Who will awake thee, my daughter,
When day is up?
Down here it is always sleep,
Always dark night.
This my daughter was fair.
When I went (with her) to high mass,
The columns shone,
The way grew bright.
The neniæ of Terra d'Otranto and of Calabria are not uncommonly composed in a semi-dramatic form. Professor Comparetti cites one, in which the friend of a dead girl is represented as going to pay her a visit, in ignorance of the misfortune that has happened. She sees a crowd at the door, and she exclaims: "How many folks are in thy house! they come from all the neighbourhood; they are bidden by thy mother, who shows thee the bridal array!" But on crossing the threshold she finds that the shutters are closed: "Alas!" she cries, "I deceive myself—I enter into darkness." Again she repeats: "How many folks are in thy house! All Corigliano is there." The mother says: "My daughter has bidden them by the tolling of the bell." Then the daughter is made to ask: "What ails thee, what ails thee, my mother? wherefore dost thou rend thy hair?" The mother rejoins: "I think of thee, my daughter, of how thou liest down in darkness." "What ails thee, what ails thee, my mother, that all around one can hear thee wailing?" "I think of thee, my daughter, of how thou art turned black as soot." A sort of chorus is appended: "All, all the mothers weep and rend their hair: let them weep, the poor mothers who lose their children." Here are the last four lines as they were originally set on paper:
Ole sole i mane i cluene