TRANSLATION
One day as I was going to the village,
I met on the road my Rommany lass:
I ask'd her whether she would come with me,
And she said thou hast another wife.
I said, I will make thee my lawful wife,
Because thou hast but two children;
Methinks I will love thee until my death,
If thou but say thou wilt come with me.
Many other specimens of the English Gypsy muse might be here
adduced; it is probable, however, that the above will have fully
satisfied the curiosity of the reader. It has been inserted here
for the purpose of showing that the Gypsies have songs in their own
language, a fact which has been denied. In its metre it resembles
the ancient Sclavonian ballads, with which it has another feature
in common - the absence of rhyme.
Footnotes:
(1) QUARTERLY REVIEW, Dec. 1842
(2) EDINBURGH REVIEW, Feb. 1843.
(3) EXAMINER, Dec. 17, 1842.
(4) SPECTATOR, Dec. 7, 1842.
(5) Thou speakest well, brother!
(6) This is quite a mistake: I know very little of what has been
written concerning these people: even the work of Grellmann had
not come beneath my perusal at the time of the publication of the
first edition OF THE ZINCALI, which I certainly do not regret: for
though I believe the learned German to be quite right in his theory
with respect to the origin of the Gypsies, his acquaintance with
their character, habits, and peculiarities, seems to have been
extremely limited.
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