Fado, doce veneno ...

William Beckford, and 18th-century English traveller in Portugal, commented on modinha, but may as well have been talking about fado, which would emerge later ....

"Those who have never heard this original sort of music, must and will remain ignorant of the most bewitching melodies that ever existed since the days of the Sybarites. They consist of languid interrupted measures, as if the breath was gone with the excess of rapture, and the soul panting to meet the kindred soul of some beloved object. With a childish carelessness they steal into the heart, before it has time to arm itself against their enervating influence; you fancy you are swallowing warm milk, and are admitting the poison of voluptuousness into the closest recesses of your existence."

as quoted in Vernon, A History of Portuguese Fado