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Sièn mòrou, lou sabèn  
(We are black, we know that)
or Lu mòrou (The Moor)
Carnival traditional song, County of Nice.
During carnival, song of a group of mascarat (disguised) with nightshirt and nightcap, the face blackened with coal, and carrying bellows, called souffl’au cùu. The bellow as a metaphor of the fertilizing sex (see Jean-François Dutertre, in J. Coget, L’Enfer de la chanson traditionnelle, The forbidden books department of the traditional song).
This carnival song bears the reminiscence of those times troubled by Saracens forays and by the fear of Barbary Coast inhabitants, whose remembrance endured for long in collective memory.
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Sièn mòrou, lou sabèn
Semblan toui d’Afriquèn.
Ma se n’en lavessian
Bessai vous plaserian.
Lu boufet soun rout,
N’en resta plus que vuech.
Qu vòu si fà boufà
Que vengue n’a trovà
Lou fèn coum’ un tambau
Sensa li faire mau. | | We are black (1), we know that
We all look like Africans.
But if we should wash ourselves
May be we should be liked by you.
The bellows are broken,
It remains only eight.
Who wants to be made “blown”
Let he come to find us
We make this as a drum
Without hurting him. |
It’s sometimes found the following version, that clarifies the intention of the second verse, and adds a third:
Sien maurou lou saben
Semblan toui d’Africain.
Ma se si lavessien
Bessai vou plaserien.
Cu voû si fa bouffa
Che vengon n’a trouva,
Lu boufferen lou traoù
Sensa li faire maù
Se lu bouffet son rout,
Faoù lu fa arrangia.
Si n’avès plus d’argen,
Asperes l’an che ven. | | We are black, we know that
We all look like Africans.
But if we should wash ourselves
May be we should be liked by you.
Who wants to be made “blown”
Let he come to find us
We make this as a drum
Without hurting him.
If the bellows are broken,
Let repare them.
If you have no more money,
Let wait next year. |
This text have to be read in parallel with last verse of the Provençal song Lo bofet (The Bellows):
Aprochas vous, amabla damaiselo,
Venes ranimar nostro zelo.
Podes venir soven,
Vous dounaren de ven
Mai dous que lou mistraou
Que fa sara lou traou. | | Let you approach, kind young lady,
Come and rekindle our zeal.
You may come often,
We will give you wind
More gentle than mistral (2)
That makes the hole clench. |
1. Mòrou or maurou: means indistinctly Moor (or Moorish), brown, swarthy. Don’t confuse with li Maura, coastal massif in South of France (Var).
2. Cold, dry wind that blows in the Rhône Valley and the South of France.
| Bibliography | | • | Delrieu (Georges), Anthologie de la chanson niçoise (Anthology of the Song from Nice), Nice, publisher Delrieu & Co, 1960, p. 185. | | • | Tosan (Albert), Princivalle (Gaël) and d’Hulster (Frédéric), Anthologie de la chanson du comté de Nice (Anthology of the Song from County of Nice), Nice, Serre publisher, series “Encyclopædia niciensis – Patrimoine régional”, volume III, 2001, p. 246. | | • | revue Lou Sourgentin, Nice, n° 80, 1988, p. 34 ; n° 163, 2004, p. 25. |
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