[531]. This English Boileau, who “flourished,” in two senses, about 1200, is good reading. His Poetria begins at p. 862 of Polycarpi Leyseri ... Historia Poetarum et Poematum Medii Ævi, Hal. Magd., MDCCXXI.
[532]. C. T., 4537 ff. The Latin:
Temporibus luctus, his verbis exprime luctum.
[533]. Marcaggi, Les Chants de la Mort et de la Vendetta de la Corse, Paris, 1898, p. 193, gives a vocero said to have been made by a monk, who calls on the celestial powers to join the chorus and wail the death of his two friends: “Jesus, Joseph, Mary, Sacred Sacrament, and all of you here in chorus, sing this lamento.” Bandits make a vocero, pp. 307 f.
[534]. Jer. xxii. 18. See below, on the Linos song.
[535]. Trionfo della Morte, pp. 419 f. “Era l’antica monodia che da tempo immemorabile in terra d’Abruzzi le donne cantavano su le spoglie dei consanguinei.” See another account of the Italian vocero in Guastella, Canti Popolari del Circondario di Modica, Modica, 1876, p. lxxix. He notes, moreover, that in Sicily the prèfiche are called ripetitrici.
[536]. Mérimée’s Columba has made the vocero familiar to readers. See also Marcaggi, work quoted; Ortoli, Les Voceri de l’Ile de Corse, Paris, 1887; Paul de St. Victor, Hommes et Dieux, Paris, 1872, pp. 349-369, a reprinted article cannily decocted and pleasantly served in the English periodical Once a Week, 1867, pp. 437-442. St. Victor refers to the older collections of Tommaseo and of Fée.
[537]. Marcaggi, p. 161. See above on the ride round the body of Beowulf and of Attila, and the older dance. The caracolu is “a sort of pantomime, a funeral dance done by the mourners round the corpse as they make gestures of grief.” The caracolu is danced no more. And again, Marcaggi, p. 231, note: “vocerare ou ballatrare veut donc dire improviser un vocero,”—highly suggestive fact.
[538]. Ibid., p. 4; Ortoli, p. xxxiv. Of these two, Marcaggi prints mainly the older material, with a few new pieces of miscellaneous character, such as cradle-songs and serenades.
[539]. His philology is unnecessary, p. 85. Ortoli, too, should stick to his “espèce de sanglot,” rather than follow his colleague’s “racine de titiare” or contraction of Oh Dio!