Indeed, song in these days does exactly what the Greeks rarely attempted: it concerns itself with private life, and especially with that most characteristic feature of modern private life—love. Love is, consequently, the main topic of Scottish song. It is a theme of which neither the song-writer nor the song-singer ever wearies. It is the one great passion with which the universal modern mind sympathises, and from the expressions of which it quaffs inexhaustible delight. This holds true even of the cynical people who profess a distaste for love and lovers. For love has for them its comic side,—it appears to them exquisitely humorous in the human weakness it causes and brings to light; and if they do not enjoy the song in its praise, they seldom fail to laugh heartily at the description of the plights into which it leads its devotees.
Perhaps no country contains a richer collection of love-songs than Scotland. We have a song for every phase of the motley-faced passion,—from its ludicrous aspect to its highest and most rapturous form. Every pulsation of the heart, as moved by love, has had its poetic expression; and we have lovers pouring out the depths of their souls to all kinds of maids, and in all kinds of situations. And maids are represented as bodying forth their feelings, also, under the sway of love. Many of these feminine lyrics are written by women themselves. Some of them exult in the full return which their love meets; but for the most part, it is a keen sorrow that forces women to poetic composition. They thus contribute our most pathetic songs—wails sometimes over blasted hopes and blighted love, as in "Waly, Waly;" or over the death of a deeply-loved one, as in Miss Blamire's "Waefu' Heart;" or over the loss of the brave who have fallen in battle, as in Miss Jane Elliot's "Flowers of the Forest."
Peculiarly characteristic of Scotland are the songs that describe the development of love, after the lovers have been married. Here the comical phase is most predominant. For the most part, the Scottish songster delights in describing the quarrels between the goodman and the goodwife—the goodwife in the early poems invariably succeeding in making John yield to her. Sometimes, however, there is a deeper and purer current of feeling, to which Burns especially has given expression. How intensely beautiful is the affection in "John Anderson, my Jo!" And we have in "Are ye sure the news is true?" the whole character of a very loving wife brought out by a simple incident in her life,—the expected return of her husband. Some of these songs also have been written by poetesses, such as Lady Nairn's exquisite "Land of the Leal;" and really there is such delicacy, such minute accuracy in the portrayal of a woman's feelings in "Are ye sure the news is true?" that one cannot help thinking it must have been written by Jean Adams, or some woman, rather than by Mickle:—
"His very foot has music in 't,
As he comes up the stair."
What man has an ear so delicate as to hear such music?
The contrast between Greek poetry and Scotch is very marked in this point. There is not one Greek lyric devoted to what we should designate love, with perhaps something like an exception in Alcman. In fact, while moderns rarely make a tragedy or comedy, a poem or novel, without some love-concern which is the pivot of the whole, all the great poems and dramas of the ancients revolve on entirely different passions. Love, such as we speak of, was of rather rare occurrence. Women were in such a low position, that it was a condescension to notice them,—there was no chivalrous feeling in regard to them; they were made to feel the dominion of their absolute lords and masters. Besides this, the greater number of them were confined to their private chambers, and seldom saw any man who was not nearly related. Those who were on free terms of intercourse with men, were for the most part strangers, whose morals were low, and who could not be expected to win the respectful esteem of true lovers. The men enjoyed the society of these—their tumbling, dancing, singing, and lively chat; but the distance was too great to permit that deep devotion which characterises modern love. Moreover, when a Greek speaks of love, we have to remember that he fell in love as often with a male companion as with a woman—he admired the beauty of a fair youth, and he felt in his presence very much as a modern lover feels in the presence of his sweetheart. We have, therefore, to examine expressions of love cautiously. Anacreon says, for instance, that love clave him with an axe, like a smith; but it seems far more likely that the reference is to the affection excited by some charming youth.[1] We have a specimen remaining of the nonchalant style in which he addressed a woman, in the ode commencing "O Thracian mare!"—Schneidewin, Poet. Lyr. Anac. fr. 47.
The great poet of Love was not Anacreon, but Sappho, whose heart and mind were both of the finest. Her life is involved in obscurity, but it is probable that she was a strong advocate of woman's rights in her own land; and as she found men falling in love with other men, so she took special pains to win the affections of the young Æolian ladies, to train them in all the accomplishments suited to woman's nature, and to initiate them into the art of poetry,—that art without which, she says, a woman's memory would be for ever forgotten, and she would go to the house of Hades, to dwell with the shadowy dead, uncared for and unknown. We have two poems of hers which have come down to us tolerably complete, both, we think, addressed to some of her female friends, and both remarkably sweet, touching, and beautiful.
The Scottish songs devoted to other subjects than love are few, and almost exclusively descriptive. Our sense of the humorous gives us a delight in queer and odd characters, in which the Greeks probably would not have participated. Though they had an abundance of wit, and a keen perception of the ridiculous, no songs have reached us which are intended to please by their pure absurdity and good-natured foolishness. Archilochus and Hipponax wrote many a jocular song; but the fun of the thing would have been lost, had the sting which they contained been extracted.
Nor do the Greeks seem to have cared much for descriptive songs. They frequently introduced their heroes into their odes, but these were ever living, ever present to their minds; and several of the songs written on particular occasions were probably sung when the singer had no connexion with the events. But they lived, like boys, too much in the present, to throw themselves back into the past. They wished to give utterance to the feelings of the moment in their own persons, and directly; while we are content to be mere listeners, and are often as much pleased by the occurrences of another's life as by the sentiments of our own hearts.
We are remarkably deficient in what are called class-songs. The Greeks had none of these, for there scarcely existed any classes but free and slave. The people were all one—had the same interests and the same emotions. There was far less of individuality with them than with us, and there was still less of that feeling which divides society into exclusive circles. A Greek turned his hand to anything that came in his way, while division of labour has reached its utmost limit among us. We can find, therefore, no contrast here between Greek and Scotch songs; but we find a very marked one between Scotch and German. We have no student-songs, very few expressive of the feelings of soldiers (Lockhart's are almost the only), sailors, or of any other class.