# {542.} Ballads of Lament

The epic manner of performance of the outlaw ballads is somewhat related to those ballads of lament (sirató ballada) which tell their tragic story in the first person singular, about the high point of death, as it were. The construction and handling of the story of the outlaw ballads is in many ways similar, and the first person singular method of story telling–perhaps after an introductory section-is not infrequently characteristic of it. Here also the hero of the ballad reviews and laments his life in its concluding moment, at the moment of his capture and before the sentence is carried out. Structural analyses of these two ballad groups proves undeniably what a formative role was played by the laments in the birth of epic genres, also by the first-person singular method of narration. The ballads of lament demonstrate the way literary works “coming from above”, cantorian songs and the like, take on the popular manner of performance and become artistically transformed.