O Pasturedda, di li trizzi ad unna, Chi fai pinnata di la manu manca, Pri' un t' appighiari ssa facciuzza biunna.
"O shepherdess with the waving locks, who make a penthouse over your eyes with your left hand, for fear of embrowning your pretty face," &c.
Meli was poor, till, doubtless, he thought himself rich on receiving a small pension from the late King Ferdinand; for which (says the author of an interesting article on the "Dialects and Literature of Southern Italy," in the _British Quarterly Review_) "the poet expressed his gratitude in respectful, but not adulatory terms."
The dialect of Sicily is remarkable for preferring close sounds to broad ones. It converts the Tuscan _l_'s into _d_'s, and its _e_'s and _o_'s into _i_'s and _u_'s. Thus, "bella" becomes _bedda_; "padre," _patri_; "mare," _mari_; "sono," _sunnu_; "colorito," _culuritu_, &c. This is reversing the state of things in the days of Theocritus, when the Dorian inhabitants of Sicily were accused of doing nothing when they spoke but "yawn" and "gabble."[18] But it is attributed to the Arabs, when they were masters of the island. It has, probably, been injurious to the cause of music, and hindered the Sicilians from producing as many fine composers as their Neapolitan neighbours. Thus much, lest the reader should start at the strange, though pretty, look of Meli's Italian, the poet having wisely chosen to speak in the tongue of those, from whose natures and homes he copied.
The reader will see at once this leading difference between the Italian language and the Sicilian form of it, in the following opening stanzas of one of Meli's canzonets, accompanied by a Tuscan version from the pen of Professor Rosini:--
Sti silenzii, sta virdura, Questa ombrifera verdura, Sti muntagni, sti vallati, Queste tacite vallate, L' ha criatu la Natura L' ha create la Natura Pri li cori innamurati. Sol per l' alme innamorate.
Lu susurra di li frunni, Il susurro delle fronde, Di li sciumi lu lamentu, Del rio garrulo il lamento, L' aria, l' ecu chi rispunni, L' aria, l' eco che risponde, Tuttu spira sentimentu. Tutto spira sentimento.
"These quiet and green places, these mountains and valleys, were created by Nature on purpose for loving hearts.