Frédéric Mistral

“ But it is safe to prophesy that neither Mistral nor any other felibre will ever give us another “Mirèio”—so spontaneous, artless, and impassioned, so dewy with the memories of the poet’s own childhood on a Provençal farm, or mas, so gay with the laughter and moving with the tears of simple folk, reflecting in so flawless a mirror every change of the seasons, every aspect of the free, primitive, bucolic life of the Mediterranean shore. ”

“ So on her pallet the sweet maid lay sobbing,
Fire in her heart and every vein a-throbbing,
And all the happy time remembering—
Oh, calm and happy!—of her love’s fair spring,
Until a word in Vincen’s very tone
Comes to her memory. “’Twas you, my own,—
“’Twas you,” she cried, “came one day to the farm,
And said, ‘If ever thou dost come to harm,—
If any lizard, wolf, or poisonous snake,
Ever should wound thee with its fang,—betake
Thyself forthwith to the most holy Saints,
Who cure all ills and hearken all complaints.’ ”

“ And I who am called Vincen, basket-weaver,
Yes, I—her suitor, be it understood—
Will wash your slanders out in your own blood,
If such you have!” Quoth Ourrias, “I am ready,
My gypsy-suitor to a cupboard! Steady!”
Therewith alights. They fling their coats away,
Fists fly, and pebbles roll before the fray.
They fall upon each other in the manner
Of two young bulls who, in the vast savannah,
Where the great sun glares in the tropic sky,
The sleek sides of a dark young heifer spy
In the tall grasses, lowing amorous. ”

“ Oh, stay! Life’s in thine eyes.
Ah, if thou couldst do something,” the lad cries,
“For him,—the poor old basket-weaver there,—
My father, worn with toil!” In her despair,
Mirèio bathes the wound, while some bring lint,
And some run to the hills for healing mint.
Then the maid’s mother spake: “Let four men rally,
And to the Fairies’ Cavern, in the valley
They call Enfer, bear up this wounded man.
The deadlier the hurt, the sooner can
The old witch heal. Scale first the cliffs of Baux,
And circling vultures the cave’s mouth will show.” ”

“ Autumn makes havoc in their colonies;
But every year, when comes the bright May weather,
Yon lotus-grove a hundred swarms will gather.”
“And one thing more” cried Vincen, eagerly,
“The very best of all, it seems to me,—
I mean the maiden, father, who dwells here.
Thou canst not have forgotten how, last year,
She bade us bring her olive-baskets two,
And fit her little one with handles new.”
So saying, they drew the farm-house door a-nigh,
And, in the dewy twilight, saw thereby
The maid herself. Distaff in hand she stood,
Watching her silk-worms at their leafy food. ”

“ Was borne aloft Mirèio’s faltering prayer:—
“O holy Maries, who can cheer
The sorrow-laden,
Lend, I beseech, a pitying ear
To one poor maiden!
“And when you see my cruel care
And misery,
Then look in mercy down the air,
And side with me!
“I am so young, dear Saints above,
And there’s a youth—
My handsome Vincen—whom I love
With utter truth!
“I love him as the wayward stream
Its wanderings;
As loves the new-fledged bird, I deem,
To try its wings. ”

“ Upon its udders, but doth only lick
Moss from the base of the precipitous peak
Of Baux,—I’d perish in the quarries there,
Or bring thee down the goat with golden hair!
“So much, that, if thou saidst, ‘I want a star,’
There is no stream so wild, no sea so far,
But I would cross; no headsman, steel or fire,
That could withhold me. Yea, I would climb higher
Than peaks that kiss the sky, that star to wrest;
And Sunday thou shouldst wear it on thy breast!
“O my Mirèio! Ever as I gaze,
Thy beauty fills me with a deep amaze. ”

“ Mirèio hasted no less anxiously
Than Magalouno in the days gone by,
Who searched the wood with sad, inquiring glance
For her lost lover, Pèire of Provence,
When cruel waves divorced him from her side,
And left her lone and wretched. Soon espied
The maid, upon the boundary of the lea,
Folds where her sire’s own shepherds could she see
Already milking. Some the sheep compelled,
Against the pen-side by the muzzle held,
To suckle quietly their tawny lambs.
Always arose the bleat of certain dams;
While other childless ones the shepherds guide
Toward the milker. ”

“ And “Have you seen Mirèio?” is their cry.
While Ramoun and his wife by the fireside
Are sitting, lost in grief, and swollen-eyed,
And at their hearts the bitterness of death.
“Doubtless,” they said, “her reason wandereth.
Oh, what a mad and wretched maid it is!
Oh, what a heavy, cruel downfall this!
“Oh, dire disgrace! Our beauty and our hope
So with the last of trampers to elope!
Fled with a gypsy! And who shall discover
The secret hole of this kidnapping lover,
Where he the shameless one concealèd hath?”
And, as they spake, they knit their brows in wrath. ”

“ WHEN violets are blue in the blue shadows
Of the o’erhanging trees,
The youth who stray in pairs about the meadows
Are glad to gather these.
When peace descends upon the troubled Ocean,
And he his wrath forgets,
Flock from Martigue the boats with wing-like motion,
The fishes fill their nets.
And when the girls of Crau bloom into beauty
(And fairer earth knows not) ,
Aye are there suitors ready for their duty
In castle and in cot.
Thus to Mirèio’s home came seeking her
A trio notable,—a horse-tamer,
A herdsman, and a shepherd. ”

“ And as he fain would sleep, the Rhone passed by
Like some great veteran dying. He recalls
Music and feasting in Avignon’s halls
And castles, and profoundly sad is he
To lose his name and waters in the sea.
Meanwhile the enamoured maiden whom I sing
Had leaped ashore; and the boy, tarrying
Only to say, “The road that lies before
Is thine! The Saints will guide thee to the door
Of their great chapel,” took his oars in hand,
And swiftly turned his shallop from the land.
Under the pouring fire of the June sky,
Like lightning doth Mirèio fly and fly. ”

“ He blessed the generations there assembled.
“Moreover, he who is a father truly
Will have his child yield him obedience duly:
The flock that drives the shepherd, soon or late,
Will meet a wolf and a disastrous fate.
When we were young, had any son withstood
His father, he, belike, had shed his blood!”
“Thou wilt kill me then, father! It is I
Whom Vincen worships thus despairingly;
And before God and our most holy Mother,
I give my soul to him, and to no other!”
A deathlike hush followed Mirèio’s word.
The wife of Ramoun was the first who stirred. ”

“ Fruitage and foliage that cannot die.
Help me, dear God, on our Provençal speech,
To soar until the birds’ own home I reach!
Once, then, beside the poplar-bordered Rhone,
There lived a basket-weaver and his son,
In a poor hut set round with willow-trees
(For all their humble wares were made from these) ;
And sometimes they from farm to farm would wend,
And horses’ cribs and broken baskets mend.
And so one evening, as they trudged their round
With osier bundles on their shoulders bound,
“Father,” young Vincen said, “the clouds look wild
About old Magalouno’s tower up-piled. ”

“ Father and I, and only hear the Rhone
Rush headlong o’er the shingle, ’tis most drear!
Not in the pleasant season of the year,
For then upon our travels we are bound,
And trudge from farm to farm the country round.
“But when the holly-berries have turned red,
And winter comes, and nights are long,” he said,
“And sitting by the dying fire we catch
Whistle or mew of goblin at the latch;
And I must wait till bed-time there with him,
Speaking but seldom, and the room so dim,”—
Broke in the happy girl, unthinkingly,
“Ah! but your mother, Vincen, where is she?”
“Mother is dead.” ”

“ Where men have stoned the very saints of God.
“And if, Mirèio, thou couldst see before thee,
As we from empyrean heights of glory,
This world; and what a sad and foolish thing
Is all its passion for the perishing,
Its churchyard terrors,—then, O lambkin sweet,
Mayhap thou wouldst for death and pardon bleat!
“But, ere the wheat-ear hath its feathery birth,
Ferments the grain within the darksome earth,—{158}
Such ever is the law; and even we,
Before we wore our crowns of majesty,
Drank bitter draughts. Therefore, thy soul to stay,
We’ll tell the pains and perils of our way.” ”

“ The glory grows on either Mary’s brow!
“The pink flamingoes flock from the Rhone shore,
The tamarisks in blossom all adore.
The dear Saints beckon me to them,” she said.
“They tell me I need never be afraid:
They know the constellations of the skies;
Their bark will take us quick to Paradise!”
“My little pet,” said Ramoun, quite undone,
“You will not go, and leave the home so lone!
Why have I felled my oaks with such ado? ”

“ So in the stillness doth Mirèio dash
Along the hurdles, like a lightning flash,{128}
Lifting a wailing cry that never varies,—
“Will none go with me to the holy Maries,
Of all the shepherds?” They and the sheep hear it,
And see the maiden flitting like a spirit,
And huddle up, and bow their heads, as though
Smit by a sudden gale. The farm-dogs know
Her voice, but never stir her flight to stay.
And now is she already far away,
Threads the dwarf-oaks, and like a partridge rushes
Over the holly and the camphyre bushes,
Her feet scarce touching earth. ”

“ Mirèio dear, no gems I’d tender you,
But a carved box-wood cup,—mine own work too!”
Therewith he brought to light a goblet fair,
Wrapped like some sacred relic with all care,
And carven of box-wood green. It was his pleasure
Such things to fashion in his hours of leisure;
And, sitting rapt upon some wayside stone,
He wrought divinely with a knife alone.
He carved him castanets with fingers light,
So that his flock would follow him at night
Through the dark fields, obedient to their tones. ”

“ If she to Arles should fare,
All other maids would hide them in despair;
For, after her, I think the mould was broken.
And what say to the words herself hath spoken,
“‘You I will have!’”—“Why, naught, poor fool! say I:
Let poverty and riches make reply!”
“O father!” Vincen cried, “go, I implore thee,
To Lotus Farm, and tell them all the story!
Tell them to look for virtue, not for gain!
Tell them that I can plough a stony plain,
“Or harrow, or prune vines with any man! ”

“ We should be drenched ere we had gained the farm.”
“Nay, nay!” the old man said, “no rain to-night!
’Tis the sea-breeze that shakes the trees. All right!
A western gale were different.” Vincen mused:
“Are many ploughs at Lotus farmstead used?”
“Six ploughs!” the basket-weaver answered slow:
“It is the finest freehold in La Crau.
“Look! There’s their olive-orchard, intermixt
With rows of vines and almond-trees betwixt.
The beauty of it is, that vineyard hath
For every day in all the year a path!
There’s ne’er another such the beauty is;
And in each path are just so many trees.” ”

“ And whets his tusks upon the mountain oaks.
And now young Vincen with his comely looks
Must needs have chosen the herdsman’s very path,
And meets him squarely, boiling o’er with wrath.{82}
Whereas the simple dreamer wandered smiling,
His memory with a sweet tale beguiling,
That he had heard a fond girl whispering
Beneath a mulberry-tree one morn in spring.
Straight is he as a cane from the Durance;
And love, peace, joy, beam from his countenance.
The soft air swells his loose, unbottoned shirt:
His firm, bare feet are by the stones unhurt,
And light as lizard slips he o’er the way. ”

“ Good God! the blows of Vincen fall like hail.
Yet ah! what club-like hits the herdsman deals!
And, as their crushing weight the weaver feels,
He whirls as whirls a sling about his foe,
And backward bends to deal his fiercest blow.{88}
“Look your last, villain!” Ere the word said he,
The mighty herdsman seized him bodily,
And flung him o’er his shoulder far away,
As a Provençal shovels wheat. He lay
A moment on his side, not sorely hurt.
“Pick up, O worm!” cried Ourrias,—“pick the dirt
“You have displaced, and eat it, if you will!” ”

“ French of the most barbaric, and Provençal of the most pliant, are mixed up in these delightfully comic dialogues exactly as they are upon the lips of the common folk. It is the most amusing, perhaps the only distinctly amusing work which the school of the felibre has ever produced, and anybody who reads French may read and have a hearty laugh over it. And I may add, from my own experience, that a very short residence in the ancient Provincia is enough to show that the local idiom is much more intelligible phonetically than it looks at first sight upon paper. ”