Per tant grond bain cha queus dus as leivan,
Parfin las fluors insemmel as brancleivan.
It is a sign of a natural talent for democracy when the people like better to tell stories about themselves than to discuss the fortunes of prince or princess. The devoted lovers are more often to be looked for in the immediate neighbourhood of a court. So it is in the ballad of Count Nello of Portugal. Count Nello brings his horse to bathe; while the horse drinks, the Count sings. It was already very dark—the King could not recognise him. The poor Infanta knew not whether to laugh or to cry. "Be quiet, my daughter; listen and thou wilt hear a beautiful song. It is an angel singing, or the siren in the sea." "No, it is no angel in heaven, nor is it the siren of the sea; it is Count Nello, my father, he who fain would wed me." "Who speaks of Count Nella who dare name him, the rebel vassal whom I have exiled?" "My Lord, mine only is the fault; you should punish me alone; I cannot live without him; it is I who have made him come." "Hold thy peace, traitress; before day dawns thou shalt see his head cut off." "The headsman who slays him may prepare for me too; there where you dig his grave dig mine also." For whom are the bells tolling? Count Nello is dead; the Infanta is like to die. The two graves are open; behold! they lay the Count near the porch of the church and the Infanta at the foot of the altar. On one grave grows a cypress, on the other an orange tree; one grows, the other grows; their branches join and kiss. The king, when he hears of it, orders them both to be cut down. From the cypress flows noble blood, from the orange tree blood royal; from one flies forth a dove, from the other a wood-pigeon. When the king sits at table the birds perch before him. "Ill luck upon their fondness," he cries, "ill luck upon their love! Neither in life nor in death have I been able to divide them." The musk and the camomile of Switzerland, the cypress and the orange tree of Portugal, are the cypress and the reed of the Greek folk-song, the thorn and olive of the Norman chanson, the rose and the briar of the English ballad, the vine and the rose of the Tristram and Iseult story. Through the world they tell their tale—
Amor condusse noi ad una morte.
The death of heroes has provided an inexhaustible theme for folk-poets. The chief or partisan leader had his complement in the skald or bard or roving ballad-singer; if the one acted, turned tribes into nations, cut out history, the other sang, published his fame, gave his exploits to the future, preserved to his people the remembrance of his dying words. The poetry of hero-worship, beginning on Homeric heights, descends to the "lytell gestes" of all sorts and conditions of more or less respectable and patriotic outlaws and condottieri, whose "passing" is often the most honourable point in their career. On the principle which has been followed—that of letting the folk-poet speak for himself, and show what are his ideas and his impressions after his own manner and in his own language—I will take three death scenes from amongst the less known of those recorded in popular verse. The first is Scandinavian. What ails Hjalmar the Icelander? Why is his face so pale? The Norse Warrior answers: "Sixteen wounds have I, and my armour is shattered. All things grow black in my sight; I reel in walking; the bloody sword of Agantyr has pierced my heart. Had I five houses in the fields I could not dwell in one of them; I must abide at Samsa, hopeless and mortally wounded. At Upsal, in the halls of Josur, many Jarls quaff joyously the foaming ale, many Jarls exchange hot words; but as for me, I am here in this island, struck down by the point of the sword. The white daughter of Hilmer accompanied my steps to Aganfik beyond the reefs; her words are come true, for she said I should return no more. Draw off my finger the ring of ruddy gold, bear it to my youthful Ingebrog, it will remind her that she will see me never more. In the east upsoars the raven; after him the mightier eagle wings his way. I will be meat for the eagle and my heart's blood his drink." One backward look to all that was the joy of his life—the feast, the fight, the woman he loved—and then a calm facing of the end. This is how the Norseman died. The Greek hero, who dies peaceably in the ripeness of old age, meets his doom with even less trouble of spirit—
The sun sank down behind the hill,
And Dimos faintly said,
'Go, children, fetch your evening meal—
The water and the bread.
Thou, Lamprakis, my brother's son,