g examples, and though they
suffer in translation, their airy lightness and refinement is to be
distinguished. One characteristic song, addressed by the girl to her
lover, runs--

"Caught by the worm, the wild duck cries,
But in the love-light of thine eyes
I, trembling, loose the trap. So flies
The bird into the air.
What will my angry mother say?
With basket full I come each day,
But now thy love hath led me stray,
And I have set no snare."

Again, in a somewhat similar strain, she sings--

"The wild duck scatter far, and now
Again they light upon the bough
And cry unto their kind;
Anon they gather on the mere--
But yet unharmed I leave them there,
For love hath filled my mind."

Another song must be given here in prose form. The girl who sings it is
supposed to be making a wreath of flowers, and as she works she cries--

"I am thy first sister, and to me thou art as a garden
which I have planted with flowers and all sweet-smelling
herbs. And I have directed a canal into it, that thou
mightest dip thy hand into it when the north wind blows
cool. The place is beautiful where we walk, because we
walk together, thy hand resting within mine, our mind
thoughtful and our heart joyful. It is intoxicating to me
to hear thy voice, yet my life depends upon hearing it.
Whenever I see thee it is better to me than food and
drink."

One more song must be quoted, for it is so artless and so full of human
tenderness that I may risk the accusation of straying from the main
argument in repeating it. It runs:--

"The breath of thy nostrils alone
Is that which maketh my heart to live.
I found thee:
God grant thee to me
For ever and ever."

It is really painful to think of these words as having fallen from the
lips of what is now a resin-smelling lump of bones and hardened flesh,
perhaps still unearthed, perhaps lying in some museum show-case, or
perhaps kicked about in fragments over the hot sand of some
tourist-crowded necropolis. Mummies are the most lifeless objects one
could well imagine. It is impossible even for those whose imaginat