16 
This time she resorted to poison. The chronicler, Agnellus 
of Ravenna, relates how Helmichis, coming out of a steaming 
bath, received from Rosmonde a “cup filled with a beverage, 
seemingly to quench his thirst, but really meant to poison him. 
No sooner had he drunk death from the cup than he tended it 
to the queen, saying, ‘You too drink of it!’ She refused; he 
drew his sword and, threatening her, said, ‘If you don't, I stab 
you!’ She drank, and both died instantly.” 
Paul Diacre and Agnellus, Lombard chroniclers of the eighth 
century, both recorded the adventures of Rosmonde. The story 
from the pen of Agnellus resembles our song so closely that 
Nigra considers them identical. Dame Lombarde is no other 
than Rosmonde. The Italian complainte would be contempora- 
neous with the event, as songs are born out of real life; they are 
not derived from parchment and ancient chronicles. In this 
Nigra is undoubtedly right. 
But Doncieux does not accept this theory. The Italian 
versions of the songs end with a slur upon the ‘‘King of France”, 
who is said to be the seducer of Dame Lombarde. Frangois I, 
Doncieux thinks, is the King; his gallantries were notorious, and 
he was at Pavia, Italy, with his army, in 1 525. Dame Lombarde 
cries out, “For the love of the King of France I die!” And this 
line alone, according to Doncieux, gives a date to the whole 
song, which, for other reasons as well, could not go back to so 
remote a date as the sixth or the eighth century. 
Who is right, Nigra or Doncieux? Does the song go back 
to the eighth century or the sixteenth? The point is of interest, 
since it bears on the age of folk-songs generally — very old or 
comparatively recent. The issue here might remain in doubt, 
were it not for our French-Canadian records, which were not 
known to the Italian and the French traditionists. 
Our nineteen versions of the complainte “ Enseignez-moi 
done!’’ (Oh! teach me!) from the lower St. Lawrence throw a 
new light on the ultimate origin of Dame Lombarde, for they are 
one and the same. The Canadian records begin in two different 
ways: a wife is advised to poison her jealous husband by a 
neighbour, in some versions, and by a bird, the nightingale, in 
others. Wide variations are also found in our records, both in 
words and melodies. Two branches of the French song inde- 
