Be this as it may, nobody will deny the truly natural and Theocritan style in which the modern Sicilian has enlarged upon the old suggestion.
"Meli," says the reviewer, "introduces a group of fishing-girls, chattering and joking, and telling of their loves, in the absence of their parents. Their very names, Pidda, Lidda, and Ridda, sound congenial to their condition. To an invitation to go and romp on the sands, Lidda prudishly replies that she is afraid of meeting some rude swain. Ridda also tells a story of having seen a fisherman concealed behind the rocks, who addresses her in an amorous song, which frightened her out of her senses. But Pidda, who is the eldest of the three, loses patience at this affected simplicity, and exclaims--
Eh via--muzzica ccâ stu jiditeddu; E vaja franca, ca nni canuscemu; Avemu tutti lu 'nnamurateddu.
Literally,--'Come, poor innocents, bite my little finger; but let that pass; we know each other, and that each of us has her sweetheart.'
"Lidda, at last, casts off her shyness, and sings the following pretty ditty--
Quannu a Culicchia jeu vogghiu parrari, Ca spissu spissu mi veni lu sfilu, A la finestra mi mettu a filari; Quann' iddu passa, poi rumpu lu filu; Cadi lu fusu; ed eu mettu a gridari, 'Gnuri, pri carità proitimilu.' Iddu lu pigghia; mi metti a guardari; Jeu mi nni vaju suppilu suppilu.
"When I wish to speak to my sweetheart, which occurs pretty often, I seat myself at the window to spin; and when he is passing underneath, I manage to break the thread; the spindle falls (out of the window), and I cry out, dolefully, 'Oh, friend, be so kind as to pick it up for me!' He does so, and looks at me, when I feel out of my wits for joy."
We shall not close our Jar with anything less good than this. There are still, indeed, divers good things of ancient Sicilian poetry--one or two in particular--which we are wrong not to have given the English reader some taste of (as far as we could), while writing our chapters on them; and also some passages from modern travellers, which, as illustrating other points of our subject, we think would have been found welcome by the reader. These, therefore, we have put by themselves in the following pages, under a title which shows them to have been part of our stock; and so, submitting them to his judgment, conclude by wishing both him and his all the good things in the world.