Folk-songs, like flowers, spring up—or perhaps are transplanted—in the same form in different lands and under different skies; they laugh at political divisions and are a living monument to the solidarity of Europe. Thus a song taken down from the lips of a Piedmontese contadina in the nineteenth century is almost exactly the same as the sixteenth century French poem just quoted, even to such details as the olive and the fowler:
Gentil galant cassa’nt ël bosc,
S’è riscuntrà-se’nt üna múnia,
L’era tan bela, frësca e biunda.
Gentil galant a j’à ben dit:
—Setè-ve sì cun mi a l’umbreta,
Mai pi viu sarì munigheta.
—Gentil galant, spetei-me sì,
Che vada pozè la tunicheta
Poi turnrò con vui a l’umbreta—
A l’à spetà-la tre dì, tre nóit
Sut a l’umbreta de l’oliva.
E mai pi la múnia veniva.
Gentil galant va al munastè,
L’à pica la porta grandeta;
J’e sortì la madre badessa.
—Coza cerchei-vo, gentil galant?
—Mi ma cerco na munigheta,
Ch’a m’à promess d’avnì a l’umbreta.
—J’avie la quaja dnans ai pè,
V’la sì lassà-v-la vulè via.
Cozi l’à faít la múnia zolia[1768].
Another version, still sung in many parts of France, is called The Ferry Woman. In this a girl ferrying a gentleman from court across a stream, promises him her love in return for two thousand pounds, but bids him wait till they land and can climb to the top room of a house. But when the gallant leaps ashore she pushes off her boat, taking the money with her and crying: “Galant, j’t’ai passé la rivière:
Avec ton or et ton argent
Je vais entrer dans un couvent,
Dans un couvent de filles vertueuses
Pour être un jour aussi religieuse!
“Si je passe par le couvent,
J’irai mettre le feu dedans,
Je brûlerai la tour et la tournière
Pour mieux brûler la belle batelière”[1769].
Occasionally the references to nuns in folk-songs have even less significance. Thus one of the metamorphoses gone through by the girl, who (in a very common folk theme) assumes different shapes to elude her lover, is to become a nun:
“Si tu me suis encore
Comme un amant
Je me ferai nonne
Dans un convent,
Et jamais tu n’auras
Mon cœur content.”
“Si tu te fais nonne
Dans un couvent
Je me ferai
Moine chantant
Pour confesser la nonne
Dans le couvent”[1770].
Again in Le Canard Blanc occur the question and answer:
Que ferons nous de tant d’argent?
Nous mettrons nos filles au couvent
Et nos garçons au régiment.
Si nos fill’s ne veul’ point d’couvent
Nous les marierons richement[1771].
One very curious song deserves quotation, a Florentine carnival song of the time of Lorenzo the Magnificent, written by one Guglielmo called Il Giuggiola. It retails the woes of some poor “Lacresine” or “Lanclesine” who have come to Rome on a pilgrimage and been robbed of all their money on the way, and the ingenious suggestion has been made that “Lacresine” is a corruption of “Anglesine” and that the song is supposed to be sung by English nuns; certainly it is in broken Italian, such as foreigners would use:
Misericordia et caritate
Alle pofer Lacresine
Che l’argente pel chammine
Tutt’a spese et consumate.
Del paese basse Magne,
Dove assai fatiche afute
Tutte noi pofer compagne
Per ir Rome sian fenute.
Ma per tanto esser piofute,
Non pofer Lanclesine.
Nelle parte di Melane
State noi mal governate,
Che da ladri et gente strane
Nostre robe star furate;
Talche noi tutte bitate
[Non mai più far tal chammine.]
Pero pofer Lanclesine
Buon messer dà caritate.
Queste pofer Nastasie
Le fu tutte rotte stiene
Talchè sue gran malattie
Per vergognia sotto tiene.
Così zoppe far conviene
Con fatiche suo chammine
Però pofer Lanclesine
Buon messer dà caritate.
Chi è dijote San Branchatie
Che star tant’ in ciel potente,
Per afer sue sancte gratie
Voglia a noi donare argente,
Che le pofer malcontente
Pessin compier lor chammine,
Però pofer Lanclesine
Buon messer dà caritate[1772].