Eran fiorite le rose dell'orto,
E le ciliege diventavan nere;
Ciliege nere e pere moscatelle,
Siete il trionfo delle donne belle
Ciliege nere e pere moscatate.
Siete il trionfo delle innamorate
Ciliege nere e pere moscatine.
Siete il trionfo delle piu belline.
The child's or lover's play of words in this last baffles all attempt at translation: it is not sense but sweetness, not poetry but music. It is as much without rule or study or conventionality as the song of birds when in Italian phrase, fanno primavera.
In the Province of Brescia the Thursday of Mid-Lent is kept by what is called "Burning the old women." A doll made of straw or rags, representing the oldest woman, is hung outside the window; or, if in a street, suspended from a cord passed from one side to the other. Everyone makes the tour of town or village to see le Vecchie who at sundown are consigned to the flames, generally with a distaff placed in their hands. It is a picturesque sight at Salò, when the bonfires blaze at different heights up the hills, casting long reflections across the clear lake-water. The sacrifice is consummated—but what sacrifice? I was at first disposed to simply consider the "old woman" as a type of winter, but I am informed that by those who have studied relics of the same usage in other lands, she is held to be a relative of the "harvest-man" or growth-genius, who must be either appeased or destroyed. Yet a third interpretation occurs to me, which I offer for what it is worth. Might not the Vecchia be the husk which must be cast off before the miracle of new birth is accomplished? "The seed that thou sowest shall not quicken unless it die." Hardly any idea has furnished so much occasion for symbolism as this, that life is death, and death is life.