Very little genuine Tzigane poetry has penetrated to the outer world, and many songs erroneously attributed to the gypsies (by Borrow among others) are proved to be adaptations of Spanish or Italian canzonets picked up in the course of their wanderings, while of those few which are undoubtedly their own productions hardly any exceed the length of six or eight lines.

“We sing only when we are drunk,” was the answer given by an old gypsy to a collector of folk-songs, which pithy and concise definition of gypsy literature would seem to be a tolerably correct one—though, on the other hand, it might be urged with some show of reason that the gypsy, being often drunk, we might naturally expect his poetical effusions to be proportionately numerous.

And perhaps they are in fact more numerous than is generally supposed, only that for lack of a recording pen to take note of them as they arise their momentary inspirations pass by unheeded, leaving no more mark behind than does the song of some wild forest-bird when it has ceased to wake the woodland echoes. The conditions of the gypsy’s life render all but impossible the task of a scribe, who has little chance of picking up anything of interest unless prepared for the time being to become almost a gypsy himself.

Nor have there been wanting ardent folk-lorists (if I may coin a word) who have gone this length; so, for instance, Dr. Heinrich von Wlislocki, who, in the summer of 1883, spent several months as member of a wandering troop of tent gypsies in Transylvania and Southern Hungary, and has lately published a volume of gypsy fairy tales, the fruit of his laborious expedition. Yet on the whole the harvest is a meagre one, if we take account of the time and trouble spent on its realization; and even this energetic collector has declared that he would hardly have the courage a second time to face the deceptions and fatigues of such an undertaking.

To his pen it is that we owe the first poem contained in this chapter; the second one, entitled, “The Black Voda,” interesting as being an almost solitary instance of a consecutive gypsy ballad, was communicated{274} to me by the courtesy of Professor Hugo von Meltzl, of Klausenburg, another Transylvanian authority in the matter of folk-lore, who, in his “Acta Comparationis Literarum Universum,” has given many interesting details bearing on these subjects.

The other sixteen specimens of the Tzigane muse are so simple as to call for no explanation, though in one or two cases not wholly devoid of poetical merit.

GYPSY BALLAD.

(From a German translation by Dr. H. von Wlislocki.)
O’er the meadow, o’er the wold,
Tracks a boy the wand’rer old,
Who a scarf wears by his side—
Follows him with stealthy stride.
Bleeding fells the wand’rer prone
In the forest dark and lone;
And the boy has ta’en the life
Of the man with murd’rous knife.
Throws the corse all stained with blood
In the river’s rushing flood;
But, alas! not guessing he
Who this ancient wand’rer be.
Lightly running home then went,
Till he reached his mother’s tent,
Held the scarf before her eyes;
She, long silent with surprise,
Cried at last with passion wild,
“Cursed be thou, my only child!
May the slayer of his sire
Branded be by Heaven’s ire;
Hast thy father killed to-day,
And his scarf hast stolen away!”

THE BLACK VODA.[66]
“Rise, arise, my Velvet Georgie,[67]
Waken, set you to the bellows;
Forge and hammer nails of iron.”
{275}
Said the husband, “I am coming;
Take the broom the dust out-sweeping.”
And then Velvet Georgie rises,
Straightway on his feet is standing.
At the bellows quick down-sitting,
Nails of iron he is forging.
Then into the market going,
Roast-meat fresh and juicy bought he,
Roasted meat and white bread also.
And he walked into the tavern,
And he sat there eating, drinking,
Never thinking of his consort,
Nothing caring for her wishes—
No new dress for her is buying.
She to Voda ran complaining.
Voda thus his love did answer,
“To the merchant quickly hie thee,
Ask him what a dress will cost thee.”
To the town she ran off smiling,
Chose a dress there for her wearing.
Quoth the merchant, “Not on credit;
Bring me cash before I sell it.”
Voda paid him down the money;
Paid and went— But Velvet Georgie,
From the tavern soon returning,
Found his wife, and in his anger
Threw her in the glowing furnace,
Whence she, loud with cries of anguish,
Called upon her absent lover:
“Voda, Voda, O Black Voda,
See how both my feet are burning!”
“Let them burn, O faithless lassie,
Many pair of boots hast cost me.”
“Voda, Voda, O B............