Among the Sicilian are many of a similar character. The Sicilian on the whole have more singularities than any other province; we have only space to note the fact without pursuing it. The following, of which for some reason Miss Busk gives only an unrhymed translation, strikes us as a very peculiar bit of folk-lore. One day when God the Father was feeling pleased, as He walked in heaven among the saints, He thought He would bestow a fair gift upon the earth. Then from His crown he took a diamond. He dowered it with all the seven elements. And He laid it down over against the rising sun. All nations call it Sicilia. But it is the Eternal Father's own diamond.
We must give one other specimen of a more general character, and we choose the following because it combines both the tenderness and the playfulness which mark the Italian peasant's character. It is from Umbria:—
"I've been up to town and I've seen of girls troops,
The dark and the fair; the blue eyes and black,
Their hair tied in topknots, their skirts all in hoops,
Like tomtit's best feathers spread out at the back
Attracting attention all the way up the church.
Like tail-spreading peacock displayed in a perch.
But if thou hadst been there, amid all this display,
Thou hadst shone, as o'er stars, the surpassing sun's ray.
Ah, nut-brown Ninetta, if thou hadst been there
Thou hadst stood for the sun's, and I, for the moon's sphere,
The moon who without any word of ripening,
Day and night round her bright sun is evermore winding.
The moon who attends her bright sun on his way
So she can but obtain from him one brilliant ray.
And I too am content to attend my Ninetta,
If but one bright eyeglance to cast on me I get her."
The word-for-word translations are all printed to face the originals in order to enable students both of folk-lore and of language to follow the original and make it out for themselves.
We understand that Miss Busk has a very large number more of these songs in hand, and we hope to be called ere long to welcome another instalment of them.
