The Sicilian's "Beautiful ideal" would seem to be the white rose rather than the red, in accordance, perhaps, with the rule that makes the uncommon always the most prized; or it may be, from a perception of that touch of the unearthly, that pale radiance which gives the fair Southerner a look of closer kinship with the pensive Madonna gazing out of her aureole in the wayside shrine, than with the dark damsels of the more predominant type. Some such angelical association attached to golden heads has possibly disposed the Sicilian folk-poet towards thinking too little of the national black eyes and olive-carnation colouring. Not that brunettes are wholly without their singers; one of these has even the courage to say that since his _bedda_ is brown and the moon is white, it is plain that the moon must leave the field vanquished. One dark beauty of Termini shows that she is quite equal to standing up for herself. "You say that I am black?" she cries, "and what of that? Black writing looks well on white paper, black spices are worth more than white curds, and while dusky wine is drunk in a glass goblet, the snow melts away unregarded in the ditch."[1] But the apologetic, albeit spirited tone of this protest, indicates pretty clearly that the popular voice gives the palm to milk-white and snowy faced maidens; the possessors of _capiddi biunni_ and _capidduzzi d'oru_ have no need to defend their charms, a hundred canzuni proclaim them irresistible. "Before everything I am enamoured of thy blonde tresses," says one lyrist. The luxuriant hair of the Sicilian women is proverbial. A story is told how, when once Palermo was about to surrender to the Saracens because there were no more bowstrings in the town, an abundant supply was suddenly produced by the patriotic dames cutting off their long locks and turning them to this purpose. The deed so inspired the Palermitan warriors that they speedily drove the enemy back, and the siege was raised. A gallant poet adds: "The hair of our ladies is still employed in the same office, but now it discharges no other shafts but those of Cupid, and the only cords it forms are cords of love."