O sea, if thou lovest thy G.o.d, Have pity on me, forlorn and wretched; Take not from me my sweet sun, And betray me not to flinty-hearted Death.
Pity, O sea, O terrible sea!
Give me not up to the cold winds; My tears implore thee And the thousand sorrows of my heart....
The savage sea has no pity!
It hears not the plaintive voice of my broken heart; The blood freezes in my veins, Black night descends upon my eyes....
Go tell to my mother To sit and weep for her darkened son; That John was the prey of the sea, The sun of the young man is set!
Summer, with its flowers, and warmth, and wealth, never stays long enough in Armenia for it to become a common ordinary thing. It is a beautiful wonder-time, a brief, splendid nature-fair, which vanishes like a dream before the first astonishment and delight are worn into indifference. The season when "the nightingale sings to the rose at dewy dawn" departs swiftly, and envious winter strangles autumn in its birth.
What a winter, too! a winter which despotically governs the complete economy of the people"s system of life. Let us take a peep into an Armenian interior on a December evening. Three months the snow has been in possession of mountain and valley; for more than four months more it will remain. Abroad it is light enough, though night has fallen; for the moon shines down in wonderful brightness upon the ice-bound earth. On the hill-slope various little unevennesses are discernible, jutting out from the snow like mushrooms. In one part the ground is cut away perpendicularly for a few feet; this is the front of the homestead, the body of which lies burrowed in the slope of the hill. When the house was made the floor was dug out some five feet underground, while the ceiling beams rose three or four feet above it; but all the dug-out soil was thrown about the roof and back and side walls, and thus the whole is now embedded in the hillock. The roof was neatly turfed over when the house was finished, so that in summer the lambs and children play upon it, and not unfrequently, in the great heats, the family sleep there--"at the moon"s inn." What look like mushrooms are in reality the broad-topped chimneys, on which the summer storks build their nests. The homestead has but one entrance; a large front door which leads through a long dark pa.s.sage to a second door that swings-to after you, and is hung with a rough red-dyed sheepskin. This door opens upon the entrance-hall, whence you mount half-a-dozen steps to a raised platform, under which the house dogs are located. On two sides the platform is bounded by solid stone walls, from which are suspended saddles, guns, pistols, and one or two pictures representing the deeds of some Persian hero, and bought of Persian hawkers. On the other two sides an open woodwork fence divides it from a vast stable. Nearest the grating are fastened the horses of the clan-chief; next are the donkeys, then the cows; sheep and chickens find places where they can. The breath of these animals materially contributes to the warmth of the house, which is at times almost like an oven, even in the coldest weather. A clear hot fire burns on the hearth; the fuel used is tezek, a preparation of cow-dung pressed into a substance resembling peat turf. By day the habitation is obscurely lighted through a small aperture in the roof glazed with oiled silk, and supplemented by a sort of funnel, the wide opening downwards. Now, in the evening, the oil burning in a simple iron lamp over the hearth, affords a dim illumination.
The platform above described is the salemlik, or hall of reception. It contains no chairs, but divans richly draped with Koordish stuffs; the floor is carpeted with tekeke, a kind of grey felt. To the right of the hearth sits the head of the family, a venerable old man, whose word is incontrovertible law to every member of his house. He is also Al Sakal, or "white beard" of the village, a dignity conferred on him by the unanimous voice of his neighbours, and const.i.tuting him intermediary in all transactions with government. When important matters are at stake, he meets the elders of the surrounding hamlets, who, resolved into committee, form the Commune. This ancient usage bears witness to the essentially patriarchal and democratic basis of Armenian society.
Our family party consists of three dozen persons, the representatives of four generations. The young married women come in and out from directing the preparations of the supper. Nothing is to be seen of their faces except their l.u.s.trous eyes (Armenian eyes are famous for their brilliancy), a tightly-fitting veil enclosing the rest of their features. Without this covering they do not by any chance appear even in the house; it is said they wear it also at night. One of them is a bride; her dress is rich and striking--a close-fitting bodice, fastening at the neck with silver clasps, full trousers of rose-coloured silk gathered in at the ankles by a fillet of silver, the feet bare, a silver girdle of curious workmanship loosely encircling the waist, and a long padded garment open down the front which hangs from the shoulders. Poor little bride! She has not uttered a single word save when alone with her husband since she p.r.o.nounced the marriage vow. She may not hope to do so till after the birth of her first-born child; then she will talk to her nursling, after a while to her mother-in-law, sometime later she may converse with her own mother, and by-and-by, in a subdued whisper, with the young girls of the house. During the first year of her married life she may not go out of the house except twice to church. Her disciplinary education will not be complete for six years, after which she will enjoy comparative liberty, but never in her life must she open her lips to a person of the stronger s.e.x not related to her. Turn from the silent little bride to that bevy of young girls, merry and playful as the kittens they are fondling--silky-haired s...o...b..a.l.l.s, of a breed peculiar to the neighbourhood of Van, their tails dyed pink with henna like the tail of the Shah"s steed. The girls are laughing and chatting together without restraint--most probably about their love affairs, for they are free to dispose of their hands as they choose. And they may walk about unveiled, and show off their pretty faces and long raven plaits to the fullest advantage.
Suddenly a knocking is heard outside; the dogs yell from under the platform; the Whitebeard says whoever be the wanderer he shall have bed and board, and he orders fresh tezek to be thrown on the fire; for to-night it is bitter cold out abroad--were a man to stand still five minutes, he would freeze in his shoes. One of the sons descends the steps, pushes aside the sheep-skin, and leads the traveller in.
This one says he is the minstrel. What joy in the family! The blind minstrel, who will sing the most exciting ballads and tell the most marvellous tales. He is welcomed by all; only the young bride steals out of the room--she may not remain in a stranger"s presence. The lively girls want to hear a story at once; but the Whitebeard says the guest must first have rest and refreshment. But while they are waiting for the meal to be laid out, the blind minstrel relates something of his recent travels, which in itself is almost as good as a fairy tale.
He has just arrived from Persia, whither he will soon return; for he has only come back to the snows of Armenia to breathe the air of home for a little. Did he go to Teheran? No; to say the truth, he deemed it wiser to keep at a discreet distance from that capital. Such a thing had been heard of ere now as the Shah putting under requisition any skilful musicians who came in his way to teach their art to the fair ones of the harem; so that occasionally it was unpleasantly difficult to get out of Teheran when once you were in it. Still he was by no means without interesting news. In a certain part of Persia he had met another blind master-singer, with whom he strove for the prize of minstrelsy. Both were entertained by a great Persian prince. When the day came they were led out upon an open gra.s.s-plot and seated one facing the other. The prince took up his position, and five thousand people made a circle round the compet.i.tors. Then the grand brain-fight began; the rivals contended in song and verse, riddle and repartee.
Now one starts an acrostic on the prince"s name, in which each side takes alternate letters; then the other versifies some sacred pa.s.sage, which his opponent must catch up when he breaks off. The ball is kept flying to and fro with unflagging zeal; the crowd is rapturous in its plaudits. But at length our minstrel"s adversary pauses, hesitates, fails to seize the drift of his rival"s latest sally, and answers at random. A shout proclaims him beaten. The triumphant bard is led to where he stands, and taking his lyre from him breaks it into atoms.
The vanquished retires discomfited to the obscurity of his native village, where haply his humble talents will not be despised. The victor is robed in the prince"s mantle, and taken to the highest seat in the banqueting-hall.
This is what the minstrel has to tell as he warms his hands over the fire while the young married women serve the supper. A rush-mat is placed upon the low round board, over that the table-cloth; then a large tray is set in the middle, with the viands arranged on it in metal dishes: onion soup, salted salmon-trout from the blue Gokschai, hard-boiled eggs sh.e.l.led and sliced, oil made from Kunjut seeds, which does instead of b.u.t.ter; pilau, a dish resembling porridge; mutton stewed with quinces, leeks, and various raw and preserved roots, cream cheese, sour milk, dried apricots, and stoned raisins, form the bill of fair. A can of golden wine is set out: there is plenty more in the goatskins should it be wanted. The provisions are completed by an item more important in Armenia than with us--bread. The flour-cake or _losh_, a yard long and thin as paper, which is placed before each guest, answers for plate, knives, forks, napkin, all of which are absent. The Whitebeard says grace and the Lord"s Prayer, everyone crossing himself. The company wipe their mouths with a _losh_, and proceed to help themselves with it to anything that tempts their fancy on the middle tray. Some make a promiscuous sandwich of fish, mutton, and leeks wrapped up in a piece of _losh_; others twist the _losh_ into the shape of a spoon and ladle out the sour milk, swallowing both together. The members of the family watch the minstrel"s least gesture, so as to antic.i.p.ate his wishes; one after the other they claim the privilege of waiting on him. When the meal is done, a young housewife gently washes the guest"s head and feet, and the whole party adjourn to the chimney-corner. The evening flies mirthfully away, listening to the minstrel"s tales and ballads, these latter being mostly in Tartar, the Provencal of the eastern troubadour. Finally, the honoured visitor is conducted to his room, the "minstrel"s chamber," which, in every well-ordered Armenian household, is always kept ready.
Our little picture may be taken as the faithful reproduction of no very extraordinary scene. Of ballad-singers such as the one here introduced there are numbers in Armenia, where that "sixth sense,"
music, is the recognised vocation of the blind. Those who are proficient travel within a very wide area, and are everywhere received with the highest consideration.
In the East, the ballad-singer and the story-teller are just where they were centuries ago. At Constantinople, the story-teller sits down on his mat in the public place or at the _cafe_; listeners gather round; he begins his story in a conversational tone, varying his voice according to the characters; and soon both himself and his hearers are as far away in the wondrous mazes of the "Arabian Nights" as if Europe were still trembling before the sword of the Caliph.
With regard to the unique marriage customs of Armenia, I ought to say that they are a.s.serted to result in the happiest unions. The general idea upon which they rest seems to be derived from a series of conclusions logical enough if you grant the premisses--indeed, curiously more like some pen and paper scheme evolved out of the inner consciousness of a German professor than a working system of actual life. The prevailing custom in the East, as in some European countries, is for the young girl to know nothing whatever of her intended husband; only in the one case this is followed by total seclusion after marriage, and in the other by complete emanc.i.p.ation.
In Armenia, on the contrary, the young girl makes her own choice, and love-matches are not uncommon; but the choice once made and ratified by the priest, the order of things is so arranged as to cause her husband to become the woman"s absorbing thought, his society her sole solace, his pleasure the whole business of her life. For the rest she is treated with much solicitude; even the peasant will not let his wife do out-door work.
Moses of Kh.o.r.en gives the history of a wedding that took place about one hundred years after Christ. In those days the tribes of the Alans, in league with the mountaineers of the Caucasus and a part of the people of Georgia, descended upon Armenia in considerable numbers.
Ardashes, the Armenian king, a.s.sembled his troops and advanced against them. In a battle fought upon the confines of the two nations, the Alans gave way, and having crossed the Cyrus, encamped on the northern bank, the river dividing the contending forces. The son of the King of the Alans had been taken prisoner and was conducted to Ardashes. His father offered to conclude a peace on such conditions as Ardashes might exact and under promise, guaranteed by a solemn oath, that the Alans would attempt no further incursions on Armenian territory. As Ardashes refused to surrender the young prince, the sister of the youth ran to the edge of the river and climbing upon a lofty hillock, caused these words to be addressed to the enemy"s camp by the mouth of interpreters: "Hear me, valorous Ardashes, conqueror of the brave Alans; grant unto me the surrender of this young man--unto me, the maiden with beautiful eyes. It is not worthy of a hero in order to satisfy a desire for vengeance, to take the life of the sons of heroes or to hold them in bondage and keep up an endless feud between two nations." Ardashes, having heard these words, approached the river. He saw the beautiful Sathinig, listened to her wise counsels, and fell in love with her. Then, having called Sumpad, an aged warrior who had watched over his childhood, he laid bare the wish of his heart to marry the princess, make a treaty of amity with her nation and send back the prince in peace. Sumpad, having approved of these projects, sent to ask the King of the Alans for the hand of Sathinig. "What!"
replied her father, "will the valorous King Ardashes have ever treasure enough to offer me in return for the n.o.ble damsel of the Alans?"
A popular song, carefully preserved by Moses, celebrates the marriage of Ardashes and Sathinig:--
The valiant King Ardashes, astride of a sable charger, Drew forth a thong of leather, garnished with golden rings: And quick as fast-flying eagle he crossed the flowing river And the crimson leather thong, garnished with rings of gold, Cast he about the body of the Virgin of the Alans, Clasping in painful embrace the maiden"s tender form: Even so he drew her swiftly to his encampment.
Once again Ardashes appears in the people"s poetry. He is no longer the triumphant victor in love and war; the hour of his death draws near. "Oh!" says the dying king, "who will give me back the smoke of my hearth, and the joyous New Year"s morning, and the spring of the deer, and the lightness of the roe?" Then his mind wanders away to the ruling pa.s.sion: "We sounded the trumpets; after the manner of kings we beat the drums."
The Armenian princes were in the habit, when they married, of throwing pieces of money from the threshold of their palace, whilst the royal brides scattered pearls about the nuptial chamber. To this custom allusion is made in two lines which used to be sung as a sort of marriage chaunt:--
A rain of gold fell at the wedding of Ardashes, A rain of pearls fell on the nuptials of Sathinig.
Armenian nuptial songs, like all other folk-epithalamiums, so far as I am aware, seem to point to an early state of society when the girl was simply carried off by her marauding lover by fraud or force. Exulting in what relates to the bridegroom, the favourite song on this subject is profoundly melancholy as concerns the bride. The mother was cajoled with a pack of linen, the father with a cup of wine, the brother with a pair of boots, the little sister with a finger of antimony--so complains the dismal ditty of a new bride. There is great pathos in the words in which she begs her mother not to sweep the sand off the little plank, so that the slight trace of her girl"s footsteps may not be effaced.
Marriage is called in Armenian, "The Imposition of the Crown," from the practice of crowning bride and bridegroom with fresh, white flowers. I remember how, in one of the last marriages celebrated in the little Armenian church in the Rue Monsieur (which was closed a few years ago, when the Mekhitarist property in Paris was sold), this ceremony was omitted by particular request of the bridegroom, a rising French Diplomatist, who did not wish to wear a wreath of roses. The Armenian marriage formulae are extremely explicit. The priest, taking the right hand of the bride, and placing it in that of the bridegroom, says: "According to the Divine order G.o.d gave to our ancestors, I give thee now this wife in subjection. Wilt thou be her master?" To which the answer is, "Through the help of G.o.d, I will." The priest then asks the woman: "Wilt thou be obedient to him?" She answers: "I am obedient according to the order of G.o.d." The interrogations are repeated three times, and three times responded to.
An Armenian author, M. Ermine, published at Moscow in 1850 a treatise on the historical and popular songs of ancient Armenia.
Of popular songs current in more recent times there was not, till lately, a single specimen within reach of the public, though it was confidently surmised that such must exist. The Mekhitarist monks have taken the lead in this as in every other branch of Armenian research, and my examples are quoted from a small collection issued by their press at Venice. I am not sure that I have chosen those that are intrinsically the best, but think that those which figure in these pages are amongst the most characteristic of their authors and origin.
The larger portion of these songs are printed from ma.n.u.scripts in the library of San Lazzaro; the date of their composition is thought to vary from the end of the thirteenth to the end of the eighteenth century. The language in which they are written is the vulgar tongue of Armenia, but in several instances it attains a very close approximation to the cla.s.sical Armenian.
It may not be amiss if I conclude this sketch with a brief account of the remarkable order of the Mekhitarists, which is so intimately related with all that bears on the subject of Armenian literature.
Those who are well acquainted with it will not object to hear the history of this order recapitulated; while I believe that many who have visited the Convent of San Lazzaro have yet but vague notions regarding the work and aims of its inmates. It is to be conjectured that, as a matter of fact, the majority of Englishmen go to San Lazzaro rather in the spirit of a Byron-pilgrimage than from any definite interest in the convent; and without doubt were its only attraction its a.s.sociation with the English poet it would still be worth a visit. Byron"s connection with San Lazzaro was not one of the least interesting episodes of his life; and it is pleasant to remember the tranquil hours he spent in the society of the learned monks, and the fascination exercised over him by their sterling and unpretentious merit. "The neatness, the comfort, the gentleness, the unaffected devotion of the brethren of the order," he wrote, "are well fitted to strike the man of the world with the conviction that there is "Another and a better even in this life."" The desire to present himself with an excuse for frequent intercourse with the brothers was probably at the bottom of Byron"s sudden discovery that his mind "wanted something craggy to break upon, and that Armenian was just the thing to torture it into attention." He says it was the most difficult thing to be found in Venice by way of an amus.e.m.e.nt, and describes the Armenian character as a very "Waterloo of an alphabet." The origin of this character is exceedingly curious, it being the only alphabet known to have been the work of a single man, with the exception of the Georgian, and now obsolete Caucasian Albanian. St Mesrop, an Armenian, invented all the three about A.D. 406. Byron informs Moore, with some elation, of the fate that befell a French professorship of Armenian, which had then been recently inst.i.tuted: "Twenty pupils presented themselves on Monday morning, full of n.o.ble ardour, ingenuous youth, and impregnable industry. They persevered with a courage worthy of the nation, and of universal conquest till Thursday, then _fifteen_ out of the _twenty_ succ.u.mbed to the six-and-twentieth letter of the alphabet." The poet himself mastered all thirty-three letters, and a good deal more besides, under the superintendence of the librarian, Padre Paschal Aucher, a man who combined great learning with much knowledge of the world. As the result of these studies we have a translation into Scriptural English of two apocryphal epistles of St Paul, and an Anglo-Armenian grammar, of which, with characteristic liberality, Byron defrayed the cost of publication.
The order was founded by Varthabed Mekhitar, who was born at Sebaste, in Asia Minor, in 1676. Mekhitar was one of those men to whom it comes quite naturally to go forth with David"s sling and stone against the Philistine and his host. He could have been scarcely more than twenty years of age when fearlessly and steadfastly he set himself to the gigantic task of raising his country out of the stagnant slough of ignorance in which he saw it sunk. He was then a candidate for holy orders, studying in an Armenian convent.
The monks he found no less ignorant than the rest of the population; those to whom he broached his ideas greeted them with derision, and this did not fail to turn to cruel persecution when he began to preach against certain prejudices which appeared to him to keep the Armenians from conforming with the Latin Church--a union he earnestly desired.
Mekhitar now went to Constantinople, where he set on foot a small monastic society; presently he moved to Modon, in the Morea, then under the rule of Venice, but before he had been there long, the place was seized by the Turks. A few of the monks, with their head, managed to escape to Venice; the others were taken prisoners, and sold into a temporary slavery. At Venice, in 1717, the Signory made over to the fugitives in perpetuity a small barren island in the Lagune, once tenanted by the Benedictines, who had there established a hospital for lepers, but which, since the disappearance of that disease, had been entirely uninhabited. Mekhitar immediately organised a printing press, and began making translations of standard works, which were disseminated wherever Armenians were to be found, that is to say, all over the East. When he died in 1747, the work of the society was already placed on a solid foundation; but it received considerable development and extension from the hands of the third abbot-general, Count Stephen Aconzkover, Archbishop of Sinnia, by birth a member of an Armenian colony in Hungary, who sought admittance into the order, and lived in the retirement of San Lazzaro for sixty-seven years.
He was a poet, a scholar of no mean attainments, and the author of a universal geography in twelve volumes. The Society is now self-supporting, large numbers of its publications being sold in Persia, and India, and at Constantinople. These publications consist of numerous translations and of reproductions of the great part of Armenian literature. Many works have been printed from MSS. which are collected by emissaries sent out from San Lazzaro to travel over the plains and valleys of Armenia for the purpose of rescuing the literary relics which are widely scattered, and are in constant danger of loss or destruction, and at the same time to distribute Armenian versions of the Bible. Another of the undertakings of the convent is a school exclusively for the education of Armenian boys. About one hundred boys receive free instruction in the two colleges at Venice. What this order have effected, both towards the enlightenment of their country and in keeping alive the sentiment of Armenian nationality, is simply incalculable. In their self-imposed exile they have n.o.bly carried out the precept of an Armenian folk-poet:
Forget not our Armenian nation, And always a.s.sist and protect it.
Always keep in thy mind To be useful to thy fatherland.
On my first visit I pa.s.sed a long summer morning in examining all the points of interest about the monastery--the house and printing presses, the library with its beautiful Pali papyrus of the Buddhist ordination service, and its illuminated ma.n.u.scripts, the minaretted chapel, and the silent little Campo Santo, under the direction of the most courteous and accomplished of cicerones, Padre Giacomo, Dr Issaverdenz: a name signifying "Jesus-given." I saw the bright, intelligent band of scholars: "of these," said my conductor, "five or six will remain with us." I was shown the page of the visitor"s book inscribed with Byron"s signature in English and in Armenian. Later entries form a long roll of royal and notable names. The little museum contains Daniel Manin"s tricolor scarf of office, given to the monks by the son of that devoted patriot. Queen Margherita does not fail to pay San Lazzaro a yearly visit, and has lately accepted the dedication of a book of Armenian church music.
During this tour of inspection, various topics were discussed: the tendencies of modern thought, the future of the church, with other matters of a more personal nature--and upon each my guide"s observations displayed a singularly intellectual and tolerant att.i.tude of mind, together with a way of looking at things and speaking of people in which "sweetness and light" were felicitously apparent. It was difficult to tear oneself away from the open window in Byron"s little study. The day was one of those matchless Venetian days, when the heat is tempered by a breeze just fresh enough to agitate the awning of your gondola; and the Molo and Riva, and Fortune"s golden ball on the Dogana, the white San Giorgio Maggiore, the ships eastward bound, the billowy line of the mountains of Vicenza against the horizon, lie steeped in a bath of sunshine. But the outlook from the convent window is not upon these. Beneath are the green berceaux of a small vineyard, a little garden gay in its tangle of purple convolvulus, a pomegranate lifting its laden boughs towards us--to remind the Armenians of the "flowering pomegranates" of their beloved country. Beyond the vineyard stretches the aquamarine surface of the lagune--then the interminable reach of Lido--after that the ethereal blue of the Adriatic melting away into the sky. Such is the scene which till they die the good monks will have under their eyes. Perhaps they are rather to be envied than compa.s.sionated; for it is manifest that for them, duty--to use the eloquent expression of an English divine--has become transfigured into happiness. "I shall stay here whilst I live," Dr Issaverdenz said, "and I am happy--quite happy!"
VENETIAN FOLK-SONGS.
To the idealised vision that goes along with hereditary culture a large town may seem an impressive spectacle. For Wordsworth, worshipper of nature though he was, earth had not anything to show more fair than London from Westminster Bridge, and Victor Hugo found endless inspiration on the top of a Parisian omnibus. As shrines of art, as foci of historic memories, even simply as vast aggregates of human beings working out the tragi-comedy of life, great cities have furnished the key-note to much fine poetry. But it is different with the letterless ma.s.ses. The student of literature, who turns to folk-songs in search of a new enjoyment, will meet with little to attract him in urban rhymes; if there are many that present points of antiquarian interest, there are few that have any kind of poetic worth. The people"s poetry grows not out of an ideal world of a.s.sociation and aspiration, but from the springs of their life. They cannot see with their minds as well as with their eyes. What they do see in most great towns is the monotonous ugliness which surrounds their homes and their labour. Then again, it is a well-known fact that with the people loss of individuality means loss of the power of song; and where there is density of population there is generally a uniformity as featureless as that of pebbles on the sea beach.
Still to the rule that folk-poesy is not a thing of town growth one exception has to be made. Venice, unique under every aspect, has songs which, if not of the highest, are unquestionably of a high order. The generalising influences at play in great political centres have hardly affected the inhabitants of the city which for a thousand years of independence was a body politic complete in itself. Nor has Venetian common life lacked those elements of beauty without whose presence the popular muse is dumb. The very industries of the Venetians were arts, and when they were young and spiritually teachable, their chief bread-winning work of every day was Venice--her ducal chapel, her campanile, her palaces of marble and porphyry. In the process of making her the delight of after ages, they attended an excellent school of poetry.
The gondolier contemporary with Byron was correctly described as songless. At a date closely coinciding with the overthrow of Venetian freedom, the boatmen left off waking the echoes of the Grand Ca.n.a.l, except by those cries of warning which, no one can quite say why, so thrill and move the hearer. It was no rare thing to find among the Italians of the Lombardo-Venetian provinces the old pathetic instinct of keeping silence before the stranger. I recollect a story told me by one of them. When he was a boy, Antonio--that was his name--had to make a journey with two young Austrian officers. They took notice of the lad, who was sprightly and good-looking, and by and by they asked him to sing. "Canta, canta, il piccolo," said they; "sing us the songs of Italy." He refused. They insisted, and, coming to a tavern, they gave him wine, which sent the blood to his head. So at last he said, "Very well, I will sing you the songs of Italy." What he sang was one of the most furiously anti-Austrian songs of "48. "Ah! taci, taci il piccolo!" cried the officers, but the "piccolo" would not be quiet until he had sung the whole revolutionary repertory. The Austrians knew how to appreciate the boy"s spirit, for they pressed on him a ten franc piece at parting.
To return to Venice. In the year 1819 an English traveller asked for a song of a man who was reported to have once chanted Ta.s.so _alla barcaruolo_; the old gondolier shook his head. "In times like these,"
he said, "he had no heart to sing." Foreign visitors had to fall back on the beautiful German music, at the sound of which Venetians ran out of the Piazza, lest they might be seduced by its hated sweetness.
Meanwhile the people went on singing in their own quarters, and away from the chance of ministering to their masters" amus.e.m.e.nt. It is even probable that the moral casemate to which they fled favoured the preservation of their old ways, that of poetising included. Instead of aiming at something novel and modern, the Venetian wished to be like what his fathers were when the flags on St Mark"s staffs were not yellow and black. So, like his fathers, he made songs and sang songs, of which a good collection has been formed, partly in past years, and partly since the black-and-yellow standard has given place, not, indeed, to the conquered emblems of the Greek isles, but to the colours of Italy, reconquered for herself.
Venetian folk-poesy begins at the cradle. The baby Venetian, like most other babies, is a.s.sured that he is the most perfect of created beings. Here and there, underlying the baby nonsense, is a dash of pathos. "Would you weep if I were dead?" a mother asks, and the child is made to answer, "How could I help weeping for my own mamma, who loves me so in her heart?" A child is told that if he asks his mother, who is standing by the door, "What are you doing there?" she will reply, "I am waiting for thy father; I wait and wait, and do not see him coming; I think I shall die thus waiting." The little Venetian has the failings of baby-kind all the world over; he cries and he laughs when he ought to be fast asleep. His mother tells him that he was born to live in Paradise; she is sure that the angels would rejoice in her darling"s beauty. "Sleep well, for thy mother sits near thee," she sings, "and if by chance I go away, G.o.d will watch thee when I am gone."
A christening is regarded in Venice as an event of much social as well as religious importance. By canon law the bonds of relationship established by G.o.dfatherhood count for the same as those of blood, for which reason the Venetian n.o.bles used to choose a person of inferior rank to stand sponsor for their children, thus escaping the creation of ties prohibitive of marriage between persons of their own cla.s.s. In this case the material responsibilities of the sponsor were slight--it was his part to take presents, and not to make them. By way of acknowledging the new connection, the child"s father sent the G.o.dfather a marchpane, that cake of mystic origin which is still honoured and eaten from Nuremberg to Malaga. With the poor, another order of things is in force. The _compare de l"anelo_--the person who acted as groomsman at the marriage--is chosen as sponsor to the first-born child. His duties begin even before the christening. When he hears of the child"s birth, he gets a piece of meat, a fowl, and two new-laid eggs, packs them in a basket, and despatches them to the young mother. Eight days after the birth comes the baptism. On returning from the church, the sponsor, now called _compare de San Zuane_, visits the mother, before whom he displays his presents--twelve or fifteen lire for herself; for the baby a pair of earrings, if it be a girl; and if a boy, a pair of boy"s earrings, or a single ornament to be worn in the right ear. Henceforth the G.o.dfather is the child"s natural guardian next to its parents; and should they die, he is expected to provide for it. Should the child die, he must buy the _zogia_ (the "joy"), a wreath of flowers now set on the coffins of dead infants, but formerly placed on their heads when they were carried to the grave-isle in full sight of the people.
This last custom led to even more care being given to the toilet of dead children than what might seem required by decency and affection.
To dress a dead child badly was considered shameful. Tradition tells of what happened to a woman who was so miserly that she made her little girl a winding-sheet of rags and tatters. When the night of the dead came round and all the ghosts went in procession, the injured babe, instead of going with the rest, tapped at its mother"s door and cried, "Mamma, do you see me? I cannot go in procession because I am all ragged." Every year on the night of the dead the baby girl returned to make the same reproach.
Venetian children say before they go to bed:
Bona sera ai vivi, E riposo ai poveri morti; Bon viagio ai naveganti E bona note ai tuti quanti.
There is a sort of touching simplicity in this; and somehow the wish of peace to the "poor dead" recalls a line of Baudelaire"s--