....... puellae
Hunc rapiant: quicquid calcaverit hic, rosa fiat.
The Three Fates have still their cult at Athens. When a child is three
days old, the mother places by its cot a little table spread with a
clean linen cloth, upon which she sets a pot of honey, sundry cakes
and fruits, her wedding ring, and a few pieces of money belonging
to her husband. In the honey are stuck three almonds. These are the
preparations for the visit of the [Greek: Moirai]. In some places the
Norns or Parcae have got transformed into the three Maries; in others
they closely retain their original character. A perfect sample of the
mixing up of pagan and Christian lore is to be found in a Bulgarian
legend, which shows the three Fates weaving the destiny of the infant
Saviour during a momentary absence of the Virgin--the whole scene
occurring in the middle of a Balkan wood. In Sicily exists a belief
in certain strange ladies ("donni-di-fora"), who take charge of the
new-born babe, with or without permission. The Palermitan mother says
aloud, when she lifts her child out of the cradle, "'Nnome di Dio!"
("In God's name!")--but she quickly adds _sotto voce_: "Cu licenzi,
signuri miu!" ("By your leave, ladies").
At Noto, _Ronni-di-casa_, or house-women, take the place of the
_Donni-di-fora_. They inhabit every house in which a fire burns. If
offended by their host, they revenge themselves on the children:
the mother finds the infant whom she left asleep and tucked into the
cradle, rolling on the floor or screaming with sudden fright. When,
however, the _Ronni-di-casa_ are amiably disposed, they make the
sleeping child smile, after the fashion of angels in other parts of
the world. Should they wish to leave an unmistakable mark of their
good will, they twist a lock of the baby's hair into an inextricable
tress. In England, elves were supposed to tangle the hair during sleep
(_vide King Lear_: "Elf all my hair in knots;" and Mercutio's Mab
speech). The favour of the Sicilian house-women is not without its
drawbacks, for if by any mischance the knotted lock be cut off,
they will probably twist the child's spine out of spite. "'Ccussi lu
lassurii li Ronni-di-casa," says an inhabitant of Noto when he points
out to you a child suffering from spinal curvature. The voice is
lowered in mentioning these questionable guests, and there are
Noticiani who will use any amount of circumlocution to avoid actually
naming them. They are often called "certi signuri," as in this
characteristic lullaby:
My love, I wish thee well; so lullaby!
Thy little eyes are like the cloudless sky,
My little lovely girl, my pretty one,
Mother will make of thee a little nun:
A sister of the Saviour's Priory
Where noble dames and ladies great there be.
Sleep, moon-faced treasure, sleep, the while I sing:
Thou hadst thy cradle from the Spanish king.
When thou hast slept, I'll love thee better still.
(Sleep to my daughter comes and goes at will
And in her slumber she is made to smile
By certain ladies whom I dare not style.)
Breath of my body, thou, my love, my care,
Thou art without a flaw, so wondrous fair.
Sleep then, thy mother's breath, sleep, sleep, and rest,
For thee my very soul forsakes my breast.
My very soul goes forth, and sore my heart:
Thou criest; words of comfort I impart.
Daughter, my flame, lie still and take repose,
Thou art a nosegay culled from off the rose.
At Palermo, mothers dazzled their little girls with the prospect of
entering the convent of Santa Zita or Santa Chiara. In announcing the
birth of his child, a Sicilian peasant commonly says, "My wife has a
daughter-abbess." "What! has your wife a daughter old enough to be an
abbess?" has sometimes been the innocent rejoinder of a traveller from
the mainland. The Convent of the Saviour, which is the destination of
the paragon of beauty described in the above lullaby, was one of
the wealthiest, and what is still more to the point, one of the most
aristocratic religious houses in the island. To have a relation among
its members was a distinction ardently coveted by the citizens of
Noto; a town which once rejoiced in thirty-three noble families, one
loftier than the other. The number is now cut down, but according to
Signor Avolio such as remain are regarded with undiminished reverence.
There are households in which the whole conversation runs on the
_Barone_ and _Baronessa_, when not absorbed by the _Baronello_ and the
_Baronessella_. It is just possible that the same phenomenon might be
observed without going to Noto. _Tutto il mondo e paese_: a proverb
which would serve as an excellent motto for the Folk-lore Society.
Outside Sicily the cradle-singer's ideal of felicity is rather
matrimonial than monastic. The Venetian is convinced that who never
loved before must succumb to her daughter's incomparable charms. It
seems, by-the-by, that the "fatal gift" can be praised without fear or
scruple in modern Italy; the visitors of a new-born babe ejaculate in
a chorus, "Quant' e bellino! O bimbo! Bimbino!" and Italian lullabies,
far more than any others, are one long catalogue of perfections,
one drawn-out reiteration of the boast of a Greek mother of Terra
d'Otranto: "There are children in the street, but like my boy there is
not one; there are children before the house, but like my child there
are none at all." The Sardinian who wishes to say something civil of
a baby will not do less than predict that "his fame will go round the
world." The cradle-singer of the Basilicata desires for her nursling
that he may outstrip the sun and moon in their race. It has been seen
that the Roumanian mother would have her son emulate the famous hero
of Moldavia; for her daughter she cherishes a gentler ambition:
Sleep, my daughter, sleep an hour;
Mother's darling gilliflower.
Mother rocks thee, standing near,
She will wash thee in the clear
Waters that from fountains run,
To protect thee from the sun.
Sleep, my darling, sleep an hour,
Grow thou as the gilliflower.
As a tear-drop be thou white,
As a willow, tall and slight;
Gentle as the ring-doves are,
And be lovely as a star!
This _nani-nani_ calls to mind some words in a letter of Sydney
Dobell's: "A little girl-child! The very idea is the most exquisite of
poems! a child-daughter--wherein it seems to me that the spirit of all
dews and flowers and springs and tender, sweet wonders 'strikes
its being into bounds.'" "Tear drop" (_lacrimiora_) is the poetic
Roumanian name for the lily of the valley. It may be needful to add
that gilliflower is the English name for the clove-pink; at least an
explanatory foot-note is now attached to the word in new editions of
the old poets. Exiled from the polite society of "bedding plants"--all
heads and no bodies--the "matted and clove gilliflowers" which Bacon
wished to have in his garden, must be sought for by the door of
the cottager who speaks of them fondly yet apologetically, as
"old-fashioned things." To the folk-singers of the small Italy on the
Danube and the great Italy on the Arno they are still the type of the
choicest excellence, of the most healthful grace. Even the long stalk,
which has been the flower's undoing, from a worldly point of view,
gets praised by the unsophisticated Tuscan. "See," he says, "with
how lordly an air it holds itself in the hand!" ("Guarda con quanta
signoria si tiene in mano!")
The anguish of the Hindu dying childless has its root deeper down in
the human heart than the reason he gives for it, the foolish fear lest
his funeral rites be not properly performed. No man quite knows what
it is to die who leaves a child in the world; children are more than a
link with the future--they _are_ the future: the portion of ourselves
that belongs not to this day but to to-morrow. To them may be
transferred all the hopes sadly laid by, in our own case, as
illusions; the "to be" of their young lives can be turned into a
beautiful "arrangement in pink," even though experience has taught us
that the common lot of humanity is "an Imbroglio in Whity-brown." Most
parents do all this and much more; as lullabies would show were there
any need for the showing of it. One cradle-song, however, faces
the truth that of all sure things the surest is that sorrow and
disappointment will fall upon the children as it has fallen upon the
fathers. The song comes from Germany; the English version is by Mr C.
G. Leland:
Sleep, little darling, an angel art thou!
Sleep, while I'm brushing the flies from your brow.
All is as silent as silent can be;
Close your blue eyes from the daylight and me.
This is the time, love, to sleep and to play;
Later, oh later, is not like to-day,
When care and trouble and sorrow come sore
You never will sleep, love, as sound as before.
Angels from heaven as lovely as thou
Sweep round thy bed, love, and smile on thee now;
Later, oh later, they'll come as to-day,
But only to wipe all the tear-drops away.
Sleep, little darling, while night's coming round,
Mother will still by her baby be found;
If it be early, or if it be late,
Still by her baby she'll watch and she'll wait.
The sad truth is there, but with what tenderness is it not hedged
about! These Teutonic angels are worth more than the too sensitive
little angels of Spain who fly away at the sight of tears. And the
last verse conveys a second truth, as consoling as the first is sad;
pass what must, change what may, the mother's love will not change or
pass; its healing presence will remain till death; who knows? perhaps
after. Signor Salomone-Marino records the cry of one, who out of the
depths blesses the haven of maternal love:
Mamma, Mammuzza mia, vu' siti l'arma,
Lu me rifugiu nni la sorti orrenna,
Vui siti la culonna e la giurlanna,
Lu celu chi vi guardi e vi mantegna!
The soul that directs and inspires, the refuge that shelters, the
column that supports, the garland that crowns--such language would
not be natural in the mouth of an English labourer. An Englishman who
feels deeply is almost bound to hold his tongue; but the poor Sicilian
can so express himself in perfect naturalness and simplicity.
There is a kind of sleep-song that has only the form in common with
the rose-coloured fiction that makes the bulk of cradle literature. It
is the song of the mother who lulls her child with the overflow of
her own troubled heart. The child may be the very cause of her sorest
perplexity: yet from it alone she gains the courage to live, from it
alone she learns a lesson of duty:
"The babe I carry on my arm,
He saves for me my precious soul."
A Corsican mother says to the infant at her breast, "Thou art my
guardian angel!"--which is the same thought spoken in another way.
The most lovely of all sad lullabies is that written much more than
two thousand years ago by Simonides of Ceos. Acrisius, king of Argos,
was informed by an oracle that he would be killed by the son of his
daughter Danae, who was therefore shut up in a tower, where Zeus
visited her in the form of a shower of gold. Afterwards, when she gave
birth to Perseus, Acrisius ordered mother and child to be exposed in
a wicker chest or coffin on the open sea. This is the story which
Simonides took as the subject of his poem:
Whilst the wind blew and rattled on the decorated ark, and the
troubled deep tossed as though in terror--her own fair cheek
also not unwet--around Perseus Danae threw her arms, and
cried: "O how grievous, my child, is my trouble; yet thou
sleepest, and with tranquil heart slumberest within this
joyless house, beneath the brazen-barred, black-gleaming,
musky heavens. Ah! little reckest thou, beloved object, of the
howling of the tempest, nor of the brine wetting thy delicate
hair, as there thou liest, clad in thy little crimson mantle!
But even were this dire pass dreadful also to thee, yet lend
thy soft ear to my words: Sleep on, my babe, I say; sleep on,
I charge thee; nay, let the wild waters sleep, and sleep the
immeasurable woe. Let me, too, see some change of will on thy
part, Zeus, father! or if the speech be deemed too venturous,
then, for thy child's sake, I pray thee pardon."
This is not a folk-song, but it has a prescriptive right to a place
among lullabies.
Passing over the beautiful Widow's Song, quoted in a former essay, we
come to some Basque lines, which bring before us the blank and vulgar
ugliness of modern misery with a realism that would please M. Zola:
Hush, poor child, hush thee to sleep;
(See him lying in slumber deep!)
Thou first, then following I,
We will hush and hushaby.
Thy bad father is at the inn;
Oh! the shame of it, and the sin!
Home at midnight he will fare,
Drunk with strong wine of Navarre.
After each verse the singer repeats again and again: _Lo lo, lo lo_,
on three lingering notes that have the plaintive monotony of the
chiming of bells where there are but three in the belfry.
Almost as dismal as the Basque ditty is the English nursery rhyme:
Bye, O my baby!
When I was a lady
O then my poor baby didn't cry;
But my baby is weeping
For want of good keeping;
Oh! I fear my poor baby will die!
--which may have been composed to fit in with some particular story,
as was the tearful little song occurring in the ballad of Childe
Waters:
She said: Lullabye, mine own dear child,
Lullabye, my child so dear;
I would thy father were a king,
Thy mother laid on a bier.
One feels glad that that story ends happily in a "churching and
bridal" that take place upon the same day.
I have the copy of a lullaby for a sick child, written down from
memory by Signor Lerda, of Turin, who reports it to be popular in
Tuscany:
Sleep, dear child, as mother bids:
If thou sleep thou shalt not die!
Sleep, and death shall pass thee by.
Close worn eyes and aching lids,
Yield to soft forgetfulness;
Let sweet sleep thy senses press:
Child, on whom my love doth dwell,
Sleep, sleep, and thou shalt be well.
See, I strew thee, soft and light,
Bed of down that cannot pain;
Linen sheets have o'er it lain
More than snow new-fallen white.
Perfume sweet, health-giving scent,
The meadows' pride, is o'er it sprent:
Sleep, dear son, a little spell,
Sleep, sleep, and thou shalt be well.
Change thy side and rest thee there,
Beauty! love! turn on thy side,
O my son, thou dost not bide
As of yore, so fresh and fair.
Sickness mars thee with its spite,
Cruel sickness changes quite;
How, alas! its traces tell!
Yet sleep, and thou shalt be well.
Sleep, thy mother's kisses poured
On her darling son. Repose;
God give end to all our woes.
Sleep, and wake by sleep restored,
Pangs that make thee faint shall fly!
Sleep, my child, and lullaby!
Sleep, and fears of death dispel;
Sleep, sleep, and thou shalt be well.
"Se tu dormi, non morrai!" In how many tongues are not these words
spoken every day by trembling lips, whilst the heart seems to stand
still, whilst the eyes dare not weep, for tears would mean the victory
of hope or fear; whilst the watcher leans expectant over the beloved
little wasted form, conscious that all that can be done has been done,
that all that care or skill can try has been tried, that there are no
other remedies to fall back upon, that there is no more strength left
for battle, and that now, even in this very hour, sleep or his brother
death will decide the issue.
When a Sicilian hears that a child is dead, he exclaims, "Glory
and Paradise!" The phrase is jubilant almost to harshness; yet the
underlying sentiment is not harsh. The thought of a dead child makes
natural harmonies with thoughts of bright and shining things. A mother
likes to dream of her lost babe as fair and spotless and little. If
she is sad, with him it is surely well. He is gone to play with the
Holy Boys. He has won the crown of innocence. There are folk-songs
that reflect this radiancy with which love clothes dead children;
songs for the last sleep full of all the confusion of fond epithets
commonly addressed to living babies.
Only in one direction did my efforts to obtain lullabies prove
fruitless. America has, it seems, no nursery rhymes but those which
are still current in the Old World.[2] Mr Bret Harte told me: "Our
lullabies are the same as in England, but there are also a few Dutch
ones," and he went on to relate how, when he was at a small frontier
town on the Rhine, he heard a woman singing a song to her child: it
was the old story,--if the child would not sleep it would be punished,
its shoes would be taken away; if it would go to sleep at once, Santa
Claus would bring it a beautiful gift. Words and air, said Mr
Bret Harte, were strangely familiar to him; then, after a moment's
reflection, he remembered hearing this identical lullaby sung amongst
his own kindred in the Far West of America.
[Footnote 1: The "Preaching of the children" took place as
usual in the Christmas week of 1885, but as the convent in
connection with the church of Santa Maria is about to be
pulled down, I cannot tell whether the pretty custom will be
adhered to in future. The church, however, which was also
threatened with demolition, is now safe.]
[Footnote 2: This is confirmed by Mr W. Newell in his
admirable book, "Games and Songs of American Children" (1885),
which might be called with equal propriety, "Games and Songs
of British Children." It is indeed the best collection of
English nursery rhymes that exists. Thus America will have
given the mother country the most satisfactory editions, both
of her ballads (Prof. F. T. Child's splendid work, now in
course of publication) and of her children's songs.]