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You are of course within your rights. However, I will beg leave to be excused the red pepper of Messer Ugolino." "You prefer coals?" cried Ugolino, starting up. "Good! you shall have them." That was all; but the malign smile upon the dark youth's face gave a ring to the words, and an omen. Late that night Cino was in his chamber writing a ballata.
The respect shown them, and the eagerness with which room was made for them, proved them to be people of importance, whose advent was a great honour to the household. Nevertheless, out of respect for the ballata, nobody said a word to them. The man who had entered first seemed about forty years of age.
For some minutes Colomba continued in this strain, addressing herself sometimes to the corpse, sometimes to the family, and sometimes, by a personification frequently employed in the ballata, making the dead man himself speak words of consolation or counsel to his kinsfolk.
According to the custom of her country, Colomba improvised a ballata in presence of her father's corpse, and before his assembled friends. In it she poured out all her hatred against the Barricini, formally charged them with the murder, and threatened them with her brother's vengeance. It was this same ballata, which had grown very popular, that the sailor had sung before Miss Lydia.
The sailor bent down, as if to see the compass more clearly, and tugged sharply at Miss Nevil's fur cloak. It was quite evident his lament could not be sung before Lieutenant Orso. "What were you singing, Paolo France?" said Orso. "Was it a ballata or a vocero? Mademoiselle understands you, and would like to hear the end." "I have forgotten it, Ors' Anton'," said the sailor.
The descort of Raimbaut de Vaqueiras is written in five dialects, one for each stanza, and the last and sixth stanza of the poem gives two lines to each dialect, which Babel of strange sounds is intended, he says, to show how entirely his lady's heart has changed towards him. The ballata and the estampida were dance-songs, but very few examples survive.
We are at least free to conjecture that before 1479 Lavagnolo trained the chorus of Mantua in dancing so that he may have contributed something to the ballata which we shall at the proper place see as a number in Poliziano's "Orfeo."
Colomba turned her back on him, and went slowly into the house, humming some meaningless lines out of a ballata: "I must have the hand that fired, the eye that aimed, the heart that planned." While the farmer's wife ran to attend on the old man, Colomba, with blazing eyes and brilliant cheeks, sat down to luncheon opposite the colonel. "What's the matter with you?" he said.
They must have somebody for the ballata." "Do you believe Carlo-Battista won't find his way safely into the next world unless somebody sings bad poetry over his bier? Go if you choose, Colomba I'll go with you, if you think I ought. But don't improvise! It really is not fitting at your age, and sister, I beg you not to do it!" "Brother, I have promised.
Very much vexed now at having made any mention of his sister's poetic gifts, Orso interposed. In vain did he protest that nothing was so insipid as a Corsican ballata, and that to recite the Corsican verses after those of Dante was like betraying his country.
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