  By C. F. KEARY. A special interest, as it seems to me, belongs to every attempt to restore to a place in literature the genuine peasant speech of the Roumanians, with all its Slavisms undiluted, and showing by those Slavisms that it is not a sham peasant literature with the thoughts of educated men put into the language of a lower class. The task of contributing to this restoration has been undertaken by M. Ricard Torceanu. He has spent much time and labor in going from village to village to collect the songs, the customs, and lore of the peasants. Everything which he amassed was orally communicated to him. What he gained was often fragmentary and uncouth, but it had the advantage of being a genuine product. It would almost seem as if the villagers were beginning to forget their village songs. In a few years’ time, perhaps, these songs will be no longer to be heard, having been driven away by the new education code and by the new language which has been to a great extent substituted for the old tongue. Then these poems will remain like the last echoes of bygone days. M. Torceanu has invented nothing, he has extenuated nothing. He has set down what he heard, and no more; he needs, therefore, to make no apology, although the poetry is often meagre and is always absolutely simple. In actual form these songs have some points of likeness to Mr. Barnes’s Dorset lays. In both the beat of four is much the most usual measure of the line; only that, owing to the difference in the accent, while in English the four-beat is often reached in only seven syllables, in the Roumanian eight are nearly always employed. A great variety of accentuation prevents the monotony which would naturally arise from the frequency of this form. And as this variety of accent can not be rendered in the English translation, more freedom has been used in the number of syllables contained in a line than is used in the original. At the same time the four-beat, when found in the original, has been generally preserved. Alternate rhyme is the exception, the most usual thing being the couplet. Very frequently, however, four of five lines rhyme or sound together. These poets are not very particular about accurate rhyme. Untrained ears are never very exacting on this head. Our ballad literature could show countless instances of such assonance as wind, begin, him, them, am, man, etc. The Roumanians are much more liberal still—at least as appears to our ears. Some of their rhymes recall the loose assonance of old French poetry, such as the Chansons de Geste. Little distinction seems to be made between the liquids l and r, so that are and ale would pass for a proper rhyme. In singing each line is repeated twice, with a variety of accent. The songs have one peculiarity: almost all begin with the words frunza verde, that is, green leaf. To this follows sometimes “of the so and so.” This reminds us of the beginnings of the snatches of rhyme in Mr. Browning’s “Fra Lippo Lippi”: Flower o’ the clove, All the Latin I construe is amo, I love. Occasionally the frunza verde is followed on by the name of a flower unconnected with it by any conjunction. Thus the following song begins with a line which, literally translated, is simply “green leaf, three violets;” but to make it intelligible we will borrow the form from Mr. Browning’s songs. The same phrase frunza verde is frequently introduced into the middle of the poem. One might be tempted to suppose that when it is found there, it has been the result of the welding together of two different songs. But there are some instances where this certainly has not been the case. Now take for a specimen the following song, characteristic enough of the greater number of these village lays: Green leaf, green leaf of the violet, As of old, across the wold And round my house the wind sobs yet, Whispering longing and regret, For the loved ones who have fled. Breathes the wind among the grasses: I faint with wishing as it passes. Storm-gusts rise and fall again, And passion wrings my heart with pain. Breathes the wind, and small leaves move, I die with longing for my love. Over the mountain the mountain wind blows, My longing for my kindred grows. Blows the breeze the trees among, My brothers’ names shall fill my song. When it creeps the flowers through, My sisters sweet I think of you. Leaf o’ the maple branching fair, What cloud comes here, the wanderer— Hast thou told to her forsaken How her love’s for a conscript taken? Oh, little cloud, thou dost not carry Rain or snow, but the tears of Marie. Curious little conceits such as these, drawn from the common imagery of nature, are very characteristic of the poems. In that respect some of the songs resemble not a little some of the popular songs which one may hear in Italy, and resemble much less the popular songs of northern lands, wherein these conceits are more rare. Here is a still more simple fragment: Green leaf of holly, all are gone, The girls of the village, and I am alone.— Not all; for one remains for me; Only one my hope to be. My hope but she;— Frail as ice my trust will find her, To the trysting who can bind her? And here one which is far from ungraceful: “Undo, my dear, the charm which you have made, And let me now go free.” “To make you go my charm was never laid, But to make you marry me.” The following might seem like an imitation of Shakspere; but it is a quite true rendering from the mouth of peasants to whom Shakspere was not even a name: Green leaf of the poplar grove, Tell me, prythee, whence comes love? From the eyes or from the brows, Or from the crimson lips? Can a peasant taste thereof As one honey sips? This is the lament put into the mouth of a girl who has disgraced herself so far as to marry a tzigan (gipsy). Swallows, swallows, little sisters— Sisters, seek my mother dear; Tell her from her daughter here, That she send her kirtle red, For a raven she has wed, And a large thick veil for shroud When the watch-dogs bark aloud. Her brave dresses, that she take them, Into one rude bundle make them, Throw them in the street and burn them, Utterly to ashes turn them. Or here again a woman’s complaint:— When the world despises me, Only God has any pity. Thou too, doubting, comest not near me, Willst not know and willst not hear me. Knew my sorrow, brought me love: My sweet turtle dove, I know, If her other half should go, Would not mate with any other, Or fly from one tree to another. This is a more passionate vein, with some adumbrations of a story in it:— “Hide, O God, the moon in a mist, Let me revel as I list; Wrap like a shroud his face in a cloud, Till my lover has kissed and kissed.”— “Green leaf of the vine’s long train, I go, but in autumn shall come again.”— “If you go for a month away, Mad you’ll find me on your home-coming day; If you go away for a year, Not mad you’ll find me but laid on my bier. Then to my grave I bid you come, Scatter dust upon my tomb, Take a look within At the death of sin; As I lie at your feet And at Death’s deceit.” Most of the poems collected are short ones, of a kind not dissimilar from the specimens given above. There are, however, some pieces which approach more nearly to the ballad form, which are considerably longer, and contain some sort of story. Our specimens would not be representative unless we included one poem of this kind. Let this ballad stand upon its own merits, merely as a representative one, without attempting to explain or apologize for its obscurities and want of harmony. The inequality of the metre here will represent the, to our ears, irregularity of the original:— Over the mountain, bathed in the dew, Is standing a little cottage new, With windows that face the rising sun, And door that leads toward the valley down. In it was held a meeting gay Of all the girls of the village one day. And they sang and they spun, And they laughed—all but one, The hostess’ young daughter: From her came no laughter As from every other. Then thus spake her mother: “Little daughter, what fails thee? What is it that ails thee? Art thou sick, little daughter, Or is it heart-pain?” Said her daughter, “Refrain, Little mother, seek not to know why I am sad; lest I curse in reply. For love’s pain I have proved; I had once one beloved. He was tall, little mother, Fairer than any other. His eyebrows black as a raven’s wing, In an arch long drawn as is a ring, Skin soft as silk, white as the froth of milk, His eyes were like the dark wild-plum, His hair was like ripe corn in the sun. Securely my beloved slept, Safe was my beloved kept From the sun’s strong rays, From the wind of wintry days. And I sent my love To the fair of Brachov To buy for me linen, Fine thread for my spinning, And rich clothes to wear, Gold beads for my hair.— Thence he sent with a message, my mother, With a message the moon in the night, That I was to be his stepmother: Then I sent to him in reply The sun, for I said that he should Go wed whomsoever he would. With the leaf of the hazel-nut tree He sent his answer to me, That I should his stepmother be; Little mother, but dear little mother, Can I marry him to another, Or shall I curse him, shall I curse him, my mother?“ “Be not mad, little daughter, go be His stepmother, as he tells thee: And you, Gypsy, Gypsy, Bring my carriage to me, For I am the grand stepmother.” “But mother, oh mother, say how Shall I speak, and what name call him now?” “My beloved, my stepson, My heart’s love, my cherished one.” “And her, O my mother, what word Shall I give her, what name?” “My stepdaughter, abhorred, The whole world’s shame.” “Then, my mother, what shall I take him? What gift shall I make him?” “A handkerchief fine, little daughter, Bread of white wheat, for thy loved one to eat, And a glass of wine, my daughter.” “And what take her, little mother, What gift shall I make her?” “A kerchief of thorns, little daughter; A loaf of black bread for her whom he wed, And a cup of poison, my daughter!” * * * * * * Whether this is anything more than a fragment one may reasonably doubt, but no more than this was known to the reciter. This is of course the disadvantage of orally imparted poems, that a great portion is very often left out of the beginning, the end, or the middle. Sometimes, again, two different songs are combined into one. We can understand without much difficulty what was meant by sending the moon with a letter or message, and sending back the sun; it is not so obvious what the letter written upon the hazel-nut leaf implies. The explanation which seems the most probable is: This Roumanian peasant lover could not write. He had no means of sending a message unless the sun would be the messenger, nor of receiving a reply unless the moon would bring it. The peasants sometimes make calls by whistling against a leaf, as our peasant boys do with a piece of grass. This apparently is what is meant by the answer sent by a hazel-nut leaf. Possibly the rest of the poem, if there had been a remaining part, would have made the difficult points of this ballad more clear. We might have had a tragedy of the Ugo and Parisina sort. But all that is now covered up in night. With one poem of a simple kind we will end this short selection: List ye who love: Three evils ye will prove. The first is that you love, The next because he seldom comes Your love to prove. This bitterness your heart will know. The third when altogether he shall go, And say adieu. He will not come back again; But your heart will scorch with pain. Leaf of the barley, he will say, I know not what has found me, Nor what sorcery around me Takes me from you away— But adieu forever and a day. —The Nineteenth Century. decorative line |
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