In order to understand the Corsican dirges, we must consider them in their relation to the existent usages in connexion with death—usages which date from a remote antiquity. Among a people with whom death assumes, more than anywhere else, the character of a destroying angel, whose bloody form is almost constantly before their eyes, it is natural to expect that the dead should have a more striking cultus than elsewhere. There is something mysterious and impressive in the circumstance, that the finest poetry of the Corsicans is the poetry of death, and that they hardly ever compose or sing except in the frenzy of grief. Most of these strange flowers of their popular poetry have their root in blood. When a death has occurred, the relatives standing round the bed repeat the prayers of the rosary; they then raise a loud wail (_grido_). The corpse is now laid upon a table standing by the wall, called the _tola_. The head, on which a cap is placed, rests on a pillow. To preserve the natural appearance of the features, the head is bound with a cloth or fillet, supporting the chin, and fastened beneath the cap. If it is a young girl, she lies in a white shroud, and on her head is a wreath of flowers; if it is a grown-up female, she usually wears a coloured dress; that of aged women is black. A male corpse lies in a shroud and Phrygian cap, resembling thus the Etruscan dead, as they may be seen, surrounded with mourners, in representations contained in the Etrurian Museum of the Vatican. The friends watch and wail beside the tola often throughout the whole night; and fire is always kept burning. But the principal lament occurs early on the morning of the funeral, when the body is laid in the coffin, and before the Brothers of Death come to lift the bier. The friends and relatives come from the neighbouring villages to the funeral. This assemblage is called the _corteo_, cortege, or procession, or the _scirrata_—a word which looks like the German _schaar_, though the origin cannot be accurately ascertained. A woman, always the poetess of the dirge which she sings, leads a chorus of wailing females. They say, therefore, in Corsica—_andare alla scirrata_, when the women go in procession to the house where the dead body lies; if it is the body of a man who has been killed, they say: _andare alla gridata_—to go to the wailing, or, more strictly, the howling. When the women of the chorus enter the house, they greet the widow, mother, or sister of the dead, as the case may be, keeping head bended towards head for about half a minute. Then a woman of the family invites the assembled females to begin the lament. They form a circle, the _cerchio_ or _caracollo_, about the tola, and move round the dead body howling, breaking the circle, and again closing it, always with loud lamentation and gestures of the wildest grief.