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The boat to which Ruffo belonged, going out of the Pool to the fishing, passed at this moment slowly upon the sea beneath the terrace, and from the misty darkness his happy voice came up to them in the song of Mergellina which he loved: "Oh, dolce luna bianca de l' Estate Mi fugge il sonno accanto a la marina: Mi destan le dolcissime serate Gli occhi di Rosa e il mar di Mergellina."
When I first began to open my eyes, it was with so perplexed, so weak and dead a sight, that I could yet distinguish nothing but only discern the light: "Come quel ch'or apre, or'chiude Gli occhi, mezzo tra'l sonno e l'esser desto." Tasso, Gierus. As to the functions of the soul, they advanced with the same pace and measure with those of the body.
Prima che venisse alla battaglia, diede cuore ai soldati con assicurargli la vittoria predettagli da Dio, con una voce, che lo aveva a mezza notte riscosso dal sonno. After a sharp contest, the Scottish lancers, aided by their artillery, charged down the hill, drove the brigade of English cavalry from its position, and broke through the infantry, which had advanced to the support of the horse.
He guessed that some fisherman had risen early to go to his work, and that she had got up to see him off, and had been too wakeful to return to bed. "Niente più sonno!" he said, opening wide his eyes. "Niente! Niente!" He feigned fatigue. She took his travesty seriously, and pointed to the house, inviting him by gesture to go in and rest there.
I remember such a picture, apparently of the sixteenth century, in the Church of S. Maria-in-Capitolio at Cologne, and another, by Bissoni, in the San Giustina at Padua. Lat. Dormitio, Pausatio, Transitus, Assumptio, B. Virginis. Ital. Il Transito di Maria. Il Sonno della Beata Vergine. L' Assunzione. Fr. La Mort de la Vierge. L'Assomption. Ger. Das Absterben der Maria. Maria Himmelfahrt.
Grato m’è ’l sonno e più l’esser di sasso; Mentre che ’l danno e la vergogna dura Non veder, non sentir m’è gran ventura; Però non mi destar; deh! parla basso! Dear is my sleep, more dear to be but stone; Whilst deep despair and dark dishonour reign Not to hear, not to feel is greatest gain; Then wake me not; speak in an undertone.
Ti tengo nella mente a tutte l'ore, Se lavoro, se velio, o sto a dormre ... E mentre dormo ancora un sonno grato, Mi trovo tutto lacrime bagnato! While she sang, there was a rap at the front-door, and, just as she concluded, the prim maid entered with a letter upon a salver. In an instant her heart gave a bound. She recognised the handwriting. It was Walter's.
There is in the Munich Gallery a curious German example of this subject by Hans Schauffelein. The death of the Virgin is styled in Byzantine and old Italian art the Sleep of the Virgin, Il Sonno della Madonna; for it was an old superstition, subsequently rejected as heretical, that she did not really die after the manner of common mortals, only fell asleep till her resurrection.
Then she put out the light, and lay awake so long that when a boat came round the cliff from the Saint's Pool to the open sea, in the hour before the dawn, she heard the soft splash of the oars in the water and the sound of a boy's voice singing. "Oh, dolce luna bianca de l' Estate Mi fugge il sonno accanto a la marina: Mi destan le dolcissime serate Gli occhi di Rosa e il mar di Mergellina."
But the song once it had appealed to her. Once she had leaned down to hear it, she had leaned down over the misty sea, her soul had followed it out over the sea. "Oh, dolce luna bianca de l' estate Mi fugge il sonno accanto a la Marina: Mi destan le dolcissime serate Gli occhi di Rosa e il mar di Mergellina." Those were the real words. And what voice had sung them?
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