hunted me like a wild beast, because a
price was set on my head, and like a wild beast I defended myself."
The jury brought in a verdict of acquittal; and if any one wishes to
make our hero's acquaintance, he has only to take ship for Sardinia
and then find the way to the village of Florinas, where he is now
peaceably living, beloved and respected by all who know him.
The Sardinian character has old-world virtues and old-world blemishes;
if you live in the wilder districts you may deem it advisable to keep
a loaded pistol on the table at meal-time; but then you may go all
over the island without letters of introduction, sure of a hearty
welcome, and an hospitality which gives to the stranger the best
of everything that there is. If the Sardinian has an imperfect
apprehension of the sacredness of other laws, he is blindly obedient
to that of custom; when some progressive measure is proposed, he does
not argue--he says quietly: "Custu non est secundu la moda nostra."
No man sweeps the dust on antique time less than he. One of his
distinctive traits is an overweening fondness of his children; the
ever-marvellous baby is represented not only as the glory of its
mother, but also as the light even of its most distant connexions--
Lullaby, sweet lullaby,
You our happiness supply;
Fair your face, and sweet your ways,
You, your mother's pride and praise.
As the coral, rare and bright,
In your life does father live;
You, of all the dear delight,
All around you pleasure give.
All your ways, my pretty boy,
Of your parents are the joy;
You were born for good alone,
Sunshine of the family!
Wise, and kind to every one.
Light of every kinsman's eye;
Light of all who hither come,
And the gladness of our home.
Lullaby, sweet lullaby.
On the northern shore the people speak a tongue akin to that of the
neighbouring isle, and the dialect of the south is semi-Spanish; but
in the midland Logudoro the old Sard speech is spoken much as it is
known to have been spoken a thousand years ago. It is simply a rustic
Latin. Canon Spano's loving rather than critical labours have left
Sardinia a fine field for some future folk-lore collector. The
Sardinian is short in speech, copious in song. I asked a lad, just
returned to Venetia from working in Sardinian quarries, if the people
there had many songs? "Oh! tanti!" he answered, with a gesture more
expressive than the words. He had brought back more than a touch of
that malarious fever which is the scourge of the island and a blight
upon all efforts to develop its rich resources. A Sardinian friend
tells me that the Sard poet often shows a complete contempt for
metrical rules; his poesy is apt to become a rhythmic chant of which
the words and music cannot be dissevered. But the Logudorian
lullabies are regular in form, their distinguishing feature being an
interjection with an almost classical ring that replaces the _fa la
nanna_ of Italy--
Oh! ninna and anninia!
Sleep, baby boy;
Oh! ninna and anninia!
God give thee joy.
Oh! ninna and anninia!
Sweet joy be thine;
Oh! ninna and anninia!
Sleep, brother mine.
Sleep, and do not cry,
Pretty, pretty one,
Apple of mine eye,
Danger there is none;
Sleep, for I am by,
Mother's darling son.
Oh! ninna and anninia!
Sleep, baby boy;
Oh! ninna and anninia!
God give thee joy.
Oh! ninna and anninia!
Sweet joy be thine;
Oh! ninna and anninia!
Sleep, brother mine.
The singer is the little mother-sister: the child who, while the
mother works in the fields or goes to market, is left in charge of the
last-come member of the family, and is bound to console it as best
she may, for the absence of its natural guardian. The baby is to her
somewhat of a doll, just as to the children of the rich the doll is
somewhat of a baby. She may be met without going far afield; anyone
who has lived near an English village must know the curly-headed
little girl who sits on the cottage door-step or among the meadow
buttercups, her arms stretched at full length, round a soft,
black-eyed creature, small indeed, yet not much smaller than herself.
This, she solemnly informs you, is her baby. Not quite so often can
she be seen now as before the passing of the Education Act, prior to
which all truants fell back on the triumphant excuse, "I can't go
to school because I have to mind my baby," some neighbouring infant
brother, cousin, nephew, being producible at a moment's notice in
support of the assertion. In those days the mere sight of a baby
filled persons interested in the promotion of public instruction with
wrath and suspicion. Yet womanhood would lose a sweet and sympathetic
phase were the little mother-sister to wholly disappear. The songs
of the child-nurse are of the slenderest kind; the tether of her
imagination has not been cut by hope or memory. As a rule she dwells
upon the important fact that mother will soon be here, and when she
has said that, she has not much more to say. So it is in an Istriot
song: "This is a child who is always crying; be quiet, my soul, for
mother is coming back; she will bring thee nice milk, and then she
will put thee in the crib to hushaby." A Tuscan correspondent sends
me a sister-rhyme which is introduced by a pretty description of
the grave-eyed little maiden, of twelve or thirteen years perhaps,
responsible almost to sadness, who leans down her face over the baby
brother she is rocking in the cradle; and when he stirs and begins to
cry, sings softly the oft-told tale of how the dear mamma will come
quickly and press him lovingly to her breast:
Che fa mai col volto chino,
Quella tacita fanciulla?
Sta vegliando il fratellino,
Adagiato nella culla.
Ed il pargolo se desta,
E il meschino prorompe in pianto,
La bambina, mesta, mesta,
Vuol chetarlo col suo canto:
Bambolino mio, riposa,
Presto mamma tornera;
Cara mamma che amorosa
Al suo sen ti stringera.
The little French girl turns her thoughts to the hot milk and
chocolate that are being prepared, and of which she no doubt expects
to have a share:--
Fais dodo, Colin, mon p'tit frere,
Fais dodo, t'auras du lolo.
Le papa est en haut, qui fait le lolo,
Le maman est en bas, qui fait le colo;
Fais dodo, Colin, mon p'tit frere
Fais dodo.
In enumerating the rewards for infantine virtue--which is sleep--I
must not forget the celebrated hare's skin to be presented to Baby
Bunting, and the "little fishy" that the English father, set to be
nurse _ad interim_, promises his "babby" when the ship comes in; nor
should I pass over the hopes raised in an inedited cradle song of
French Flanders, which opens, like the Tuscan lullaby, with a short
narration:
Un jour un' pauv' dentilliere
En amicliton ch'un petiot garchun,
Qui d'puis le matin n'fesions que blaire,
Voulait l'endormir par une canchun.
In this barbarous _patios_, the poor lace-maker tells her "p'tit
pocchin" (little chick) that to-morrow he shall have a cake made of
honey, spices, and rye flour; that he shall be dressed in his best
clothes "com' un bieau milord;" and that at "la Ducasse," a local
_fete_, she will buy him a laughable Polchinello and a bird-organ
playing the tune of the sugar-loaf hat. Toys are also promised in a
Japanese lullaby, which the kindness of the late author of "Child-life
in Japan" has enabled me to give in the original:
Nen-ne ko y[=o]--nen-ne ko y[=o]
Nen-ne no mori wa--doko ye yuta
Ano yama koyete--sato ye yuta
Sato no miyage ni--nani morota
Ten-ten taiko ni--sh[=o] no fuye
Oki-agari koboshima--inu hari-ko.
Signifying in English:
Lullaby, baby, lullaby, baby
Baby's nursey, where has she gone
Over those mountains she's gone to her village;
And from her village, what will she bring?
A tum-tum drum, and a bamboo flute,
A "daruma" (which will never turn over) and a paper dog.
Scope is allowed for unlimited extension, as the singer can go on
mentioning any number of toys. The _Daruma_ is what English children
call a tumbler; a figure weighted at the bottom, so that turn it how
you will, it always regains its equilibrium.
More ethereal delights than chocolate, hare's skins, bird-organs, or
even paper dogs (though these last sound irresistibly seductive), form
the subject of a beautiful little Greek song of consolation: "Lullaby,
lullaby, thy mother is coming back from the laurels by the river, from
the sweet banks she will bring thee flowers; all sorts of flowers,
roses, and scented pinks." When she does come back, the Greek mother
makes such promises as eclipse all the rest: "Sleep, my child, and
I will give thee Alexandria for thy sugar, Cairo for thy rice, and
Constantinople, there to reign three years!" Those who see deep
meaning in childish things will look with interest at the young Greek
woman, who sits vaguely dreaming of empire while she rocks her babe.
The song is particularly popular in Cyprus; the English residents
there must be familiar with the melody--an air constructed on the
Oriental scale, and only the other day set on paper. The few bars of
music are like a sigh of passionate longing.
From reward to punishment is but a step, and next in order to the
songs that refer to the recompense of good, sleepy children, must be
placed those hinting at the serious consequences which will be
the result of unyielding wakefulness. It must be confessed that
retribution does not always assume a very awful form; in fact, in
one German rhyme, it comes under so gracious a disguise, that a child
might almost lie awake on purpose to look out for it:
Sleep, baby, sleep,
I can see two little sheep;
One is black and one is white,
And, if you do not sleep to-night,
First the black and then the white
Will give your little toes a bite.