Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/187

Rh Sitting on the shore of an island, on the bank of a canal, or on the side of a boat, a gondolier will sing away with a loud penetrating voice,—the multitude admire force above everything,—anxious only to be heard as far as possible. Over the silent mirror it travels far. Another in the distance, who is acquainted with the melody, and knows the words, takes it up, and answers with the next verse, and then the first replies; so that the one is, as it were, the echo of the other. The song continues through whole nights, and is kept up without fatigue. The farther the singers are from each other, the more touching sounds the strain. The best place for the listener is half-way between the two.

In order to let me hear it, they landed on the bank of the Guidecca, and took up different positions by the canal. I walked backward and forward between them, so as to leave the one whose turn it was to sing, and to join the one who had just left off. Then it was that the effect of the strain first opened upon me. As a voice from the distance, it sounds in the highest degree strange,—as a lament without sadness: it has an incredible effect, and is moving even to tears. I ascribed this to my own state of mind; but my old boatman said, " È singolare, como quel canto intenerirsce, e molto piu quando è piu ben cantato." He wished that I could hear the women of the Lido, especially those of Malamocco and Pelestrina. These also, he told me, chanted Tasso and Ariosto to the same or similar melodies. He went on, "In the evening, while their husbands are on the sea, fishing, they are accustomed to sit on the beach, and with shrill, penetrating voice to make these strains resound, until they catch from the distance the voices of their partners, and in this way they keep up a communication with them." Is not that beautiful? And yet it is very possible that one who heard them close by would take little pleasure in such tones, which have to vie with the waves of the