MARRIAGE CUSTOMS IN SICILY. 
279 
the house of the bridegroom. This is probably the remains of some 
ancient rite to Ceres, their favourite divinity, and they think it cannot 
fail of procuring them a numerous progeny : — however, the Sicilian 
women have no occasion for any charm to promote this, as, in gene- 
ral, they are abundantly prolific even without it. Fazello gives an 
account of women having frequently upwards of forty children ; and 
Carera mentions one who had forty-seven. 
The young couple are not allowed to taste of the marriage feast ; 
this, they pretend, is to teach them patience and temperance ; but 
when dinner is finished, a great bone is presented to the bridegroom 
by the bride’s father, or one of her nearest relations, who pronounces 
these words, “ Hodi tu quest osso, &c. Pick you this bone, for you 
have now taken in hand to pick one, which \ou will find much harder 
and of more difficult digestion.” Perhaps this may haye given rise 
t6 the common saying, when one has undertaken any tning arduous 
or difficult, that “ He has got a bone to pick.’^ 
The Sicilians like most other nations in Europe, carefully avoid 
marrying in the month of May, and look upon such marriages as 
extremely inauspicious. This piece of superstition is as old, perhaps 
older, than the time of the Romans, by whose authors it is frequently 
mentioned, and by whom it has been transmitted to almost every 
nation in Europe. It is somewhat unaccountable that so ridiculous 
an idea, which can have no foundation in nature, should have stood 
its ground for so many ages. There are indeed other customs still 
more trivial, that are not less universal : that of making April fools 
on the first day of that month ; the ceremony of the cake on Twelfth- 
night; and some others that will occur to the reader, of which, no 
than this, have we ever been able to learn the origin. 
The marriages of the Sicilian nobility are celebrated with great 
magnificence ; and the number of elegant carriages produced on these 
occasions is astonishing. I wanted to discover when this great lux- 
ury in carriages had taken rise ; and have found an account of the 
marriage of the daughter of one of their viceroys to the Duke of Bi- 
vona, in the year 1651. It is described by one Clenco, who was a 
spectator of the ceremony. He says, the ladies as well as the 
gentlemen were all mounted on fine horses, sumptuously caparisoned, 
and preceded by pages ; that there were only three carriages in the 
city, which were used by invalids who were not able to ride on 
horseback. These he calls carette, which now signifies a little cart. 
The Sicilian ladies marry very .young, and frequently live to see the 
fifth or sixth generation. You will expect, no doubt, that I should 
say something of their beauty In general, they are sprightly and 
agreeable ; and in most parts of Italy they would be esteemed hand- 
some. A Neapolitan or a Roman would surely pronounce them so ; 
but a Piedmontese would declare them very ordinary ; so indeed, 
would most Englishmen. Nothing is so vague as our ideas of female 
beauty ; they change in every climate, and the criterion is no where 
to be found. ^ 
‘ Ask where’s the North ? — at York, ’tis on the Tweed, 
^ In Scotland at the Orcades ; and there. 
At Nova Zembla, or the Lord knows where.’ 
