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The Poetry of the Italian Dialects: North Italy.

Nor a few travellers descending into Italy over the Stelvio or the Brenner take out their purses to calculate how far they will have succeeded in getting rid of their Austrian paper-money before crossing the frontier. If they find a ten-kreuzer note clean enough to be decipherable they may be struck by the elaborate character of the engraving on its small surfaceHercules, and the nameless young lady with a crown of flowers in one hand and a bundle of spears in the other, who stand as supporters to the legend; the trophy of bayonets and flags below, and the infant-bestridden jabberwocks who prance at the top of the design. Any diversion is welcome on a long journey, so they may try to interest themselves next in seeing how the words "twopence halfpenny" look in ten different languages. The reflections of the common-place tourist will doubtless sum themselves up into the not unreasonable wish that Austria would have gold and silver coins like other Christian nations. But it is only fair that he should know what a fund of instruction this minute bank note may afford. A careful examination of the several equivalents for ten, zehn, tiz, deset, dziesiée, dieci, &c., may open to him some of the profoundest mysteries of comparative philology; or, as a political fact, this wonderful agglomeration of nationalities in one empire may be new to him, and, besides suggesting all kinds of geographical and historical puzzles, may develop in him a new sympathy for the Imperial Royal and Apostolic personage who has to guide the destinies and to temper and attune the jarring interests of so many peoples, nations, and languages. At any rate, as he nears Bormio or Verona, he is ready to congratulate King Victor Emmanuel on ruling over an Italy at last one and indivisible, through a language one and undivided. For this is the common idea among tourists -as of Italy so of her language. Men traverse the length and breadth of the peninsula from Venice to Palermo and know little of the differences of race and traditions, of feelings and habits and interests, which divide the population; little of the old and ever active enmities and rivalries which separate town from town; little of local grievances and regrets and discontents, fostered by secret societies, and fostering in their turn the curse of brigandage and a general lawlessness. Yet these are the real things which made Italian unity so difficult to accomplish, which still threaten its stability. But the man who on the other side of the Alps would sigh over the oppressed nationalities of Czechs and Magyars, wonders what Sicilians can find to grumble at in the government of strangers from Piedmont. And so with regard to the language. A tourist is contented

to know that Italian is the language of Italy. The guide-books tells him that this language is spoken most correctly at Siena, and they supply and translate a proverb from which he may further learn that the pleasantest accent is that of Rome. But he would be politely incredulous if he were told that the popular speech of Milan is all but unintelligible at Genoa or Venice, and that the language of a Piedmontese seems to the reckless, impudent Neapolitans as great a wonder as his serious, thrifty, industrious temper.

There are probably at least fifty well-defined varieties of dialect still spoken in Italy and the islands. Prince L. L. Bonaparte, the generous and indefatigable patron of philological study, divides them into two great sections, which may be indicated geographically as spoken north and south of a line drawn from Spezia to Rimini. Below the line the dialects are marked by the prominence of the vowel sounds, above it by the strength of the tonic accent. Eight families are roughly indicated as belonging to each division, but each family can show an almost incredible number of sub-species and varieties. Thus in Sardinia there are three chief dialects, but that of central Sardinia has itself sixteen sub-dialects, whose differences are quite appreciable in print, and probably are recognised with still greater ease by the ear. Signor Zuccagni-Orlandini, who set himself to collect specimens of the leading dialects, did not consider his task complete until he could print forty-four distinct versions of a familiar dialogue. These dialects offer a wide and almost unworked field for study, and any patient investigator of their eccentricities would be certainly rewarded by the solution of some most difficult and interesting problems in the science of language. The origin and history of the Romance tongues, specially of the written and classical Italian; their relation to the popular Latin; the differences of race, of history, circumstances and temperament which have contributed to develop or emphasize their peculiarities; the different vitality of the dialects of different provinces, and their influence on the politics and divisions of Italy; what vigorous and racy expressions they have preserved which are lost in the Volgare Illustre, and what part they have still to play in the final settlement of the common language-these and many more are questions which could receive elucidation or illustration from a careful and intelligent study of the Italian dialects.

But without tempting the public to poach on the preserves of the scholar, I hope to point out some bye-paths where it may wander innocently among flowers, and gather some graceful specimens to add to its store of legends and lyrics.

About a dozen of the Italian dialects have been raised by the genius and public spirit of provincial poets from the low estate of patois to the dignity of literary languages. About ten more are fixed and cultivated sufficiently to possess their own dictionaries. Poetry of all kinds, romance, comedy, satire, translation (from Homer in Neapolitan to Béranger in Piedmontese), have been the various fields of their triumphs. Some of the greatest names

in later Italian literature, notably Goldoni, Alfieri, and Parini, have illustrated by compositions of their own the flexibility and racy force of the language of their province, and probably of their own childhood. There is nothing surprising in this when we know how Italians of the highest cultivation habitually use in their homes and in familiar conversation their native dialect, and Tuscan critics are pleased to excuse the supposed stiffness of non-Tuscan writers, by showing that these latter are constrained to translate into the Volgare Illustre the thoughts they conceive in their own mother tongue.

But the largest class of dialectic poetry, if not more spontaneous, is more strictly popular. It must be sought in the mouths of the people, or in books" on grey paper with blunt type," which have never reached the dignity of an octavo page. From a few such volumes, collected in a recent tour through Lombardy and Piedmont, I extract some specimens to show the character of the poetry of some of the dialects of North Italy. To begin with Venice. Of the popular poetry of Tuscany far the largest part consists of rispetti-" short poems varying from six to twelve lines, constructed on the principle of the octave stanza." Mr. Symonds has given ample specimens of these, translated with a grace to which I may not aspire, in his recent Sketches in Italy and Greece. But neither this form, nor the Roman three-lined stornello, seem to have acclimatised themselves in Venice. In Bernoni's collection of Venetian popular songs there are very few rispetti, and not a single stornello. In their stead we find ballads (of which hereafter), ninne-nanne, cradle songs and lullabies, and an immense number of strambotti-little poems of four lines of eleven syllables. They should have two rhymes, but these are often mere assonants, sometimes neglected altogether. I have attempted no greater regularity in translation. Yet sometimes the strambotto is clearly made for the rhyme; cuore, amore, fiore are so tempting. Love and youth, this is all they sing. There is often much pathos, much sweetness in the way they handle these well-worn themes. But their frankness is undoubtedly their greatest charm, not only because it is so attractive itself, but because the verses thus unconsciously emphasize the liveliest and most delightful feature of love as it is known in Italy. It may be as warm as you will, but always genuine and open, too real to be buried under thoughts of work and daily needs, or to be chaffed out by a cynic sneer. It can be serious without whining; never attitudinises, never makes a parade of its sorrows or successes. At times it may seem wanting in imagination, but here it is true to the Italian character, and this in its turn reflects the Italian climate. So their songs, as M. Boullier (Chants Populaires de la Sardaigne) has well observed, say quite frankly "pourquoi ne pas s'abandonner au plaisir de vivre, et, quand la réalité est si douce, se consumer en rêveries? Ce qu'on possède à quoi bon l'imaginer?" and frankly enough these strambotti prattle on-of youth, which is always delicious; of love, which is always young.

VOL. XXX.-No. 180.

84.

Here a lover is sighing:

As I pass beneath thy window, let thy face shine forth above,
Thou flower of my paradise, thou mirror of my love.

But the prayer is at least superfluous, for already behind her blinds the lady is singing,—

If he who goes by were my true love,

To the window I'm sure I should spring;
If the lad who goes by were my own love,
I should know by his footstep's ring.

Alas! she must wait, or sing again,

The Vesper-bell, and Beppo comes not yet—
Has death his life, or woman stolen his love?
Or he is dead and with the saints above,

Or some false fair too well her snare has set.

At last he comes, and greets her with some pretty compliment

January and February lament

Their nights no more are star-besprent.

They'll find, when love has made them wise,

Their truant stars in Lisa's eyes

and pleads his love with such sweet insistance, that the very fullness of their happiness makes her fear that it cannot be stable, and she prays so naïvely :

Kindly Fortune, stay thy wheel:
Must thou every blessing steal?
Must such love be passion-tost?

Must such happiness be lost?

It seems heartless to rob these little flowers of their colour and fragrance, and almost of their life, by transplanting them to our chilly atmosphere. But even so they may do their work, and win their praise, by recalling to some readers evenings spent in happy exile, in that "Paradise of Exiles," Italy. More than one Italian lad who has roamed with the writer, rather as a friend than a servant, over the Alban Hills, or among the rocks and sea-caves of Capri, has implored his companion to let him follow him to his northern home. "The English were simpatici, and there was much gold in England." I tried to draw the reverse of the medal thus sharply struck on the boy's brain: the ploughman slouching home, drenched and tired, and huddling himself into bed supperless and prayerless at seven or eight o'clock, to save a light and fuel, and to bury in sleep care and hunger which he cannot appease. The lonely seamstress working her fingers to the bone in a gloomy London garret, and earning little more than what may keep her husband's greedy, cruel fingers from the clothes which he might pawn for drink. He smiles incredulously this child of earth and the sun, who, when tourists are gone, will be lazily pruning vines, loading the fragrant lemons, or dancing

and struggling to keep under the ripe grapes which laughing girls pour knee-high into his vat. Braced rather than wearied with his work, when evening comes he plunges his strong, straight limbs, and tosses his chestnut curls in the blue waves of the little bay, and then hastens to meet his bright wife and the little ones at the door of the church, where the villagers are joining together before the kindly Presence in some simple prayer.

Ne gravis somnus irruat,
Nec hostis nos surripiat,
Nec caro illi consentiens,
Nos Tibi reos statuat.

The women draw their gay kerchiefs over their heads and away to bed as good housewives wont; he turns to eat his luscious mess of maccaroni and love-apples under some vine-laden pergola, listening the while to a cantastorie reciting in low impassioned tones the weird beauty of Armida, or the love "passing the love of women," which blessed the lives of Medoro and Cloridano, the Nisus and Euryalus of chivalric legend. At last he turns home, carolling away a whole string of stornelli, a challenge to the passer-by to match his skill in song. A cloudless sky, balmy air, fireflies flashing across the path, nightingales trilling in the gloom, nature glorious as on the first day, and man too still bearing about something of the glory, because something of the faith, of his first home

O fortunati nimium, sua si bona norînt!

Should he change his simple joys for this England of ours, a land without sun or song? "Ma Eccellenza, senza sole, e senza canto, che brutto paese!"

Some of the verses are set in a graver key, and the tone they recall is not the song-sped, silver twilight of Naples and Venice, but rather the grey evening that falls silently on the ramparts of Bergamo, or the low shores of Garda, round Sirmio,

Shall we together?

E che lo nuovo peregrin d'amore
Punge, se ode squilla di lontano

Che paia 'l giorno pianger che si muore.

hear Love and Reason, or perhaps Jealousy, plead

Heaven hears my vow, I must indeed depart,

My love is dead, my will defies thy art.

And then and then I wish my words unsaid

Till death thine only is my soul and heart.

And though Reason prevail, Love can still call on Song to pray :

Heaven, who hast stolen him from my eyes away,

Tear from my heart even his memory.

Or give my loved one to my arms again,

Or rid me of my longing's fruitless pain.

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