THE " SONG OF KITSOS AND HIS MOTHER."
[To THE EDITOR tOF THE "SPECTATOR."] have not seen Mr. Abbott's " Songs of Modern Greece," reviewed in the Spectator of November 3rd, but it may be worth while to recall the fact that Fauriel's " Chants Populaires de la Grece Moderne " (published 1825) gives in Vol. I., p. 98, a text of the song of "Kitsos and his mother " even briefer than that of Mr. Abbott (thirteen lines instead of fifteen), and in the translation the substance of three more lines supplied by a Greek friend (though without being able to give the exact wording), according to which the mother suddenly cuts with her knife the cords with which her son is hound, thus enabling him to escape. The song, M. Fauriel wrote, was more or less popular throughout nearly all Greece, and was even sung before great ladies of the Phanar.—I am, Sir, &c.,
J. M. L.
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