epute there.
He once asked an old dame of Palermo to repeat him some of
these ditties. Her answer was, 'You must get them from light
women; I do not know any. They sing them in bad houses and
prisons, where, God be praised, I have never been.' In
Tuscany there does not appear to be so marked a distinction
between the flower song and the rispetto.]

[Footnote 25: Much light has lately been thrown on the
popular poetry of Italy; and it appears that contemporary
improvisatori trust more to their richly stocked memories
and to their power of recombination than to original or
novel inspiration. It is in Sicily that the vein of truly
creative lyric utterance is said to flow most freely and
most copiously at the present time.]

[Footnote 26: 'Remember me, fair one, to the scrivener. I do
not know him or who he is, but he seems to me a sovereign
poet, so cunning is he in his use of verse.']

[Footnote 27: It must be remarked that Tigri draws a strong
contrast in this respect between the songs of the mountain
districts which he has printed and those of the towns, and
that Pitre, in his edition of Sicilian _Volkslieder_,
expressly alludes to the coarseness of a whole class which
he had omitted. The MSS. of Sicilian and Tuscan songs,
dating from the fifteenth century and earlier, yield a fair
proportion of decidedly obscene compositions. Yet the fact
stated above is integrally correct. When acclimatised in the
large towns, the rustic Muse not unfrequently assumes a garb
of grossness. At home, among the fields and on the
mountains, she remains chaste and romantic.]

[Footnote 28: In a rispetto, of which I subjoin a
translation, sung by a poor lad to a mistress of higher
rank, love itself is pleaded as the sign of a gentle soul:--

My state is poor: I am not meet
To court so nobly born a love;
For poverty hath tied my feet,
Trying to climb too far above.
Yet am I gentle, loving thee;
Nor need thou shun my poverty.

[Footnote 29: When the Cherubina, of whom mention has been
made above, was asked by Signor Tigri to dictate some of her
rispetti, she answered, 'O signore! ne dico tanti quando li
canto! . . . ma ora . . . bisognerebbe averli tutti in
visione; se no, proprio non vengono.']

[Footnote 30: I need hardly guard myse