Chapter IV: Popular Secular Poetry (2)

In addition to the influence exercised by these popular lyrics over polite literature in the golden age of the Renaissance, extraordinary interest attaches to them as an indigenous species of verse, dating from remote antiquity and still surviving in all corners of the country. In them we analyze the Italian poetic genius at its source and under its most genuine conditions. Both from their qualities and their defects inferences may be drawn, which find application and illustration in the solemn works of laureled singers. The one theme of _Rispetti_ and _Stornelli_ is love; but love in all its phases and with all its retinue of associated emotions--expectation, fruition, disappointment, jealousy, despair, rejection, treachery, desertion, pleading, scorn--the joys of presence, the pangs of absence, the ecstasy of union, the agony of parting--love, natural and unaffected, turbulent or placid, chaste or troubled with desire, imperious or humble, tempestuously passionate or toned to tranquil acquiescence--love varying through all moods and tempers, yet never losing its note of spontaneity, sincerity and truth. The instincts of the people are pure, and their utterances of affection are singularly free from grossness. This at least is almost universally the case with lyrics gathered from the country. Approaching town-life, they lose their delicacy; and the products of the city are not unfrequently distinguished by the crudest obscenity.[344] The literary form of many of these masterpieces exhibits the beauty of rhythm, the refinement of outline, which we associate with melodies of the best Italian period--with chants of Pergolese, songs of Salvator Rosa. When we compare their subject-matter with that of our Northern Ballads, we notice a marked deficiency of legend, superstition or grotesque fancy. There are no witches, dragons, demon-lovers, no enchanted forests, no mythical heroes, no noble personages, few ghosts, few dreams and visions, in these songs poured forth among the olive-trees and myrtle-groves of Italy. Human nature, conscious of pleasure and of pain, finding its primitive emotion an adequate motive for verse subtly modulated through a thousand keys, is here sufficient to itself. The echoes imported from an outer world of passion and romance and action into this charmed region of the lover's heart are rare and feeble. Through all their national vicissitudes, the Italian peasants followed one sole aim in verse. The _Rispetti_ of all times, localities and dialects form one protracted, ever-varying Duo between Thou and I, the _dama_ and the _damo_, the eternal protagonists in the play of youth and love.

This absence of legendary and historical material marks a main difference between Italian and Teutonic inspiration. Among the Italic communities the practical historic sense was early developed, and sustained by the tradition of a classic past. It demanded a positive rather than imaginative treatment of contemporary fact and mythus. Among the people this requirement was satisfied by _Storie_, _Lamenti_, and prose Chronicles. Very few, indeed, are the relics of either romantic or actual history surviving in the lyrics of the rural population. Only here and there, in dim allusions to the Sicilian Vespers and the Norman Conquest, in the tale of the Baronessa di Carini, or in the Northern legend of Rosmunda, under its popular form of _La Donna Lombarda_, do we find a faint analogy between the Italian and Teutonic ballads.[345] Dramatic, mythical and epical elements are almost wholly wanting in the genuine lyrics of the people.

This statement requires some qualification. The four volumes of _Fiabe, Novelle e Racconti_ recently published by Signor Pitre, prove that the Sicilians in prose at least have a copious literature corresponding to German _Maerchen_ and Norse tales.[346] This literature, however, has not received poetic treatment in any existing southern songs that have been published, excepting in the few already noticed. At the same time, it must be mentioned that the collections of lyrics in north-western dialects--especially the _Canti Monferrini_, _Canzoni Comasche_, and _Canti Leccesi_--exhibit specimens of genuine ballads. It would seem that contact with French and German borderers along the Alpine rampart had introduced into Piedmont and Lombardy a form of lyric which is not essentially Italian. Had I space sufficient at disposal, I should like to quote the _Donna Lombarda_, _Moglie Infedele_, _Giuseppina Parricida_, _Principessa Giovanna_, _Giuliano della Croce Bianca_, _Cecilia_, _Re Carlino_, _Morando_, and several others from Ferraro's collection.[347] They illustrate, what is exceedingly rare in popular Italian poetry, both the subject-matter and the manner peculiar to the Northern Ballad. Let the following verses from _La Sposa per Forza_ suffice[348]:

Ra soi madona a r'ha brassaja
Suvra u so coffu a r'ha minee;
Uardee qui, ra me noiretta,
Le bele gioje che vi voi dunee.
Mi n'ho csa fe dle vostre gioje;
E manc ancur dla vostra ca;
Cma ca voja dir bel gioje
Ra me mama m' na mandira.

To comparative mythologists in general, and to English students in particular, the most interesting of these rare Italian Ballads is undoubtedly one known as _L'Avvelenato_.[349] So far as I am aware, it is unique in the Italian language; nor had its correspondences with Northern Ballad-literature been noticed until I pointed them out in 1879.[350] In his work on popular Italian poetry, Professor D'Ancona included the following song, which he had heard upon the lips of a young peasant of the Pisan district[351]:

Dov'eri 'ersera a cena
Caro mio figlio, savio e gentil?
Mi fai morire
Ohime!
Dov'eri 'ersera a cena
Gentile mio cavalier?--
Ero dalla mia dama;
Mio core sta male,
Che male mi sta!
Ero dalla mia dama;
'L mio core che se ne va.--
Che ti dienno da cena,
Caro mio figlio, savio e gentil?
Mi fai morire,
Ohime!
Che ti dienno da cena,
Gentile mio cavalier?--
Un anguilletta arrosto,
Cara mia madre;
Mio core sta male,
Che male mi sta!
Un anguilletta arrosto,
'L mio core che se ne va.

Other versions of the same poem occur in the dialects of Venice, Como and Lecco with such variations as prove them all to be the offshoots from some original now lost in great antiquity. That it existed and was famous so far back as the middle of the seventeenth century, is proved by an allusion in the _Cicalata in lode della Padella e della Frittura_, recited before the Accademia della Crusca by Lorenzo Panciatichi in 1656.[352] A few lines are also quoted in the _incatenatura_ of the Cieco Fiorentino, published at Verona in 1629.[353] Any one who is familiar with our Border Minstrelsy will perceive at once that this is only an Italian version of the Ballad of Lord Donald or Lord Randal.[354] The identity between the two is rendered still more striking by an analysis of the several Lombard versions. In that of Como, for example, the young man makes his will; and this is the last verse[355]:

Cossa lasse alla vostra dama,
Figliuol mio caro, fiorito e gentil,
Cossa lasse alla vostra dama?
La forca da impiccarla,
Signora mama, mio cor sta mal!
La forca da impiccarla:
Ohime, ch'io moro, ohime!

The same version furnishes the episode of the poisoned hounds[356]:

Coss'avi fa dell'altra mezza,
Figliuol mio caro, fiorito e gentil?
Cossa avi fa dell'altra mezza?
L'ho dada alla cagnola:
Signora mama, mio core sta mal!
L'ho dada alla cagnola:
Ohime, ch'io moro, ohime!
Cossa avi fa della cagnola,
Figliuol mio caro, fiorito e gentil?
Cossa avi fa della cagnola?
L'e morta dre la strada;
Signora mama, mio core sta mal!
L'e morta dre la strada:
Ohime, ch'io moro, ohime!

It is worth mentioning that the same Ballad belongs under slightly different forms to the Germans, Swedes, and other nations of the Teutonic stock; but so far as I have yet been able to discover, it remains the sole instance of that species of popular literature in Italy.[357] The phenomenon is singular, and though conjectures may be hazarded in explanation, it is impossible, until further researches for parallel examples have been made, to advance a theory of how this Ballad penetrated so far south as Tuscany.

FOOTNOTES:

[279] See Rosmini, _Vita di Filelfo_, vol. ii. p. 13, for Filelfo's dislike of Italian. In the dedication of his Commentary to Filippo Maria Visconti he says: "Tanto piu volentieri ho intrapreso questo comento, quanto dalla tua eccellente Signoria non solo invitato sono stato, ma pregato, lusingato et provocato." The first Canto opens thus:

O Philippo Maria Anglo possente,
Perche mi strengi a quel che non poss'io?
Vuoi tu ch'io sia ludibrio d'ogni gente?

[280] Dated Milan, Feb. 1477. Rosmini, _op. cit._ p. 282.

[281] _Ercolano_ (in Vinetia, Giunti, 1570), p. 185.

[282] _Prose Volgari_, etc., edite da I. del Lungo (Firenze, Barbera, 1867), p. 80.

[283] _Prose_, etc., _op. cit._ pp. 45 _et seq._ pp. 3 _et seq._

[284] Alberti, _Op. Volg._ vol. i. pp. clxvii.-ccxxxiii. The quality of these Latin meters may be judged from the following hexameters:

Ma non prima sara che 'l Dato la musa corona
Invochi, allora subito cantando l'avete,
Tal qual si gode presso il celeste Tonante.

Of the Sapphics the following is a specimen:

Eccomi, i' son qui Dea degli amici,
Quella qual tutti li omini solete
Mordere, e falso fugitiva dirli,
Or la volete.

[285] Carducci, "Della Rime di Dante Alighieri," _Studi_, p. 154.

[286] For Giotto's and Orcagna's poems, see Trucchi, vol. ii. pp. 8 and 25.

[287] See above, pp. 17 _et seq._

[288] The _Tavola Ritonda_ has been reprinted, 2 vols., Bologna, Romagnoli, 1864. It corresponds very closely in material to our _Mort d'Arthur_, beginning with the history of Uther Pendragon and ending with Arthur's wound and departure to the island of Morgan le Fay.

[289] See above, p. 18. The subject of these romances has been ably treated by Pio Rajna in his works, _I Reali di Francia_ (Bologna, Romagnoli, 1872), and _Le Fonti dell'Orlando Furioso_ (Firenze, Sansoni, 1876).

[290] The _Rinaldino_, a prose romance recently published (Bologna, Romagnoli, 1865), might be selected as a thoroughly Italian _fioritura_ on the ancient Carolingian theme.

[291] We have here the germ of the _Orlando_ and of the first part of the _Morgante_.

[292] Rajna, _I Reali_, p. 320, fixes the date of its composition at a little before 1420.

[293] _Ibid._ p. 3.

[294] _I Reali_, pp. 311-319.

[295] The _Storie Nerbonesi_ were published in two vols. (Bologna, Romagnoli, 1877), under the editorship of I.G. Isola. The third volume forms a copious philological and critical appendix.

[296] _Guerino_ was versified in octave stanzas, by a poet of the people called L'Altissimo, in the sixteenth century.

[297] See _I Novellieri Italiani in Verso_ by Giamb. Passano (Romagnoli, 1868). The whole _Decameron_ was turned into octave stanzas by V. Brugiantino, and published by Marcolini at Venice in 1554. Among _Novelle_ versified for popular reading may be cited, _Masetto the Gardener_ (_Decam._ Giorn. iii. 1), _Romeo and Juliet_ (Verona, 1553), _Il Grasso, Legnaiuolo_ (by B. Davanzati, Florence, 1480), _Prasildo and Lisbina_ (from the _Orlando Innamorato_), _Oliva, Fiorio e Biancifiore_ (the tale of the _Filocopo_). Of classical tales we find _Sesto Tarquinio et Lucretia_, _Orpheo_, _Perseo_, _Piramo_, _Giasone e Medea_.

[298] _Tancredi Principe di Salerno_, Bologna, Romagnoli, 1863. _Il Marchese di Saluzzo e la Griselda_, Bologna, Romagnoli, 1862.

[299] See above, p. 212. The literary hesitations of an age as yet uncertain of its aim might be illustrated from these romances. Of _Ippolito e Leonora_ we have a prose, an _ottava rima_, and a Latin version. Of _Griselda_ we have Boccaccio's Italian, and Petrarch's Latin prose, in addition to the anonymous _ottava rima_ version. Of the _Principe di Salerno_ we have Boccaccio's Italian, and Lionardo Bruni's Latin versions in prose, together with Filippo Beroaldo's Latin elegiacs, Francesco di Michele Accolti's _terza rima_ and Benivieni's octave stanzas. Lami in his _Novelle letterarie_ (Bologna, Romagnoli, 1859) prints an Italian _novella_ on the same story, which he judges anterior to the _Decameron_. Later on, Annibal Guasco produced another _ottava rima_ version; and the tale was used by several playwrights in the composition of tragedies.

[300] _La Storia di Ginevra Almieri che fu sepolta viva in Firenze_ (Pisa, Nistri, 1863).

[301] The same point is illustrated by the tales of the Marchese di Saluzzo and the Principe di Salerno, which produced the novels of _Griselda_ and _Tancredi_. See notes to p. 250, above.

[302] _Raccolta dei Novellieri Italiani_, vol. xiii.

[303] _Op. cit._ vol. xiii. An allusion to Masuccio in this novel is interesting, since it proves the influence he had acquired even in Florence: "Masuccio, grande onore della citta di Salerno, molto imitatore del nostro messer Giovanni Boccaccio," _ib._ p. 34. Pulci goes on to say that the reading of the _Novellino_ had encouraged him to write his tale.

[304] See D'Ancona, _La Poesia Popolare Italiana_, pp. 64-79.

[305] A fine example of these later _Lamenti_ has been republished at Bologna by Romagnoli, 1864. It is the _Lamento di Fiorenza_ upon the siege and slavery of 1529-30.

[306] A medieval specimen of this species of composition is the _Ballata_ for the _Reali di Napoli_ in the defeat of Montecatini. See Carducci's _Cino e Altri_, p. 603.

[307] D'Ancona, _op. cit._ p. 78.

[308] _Sermintese Storico di A. Pucci_, Livorno, Vigo, 1876. It will be remembered that Dante in the _Vita Nuova_ (section vi.) says he composed a _Serventese_ on sixty ladies of Florence. The name was derived from Provence, and altered into _Sermintese_ by the Florentines. We possess a poem of this sort by A. Pucci on the Florentine ladies, printed by D'Ancona in his edition of the _Vita Nuova_ (Pisa, Nistri, p. 71), together with a valuable discourse upon this form of poetry. Carducci in his _Cino e Altri_ prints two _Sermintesi_ by Pucci on the beauties of women.

[309] D'Ancona, _Poesia Popolare Italiana_, pp. 47-50, has collected from Leonardo Bruno and other sources many interesting facts about Pope Martin's anger at this ditty. He seems to have gone to the length of putting Florence under an interdict.

[310] D'Ancona, _op. cit._ pp. 51-56.

[311] One of the last plebeian rhymes on politics comes from Siena, where, in the year 1552, the people used to sing this couplet in derision of the Cardinal of the Mignanelli family sent to rule them:

Mignanello, Mignanello,
Non ci piace il tuo modello.

See Benci's _Storia di Montepulciano_ (Fiorenza, Massi e Landi, 1641), p. 104. An anecdote from Busini (_Lettere al Varchi_, Firenze, Le Monnier, p. 220) is so characteristic of the popular temper under the oppression of Spanish tyranny that its indecency may be excused. He says that a law had been passed awarding, "quattro tratti di corda ad uno che, tirando una c---- disse: Poi che non si puo parlare con la bocca, io parlero col c----."

[312] See the work entitled _Sulle Poesie Toscane di Domenico il Burchiello nel secolo xv_, G. Gargani, Firenze, Tip. Cenn. 1877.

[313]

Intendi a me, che gia studiai a Pisa,
E ogni mal conosco senza signo.

_Sonetti del Burchiello, del Bellincioni, e d'altri_, 1757, Londra, p. 125. See, too, the whole sonnet _Son medico in volgar_.

[314] Gargani, _op. cit._ p. 23, extract from the _Catasto_, 1427: "Domenicho di Giovanni barbiere non ha nulla."

[315] The parallel between these passages of Burchiello's life and Filelfo's at the same period is singular. See _Revival of Learning_, p. 275.

[316] Gargani, _op. cit._ p. 90.

[317] The best edition bears the date Londra, 1757.

[318] The edition cited above includes _Sonetti alla Burchiellesca_ by a variety of writers. The strange book called _Pataffio_, which used to be ascribed to Brunetto Latini, seems born of similar conditions.

[319] Florentines themselves take this view, as is proved by the following sentence from Capponi: "E pure qui obbligo di registrare anche il Burchiello, barbiere di nome rimasto famoso, perche fece d'un certo suo gergo poesia forse arguta ma triviale; oscura oggi, ma popolare nei tempi suoi e che ebbe inclusive imitatori" (_Storia della Rep. di Firenze_, ii. 176).

[320] See the Sonnet quoted in Note 59 to Mazzuchelli's Life of Berni, _Scrittori d'Italia_, vol. iv.

[321] The _Ballata_ or _Canzone a Ballo_, as its name implies, was a poem intended to be sung during the dance. A musician played the lute while young women executed the movements of the Carola (so beautifully depicted by Benozzo Gozzoli in his Pisan frescoes), alone or in the company of young men, singing the words of the song. The _Ballata_ consisted of lyric stanzas with a recurrent couplet. It is difficult to distinguish the _Ballate_ from the _Canzonette d'Amore_.

[322] See Carducci, _Cantilene e Ballate_ (Pisa, 1871), pp. 82, 83.

[323] _Ibid._ pp. 171-173.

[324] _Ibid._ pp. 214-217.

[325] A volume of ancient _Canzoni a Ballo_ was published at Florence in 1562, by Sermatelli, and again in 1568.

[326] _Le Rime di Messer A. Poliziano_, pp. 295, 346.

[327] See _Laude Spirituali di Feo Belcari e di Altri_, Firenze, 1863. The hymn _Crocifisso a capo chino_, for example, has this heading: "Cantasi come--Una donna d'amor fino," which was by no means a moral song (_ib._ p. 16). D'Ancona in his _Poesia Pop. It._ pp. 431-436, has extracted the titles of these profane songs, some of which are to be found in the _Canzoni a Ballo_ (Firenze, 1568), and _Canti Carnascialeschi_ (Cosmopoli, 1750), while the majority are lost.

[328] The books which I have consulted on this branch of vernacular poetry are (1) Tommaseo, _Canti popolari toscani, corsi, illirici e greci_, Venezia, 1841. (2) Tigri, _Canti popolari toscani_, Firenze, 1869. (3) Pitre, _Canti popolari siciliani_, and _Studi di poesia popolare_, Palermo, 1870-1872. (4) D'Ancona, _La Poesia popolare italiana_, Livorno, 1878. (5) Rubieri, _Storia della poesia popolare italiana_, Firenze, 1877. Also numerous collections of local songs, of which a good list is furnished in D'Ancona's work just cited. Bolza's edition of Comasque poetry, Dal Medico's of Venetian, Ferraro's of _Canti Monferrini_ (district of Montferrat), Vigo's of Sicilian, together with Imbriani's of Southern and Marcoaldo's of Central dialects, deserve to be specially cited. The literature in question is already voluminous, and bids fair to receive considerable additions.

[329] I take this example at random from Blessig's _Roemische Ritornelle_ (Leipzig, 1860), p. 48:

Flower of Pomegranate tree!
Your name, O my fair one, is written in heaven;
My name it is writ on the waves of the sea.

[330] The term _Villotta_ or _Vilota_ is special, I believe, to Venice and the Friuli. D'Ancona identifies it with _Rispetto_, Rubieri with _Stornello_. But it has the character of a quatrain, and seems therefore more properly to belong to the former.

[331] Tigri, p. 123. Translated by me thus:

Ah, when will dawn that blissful day
When I shall softly mount your stair,
Your brothers meet me on the way,
And one by one I greet them there!
When comes the day, my staff, my strength,
To call your mother mine at length?
When will the day come, love of mine,
I shall be yours and you be mine!

[332] Pitre, vol. i. p. 185. Translated by me thus, with an alteration in the last couplet:

When thou wert born, O beaming star!
Three holy angels flew to earth;
The three kings from the East afar
Brought gold and jewels of great worth;
Three eagles on wings light as air
Bore the news East and West and North.
O jewel fair, O jewel rare,
So glad was heaven to greet thy birth.

[333] Dalmedico, _Canti Ven._ p. 69:

Many there are who when they hear me sing,
Cry: There goes one whose joy runs o'er in song!
But I pray God to give me succoring;
For when I sing, 'tis then I grieve full strong.

[334] For instance, _Rispetti_ in the valley of the Po are called _Romanelle_. In some parts of Central Italy the _Stornello_ becomes _Mottetto_ or _Raccommandare_. The little Southern lyrics known as _Arii_ and _Ariette_ at Naples and in Sicily, are elsewhere called _Villanelle_ or _Napolitane_ and _Siciliane_. It is clear that in this matter of nomenclature great exactitude cannot be sought.

[335] The proofs adduced by D'Ancona in his _Poesia popolare_, pp. 177-284, seem to me conclusive on this point.

[336] See Pitre, _Studi di Poesia popolare_ (Palermo, Lauriel, 1872), two essays on "I Poeti del Popolo Siciliano," and "Pietro Fullone e le sfide popolari," pp. 81-184. He gives particulars relating to contemporary improvisations. See, too, the Essays by L. Vigo, _Opere_ (Catania, 1870-74), vol. ii.

[337] _Op. cit._ pp. 285, 288-294.

[338] I may refer at large to Tigri's collection, and to my translations of these _Rispetti_ in _Sketches in Italy and Greece_.

[339] Carducci, _Cantilene_, p. 57.

[340] See Rubieri, _Storia della poesia popolare_, pp. 352-356, for a selection of variants.

[341] The terms employed above require some illustration. Poliziano's Canzonet, _La pastorella si leva per tempo_, is a _pasticcio_ composed of fragments from popular songs in vogue at his day. We possess three valuable poems--one by Bronzino, published in 1567; one by Il Cieco Bianchino of Florence, published at Verona in 1629; the third by Il Cieco Britti of Venice, published in the same year--which consist of extracts from popular lyrics united together by the rhymster. Hence their name _incatenatura_. See Rubieri, _op. cit._ pp. 121, 130, 212. See, too, D'Ancona, _op. cit._ pp. 100-105, 146-172, for the text and copious illustrations from contemporary sources of Bronzino's and Il Cieco Bianchino's poems.

[342] _Prose Volgari, etc., di A.A. Poliziano_ (Firenze, Barbera, 1867), p. 74. "Siamo tutti allegri, e facciamo buona cera, e becchiamo per tutta la via di qualche rappresaglia e Canzone di Calen di Maggio, che mi sono parute piu fantastiche qui in Acquapendente, alla Romanesca, vel nota ipsa vel argumento."

[343] See D'Ancona, _op. cit._ pp. 354-420, for copious and interesting notices of the popular press in several Italian towns. The _Avallone_ of Naples, _Cordella_ of Venice, _Marescandoli_ of Florence, _Bertini_ and _Baroni_ of Lucca, _Colomba_ of Bologna, all served the special requirements of the proletariate in town and country. G.B. Verini of Florence made anthologies called _L'Ardor d'Amore_ and _Crudelta d'Amore_ in the sixteenth century, both of which are still reprinted. The same is true of the _Olimpia_ and _Gloria_ of Olimpo degli Alessandri of Sassoferrato. The subordinate titles commonly used in these popular Golden Treasuries are, "Canzoni di amore," "di gelosia," "di sdegno," "di pace e di partenza." Their classification and description appear from the following rubrics: "Mattinate," "Serenate," "Partenze," "Strambotti," "Sdegni," "Sonetti," "Villanelle," "Lettere," "Affetti d'Amore," etc.

[344] Upon this point consult Rubieri, _op. cit._ chap. xiv. In Sicily the _Ciure_, says Pitre, is reckoned unfit for an honest woman's mouth.

[345] The South seems richer in this material than the Center. See Pitre's _Canti Pop. Sic._ vol. ii., among the _Leggende e Storie_, especially _La Comare_, _Minni-spartuti_, _Principessa di Carini_, _L'Innamorata del Diavolo_, and some of the bandit songs.

[346] Palermo, Lauriel, 1875.

[347] _Canti Monferrini_ (Torino-Firenze, Loescher, 1870), pp. 1, 6, 14, 26, 28, 34, 42. One of the ballads cited above, _La Sisilia_, is found in Sicily.

[348] _Ibid._ p. 48.

[349] It does not occur in the _Canti Monferrini_.

[350] See my letter to the _Rassegna Settimanale_, March 9, 1879, on the subject of this ballad. Though I begged Italian students for information respecting similar compositions my letter only elicited a Tuscan version of the _Donna Lombarda_.

[351] _Op. cit._ p. 106.

[352] D'Ancona, _op. cit._ p. 106.

[353] _Ibid._ pp. 99, 105.

[354] See Child's _English and Scottish Ballads_, vol. ii. pp. 244, _et seq._

[355] Bolza, _Canz. Pop. Comasche_, No. 49. Here is the Scotch version from Lord Donald:

What will ye leave to your true-love, Lord Donald, my son?
What will ye leave to your true-love, my jollie young man?
The tow and the halter, for to hang on yon tree,
And lat her hang there for the poisoning o' me.

[356] This is the Scotch version, with the variant of Lord Randal:

What gat ye to your dinner, Lord Randal, my son?
What gat ye to your dinner, my handsome young man?
I gat eels boiled in broo; mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain wald lie down.

What became of your bloodhounds, Lord Randal, my son?
What became of your bloodhounds, my handsome young man?
O, they swelled and they died; mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain wald lie down.

[357] In Passano's _I Novellieri Italiani in Verso_ I find, at p. 20, the notice of a poem, in octave stanzas, which corresponds exactly to the _Heir of Lynn_. Published at Venice, 1530, 1531, 1542, it bears this title: "Essempio dun giovane ricchissimo; qual consumata la ricchezza: disperato a un trave si sospese. Nel qual il padre previsto il suo fatalcorso gia molti anni avanti infinito tesoro posto havea, et quello per il carico fracassato, la occulta moneta scoperse." The young man's name is Fenitio. I have not seen this poem, and since it is composed in _ottava rima_ it cannot be classed exactly with the _Avvelenato_. Passano also catalogues the _Historia di tre Giovani disperati e di tre fate_, and the _Historia di Leon Bruno_, which seem to contain ballad elements.