L'amor del mariner no dura un 'ora, La dove che lu el va, lu s' inamora.

And even if the sailor's troth can be trusted, is it not his trade "at sea to die"? But the young girl will not be persuaded. "All say to me, 'Beauty, do not take the mariner, for he will make thee die;' if he make me die, so must it be; I will wed him, for he is my soul." And when he is gone, she sings: "My soul, as thou art beyond the port, send me word if thou art alive or dead, if the waters of the sea have taken thee?" She returns sadly to her work, the work of all Venetian maidens:

My love is far and far away from me, I am at home, and he has gone to sea; He is at sea, and he has sails to spread, I am at home, and I have beads to thread.

The boatman's love can afford to sing in a lighter strain; there is not the shadow of interminable voyages upon her. "I go out on the balcony, I see Venice, and I see my joy, who starts; I go out on the balcony, I see the sea, and I see my love, who rows." Another song is perhaps a statement of fact, though it sounds like a poetic fancy:

To-night their boats must seek the sea, One night his boat will linger yet; They bear a freight of wood, and he A freight of rose and violet.

Who forgets the coming into Venice in the early morning light of the boats laden with fresh flowers and fruit?

Isaac d'Israeli states that the fishermen's wives of the Lido, particularly those of the districts of Malamocca and Pelestrina (its extreme end), sat along the sh.o.r.e in the evenings while the men were out fishing, and sang stanzas from Ta.s.so and other songs at the pitch of their voices, going on till each one could distinguish the responses of her own husband in the distance.

At first sight the songs of the various Italian provinces appear to be greatly alike, but at first sight only. Under further examination they display essential differences, and even the songs which travel all over Italy almost always receive some distinctive touch of local colour in the districts where they obtain naturalisation. The Venetian poet has as strongly marked an ident.i.ty as any of his fellows. Not to speak of his having invented the four-lined song known as the "Vilota," the quality of his work unmistakably reflects his peculiar idiosyncracies. An Italian writer has said, "nella parola e nello scritto ognuno imita se stesso;" and the Venetian "imitates himself"

faithfully enough in his verses. He has a well-developed sense of humour, and his finer wit discerns less objectionable paths than those of parody and burlesque, for which the Sicilian shows so fatal a leaning. He is often in a mood of half-playful cynicism; if his paramount theme is love, he is yet fully inclined to have a laugh at the expense of the whole race of lovers:

A feast I will prepare for love to eat, Non-suited suitors I will ask to dine; They shall have pain and sorrow for their meat, They shall have tears and sobs to drink for wine; And sighs shall be the servitors most fit To wait at table where the lovers sit.

As compared with the Tuscan, the Venetian is a confirmed egotist.

While the former well-nigh effaces his individual personality out of his hymns of adoration, the latter is apt to talk so much of his private feelings, his wishes, his disappointments, that the idol stands in danger of being forgotten. There is, indeed, a single song--the song of one of the despised mariners--which combines the sweet humility of Tuscan lyrics with a glow and fervour truly Venetian--possibly its author was in reality some Istriot seaman, for the _canti popolari_ of Istria are known to partake of both styles.

Anyhow, it may figure here, justified by what seems to me its own excellence of conception:

Fair art thou born, but love is not for me; A sailor's calling sends me forth to sea.

I do desire to paint thee on my sail, And o'er the briny deep I'd carry thee.

They ask, What ensign? when the boat they hail-- For woman's love I bear this effigy; For woman's love, for love of maiden fair; If her I may not love, I love forswear!

When he is most in earnest and most excited, the Venetian is still homely--he has none of the Sicilian's luxuriant imagination. I may call to mind a remark of Edgar Poe's to the effect that pa.s.sion demands a homeliness of expression. Pa.s.sionate the Venetian poet certainly is. Never a man was readier to "dare e'en death" at the behest of his mistress--

Wouldst have me die? Then I'll no longer live.

Grant unto me for sepulchre thy bed, Make me straightway a pillow of thy head, And with thy mouth one kiss, beloved one, give.

At Chioggia, where still in the summer evenings _Orlando Furioso_ is read in the public places, and where artists go in quest of the old Venetian type, they sing a yet more impa.s.sioned little song.

Oh, Morning Star, I ask of thee this grace, This only grace I ask of thee, and pray: The water where thou hast washed thy breast and face, In kindly pity throw it not away.

Give it to me for medicine; I will take A draught before I sleep and when I wake; And if this medicine shall not make me whole, To earth my body, and to h.e.l.l my soul!

It must be added that Venetian folk-poesy lacks the innate sympathy with all beautiful natural things which pervades the poesy of the Apennines. This is in part the result of outward conditions: nature, though splendid, is unvaried at Venice. The temperament of the Venetian poet explains the rest. If he alludes to the _bel seren con tante stelle_, it is only to say that "it would be just the night to run away with somebody"--to which a.s.sertion he tacks the disreputable rider, "he who carries off girls is not called a thief, he is called an enamoured young man."

Even in the most lovely and the most poetic of cities you cannot breathe the pure air of the hills. The Venetian is without the intense refinement of the Tuscan mountaineer, as he is without his love of natural beauty. The Tuscan but rarely mentions the beloved one's name--he respects it as the Eastern mystic respects the name of the Deity; the Venetian sings it out for the edification of all the boatmen of the ca.n.a.l. The Tuscan has come to regard a kiss as a thing too sacred to talk about; the Venetian has as few scruples on the subject as the poet of Sirmio. Nevertheless, it should be recognised that a not very blameable unreservedness of speech is the most serious charge to be brought against all save a small minority of Venetian singers. I believe that the able and conscientious collector, Signor Bernoni, has exercised but slight censorship over the ma.s.s of songs he has placed on record, notwithstanding which the number of those that can be accused of an immoral tendency is extremely limited. Whence it is to be inferred that the looseness of manners prevailing amongst the higher cla.s.ses at Venice in the decadence of the Republic at no time became general in the lower and sounder strata of society.

At the beginning of this century, songs that were called Venetian ballads were very popular in London drawing-rooms. That they were sung with more effect before those who had never heard them in their own country than before those who had, will be easily believed. A charming letter-writer of that time described the contrast made by the gay or impa.s.sioned strain of the poetry to "the stucco face of the statue who doles it forth;" whilst in Venice, he added, it is seconded by all the nice inflections of voice, grace of gesture, play of features, that distinguish Venetian women. One of the Venetian songs which gained most popularity abroad was the story of the damsel who drops her ring into the sea, and of the fisherman who fishes it up, refusing all other reward than a kiss:

Oh! pescator dell 'onda, Findelin, Vieni pescar in qua!

Colla bella sua barca Colla bella se ne va Findelin! lin, la!

But this song is not peculiarly Venetian; it is sung everywhere on the Adriatic and Mediterranean coasts. And the version used was in pure Italian. Judged as poetry, the existing Venetian ballads take a lower place than the _Vilote_. They are often not much removed from doggerel, as may be shown by a lamentable history which confusedly suggests Enoch Arden with the moral of "Tue-la:"

"Who is that knocking at my gates?

Who is that knocking at my door?"

"A London captain 'tis who waits, Your very humble servitor."

In deshabille the fair one ran, Straightway the door she opened wide: "Tell me, my fair one, if you can, Where does your husband now abide?"

"My husband he has gone to France, Pray heaven that back he may not come;"

--Just then the fair one gave a glance, It was her spouse arrived at home!

"Forgive, forgive," the fair one cried, "Forgive if I have done amiss;"

"There is no pardon," he replied, For women who have sinned like this."

Her head fell off at the first blow, The first blow wielded by his sword; So does just Heaven its anger show Against the wife who wrongs her lord.

Venetian songs will serve as a guide to the character, but scarcely to the opinions, of the Venetians. The long struggle with Austria has left no other trace than a handful of rough verses dating from the Siege--mere strings of _Evvivas_ to the dictator and the army. It may be argued that the fact is not exceptional, that like the _Fratelli d'ltalia_ of Goffredo Mameli, the war-songs of the Italian movement were all composed for the people and not by them. Still there have been genuine folk-poets who have discoursed after their fashion of _Italia libera_. The Tuscan peasants sang as they stored the olives of 1859--

L'amore l'ho in Piamonte, Bandiera tricolor!

There is not in Venetian songs an allusion to the national cause so navely, so caressingly expressive as this. It cannot be that the Venetian _popolano_ did not care; whenever his love of country was put to the test, it was found in no way wanting. Was it that to his positive turn of mind there appeared to be an absence of connection between politics and poetry? Looking back to the songs of an earlier period, we find the same habit of ignoring public events. A rhyme, answering the purpose of our "Ride a c.o.c.k horse," contains the sole reference to the wars of Venice with the Porte--

Andemo a la guera Per mare e per tera, E cataremo i Turchi, Li mazzaremo tuti, &c.

In the proverbs, if not in the songs, a somewhat stronger impress remains of the independent att.i.tude a.s.sumed by the Republic in its dealings with the Vatican. The Venetians denied Papal infallibility by antic.i.p.ation in the saying, "The Pope and the countryman know more than the Pope alone;" and in one line of a nursery ditty, "El Papa no xe Re," they quietly abolished the temporal power. When Paul V.

laid the city under an interdict, the citizens made answer, "Prima Veneziani e poi cristiani," a proverb that survives to this day.

"Venetians first" was the first article of faith of these men, or rather it was to them a vital instinct. Their patriotism was a kind of magnificent _amour propre_. No modern nation has felt a pride of state so absorbing, so convinced, so transcendent: a pride which lives incarnate in the forms and faces of the Venetian senators who look serenely down on us from the walls of the Art Gallery out of the company of kings, of saints, of angels, and of such as are higher than the angels.

A chance word or phrase now and then accidentally carries us back to Republican times and inst.i.tutions. The expression, "Thy thought is not worth a _gazeta_," occurring in a love-song cited above, reminds us that the term gazette is derived from a Venetian coin of that name, value three-quarters of a farthing, which was the fee charged for the privilege of hearing read aloud the earliest venture in journalism, a ma.n.u.script news-sheet issued once a month at Venice in the sixteenth century. The figure of speech, "We must have fifty-seven," meaning, "we are entering on a serious business," has its origin in the fifty-seven votes necessary to the pa.s.sing of any weighty measure in the Venetian Senate. The Venetian adapter of Moliere's favourite ditty, in lieu of preferring his sweetheart to the "bonne ville de Paris," prefers her to "the Mint, the a.r.s.enal, and the Bucentaur."

Every one is familiar with the quaint description of the outward glories of St Mark's Square:

In St Mark's Place three standards you descry, And chargers four that seem about to fly; There is a time-piece which appears a tower, And there are twelve black men who strike the hour.

Social prejudices creep in where politics are almost excluded. A group of _Vilote_ relates to the feud--old as Venice--between the islanders of San Nicolo and the islanders of Castello, the two sections of the town east of the Grand Ca.n.a.l, in the first of which stands St Mark's, in the last the a.r.s.enal. The best account of the two factions is embodied in an ancient poem celebrating the fight that rendered memorable St Simon's Day, 1521. The anonymous writer tells his tale with an impartiality that might be envied by greater historians, and he ends by putting a canto of peaceable advice into the mouth of a dying champion, who urges his countrymen to dwell in harmony and love one another as brothers. Are they not made of the same flesh and bone, children alike of St Mark and his State?

Tuti a la fin no semio patrioti, Cresciu in sti campi, ste cale e cantoni?

The counsel was not taken, and the old rivalry continued unabated, fostered up to a certain point by the Republic, which saw in it, amongst other things, a check on the power of the patricians. The two sides represented the aristocratic and democratic elements of the population: the Castellani had wealth and birth and fine palaces, their upper cla.s.ses monopolised the high offices of State, their lower cla.s.ses worked in the a.r.s.enal, served as pilots to the men-of-war, and acted as rowers in the Bucentaur. The better-to-do Nicoloti came off with a share of the secondary employs, whilst the larger portion of the San Nicolo folk were poor fishermen. But their sense of personal dignity was intense. They had a doge of their own, usually an old sailor, who on high days and holidays sat beside the "renowned prince, the Duke of Venice." This doge, or _Gastaldo dei Nicoloti_, was answerable for the conduct of his people, of whom he was at once superior and equal. "Ti voghi el dose et mi vogo col dose" ("You row the doge, I row with the doge"), a Nicoloto would say to his rival.

It is easy to see how the party spirit engendered by the old feud produced a sentiment of independence in even the poorest members of the community, and how it thus became of great service to the Republic. Its princ.i.p.al drawback was that of leading to hard blows, the last occasion of its doing so being St Simon's Day, 1817, when a fierce local outbreak was severely suppressed by the Austrians. Since then the contending forces have agreed to dwell in harmony; whether they love one another as brothers is not so clear. There are songs still sung in which mutual recrimination takes the form of too strong language for ears polite. "If a Nicoloto is born, a Count is born; if a Castellan is born--set up the gallows," is the mildest dictum of a son of San Nicolo, to which his neighbour replies, "When a Castellan is born, a G.o.d is born; when a Nicoloto is born, a brigand is born."

The feud lingers on even in the matter of love. "Who is that youth who pa.s.ses so often?" inquires a girl; "if it be a Castellan, bid him be off; if it be a Nicoloto, bid him come in."

On the night of the Redeemer (in July) still takes place what was perhaps one of the most ancient of Venetian customs. A fantastic illumination, a bridge of boats, a people's ball, a prize-giving to the best gondolas, a promiscuous wandering about the public gardens, these form some of the features of the festival. But its most remarkable point is the expedition to the Lido at three o'clock in the morning to see the dawn. As the sun rises from his cradle of eastern gold, he is greeted by the shout of thousands. Many of the youths leap into the water and disport themselves like wild creatures of the sea.

A word in conclusion as to the dialect in which Venetian songs are composed. The earliest specimen extant consists in the distich--

Lom po far e die in pensar E vega quelo che li po inchiontrar,

which is to be read on the facade of St Mark's, opposite the ducal palace. The meaning is, Look before you leap--an adage well suited to the people who had the reputation of being the most prudent in the world. This inscription belongs to the twelfth century. There used to be a song sung at Ascension-tide on the occasion of the marriage of the doge with the Adriatic, of which the signification of the words was lost and only the sound preserved. It is a pity that it was never written out phonetically; for modern scholars would probably have proved equal to the task of interpreting it, even as they have given us the secret of the runes on the neck of the Greek lion at the a.r.s.enal. We owe to Dante a line of early Venetian--one of those tantalising fragments of dialect poems in his posthumous work, _De Vulgari Eloquentia_--fragments perhaps jotted down with the intention of copying the full stanzas had he lived to finish the treatise.

Students have long been puzzled by Dante's judgment on the Venetian dialect, which he said was so harsh that it made the conversation of a woman resemble that of a man. The greatest master of the Italian tongue was ruthless in his condemnation of its less perfect forms, to the knowledge of which he was all the same indebted in no slight degree. But it must not be overlooked that the question in Dante's day was whether Italy should have a language or whether the nation should go on oscillating between Latin and _patois_. For reasons patriotic and political quite as much as literary, Dante's heart was set on the adoption of one "ill.u.s.trious, cardinal, aulic and polite" speech by the country at large, and to that end he contributed incalculably, though less by his treatise than by his poem. The involuntary hatred of _patois_ as an outward sign of disunion has reappeared again in some of those who in our own time have done and suffered most for united Italy. Thus I once heard Signor Benedetto Cairoli say: "When we were children, our mother would on no account let us speak anything but good Italian." It is possible that Dante's strong feeling on the subject made him unjust. It is also possible that the Venetian and the other dialects have undergone a radical change, though this is not so likely as may at first be supposed. A piece of nonsense written in the seventeenth century gives an admirable idea of what the popular idiom was then and is now:

Mi son tanto inamorao In dona Nina mia vesina Che me da gran disciplina, Che me vedo desparao.

Gnao bao, bao gnao, Mi son tanto inamorao!

Mi me sento tanti afani (Tuti i porto per so amore!) Che par proprio che sia cani Ch'al mi cor fazza brusore; Che da tute quante l'ore Mi me sento pa.s.sionao.

Gnao bao, bao gnao, Mi son tanto inamorao!

In most respects Venetian would approach closely to standard Italian were it not for the p.r.o.nunciation; yet to the uneducated Venetian, Italian sounds very strange. A maid-servant who had picked up a few purely Italian words, was found to be under the delusion that she had been learning English. The Venetian is unable to detect a foreigner by his accent. An English traveller had been talking for some while to a woman of Burano, when she asked in all seriousness, "Are you a Roman?"