Raise thy blond head and bid thy slumbers fly;
This is the hour thy lover passes by,
Throw him a kiss, and then return to rest.
If she has any lurking doubts of Nane's constancy she receives the assurance, "One of these days I will surely make thee my bride—be not so pensive, fairest angel!" If, on the other hand, Nane lacks complete confidence in her affection, he appeals to her in words resembling I know not what Eastern love-song: "Oh, how many steps I have taken to have thee, and how many more I would take to gain thee! I have taken so many, many steps that I think thou wilt not forsake me."
The time of probation over, the girl's parents give a feast, to which the youth and his parents are invited. He brings with him, as a first offering, a small ring ornamented with a turquoise or a cornelian. Being now the acknowledged lover, he may come and openly pay his court every Sunday. On Saturday Marieta says to herself, "Ancuo xe sabo, doman xe festa—to-morrow is fête day, and to-morrow I expect Nane!" Then she pictures how he will come "dressed for the festa with a little flower in his hand;" and her heart beats with impatience. If, after all, by some chance—who knows? by some faithlessness perhaps—he fails to appear, what grief, what tears! Marieta's first thought when she rises on Sunday morning is this: "No one works to-day for it is festa; I pray you come betimes, dearest love!" Then comes the second thought: "If he does not come betimes, it is a sign that he is near to death; if later I do not see him, it is a sign that he is dead." The day passes, evening is here—no Nane! "Vespers sound and my love comes not; either he is dead, or" (the third and bitterest thought of all) "a love-thief has stolen him from me!"
Some little while after the lover has been formally accepted, he presents the maiden with a plain gold ring called el segno, and a second dinner or supper takes place at her parent's house, answering to the German betrothal feast; henceforth he is the sposo and she the novizza, and, as in Germany, people look on the pair as very little less than wedded. The new bride gives the bridegroom a silk handkerchief, to which allusion is made in a verse running, "What is that handkerchief you are wearing? Did you steal it or borrow it? I neither stole it nor borrowed it; my Morosa tied it round my neck." At Easter the sposo gives a cake and a couple of bottles of Cyprus or Malaga; at Christmas a box of almond sweetmeats and a little jug of mostarda (a Venetian spécialité composed of quinces dressed in honey and mustard); at the feast of St Martin, sweet chestnuts; at the feast of St Mark, el bocolo—that is, a rosebud, emblematical of the opening year. The lover may also employ his generosity on New Year's day, on the girl's name-day, and on other days not specified, taking in the whole 365. Some maidens show a decided taste for homage in kind. "My lover bids me sing, and to please him I will do it," observes one girl, thus far displaying only the most disinterested amiability. But presently she reveals her motives: "He has a ring with a white stone; when I have sung he will give it to me." A less sordid damsel asks only for a bunch of flowers; it shall be paid for with a kiss, she says. Certain things there are which may be neither given nor taken by lovers who would not recklessly tempt fate. Combs are placed under the ban, for they may be made to serve the purposes of witchcraft; saintly images and church-books, for they have to do with trouble and repentance; scissors, for scissors stand for evil speaking; and needles, for it is the nature of needles to prick.
Whether through the unwise exchange of these prohibited articles, or from other causes, it does sometimes happen that the betrothed lovers who have been hailed by everybody as novizza and sposo yet manage to fall out beyond any hopes of falling in again. If it is the youth's fault that the match is broken off, all his presents remain in the girl's undisputed possession; if the girl is to blame, she must send back the segno and all else that she has received. It is said that in some districts of Venetia the young man keeps an accurate account of whatever he spends on behalf of his betrothed, and in the case of her growing tired of him, she has to pay double the sum total, besides defraying the loss incurred by the hours he has sacrificed to her, and the boots he has worn out in the course of his visits.
It is more usual, as well as more satisfactory, for the betrothal to be followed in due time by marriage. After the segno has been "passed," the sposo sings a new song. "When," asks he, "will be the day whereon to thy mamma I shall say 'Madona;' to thy papa 'Missier;' and to thee, darling, 'Wife'?" "Madona" is still the ordinary term for mother-in-law at Venice; in Tuscan songs the word is also used in that sense, though it has fallen out of common parlance. Wherever it is to be found, it points to the days when the house-mother exercised an unchallenged authority over all members of the family. Even now the mother-in-law of Italian folk-songs is a formidable personage; to say the truth, there is no scant measure of self-congratulation when she happens not to exist. "Oh! Dio del siel, mandeme un ziovenin senza madona!" is the heartfelt prayer of the Venetian girl.
If the youth thinks of the wedding day as the occasion of forming new ties—above all that dearest tie which will give him his anzola bela for his own—the maiden dreams of it as the zornada santa; the day when she will kneel at the altar and receive the solemn benediction of the church upon entering into a new station of life. "Ah! when shall come to pass that holy day, when the priest will say to me, 'Are you content?' when he shall bless me with the holy water—ah! when shall it come to pass?"
It has been noticed that the institution of marriage is not regarded in a very favourable light by the majority of folk-poets, but Venetian rhymers as a rule take an encouraging view of it. "He who has a wife," sings a poet of Chioggia, "lives right merrily co la sua cara sposa in compagnia." Warning voices are not, however, wanting to tell the maiden that wedded life is not all roses: "You would never want to be married, my dear, if you knew what it was like," says one such; while another mutters, "Reflect, girls, reflect, before ye wed these gallants; on the Ponte di Rialto bird cages are sold."