As we said at the outset, what is most striking about this poem is its realism. The poet revels in enumerating the good things the men had to eat at the feast of Saint Nicholas; he describes with a wealth of vocabulary and a flood of technical terms quite bewildering every sort of boat, and all its parts with their uses; he reproduces the talk of the boatmen, leaving unvarnished their ignorance and superstition, their roughness and brutality; he describes their appearance, their long hair and large earrings; he explains the manner of guiding the boats down the swirling, treacherous waters, amid the dangers of shoals and hidden rocks; he describes all the cargoes, not finding it beneath the dignity of an epic poem to tell us of the kegs of foamy beer that is destined for the thirsty throats of the drinkers at Beaucaire; as the boats pass Condrieu, he reproduces the gossip of the boatmen's wives; he does not omit the explanations of Apian addressed to the Prince concerning fogs and currents; he is often humorous, telling us of the heavy merchants who promenade their paunches whereon the watch-charms rattle against their snug little money carried in a belt; he describes the passengers, tells us their various trades and destinations, is even cynical; tells of the bourgeois, who, once away from their wives, grow suddenly lavish with their money, and like pigs let loose in the street, take up the whole roadway; he does not shrink from letting us know that the men chew a cud of tobacco while they talk; he mentions the price of goods; he puts into the mouth of Jean Roche's mother a great many practical and material considerations as to the matter of taking a wife, and a very wise and practical old lady she is; he treats as "joyeusetes" the conversation of the Venetian women who inform the Prince that in their city the noblewoman, once married, may have quite a number of lovers without exciting any comment, the husband being rather relieved than otherwise; he allows his boatmen to swear and call one another vile names, and a howling, brawling lot they frequently become; and when at last we get to the fair at Beaucaire, there are pages of minute enumerations that can scarcely be called Homeric. In short, a very large part of the book is prose, animated, vigorous, often exaggerated, but prose. Like his other long poems it is singularly objective. Rarely does the author interrupt his narrative or description to give an opinion, to speak in his own name, or to analyze the situation he has created. Like the other poems, too, it is sprinkled with tales and legends of all sorts, some of them charming. Superstitions abound. Mistral shares the fondness of the Avignonnais for the number seven. Apian has seven boats, the Drac keeps his victim seven years, the woman of Condrieu has seven sons.

The poem offers the same beauties as the others, an astonishing power of description first of all. Mistral is always masterly, always poetic in depicting the landscape and the life that moves thereon, and especially in evoking the life of the past. He revives for us the princesses and queens, the knights and troubadours, and they move before us, a fascinating, glittering pageant. The perfume of flowers, the sunlight on the water, the great birds flying in the air, the silent drifting of the boats in the broad valley, the reflection of the tall poplars in the water, the old ruins that crown the hilltops—all these things are exquisitely woven into the verse, and more than a mere word-painting they create a mood in the reader in unison with the mood of the person of whom he is reading.

In touching truly deep and serious things Mistral is often superficial, and passes them off with a commonplace. An instance in this poem is the episode of the convicts on their way to the galleys at Toulon. No terrible indignation, no heartfelt pity, is expressed. Apian silences one of his crew who attempts to mock at the unhappy wretches. "They are miserable enough without an insult! and do not seem to recognize them, for, branded on the shoulder, they seek the shade. Let this be an example to you all. They are going to eat beans at Toulon, poor fellows! All sorts of men are there,—churchmen, rascals, nobles, notaries, even some who are innocent!"

And the poet concludes, "Thus the world, thus the agitation, the stir of life, good, evil, pleasure, pain, pass along swiftly, confusedly, between day and night, on the river of time, rolling along and fleeing."

The enthusiasm of the poet leads him into exaggeration whenever he comes to a wonder of Provence. Things are relative in this world, and the same words carry different meanings. Avignon is scarcely a colossal pile of towers, and would not remind many of Venice, even at sunset, and we must make a discount when we hear that the boats are engulfed in the fierce (sic) arch of the colossal bridge of stone that Benezet, the shepherd, erected seven hundred years ago. A moment later he refers daintily and accurately to the chapel of Saint Nicholas "riding on the bridge, slender and pretty." The epithets sound larger, too, in Provencal; the view of Avignon is "espetaclouso," the walls of the castle are "gigantesco."

Especially admirable in its sober, energetic expression is the account of the Remonte, in the eleventh canto, wherein we see the eighty horses, grouped in fours, tug slowly up the river.

"The long file on the rough-paved path, dragging the weighty train of boats, in spite of the impetuous waters, trudges steadily along. And beneath the lofty branches of the great white poplars, in the stillness of the Rhone valley, in the splendor of the rising sun, walking beside the straining horses that drive a mist from their nostrils, the first driver says the prayer."

With each succeeding poem the vocabulary of Mistral seems to grow, along with the boldness of expression. All his poems he has himself translated into French, and these translations are remarkable in more than one respect. That of the Poem of the Rhone is especially full of rare French words, and it cannot be imputed to the leader of the Provencal poets that he is not past master of the French vocabulary. Often his French expression is as strange as the original. Not many French writers would express themselves as he does in the following:—

"Et il tressaille de jumeler le nonchaloir de sa jeunesse au renouveau de la belle ingenue."

In this translation, also, more than in the preceding, there is occasionally an affectation of archaism, which rather adds to than detracts from the poetic effect of his prose, and the number of lines in the prose translation that are really ten-syllable verses is quite remarkable. On one page (page 183 of the third edition, Lemerre) more than half the lines are verses.

Is the Poem of the Rhone a great poem? Whether it is or not, it accomplishes admirably the purpose of its author, to fix in beautiful verse the former life of the Rhone. That much of it is prosaic was inevitable; the nature of the subject rendered it so. It is full of beauties, and the poet who wrote Mireio and completed it before his thirtieth year, has shown that in the last decade of his threescore years and ten he could produce a work as full of fire, energy, life, and enthusiasm as in the stirring days when the Felibrige was young. In this poem there occurs a passage put into the mouth of the Prince, which gives a view of life that we suspect is the poet's own. He here calls the Prince a young sage, and as we look back over Mistral's life, and review its aims, and the conditions in which he has striven, we incline to think that here, in a few words, he has condensed his thought.

"For what is life but a dream, a distant appearance, an illusion gliding on the water, which, fleeing ever before our eyes, dazzles us like a mirror flashing, entices and lures us on! Ah, how good it is to sail on ceaselessly toward one's desire, even though it is but a dream! The time will come, it is near, perhaps, when men will have everything within their reach, when they will possess everything, when they will know and have proved everything; and, regretting the old mirages, who knows but what they will not grow weary of living!"



CHAPTER II

LIS ISCLO D'OR

The lover of poetry will probably find more to admire and cherish in this volume than in any other that has come from the pen of its author, excepting, possibly, the best passages of Mireio. It is the collection of his short poems that appeared from time to time in different Provencal publications, the earliest dating as far back as 1848, the latest written in 1888. They are a very complete expression of his poetic ideas, and contain among their number gems of purest poesy. The poet's lyre has not many strings, and the strains of sadness, of pensive melancholy, are almost absent. Mistral has once, and very successfully, tried the theme of Lainartine's Lac, of Musset's Souvenir, of Hugo's Tristesse d'Olympio; but his poem is not an elegy, it has not the intensity, the passion, the deep undertone of any of the three great Romanticists. La Fin dou Meissounie is a beautiful, pathetic, and touching tale, that easily brings a tear, and Lou Saume de la Penitenci is without doubt one of the noblest poems inspired in the heart of any Frenchman by the disaster of 1870. But these poems, though among the best according to the feeling for poetry of a reader from northern lands, are not characteristic of the volume in general. The dominant strain is energy, a clarion-call of life and light, an appeal to his fellow-countrymen to be strong and independent; the sun of Provence, the language of Provence, the ideals of Provence, the memories of Provence, these are his themes. His poetry is not personal, but social. Of his own joys and sorrows scarce a word, unless we say what is doubtless the truth, that his joys and sorrows, his regrets and hopes, are identical with those of his native land, and that he has blended his being completely with the life about him. The volume contains a great number of pieces written for special occasions, for the gatherings of the Felibres, for their weddings. Many of them are addressed to persons in France and out, who have been in various ways connected with the Felibrige. Of these the greeting to Lamartine is especially felicitous in expression, and the following stanza from it forms the dedication of Mireio:—

"Te counsacre Mireio: eo moun cor e moun amo, Es la flour de mis an; Es un rasin de Crau qu' eme touto sa ramo Te porge un paisan."

The entire poem, literally translated, is as follows:—

If I have the good fortune to see my bark early upon the waves, Without fear of winter, Blessings upon thee, O divine Lamartine, Who hast taken the helm!

If my prow bears a bouquet of blooming laurel, It is thou hast made it for me; If my sail swelleth, it is the breath of thy glory That bloweth it.

Therefore, like a pilot who of a fair church Climbeth the hill And upon the altar of the saint that hath saved him at sea Hangeth a miniature ship.

I consecrate Mireio to thee; 'tis my heart and my soul, 'Tis the flower of my years; 'Tis a cluster of grapes from the Crau that with all its leaves A peasant offers thee.

Generous as a king, when thou broughtest me fame In the midst of Paris, Thou knowest that, in thy home, the day thou saidst to me, "Tu Marcellus eris!"

Like the pomegranate in the ripening sunbeam, My heart opened, And, unable to find more tender speech, Broke out in tears.

It is interesting to notice that the earliest poem of our author, La Bella d'Avoust, is a tale of the supernatural, a poem of mystery; it is an order of poetic inspiration rather rare in his work, and this first poem is quite as good as anything of its kind to be found in Mireio or Nerto. It has the form of a song with the refrain:—

Ye little nightingales, ye grasshoppers, be still! Hear the song of the beauty of August!

Margai of Val-Mairane, intoxicated with love, goes down into the plain two hours before the day. Descending the hill, she is wild. "In vain," she says, "I seek him, I have missed him. Ah, my heart trembles."

The poem is full of imagery, delicate and pretty. Margai is so lovely that in the clouds the moon, enshrouded, says to the cloud very softly, "Cloud, beautiful cloud, pass away, my face would let fall a ray on Margai, thy shadow hinders me." And the bird offers to console her, and the glow-worm offers his light to guide her to her lover. Margai comes and goes until she meets her lover in the shadow of the trees. She tells of her weeping, of the moon, the birdling, and the glow-worm. "But thy brow is dark, art thou ill? Shall I return to my father's house?"

"If my face is sad, on my faith, it is because a black moth hovering about hath alarmed me."

And Margai says, "Thy voice, once so sweet, to-day seems a trembling sound beneath the earth; I shudder at it."

"If my voice is so hoarse, it is because while waiting for thee I lay upon my back in the grass."

"I was dying with longing, but now it is with fear. For the day of our elopement, beloved, thou wearest mourning!"

"If my cloak be sombre and black, so is the night, and yet the night also glimmers."

When the star of the shepherds began to pale, and when the king of stars was about to appear, suddenly off they went, upon a black horse. And the horse flew on the stony road, and the ground shook beneath the lovers, and 'tis said fantastic witches danced about them until day, laughing loudly.

Then the white moon wrapped herself again, the birdling on the branch flew off in fright, even the glow-worm, poor little thing, put out his lamp, and quickly crept away under the grass. And it is said that at the wedding of poor Margai there was little feasting, little laughing, and the betrothal and the dancing took place in a spot where fire was seen through the crevices.

"Vale of Val-Mairane, road to the Baux, never again o'er hill or plain did ye see Margai. Her mother prays and weeps, and will not have enough of speaking of her lovely shepherdess."

This weird, legendary tale was composed in 1848. The next effort of the poet is one of his masterpieces, wherein his inspiration is truest and most poetical. La Fin dou Meissounie (The Reaper's Death) is a noble, genuinely pathetic tale, told in beautifully varied verse, full of the love of field work, and aglow with sympathy for the toilers. The figure of the old man, stricken down suddenly by an accidental blow from the scythe of a young man mowing behind him, as he lies dying on the rough ground, urging the gleaners to go on and not mind him, praying to Saint John,—the patron of the harvesters,—is one not to be forgotten. The description of the mowing, the long line of toilers with their scythes, the fierce sun making their blood boil, the sheaves falling by hundreds, the ruddy grain waving in the breath of the mistral, the old chief leading the band, "the strong affection that urged the men on to cut down the harvest,"—all is vividly pictured, and foretells the future poet of Mireio. The words of the old man are full of his energy and faith: "The wheat, swollen and ripe, is scattering in the summer wind; do not leave to the birds and ants, O binders, the wheat that comes from God!" "What good is your weeping? better sing with the young fellows, for I, before you all, have finished my task. Perhaps, in the land where I shall be presently, it will be hard for me, when evening comes, to hear no more, stretched out upon the grass, as I used to, the strong, clear singing of the youth rising up amid the trees; but it appears, friends, that it was my star, or perhaps the Master, the One above, seeing the ripe grain, gathers it in. Come, come, good-by, I am going gently. Then, children, when you carry off the sheaves upon the cart, take away your chief on the load of wheat."

And he begs Saint John to remember his olive trees, his family, who will sup at Christmas-tide without him. "If sometimes I have murmured, forgive me! The sickle, meeting a stone, cries out, O master Saint John, the friend of God, patron of the reapers, father of the poor, up there in Paradise, remember me."

And after the old man's death "the reapers, silent, sickle in hand, go on with the work in haste, for the hot mistral was shaking the ears."

Among these earlier poems are found some cleverly told, homely tales, with a pointed moral. Such are La Plueio (The Rain), La Rascladuro de Petrin (The Scraping from the Kneading-trough). They are really excellent, and teach the lesson that the tillers of the soil have a holy calling, of which they may be proud, and that God sends them health and happiness, peace and liberty. The second of the poems just mentioned is a particularly amusing story of choosing a wife according to the care she takes of her kneading-trough, the idea being derived from an old fablieau. There are one or two others purely humorous and capitally told. After 1860, however, the poet abandoned these homely, simple tales, that doubtless realized Roumanille's ideas of one aspect of the literary revival he was seeking to bring about.

The poems are not arranged chronologically, but are classified as Songs, Romances, Sirventes, Reveries, Plaints, Sonnets, Nuptial Songs, etc.

The Cansoun (Songs) are sung at every reunion of the Felibrige. They are set to melodies well known in Provence, and are spirited and vigorous indeed. The Germans who write about Provence are fond of making known the fact that the air of the famous Hymn to the Sun is a melody written by Kuecken. There is Lou Bastimen (The Ship), as full of dash and go as any English sea ballad. La Coutigo (The Tickling) is a dialogue between a mother and her love-sick son. La Coupo (The Cup) is the song of the Felibres par excellence; it was composed for the reception of a silver cup, sent to the Felibres by the Catalans. The coupo felibrenco is now a feature of all their banquets. The song expresses the enthusiasm of the Felibres for their cause. The refrain is, "Holy cup, overflowing, pour out in plenty the enthusiasms and the energy of the strong." The most significant lines are:—

Of a proud, free people We are perhaps the end; And, if the Felibres fall, Our nation will fall.

Of a race that germs anew Perhaps we are the first growth; Of our land we are perhaps The pillars and the chiefs.

Pour out for us hope And dreams of youth, The memory of the past And faith in the coming year.

The ideas and sentiments, then, that are expressed in the shorter poems of Mistral, written since the publication of Mireio, have been, in the main, the ancient glories and liberties of Provence, a clinging to national traditions, to local traditions, and to the religion and ideas of ancestors, a profound dislike of certain modern ideas of progress, hatred of the levelling influence of Paris, love of the Provencal speech, belief in the Latin race, in the Roman Catholic Church, unshaken faith in the future, love of the ideal and hatred of what is servile and sordid, an ardent love of Nature, an intense love of life and movement. These things are reflected in every variety of word and figure. He is not the poet of the romantic type, self-centred, filling his verse with the echoes of his own loves and joys and woes, nor is his poetry as large as humanity; Provence, France, the Latin race, are the limits beyond which it has no message or interest.

Possibly no poet ever wrote as many lines to laud the language he was using. Such lines abound in each volume he has produced.

"Se la lengo di moussu Toumbo en gargavaio Se tant d'escrivan coussu Pescon de ravaio, Nautri, li bon Prouvencau Vers li serre li plus aut Enauren la lengo De nosti valengo."

If the language of the messieurs falls among the sweepings, if so many comfortably well-off writers fish for small fry, we, the good Provencals, toward the highest summits, raise the language of our valleys.

The Sirventes addressed to the Catalan poets begins:—

"Fraire de Catalougno, escoutas! Nous an di Que fasias peralin revieure e resplendi Un di rampau de nosto lengo."

Brothers from Catalonia, listen! We have heard that ye cause one of the branches of our language to revive and flourish yonder.

In the same poem, the poet sings of the Troubadours, whom none have since surpassed, who in the face of the clergy raised the language of the common people, sang in the very ears of the kings, sang with love, and sang freely, the coming of a new world and contempt for ancient fears, and later on he says:—

"From the Alps to the Pyrenees, hand in hand, poets, let us then raise up the old Romance speech! It is the sign of the family, the sacrament that binds the sons to the forefathers, man to the soil! It is the thread that holds the nest in the branches. Fearless guardians of our beautiful speech, let us keep it free and pure, and bright as silver, for a whole people drinks at this spring; for when, with faces on the ground, a people falls into slavery, if it holds its language, it holds the key that delivers it from the chains."

The final stanza of the poem, written in honor of Jasmin in 1870, is as follows:—

"For our dead and our fathers, and our sacred rights as a people and as poets, that yesterday were trampled beneath the feet of the usurper, and, outraged, cried out, now live again in glory! Now, between the two seas the language of Oc triumphs. O Jasmin, thou hast avenged us!"

In the Rock of Sisyphus the poet says, "Formerly we kept the language that Nature herself put upon our lips."

In the Poem to the Latin Race we read:—

"Thy mother tongue, the great stream that spreads abroad in seven branches, pouring out love and light like an echo from Paradise, thy golden speech, O Romance daughter of the King-People, is the song that will live on human lips as long as speech shall have reason."

Elsewhere we find:—

"Oh, maintain thy historic speech. It is the proof that always thou carriest on high and free, thy coat of arms. In the language, a mystery, an old treasure is found. Each year the nightingale puts on new plumage, but keeps its song."

One entire poem, Espouscado, is a bitterly indignant protest against those who would suppress the dialect, against the regents and the rectors whom "we must pay with our pennies to hear them scoff at the language that binds us to our fathers and our soil!" And the poet cries out, "No, no, we'll keep our rebellious langue d'oc, grumble who will. We'll speak it in the stables, at harvest-time, among the silkworms, among lovers, among neighbors, etc., etc. It shall be the language of joy and of brotherhood. We'll joke and laugh with it;—and as for the army, we'll take it to the barracks to keep off homesickness."

And his anger rising, he exclaims:—

"O the fools, the fools, who wean their children from it to stuff them with self-sufficiency, fatuity, and hunger! Let them get drowned in the throng! But thou, O my Provence, be not disturbed about the sons that disown thee and repudiate thy speech. They are dead, they are still-born children that survive, fed on bad milk."

And he concludes:—

"But, eldest born of Nature, you, the sun-browned boys, who speak with the maidens in the ancient tongue, fear not; you shall remain the masters! Like the walnuts of the plain, gnarled, stout, calm, motionless, exploited and ill-treated as you may be, O peasants (as they call you), you will remain masters of the land!"

This was written in 1888. The quotations might be multiplied; these suffice, however, to show the intense love of the poet for "the language of the soil," the energy with which he has constantly struggled for its maintenance. He is far from looking upon the multiplication of dialects as an evil, points to the literary glory of Greece amid her many forms of speech, and does not even seek to impose his own language upon the rest of southern France. He sympathizes with every attempt, wherever made, the world over, to raise up a patois into a language. Statesmen will probably think otherwise, and there are nations which would at once take an immense stride forward if they could attain one language and a purely national literature. The modern world does not appear to be marching in accordance with Mistral's view.

The poems inspired by the love of the ancient ideals and literature of Provence are very beautiful. They have in general a fascinating swing and rhythm, and are filled with charming imagery. One of the best is L'Amiradou (The Belvedere), the story of a fairy imprisoned in the castle at Tarascon, "who will doubtless love the one who shall free her." Three knights attempt the rescue and fail. Then there comes along a little Troubadour, and sings so sweetly of the prowess of his forefathers, of the splendor of the Latin race, that the guard are charmed and the bolts fly back. And the fairy goes up to the top of the tower with the little Troubadour, and they stand mute with love, and look out over all the beautiful landscape, and the old monuments of Provence with their lessons. This is the kingdom of the fairy, and she bestows it upon him. "For he who knows how to read in this radiant book, must grow above all others, and all that his eye beholds, without paying any tithe, is his in abundance."

The lilt of this little romance, with its pretty repetitions, is delightful, and the symbolism is, of course, perfectly obvious.

There is the touching story of the Troubadour Catalan, slain by robbers in the Bois de Boulogne, where the Pre de Catalan now is; there is the tale that accounts for the great chain that hangs across the gorge at Moustiers, a chain over six hundred feet long, bearing a star in the centre. A knight, being prisoner among the Saracens, vows to hang the chain before the chapel of the Virgin, if ever he returns home.

"A ti ped, vierge Mario, Ma cadeno penjarai, Se jamai Tourne mai A Moustie, dins ma patrio!"

There is the tale of the Princess Clemence, daughter of a king of Provence. Her father was deformed, and the heir-presumptive to the French crown sought her in marriage. In order that the prince might be sure she had inherited none of the father's deformity, she was called upon to show herself in the garb of Lady Godiva before his ambassadors. This rather delicate subject is handled with consummate art.

The idea of federalism is found expressed with sufficient clearness in various parts of these poems of the Golden Isles, and the patriotism of the poet, his love of France, is perfectly evident, in spite of all that has been said to the contrary. In the poem addressed to the Catalans, after numerous allusions to the dissensions and rebellions of bygone days, we read:—

"Now, however, it is clear; now, however, we know that in the divine order all is for the best; the Provencals, a unanimous flame, are part of great France, frankly, loyally; the Catalans, with good-will, are part of magnanimous Spain. For the brook must flow to the sea, and the stone must fall on the heap; the wheat is best protected from the treacherous cold wind when planted close; and the little boats, if they are to navigate safely, when the waves are black and the air dark, must sail together. For it is good to be many, it is a fine thing to say, 'We are children of France!'"

But in days of peace let each province develop its own life in its own way.

"And France and Spain, when they see their children warming themselves together in the sunbeams of the fatherland, singing matins out of the same book, will say, 'The children have sense enough, let them laugh and play together, now they are old enough to be free.'

"And we shall see, I promise you, the ancient freedom come down, O happiness, upon the smallest city, and love alone bind the races together; and if ever the black talon of the tyrant is seen, all the races will bound up to drive out the bird of prey!"

Of all the poems of Mistral expressing this order of ideas, the one entitled The Countess made the greatest stir. It appeared in 1866, and called forth much angry discussion and imputation of treason from the enemies of the new movement. The Countess is an allegorical representation of Provence; the fair descendant of imperial ancestors is imprisoned in a convent by her half-sister France. Formerly she possessed a hundred fortified towns, twenty seaports; she had olives, fruit, and grain in abundance; a great river watered her fields; a great wind vivified the land, and the proud noblewoman could live without her neighbor, and she sang so sweetly that all loved her, poets and suitors thronged about her.

Now, in the convent where she is cloistered all are dressed alike, all obey the rule of the same bell, all joy is gone. The half-sister has broken her tambourines and taken away her vineyards, and gives out that her sister is dead.

Then the poet breaks into an appeal to the strong to break into the great convent, to hang the abbess, and say to the Countess, "Appear again, O splendor! Away with grief, away! Long life to joy!"

Each stanza is followed by the refrain:—

"Ah! se me sabien entendre! Ah! se me voulien segui!"

Ah! if they could understand me! Ah! if they would follow me!

Mistral disdained to reply to the storm of accusations and incriminations raised by the publication of this poem. Lou Saumede la Penitenci, that appeared in 1870, set at rest all doubts concerning his deep and sincere patriotism.

The Psalm of Penitence is possibly the finest of the short poems. It is certainly surpassed by no other in intensity of feeling, in genuine inspiration, in nobility and beauty of expression. It is a hymn of sorrow over the woes of France, a prayer of humility and resignation after the disaster of 1870. The reader must accept the idea, of course, that the defeat of the French was a visitation of Providence in punishment for sin.

"Segnour, a la fin ta coulero Largo si tron Sus nosti front: E dins la niue nosto galero Pico d'a pro Contro li ro."

Lord, at last thy wrath hurls its thunderbolts upon our foreheads:

And in the night our vessel strikes its prow against the rocks.

France was punished for irreligion, for closing the temples, for abandoning the sacraments and commandments, for losing faith in all except selfish interest and so-called progress, for contempt of the Bible and pride in science.

The poet makes confession:—

"Segnour, sian tis enfant proudigue; Mai nautri sian Ti viei crestian: Que ta Justico nous castigue, Mai au trepas Nous laisses pas!"

Lord, we are thy prodigal sons; but we are thy Christians of old:

Let thy justice chastise us, but give us not over unto death!

Then the poet prays in the name of all the brave men who gave up their lives in battle, in the name of all the mothers who will never again see their sons, in the name of the poor, the strong, the dead, in the name of all the defeats and tears and sorrow, the slaughter and the fires, the affronts endured, that God disarm his justice, and he concludes:—

"Segnour, voulen deveni d'ome; En liberta Pos nous bouta! Sian Gau-Rouman e gentilome, E marchan dre Dins noste endre.

"Segnour, dou mau sian pas Pencauso. Mando eicabas Un rai de pas! Segnour, ajudo nosto Causo, E revieuren E t'amaren."

Lord, we desire to become men; thou canst set us free!

We are Gallo-Romans and of noble race, and we walk upright in our land.

Lord, we are not the cause of the evil. Send down upon us a ray of peace! Lord, aid our Cause, and we shall live again and love thee.

The poem called The Stone of Sisyphus completes sufficiently the evidence necessary to exculpate Mistral of the charge of antipatriotism and makes clear his thought. Provence was once a nation, she consented years ago to lose her identity in the union with France. Now it is proposed to heap up all the old traditions, the Gai Savoir, the glory of the Troubadours, the old language, the old customs, and burn them on a pyre. Well, France is a great people and Vive la nation. But some would go further, some would suppress the nation: "Down with the frontiers, national glories are an abomination! Wipe out the past, man is God! Vive l'humanite!" Our patrimony we repudiate. What are Joan of Arc, Saint Louis, and Turenne? All that is old rubbish.

Then the people cry with Victor Hugo, "Emperaire, siegues maudi, maudi, maudi! nous as vendu" and hurl down the Vendome column, burn Paris, slaughter the priests, and then, worn out, commence again, like Sisyphus, to push the rock of progress.

So much for the conservatism of Mistral.

We shall conclude this story of the shorter poems with some that are not polemical or essentially Provencal; three or four are especially noteworthy. The Drummer of Arcole, Lou Prego-Dieu, Rescontre (Meeting), might properly find a place in any anthology of general poetry, and an ode on the death of Lamartine is sincere and beautiful. Such poems must be read in the original.

The first one, The Drummer of Arcole, is the story of a drummer boy who saved the day at Arcole by beating the charge; but after the wars are over, he is forgotten, and remains a drummer as before, becomes old and regrets his life given up to the service of his country. But one day, passing along the streets of Paris, he chances to look up at the Pantheon, and there in the huge pediment he reads the words, "Aux grands hommes la patrie reconnaissante."

"'Drummer, raise thy head!' calls out a passer-by! 'The one up there, hast thou seen him?' Toward the temple that stood superb the old man raised his bewildered eyes. Just then the joyous sun shook his golden locks above enchanted Paris....

"When the soldier saw the dome of the Pantheon rising toward heaven, and with his drum hanging at his side, beating the charge, as if it were real, he recognized himself, the boy of Arcole, away up there, right at the side of the great Napoleon, intoxicated with his former fury, seeing himself, so high, in full relief, above the years, the clouds, the storms, in glory, azure, sunshine, he felt a gentle swelling in his heart, and fell dead upon the pavement."

Lou Prego-Dieu is a sweet poem embodying a popular belief. Prego-dieu is the name of a little insect, so called from the peculiar arrangement of its legs and antennse that makes it appear to be in an attitude of prayer. Mistral's poetic ideas have been largely suggested to him by popular beliefs and the stories he heard at his fireside when a boy. This poem is one of the best of the kind he has produced, and, being eminently, characteristic, will find juster treatment in a literal translation than in a commentary. The first half was written during the time he was at work upon Mireio in 1856, the second in 1874. We quote the first stanza in the original, for the sake of showing its rhythm.

"Ero un tantost d'aquel estieu Que ni vihave ni dourmieu: Fasieu miejour, tau que me plaise, Lou cahessou Toucant lou son A l'aise."

I

It was one afternoon this summer, while I was neither awake nor asleep. I was taking a noon siesta, as is my pleasure, my head at ease upon the ground.

And greenish among the stubble, upon a spear of blond barley, with a double row of seeds, I saw a prego-dieu.

"Beautiful insect," said I, "I have heard that, as a reward for thy ceaseless praying, God hath given thee the gift of divination.

"Tell me now, good friend, if she I love hath slept well; tell what she is thinking at this hour, and what she is doing; tell me if she is laughing or weeping."

The insect, that was kneeling, stirred upon the tube of the tiny, leaning ear, and unfolded and waved his little wings.

And his speech, softer than the softest breath of a zephyr wafted in a wood, sweet and mysterious, reached my ear.

"I see a maiden," said he, "in the cool shade beneath a cherry tree; the waving branches touch her; the boughs hang thick with cherries.

"The cherries are fully ripe, fragrant, solid, red, and, amid the smooth leaves, make one hungry, and, hanging, tempt one.

"But the cherry tree offers in vain the sweetness and the pleasing color of its bright, firm fruit, red as coral.

"She sighs, trying to see if she can jump high enough to pluck them. Would that my lover might come! He would climb up, and throw them down into my apron."

So I say to the reapers: "Reapers, leave behind you a little corner uncut, where, during the summer, the prego-dieu may have shelter."

II

This autumn, going down a sunken road, I wandered off across the fields, lost in earthly thoughts.

And, once more, amid the stubble, I saw, clinging to a tiny ear of grain, folded up in his double wing, the prego-dieu.

"Beautiful insect," said I then, "I have heard that, as a reward for thy ceaseless praying, God hath given thee the gift of divination.

"And that if some child, lost amid the harvest fields, asks of thee his way, thou, little creature, showest him the way through the wheat.

"In the pleasures and pains of this world, I see that I, poor child, am astray; for, as he grows, man feels his wickedness.

"In the grain and in the chaff, in fear and in pride, in budding hope, alas for me, I see my ruin.

"I love space, and I am in chains; among thorns I walk barefoot; Love is God, and Love sins; every enthusiasm after action is disappointed.

"What we accomplished is wiped out; brute instinct is satisfied, and the ideal is not reached; we must be born amid tears, and be stung among the flowers.

"Evil is hideous, and it smiles upon me; the flesh is fair, and it rots; the water is bitter, and I would drink; I am languishing, I want to die and yet to live.

"I am falling faint and weary; O prego-dieu, cause some slight hope of something true to shine upon me; show me the way."

And straightway I saw that the insect stretched forth its slender arm toward Heaven; mysterious, mute, earnest, it was praying.

* * * * *

Such reference to religious doubt is elsewhere absent from Mistral's work. His faith is strong, and the energy of his life-work has its source largely, not only in this religious faith, but in his firm belief in himself, in his race, and in the mission he has felt called upon to undertake. Reflected obviously in the above poem is the growth of the poet in experience and in thought.

Lastly, among the poems of his Isclo d'Or, we wish to call attention to one that, in its theme, recalls Le Lac, La Tristesse d'Olympio, and Le Souvenir. The poet comes upon the scene of his first love, and apostrophizes the natural objects about him. All four poets intone the strain, "Ye rocks and trees, guard the memory of our love."

"O coumbo d'Uriage Bos fresqueirous, Ounte aven fa lou viage Dis amourous, O vau qu'aven noumado Noste univers, Se perdes ta ramado Gardo mi vers."

O vale of Uriage, cool wood, where we made our lovers' journey; O vale that we called our world, if thou lose thy verdure, keep my verses.

Ye flowers of the high meadows that no man knoweth, watered by Alpine snows, ye are less pure and fresh in the month of April than the little mouth that smiles for me.

Ye thunders and stern voices of the peaks, murmurings of wild woods, torrents from the mountains, there is a voice that dominates you all, the clear, beautiful voice of my love.

Alas! vale of Uriage, we may never return to thy leafy nooks. She, a star, vanisheth in air, and I, folding my tent, go forth into the wilderness.

* * * * *

Apart from the intrinsic worth of the thought or sentiment, there is found in Mistral the essential gift of the poet, the power of expression—of clothing in words that fully embody the meaning, and seem to sing, in spontaneous musical flow, the inner inspiration. He is superior to the other poets of the Felibrige, not only in the energy, the vitality of his personality, and in the fertility of his ideas, but also in this great gift of language. Even if he creates his vocabulary as he goes along, somewhat after the fashion of Ronsard and the Pleiade, he does this in strict accordance with the genius of his dialect, fortunately for him, untrammelled by traditions, and, what is significant, he does it acceptably. He is the master. His fellow-poets proclaim and acclaim his supremacy. No one who has penetrated to any degree into the genius of the Romance languages can fail to agree that in this point exists a master of one of its forms.



CHAPTER III

THE TEAGEDY, LA REINO JANO

The peculiar qualities and limitations of Mistral are possibly nowhere better evidenced than in this play. Full of charming passages, frequently eloquent, here and there very poetic, it is scarcely dramatic, and certainly not a tragedy either of the French or the Shakespearian type. The most striking lines, the most eloquent tirades, arise less from the exigences of the drama than from the constant desire of the poet to give expression to his love of Provence. The attention of the reader is diverted at every turn from the adventures of the persons in the play to the glories and the beauties of the lovely land in which our poet was born. The matter of a play is certainly contained in the subject, but the energy of the author has not been spent upon the invention of strong situations, upon the clash of wills, upon the psychology of his characters, upon the interplay of passions, but rather upon strengthening in the hearts of his Provencal hearers the love of the good Queen Joanna, whose life has some of the romance of that of Mary, Queen of Scots, and upon letting them hear from her lips and from the lips of her courtiers the praises of Provence.

Mistral enumerates eight dramatic works treating the life of his heroine. They are a tragedy in five acts and a verse by Magnon (Paris, 1656), called Jeanne Ire, reine de Naples; a tragedy in five acts and in verse by Laharpe, produced in 1781, entitled, Jeanne de Naples; an opera-comique in three acts, the book by De Leuven and Brunswick, the music by Monpon and Bordese, produced in 1840; an Italian tragedy, La Regina Griovanna, by the Marquis of Casanova, written about 1840; an Italian opera, the libretto by Ghislanzoni, who is known as the librettist of Aida, the music by Petrella (Milan, 1875); a play in verse by Brunetti, called Griovanna I di Napoli (Naples, 1881); a Hungarian play by Rakosi, Johanna es Endre, and lastly the trilogy of Walter Savage Landor, Andrea of Hungary, Griovanna of Naples, and Fra Rupert (London, 1853). Mistral's play is dated May, 1890.

It may be said concerning the work of Landor, which is a poem in dramatic form rather than a play, that it offers scarcely any points of resemblance with Mistral's beyond the few essential facts in the lives of Andrea and Joanna. Both poets take for granted the innocence of the Queen. It is worth noting that Provence is but once referred to in the entire work of the English poet.

The introduction that precedes Mistral's play quotes the account of the life of the Queen from the Dictionnaire of Moreri (Lyons, 1681), which we here translate.

"Giovanna, first of the name, Queen of Jerusalem, Naples, and Sicily, Duchess of Apulia and Calabria, Countess of Provence, etc., was a daughter of Charles of Sicily, Duke of Calabria, who died in 1328, before his father Robert, and of Marie of Valois, his second wife. She was only nineteen years of age when she assumed the government of her dominions after her grandfather's death in 1343. She had already been married by him to his nephew, Andrea of Hungary. This was not a happy marriage; for the inclinations of both were extremely contrary, and the prince was controlled by a Franciscan monk named Robert, and the princess by a washerwoman called Filippa Catenese. These indiscreet advisers brought matters to extremes, so that Andrea was strangled in 1345. The disinterested historians state ingenuously that Joanna was not guilty of this crime, although the others accuse her of it. She married again, on the 2d of August, 1346. Her second husband was Louis of Tarento, her cousin; and she was obliged to leave Naples to avoid the armed attack of Louis, King of Hungary, who committed acts of extreme violence in this state. Joanna, however, quieted all these things by her prudence, and after losing this second husband, on the 25th of March, 1362, she married not long afterward a third, James of Aragon, Prince of Majorca, who, however, tarried not long with her. So seeing herself a widow for the third time, she made a fourth match in 1376 with Otto of Brunswick, of the House of Saxony; and as she had no children, she adopted a relative, Charles of Duras.... This ungrateful prince revolted against Queen Joanna, his benefactress.... He captured Naples, and laid siege to the Castello Nuovo, where the Queen was. She surrendered. Charles of Duras had her taken to Muro, in the Basilicata, and had her put to death seven or eight months afterward. She was then in her fifty-eighth year.... Some authors say that he caused her to be smothered, others that she was strangled; but the more probable view is that she was beheaded, in 1382, on the 5th of May. It is said that a Provencal astrologer, doubtless a certain Anselme who lived at that time, and who is very famous in the history of Provence, being questioned as to the future husband of the young princess, replied, 'Maritabitur cum ALIO.' This word is composed of the initials of the names of her four husbands, Andrea, Louis, James, and Otto. This princess, furthermore, was exceedingly clever, fond of the sciences and of men of learning, of whom she had a great many at her court, liberal and beautiful, prudent, wise, and not lacking in piety. She it is that sold Avignon to the popes. Boccaccio, Balde, and other scholars of her time speak of her with praise."

In offering an explanation of the great popularity enjoyed by Joanna of Naples among the people of Provence, the poet does not hesitate to acknowledge that along with her beauty, her personal charm, her brilliant arrival on the gorgeous galley at the court of Clement VI, whither she came, eloquent and proud, to exculpate herself, her long reign and its vicissitudes, her generous efforts to reform abuses, must be counted also the grewsome procession of her four husbands; and this popularity, he says, is still alive, after five centuries. The poet places her among such historic figures as Caius Marius, Ossian, King Arthur, Count Raymond of Toulouse, the good King Rene, Anne of Brittany, Roland, the Cid, to which the popular mind has attached heroic legends, race traditions, and mysterious monuments. The people of Provence still look back upon the days of their independence when she reigned, a sort of good fairy, as the good old times of Queen Joanna. Countless castles, bridges, churches, monuments, testify to her life among this enthusiastic people. Roads and ruins, towers and aqueducts, bear her name. Proverbs exist wherein it is preserved. "For us," says Mistral, "the fair Joanna is what Mary Stuart is for the Scotch,—a mirage of retrospective love, a regret of youth, of nationality, of poetry passed away. And analogies are not lacking in the lives of the two royal, tragic enchantresses." Petrarch, speaking of her and her young husband surrounded by Hungarians, refers to them as two lambs among wolves. In a letter dated from Vancluse, August, 1346, he deplores the death of the King, but makes no allusion to the complicity of the Queen.

Boccaccio proclaims her the special pride of Italy, so gracious, gentle, and kindly, that she seemed rather the companion than the queen of her subjects.

Our author cites likewise some of her accusers, and considers most of the current sayings against her as apocryphal. Some of these will not bear quotation in English. Mistral evidently wishes to believe her innocent, and he makes out a pretty good case. He approves the remark of Scipione Ammirato, that she contracted four successive marriages through a desire to have direct heirs. Another notices that had she been dissolute, she would have preferred the liberty of remaining a widow. The poet cites Pope Innocent VI, who gave her the golden rose, and sets great store upon the expression of Saint Catherine of Siena, who calls her "Venerabile madre in Gesu Cristo," and he concludes by saying, "We prefer to concur in the judgment of the good Giannone (1676-1748), which so well agrees with our traditions."

The first act opens with a picture that might tempt a painter of Italian scenes. The Queen and her gay court are seated on the lawn of the palace garden at Naples, overlooking the bay and islands. At the very outset we hear of the Gai Savoir, and the Queen utters the essentially Provencal sentiment that "the chief glory the world should strive for is light, for joy and love are the children of the sun, and art and literature the great torches." She calls upon Anfan of Sisteron to speak to her of her Provence, "the land of God, of song and youth, the finest jewel in her crown," and Anfan, in long and eloquent tirades, tells of Toulouse and Nice and the Isles of Gold, reviews the settling of the Greeks, the domination of the Romans, and the sojourn of the Saracens; Aix and Arles, les Baux, Toulon, are glorified again; we hear of the old liberties of these towns where men sleep, sing, and shout, and of the magnificence of the papal court at Avignon.

"Enfin, en Avignoun, i'a lou papo! grandour Poude, magnificenci, e poumpo e resplendour, Que mestrejon la terro e fan, senso messorgo, Boufa l'alen de Dieu i ribo de la Sorgo."

Lastly, in Avignon, there's the Pope! greatness, power, magnificence, pomp, and splendor, dominating the earth, and without exaggeration, causing the breath of God to blow upon the banks of the Sorgue.

We learn that the brilliancy and animation of the court at Avignon outshine the glories of Rome, and in language that fairly glitters with its high-sounding, highly colored words. We hear of Petrarch and Laura, and the associations of Vaucluse.

At this juncture the Prince arrives, and is struck by the resemblance of the scene to a court of love; he wonders if they are not discussing the question whether love is not drowned in the nuptial holy water font, or whether the lady inspires the lover as much with her presence as when absent. And the Queen defends her mode of life and temperament; she cannot brook the cold and gloomy ways of the north. Were we to apply the methods of Voltaire's strictures of Corneille to this play, it might be interesting to see how many vers de comedie could be found in these scenes of dispute between the prince consort and his light-hearted wife.

"A l'avans! zou! en festo arrouinas lou Tresor!"

Go ahead! that's right, ruin the treasury with your feasts!

and to his objections to so many flattering courtiers, the Queen replies:—

"Voules que moun palais devengue un mounastie?"

Do you want my palace to become a monastery?

Joanna replies nobly and eloquently to the threats of her husband to assume mastery over her by violent means, and, in spite of the anachronism (the poet makes her use and seemingly invent the term Renascence), her defence of the arts and science of her time is forceful and enthusiastic, and carries the reader along. That this sort of eloquence is dramatic, appears, however, rather doubtful.

The next scene interests us more directly in the characters before us. The Prince, left alone with his confidant, Fra Rupert, gives expression to his passionate love for the Queen, and pours forth the bitterness of his soul to see it unrequited. The fierce Hungarian monk denounces, rather justly, it appears to us, the license and levity of the Italian court, and incites Andrea to an appeal to the Pope, "a potentate that has no army, whose dominion extends from pole to pole, who binds and unbinds at his will, upholds, makes, or unmakes thrones as an almighty master."

But Andrea fears the Queen would never pardon him.

"E se noun ai en plen lou meu si caresso, L'emperi universal! m'es un gourg d'amaresso!"

And if I have not fully the honey of her caresses The empire of the world is to me a gulf of bitterness.

Finally the monk and La Catanaise stand alone before us. This woman is the Queen's nurse, who loves her with a fierce sort of passion, and it is she who commits the crime that causes the play to be called a tragedy. This final scene brings out a flood of the most violent vituperation from this veritable virago, some of it exceedingly low in tone. The friar leaves with the threat to have a red-hot nail run through her hellish tongue, and La Catanaise, standing alone, gives vent to her fury in threats of murder.

The next act reveals the Hall of Honor in the Castel-Nuovo at Naples. Andrea in anger proclaims himself king, and in the presence of the Queen and the Italian courtiers gives away one after another all the offices and honors of the realm to his Hungarian followers. A conflict with drawn swords is about to ensue, when the Queen rushes between the would-be combatants, reminding them of the decree of the Pope; but Andrea in fury accuses the Queen of conduct worthy a shameless adventuress, and cites the reports that liken her to Semiramis in her orgies. The Prince of Taranto throws down his glove to the enraged Andrea, who replies by a threat to bring him to the executioner. The Prince of Taranto answers that the executioner may be the supreme law for a king,

"Mai per un qu'a l'ounour dins lou pies e dins l'amo, Uno escorno, cousin, se purgo eme la lamo."

But for one who has honor in his breast and his soul, An insult, cousin, is purged with the sword.

Andrea turns to his knights, and leaving the room with them points to the flag bearing the block and axe as emblems. The partisans of Joanna remain full of indignation. La Catanaise addresses them. The Sicilians, she says, waste no time in words, but have a speedier method of punishing a wrong, and she reminds them of the massacre at Palermo. The Prince of Taranto discountenances the proposed crime, for the Queen's fair name would suffer. But the fierce woman points to the flag. "Do you see that axe hanging from a thread? You are all cowards! Let me act alone." And the Prince nobly replies, "Philippine, battles are fought in the sunlight; men of our renown, men of my stamp, do not crouch down in the dark shadow of a plot." And the Catanaise again shows the flag. "Do you see the axe falling upon the block?"

Joanna enters to offer the Prince her thanks for his chivalrous defence of her fair name, and dismisses the other courtiers. The ensuing brief scene between the Queen and the Prince is really very eloquent and very beautiful. The Queen recalls the fact that she was married at nine to Andrea, then only a child too; and she has never known love. The poorest of the shepherdesses on the mountains of Calabria may quench her thirst at the spring, but she, the Queen of the Sun, if to pass away the time, or to have the appearance of happiness, she loves to listen to the echo of song, to behold the joy and brilliancy of a noble fete, her very smile becomes criminal. And the Prince reminds her that she is the Provencal queen, and that in the great times of that people, if the consort were king, love was a god, and he recalls the names of all the ladies made famous by the Troubadours. Thereupon the Queen in an outburst of enthusiasm truly Felibrean invokes the God of Love, the God that slew Dido, and speaks in the spirit of the days of courtly love, "O thou God of Love, hearken unto me. If my fatal beauty is destined sooner or later to bring about my death, let this flame within me be, at least, the pyre that shall kindle the song of the poet! Let my beauty be the luminous star exalting men's hearts to lofty visions!"

The chivalrous Prince is dismissed, and Joanna is alone with, her thoughts. The little page Dragonet sings outside a plaintive song with the refrain:—

"Que regret! Jamai digues toun secret."

What regret! Never tell thy secret.

La Catanaise endeavors to excite the fears of the Queen, insinuating that the Pope may give the crown to Andrea. Joanna has no fear.

"We shall have but to appear before the country with this splendor of irresistible grace, and like the smoke borne away by the breeze, suddenly my enemies shall disappear."

We may ask whether such self-praise comes gracefully from the Queen herself, whether she might not be less conscious of her own charm. La Catanaise is again alone on the scene, threatening. "The bow is drawn, the hen setting." This last comparison, the reader will remark, would be simply impossible as the termination of an act in a serious English play. This last scene, too, is wofully weak and purposeless.

The conversation of three courtiers at the beginning of Act III apprises us of the fact that the Pope has succeeded in bringing about a reconciliation between the royal pair, and that they are both to be crowned, and as a matter of precaution, the nurse Philippine, and the monk Fra Rupert are to be sent upon their several ways. The scene is next filled by the conspirators, La Catanaise directing the details of the plots. It is made clear that the Queen is utterly ignorant of these proceedings, which are after all useless; for we fail to see what valid motive these plotters have to urge them on to their contemptible deed. A brilliant banquet scene ensues, wherein Anfan of Sisteron sings a song of seven stanzas about the fairy Melusine, and seven times Dragonet sings the refrain, "Sian de la raco di lesert" (We are of the race of the lizards). And there are enthusiastic tirades in praise of the Queen and of Provence, and all is merry. But Andrea spills salt upon the table, which evil augury seems to be taken seriously. This little episode is foolish, and unwrorthy of a tragedy. We are on the verge of an assassination. Either the gloomy forebodings and the terror of the event should be impressed upon us, or the exaggerated gayety and high spirits of the revellers should by contrast make the coming event seem more terrible; but the spilling of salt is utterly trivial. After the feast La Catanaise and her daughter proceed to their devilish work, in the room now lighted only by the pale rays of the moon, while the voice of the screech-owl is heard outside. The trap is set for the King; he is strangled just out of sight with the silken noose. The Queen is roused by her nurse. The palace is in an uproar, and the act terminates with a passionate demand for vengeance and justice on the part of Fra Rupert.

And now the Fourth Act. Here Mistral is in his element; here his love of rocky landscapes, of azure seas and golden islands, of song and festivity, finds full play. The tragedy is forgotten, the dramatic action completely interrupted,—never mind. We accompany the Queen on her splendid galley all the way from Naples to Marseilles. She leaves amid the acclamations of the Neapolitans, recounts the splendors of the beautiful bay, and promises to return "like the star of night coming out of the mist, laurel in hand, on the white wings of her Provencal galley." The boat starts, the rowers sing their plaintive rhythmic songs, the Queen is enraptured by the beauty of the fleeing shores, the white sail glistens in the glorious blue above. She is lulled by the motion of the boat and the waving of the hangings of purple and gold. Midway on her journey she receives a visit from the Infante of Majorca, James of Aragon, who seems to be wandering over that part of the sea; then the astrologer Anselme predicts her marriage with Alio and her death. She shall be visited with the sins of her ancestors; the blood spilled by Charles of Anjou cries for vengeance. The Queen passes through a moment of gloom. She dispels it, exclaiming: "Be it so, strike where thou wilt, O fate, I am a queen; I shall fight, if need be, until death, to uphold my cause and my womanly honor. If my wild planet is destined to sink in a sea of blood and tears, the glittering trace I shall leave on the earth will show at least that I was worthy to be thy great queen, O brilliant Provence!"

She descends into the ship, and the rowers resume their song. Later we arrive at Nice, where the Queen is received by an exultant throng. She forgets the awful predictions and is utterly filled with delight. She will visit all the cities where she is loved, her ambition is to see her flag greeted all along the Mediterranean with shouts of joy and love. She feels herself to be a Provencale. "Come, people, here I am; breathe me in, drink me in! It is sweet to me to be yours, and sweet to please you; and you may gaze in love and admiration upon me, for I am your queen!"

The journey is resumed. We pass the Isles of Gold, and the raptures are renewed. At Marseilles the Queen is received by the Consuls, and swears solemnly to respect all the rights, customs, and privileges of the land, and the Consul exacts as the last oath that she swear to see that the noble speech of Arles shall be maintained and spoken in the land of Provence. The act closes with the sentiment, "May Provence triumph in every way!"

The last act brings us to the great hall of the papal palace at Avignon, where the Pope is to pronounce judgment upon the Queen. Fra Rupert, disguised as a pilgrim, harangues the throng, and two Hungarian knights are beaten in duel by Galeas of Mantua. This duel, with its alternate cries of Dau! Dau! Te! Te! Zou! Zou! is difficult to take seriously and reminds us of Tartarin. The Queen enters in conversation with Petrarch. The Hungarian knights utter bitter accusations against the Queen, who gives them in place of iron chains the golden chains about her neck, whereupon the knights gallantly declare their hearts are won forever. The doors open at the back and we see the papal court. Bertrand des Baux gives a hideous account of the torture and death of those who had a hand in the death of Andrea. The Queen makes a long speech, expressing her deep grief at the calumnies and slander that beset her. The court and people resolve themselves into a kind of opera chorus, expressing their various sentiments in song. The Queen next reviews her life with Andrea, and concludes:—

"And it seemed to me noble and worthy of a queen to melt with a glance the cold of the frost, to make the almond tree blossom with a smile, to be amiable to all, affable, generous, and lead my people with a thread of wool! Yes, all the thought of my mad youth was to be loved and to reign by the power of love. Who could have foretold that, afterward, on the day of the great disaster, all this should be made a reproach against me! that I should be accused, at the age of twenty, of instigating an awful crime!"

And she breaks down weeping. The page, the people, the pilgrim, and the astrologer again sing in a sort of operatic ensemble their various emotions. The Pope absolves the Queen, the pilgrim denounces the verdict furiously, and is put to death by Galeas of Mantua. So ends the play.

La Reino Jano is a pageant rather than a tragedy. It is full of song and sunshine, glow and glitter. The characters all talk in the exaggerated and exuberant style of Mistral, who is not dramatist enough to create independent being, living before us. The central personage is in no sense a tragic character. The fanatical Fra Rupert and the low, vile-tongued Catanaise are not tragic characters. The psychology throughout is decidedly upon the surface.

The author in his introduction warns us that to judge this play we must place ourselves at the point of view of the Provencals, in whom many an expression or allusion that leaves the ordinary reader or spectator untouched, will possibly awaken, as he hopes, some particular emotion. This is true of all his literature; the Provencal language, the traditions, the memories of Provence, are the web and woof of it all.

It is interesting to note the impression made by the language upon a Frenchman and a critic of the rank of Jules Lemaitre. He says in concluding his review of this play:—

"The language is too gay, it has too much sing-song, it is too harmonious. It does not possess the rough gravity of the Spanish, and has too few of the i's and e's that soften the sonority of the Italian. I may venture to say it is too expressive, too full of onomatopoeia. Imagine a language, in which to say, "He bursts out laughing," one must use the word s'escacalasso! There are too many on's and oun's and too much ts and dz in the pronunciation. So that the Provencal language, in spite of everything, keeps a certain patois vulgarity. It forces the poet, so to say, to perpetual song-making. It must be very difficult, in that language, to have an individual style, still more difficult to express abstract ideas. But it is a merry language."

The play has never yet been performed, and until a trial is made, one is inclined to think it would not be effective, except as a spectacle. It is curious that the Troubadours produced no dramatic literature whatever, and that the same lack is found in the modern revival.

Aubanel's Lou Pan dou Pecat (The Bread of Sin), written in 1863, and performed in 1878 at Montpellier, seems to have been successful, and was played at Paris at the Theatre Libre in 1888, in the verse-translation made by Paul Arene. Aubanel wrote two other plays, Lou Pastre, which is lost, and Lou Raubaton, a work that must be considered unfinished. Two plays, therefore, constitute the entire dramatic production in the new language.



PART THIRD

CONCLUSIONS



CONCLUSIONS

It would be idle to endeavor to determine whether Mistral is to be classed as a great poet, or whether the Felibres have produced a great literature, and nothing is defined when the statement is made that Mistral is or is not a great poet. His genius may be said to be limited geographically, for if from it were eliminated all that pertains directly to Provence, the remainder would be almost nothing. The only human nature known to the poet is the human nature of Provence, and while it is perfectly true that a human being in Provence could be typical of human nature in general, and arouse interest in all men through his humanity common to all, the fact is, that Mistral has not sought to express what is of universal interest, but has invariably chosen to present human life in its Provencal aspects and from one point of view only. A second limitation is found in the unvarying exteriority of his method of presenting human nature. Never does he probe deeply into the souls of his Provencals. Very vividly indeed does he reproduce their words and gestures; but of the deeper under-currents, the inner conflicts, the agonies of doubt and indecision, the bitterness of disappointments, the lofty aspirations toward a higher inner life or a closer communion with the universe, the moral problems that shake a human soul, not a syllable. Nor is he a poet who pours out his own soul into verse.

External nature is for him, again, nature as seen in Provence. The rocks and trees, the fields and the streams, do not awaken in him a stir of emotions because of their power to compel a mood in any responsive poetic soul, but they excite him primarily as the rocks and trees, the fields and streams of his native region. He is no mere word-painter. Rarely do his descriptions appear to exist for their own sake. They furnish a necessary, fitting, and delightful background to the action of his poems. They are too often indications of what a Provencal ought to consider admirable or wonderful, they are sometimes spoiled by the poet's excessive partiality for his own little land. His work is ever the work of a man with a mission.

There is no profound treatment of the theme of love. Each of the long poems and his play have a love story as the centre of interest, but the lovers are usually children, and their love utterly without complications. There is everywhere a lovely purity, a delightful simplicity, a straightforward naturalness that is very charming, but in this theme as in the others, Mistral is incapable of tragic depths and heights. So it is as regards the religious side of man's nature. The poet's work is filled with allusions to religion; there are countless legends concerning saints and hermits, descriptions of churches and the papal palace, there is the detailed history of the conversion of Provence to Christianity, but the deepest religious spirit is not his. Only twice in all his work do we come upon a profounder religious sense, in the second half of Lou Prego-Dieu and in Lou Saume de la Penitenci. There is no doubt that Mistral is a believer, but religious feeling has not a large place in his work; there are no other meditations upon death and destiny.

And this ame du Midi, spirit of Provence, the genius of his race that he has striven to express, what is it? How shall it be defined or formulated? Alphonse Daudet, who knew it, and loved it, whose Parisian life and world-wide success did not destroy in him the love of his native Provence, who loved the very food of the Midi above all others, and jumped up in joy when a southern intonation struck his ear, and who was continually beset with longings to return to the beloved region, has well defined it. He was the friend of Mistral and followed the poet's efforts and achievements with deep and affectionate interest. It is not difficult to see that the satire in the "Tartarin" series is not unkind, nor is it untrue. Daudet approved of the Felibrige movement, though what he himself wrote in Provencal is insignificant. He believed that the national literature could be best vivified by those who most loved their homes, that the best originality could thus be attained. He has said:[17]—

"The imagination of the southerners differs from that of the northerners in that it does not mingle the different elements and forms in literature, and remains lucid in its outbreaks. In our most complex natures you never encounter the entanglement of directions, relations, and figures that characterizes a Carlyle, a Browning, or a Poe. For this reason the man of the north always finds fault with the man of the south for his lack of depth and darkness.

"If we consider the most violent of human passions, love, we see that the southerner makes it the great affair of his life, but does not allow himself to become disorganized. He likes the talk that goes with it, its lightness, its change. He hates the slavery of it. It furnishes a pretext for serenades, fine speeches, light scoffing, caresses. He finds it difficult to comprehend the joining together of love and death, which lies in the northern nature, and casts a shade of melancholy upon these brief delights."

Daudet notes the ease with which the southerner is carried away and duped by the mirage of his own fancy, his semi-sincerity in excitement and enthusiasm. He admired the natural eloquence of his Provencals. He found a justification for their exaggerations.

"Is it right to accuse a man of lying, who is intoxicated with his own eloquence, who, without evil intent, or love of deceit, or any instinct of scheming or false trading, seeks to embellish his own life, and other people's, with stories he knows to be illusions, but which he wishes were true? Is Don Quixote a liar? Are all the poets deceivers who aim to free us from realities, to go soaring off into space? After all, among southerners, there is no deception. Each one, within himself, restores things to their proper proportions."

Daudet had Mistral's love of the sunshine. He needed it to inspire him. He believed it explained the southern nature.

Concerning the absence of metaphysics in the race he says:—

"These reasonings may culminate in a state of mind such as we see extolled in Buddhism, a colorless state, joyless and painless, across which the fleeting splendors of thought pass like stars. Well, the man of the south cares naught for that sort of paradise. The vein of real sensation is freely, perpetually open, open to life. The side that pertains to abstraction, to logic, is lost in mist."

We have referred to the power of story-telling among the Provencals and their responsiveness as listeners. Daudet mentions the contrast to be observed between an audience of southerners and the stolid, self-contained attitude of a crowd in the north.

The evil side of the southern temperament, the faults that accompany these traits, are plainly stated by the great novelist. Enthusiasm turns to hypocrisy, or brag; the love of what glitters, to a passion for luxury at any cost; sociability, the desire to please, become weakness and fulsome flattery. The orator beats his breast, his voice is hoarse, choked with emotion, his tears flow conveniently, he appeals to patriotism and the noblest sentiments. There is a legend, according to Daudet, which says that when Mirabeau cried out, "We will not leave unless driven out at the point of the bayonet," a voice off at one side corrected the utterance, murmuring sarcastically, "And if the bayonets come, we make tracks!"

The southerner, when he converses, is roused to animation readily. His eye flashes, his words are uttered with strong intonations, the impressiveness of a quiet, earnest, self-contained manner is unknown to him.

Daudet is a novelist and a humorist. Mistral is a poet; hence, although he professes to aim at a full expression of the "soul of his Provence," there are many aspects of the Provencal nature that he has not touched upon. He has omitted all the traits that lend themselves to satirical treatment, and, although he is in many ways a remarkable realist, he has very little dramatic power, and seems to lack the gift of searching analysis of individual character. It is hardly fair to reckon it as a shortcoming in the poet and apostle of Provence that he presents only what is most beautiful in the life about him. The novelist offers us a faithful and vivid image of the men of his own day. The poet glorifies the past, clings to tradition, and exhorts his countrymen to return to it.

Essentially and above all else a conservative, Mistral has the gravest doubts about so-called modern progress. Undoubtedly honest in desiring the well-being of his fellow Provencals, he believes that this can be preserved or attained only by a following of tradition. There must be no breaking with the past. Daudet, late in life, adhered to this doctrine. His son quotes him as saying:—

"I am following, with gladness, the results of the impulse Mistral has given. Return to tradition! that is our salvation in the present going to pieces. I have always felt this instinctively. It came to me clearly only a few years ago. It is a bad thing to become wholly loosened from the soil, to forget the village church spire. Curiously enough poetry attaches only to objects that have come down to us, that have had long use. What is called progress, a vague and very doubtful term, rouses the lower parts of our intelligence. The higher parts vibrate the better for what has moved and inspired a long series of imaginative minds, inheriting each from a predecessor, strengthened by the sight of the same landscapes, by the same perfumes, by the touch of the same furniture, polished by wear. Very ancient impressions sink into the depth of that obscure memory which we may call the race-memory, out of which is woven the mass of individual memories."

Mistral is truly the poet of the Midi. One can best see how superior he is as an artist in words by comparing him with the foremost of his fellow-poets. He is a master of language. He has the eloquence, the enthusiasm, the optimism of his race. His poetic earnestness saves his tendency to exaggerate. His style, in all its superiority, is a southern style, full of interjections, full of long, sonorous words. His thought, his expressions, are ever lucid. His art is almost wholly objective. His work has extraordinary unity, and therefore does not escape the monotony that was unavoidable when the poet voluntarily limited himself to a single purpose in life, and to treatment of the themes thereunto pertaining. Believers in material progress, those who look for great changes in political and social conditions, will turn from Mistral with indifference. His contentment with present things, and his love of the past, are likely to irritate them. Those who seek in a poet consolation in the personal trials of life, a new message concerning human destiny, a new note in the everlasting themes that the great poets have sung, will be disappointed.

A word must be said of him as a writer of French. In the earlier years he felt the weight of the Academy. He did not feel that French would allow full freedom. He was scrupulous and timid. He soon shook off this timidity and became a really remarkable wielder of the French tongue. His translations of his own works have doubtless reached a far wider public than the works themselves, and are certainly characterized by great boldness, clearness, and an astonishingly large vocabulary.

His earlier work is clearly inspired by his love of Greek literature, and those qualities in Latin literature wherein the Greek genius shines through, possibly also by some mysterious affinity with the Greek spirit resulting from climate or atavism. This never entirely left him. When later he writes of Provence in the Middle Age, of the days of the Troubadours, his manner does not change; his work offers no analogies here with the French Romantic school.

No poet, it would seem, was ever so in love with his own language; no artist ever so loved the mere material he was using. Mistral loves the words he uses, he loves their sound, he loves to hear them from the lips of those about him; he loves the intonations and the cadences of his verse; his love is for the speech itself aside from any meaning it conveys. A beautiful instrument it is indeed. Possibly nothing is more peculiarly striking about him than this extreme enthusiasm for his golden speech, his lengo d'or.

To him must be conceded the merit of originality, great originality. In seeking the source of many of his conceptions, one is led to the conclusion, and his own testimony bears it out, that they are the creations of his own fancy. If there is much prosaic realism in the Poem of the Rhone, the Prince and the Anglore are purely the children of Mistral's almost naive imagination, and Calendau and Esterello are attached to the real world of history by the slenderest bonds. When we seek for resemblances between his conceptions and those of other poets, we can undoubtedly find them. Mireille now and then reminds of Daphnis and Chloe, of Hermann and Dorothea, of Evangeline, but the differences are far more in evidence than the resemblances. Esterello is in an attitude toward Calendau not without analogy to that of Beatrice toward Dante, but it would be impossible to find at any point the slightest imitation of Dante. Some readers have been reminded of Faust in reading Nerto, but beyond the scheme of the Devil to secure a woman's soul, there is little similarity. Nothing could be more utterly without philosophy than Nerto. Mistral has drawn his inspirations from within himself; he has not worked over the poems and legends of former poets, or sought much of his subject-matter in the productions of former ages. He has not suffered from the deep reflection, the pondering, and the doubt that destroy originality.

If Mistral had written his poems in French, he would certainly have stood apart from the general line of French poets. It would have been impossible to attach him to any of the so-called "schools" of poetry that have followed one another during this century in France. He is as unlike the Romantics as he is unlike the Parnassians. M. Brunetiere would find no difficulty in applying to his work the general epithet of "social" that so well characterizes French literature considered in its main current, for Mistral always sings to his fellow-men to move them, to persuade them, to stir their hearts. Almost all of his poems in the lyrical form show him as the spokesman of his fellows or as the leader urging them to action. He is therefore not of the school of "Art for Art's sake," but his art is consecrated to the cause he represents.

His thought is ever pure and high; his lessons are lessons of love, of noble aims, of energy and enthusiasm. He is full of love for the best in the past, love of his native soil, love of his native landscapes, love of the men about him, love of his country. He is a poet of the "Gai Saber," joyous and healthy, he has never felt a trace of the bitterness, the disenchantment, the gloom and the pain of a Byron or a Leopardi. He is eminently representative of the race he seeks to glorify in its own eyes and in the world's, himself a type of that race at its very best, with all its exuberance and energy, with its need of outward manifestation, life and movement. An important place must be assigned to him among those who have bodied forth their poetic conceptions in the various euphonious forms of speech descended from the ancient speech of Rome.

In Provence, and far beyond its borders, he is known and loved. His activity has not ceased. His voice is still heard, clear, strong, hopeful, inspiring. Mireille is sung in the ruined Roman theatre at Aries, museums are founded to preserve Provencal art and antiquities, the Felibrean feasts continue with unabated enthusiasm. Mistral's life is a successful life; he has revived a language, created a literature, inspired a people. So potent is art to-day in the old land of the Troubadours. All the charm and beauty of that sunny land, all that is enchanting in its past, all the best, in the ideal sense, that may be hoped for in its future, is expressed in his musical, limpid, lovely verse. Such a poet and such a leader of men is rare in the annals of literature. Such complete oneness of purpose and of achievement is rare among men.

[Footnote 17: See Revue de Paris, 15 avril, 1898.]



APPENDIX

We offer here a literal prose translation of the Psalm of Penitence.

THE PSALM OF PENITENCE

I

Lord, at last thy wrath hurleth its thunderbolts upon our foreheads, and in the night our vessel strikes its prow against the rocks.

Lord, thou cuttest us down with the sword of the barbarian like fine wheat, and not one of the cravens that we shielded comes to our defence.

Lord, thou twistest us like a willow wand, thou breakest down to-day all our pride; there is none to envy us, who but yesterday were so proud.

Lord, our land goeth to ruin in war and strife; and if thou withhold thy mercy, great and small will devour one another.

Lord, thou art terrible, thou strikest us upon the back; in awful turmoil thou breakest our power, compelling us to confess past evil.

II

Lord, we had strayed away from the austerity of the old laws and ways. Virtues, domestic customs, we had destroyed and demolished.

Lord, giving an evil example, and denying thee like the heathen, we had one day closed up thy temples and mocked thy Holy Christ.

Lord, leaving behind us thy sacraments and commandments, we had brutally lost belief in all but self-interest and progress!

Lord, in the waste heavens we have clouded thy light with our smoke, and to-day the sons mock the nakedness and purity of their fathers.

Lord, we have blown upon thy Bible with the breath of false knowledge; and holding ourselves up like the poplar trees, we wretched beings have declared ourselves gods.

Lord, we have left the furrow, we have trampled all respect under foot; and with the heavy wine that intoxicates us we defile the innocent.

III

Lord, we are thy prodigal children, but we are thy Christians of old; let thy justice chastise us, but give us not over unto death.

Lord, in the name of so many brave men, who went forth fearless, valiant, docile, grave, and then fell in battle;

Lord, in the name of so many mothers, who are about to pray to God for their sons, and who next year, alas! and the year thereafter, shall see them no more;

Lord, in the name of so many women who have at their bosoms a little child, and who, poor creatures, moisten the earth and the sheets of their beds with tears;

Lord, in the name of the poor, in the name of the strong, in the name of the dead who shall die for their country, their duty, and their faith;

Lord, for so many defeats, so many tears and woes, for so many towns ravaged, for so much brave, holy blood;

Lord, for so many adversities, for so much mourning throughout our France, for so many insults upon our heads;

IV

Lord, disarm thy justice. Cast down thine eye upon us, and heed the cries of the bruised and wounded!

Lord, if the rebellious cities, through their luxury and folly, have overturned the scale-pan of thy balance, resisting and denying thee;

Lord, before the breath of the Alps, that praiseth God winter and summer, all the trees of the fields, obedient, bow together;

Lord, France and Provence have sinned only through forgetfulness; do thou forgive us our offences, for we repent of the evil of former days.

Lord, we desire to become men, thou canst set us free. We are Gallo-Romans, and of noble race, and we walk upright in our land.

Lord, we are not the cause of the evil, send down upon us a ray of peace. Lord, help our cause, and we shall live again and love thee.



THE PRESENT CAPOULIE OF THE FELIBRIGE.

M. Pierre Devoluy, of the town of Die, was elected at Arles, in April, 1901. The Consistory was presided over by Mistral.



BIBLIOGRAPHY

The following list contains the most important works that have been published concerning Mistral and the Felibrige. Numerous articles have appeared in nearly all the languages of Europe in various magazines. Of these only such are mentioned as seem worthy of special notice.

WORKS CONCERNING THE FELIBRIGE IN GENERAL

America

JANVIER, THOMAS A., Numerous articles in the Century Magazine, New York, 1893, and following years.

An Embassy to Provence. New York, 1893.

PRESTON, HARRIETT, Mistral's Calendau. The Atlantic Monthly, New York, 1874.

Aubanel's Miougrano entreduberto. The Atlantic Monthly, New York, 1874.

England

CRAIG, DUNCAN, Miejour Provencal Legend, Life, Language, and Literature. London.

The Handbook of the Modern Provencal Language.

CROMBIE, J.W., The Poets and Peoples of Foreign Lands: Frederic Mistral. Elliot, London, 1890.

HARTOG, CECIL, Poets of Provence. London Contemporary Review, 1894.

France

BOISSIN, FIRMIN, Le Midi litteraire contemporain. Douladoure, Toulouse, 1887.

DE BOUCHAUD, Roumanille et le Felibrige. Mougin, Lyons, 1896.

BRUN, C., L'Evolution felibreenne. Paquet, Lyons, 1896.

DONNADIEU, F., Les Precurseurs des Felibres. Quantin, Paris, 1888.

HENNION, C., Les Fleurs felibresques. Paris, 1893.

JOURDANNE, G., Histoire du Felibrige. Roumanille, Avignon, 1897.

LINTILHAC, E., Les Felibres a travers leur monde et leur poesie. Lemerre, Paris, 1895.

Precis de la litterature francaise. Paris, 1890.

LEGRE, L., Le Poete Theodore Aubanel. Paris, 1894.

MARGON, A. DE, Les Precurseurs des Felibres. Beziers, 1891.

MARIETON, PAUL, La Terre provencale. Lemerre, Paris, 1894.

Article Felibrige in the Grande Encyclopedie.

Article Mistral in the Grande Encyclopedie.

MICHEL, S., La Petite Patrie. Roumanille, Avignon, 1894.

NOULET, B., Essai sur l'histoire litteraire des patois du midi de la France, aux VIIIe siecle. Montpellier, 1877.

PARIS, GASTON, Penseurs et poetes. Calmann-Levy, Paris, 1896.

RESTORI, Histoire de la litterature provencale depuis les temps les plus recules jusqu'a nos jours. Montpellier, 1895. (Translated from the Italian.)

ROQUE-FERRIER, A., Melanges de critique litteraire et de philologie. Montpellier, 1892.

SAINT-RENE-TAILLANDIER, V., Etudes litteraires. Plon et Cie, Paris, 1881.

TAVERNIER, E., La Renaissance provencale et Roumanille. Gervais, Paris, 1884.

Le mouvement litteraire provencal et Lis Isclo d'Or de Frederic Mistral. Aix, 1876.

DE TERRIS, J., Roumanille et la litterature provencale. Blond, Paris, 1894.

DE VINAC, M., Les Felibres. Richaud, Gap, 1882.

Germany

BOeHMER, E., Die provenzalische Dichtung der Gegenwart. Heilbronn, 1870.

KOSCHWITZ, E., Ueber die provenzalischen Feliber und ihre Vorgaenger. Berlin, 1894.

Grammaire historique de la langue des Felibres. Greifswald and Paris, 1894.

A study of Bertuch's translation of Nerto in the Litteraturblatt fuer germanische und romanische Philologie. 1892.

A study of Provencal phonetics with a translation of the Cant dou Souleu. Sonderabdruck aus der Zeitschrift fuer franzoesische Sprache und Litteratur. Berlin, 1893.

SCHNEIDER, B., Bemerkungen zur litterarischen Bewegung auf neuprovenzalischem Sprachgebiete. Berlin, 1887.

WELTER, N., Frederi Mistral, der Dichter der Provence. Marburg, 1899.[18]

Italy

LICER, MARIA, I Felibri, in the Roma letteraria. June, 1893.

PORTAL, E., Appunti letterari: Sulla poesia provenzale. Pedone, Palermo, 1890.

La Letteratura provenzale moderna. Reber, Palermo, 1893.

Scritti vari di letteratura classica provenzale moderna. Reber, Palermo, 1895.

RESTORI, A., Letteratura provenzale. Hoepli, Milan, 1892.

ZUCCARO, L., Un avvenimento letterario; Mistral tragico in the Scena illustrata. Florence, 1891.

Il Felibrigio, rinascimento delle lettere provenzali, Concordia. Novara, 1892.

Spain

TUBINO, Historia del renacimiento literario contemporaneo en Cataluna, Baleares y Valencia. Madrid, 1881.

MISTRAL'S WORKS

Mireio. 1859.

Calendau. Avignon, 1867. Paris, Lemerre, 1887.

Lis Isclo d'Or. 1876.

Nerto. Hachette, Paris, 1884.

Lou Tresor dou Febrige. Aix, 1886.

La Reino Jano. Lemerre, Paris, 1890.

Lou Pouemo dou Rose. Lemerre, Paris, 1897.

TRANSLATIONS OF MISTRAL'S WORKS

H. GRANT, An English Version of F. Mistral's Mireio from the Original Provencal. London.

HARRIETT PRESTON, Mistral's Mireio. A Provencal Poem Translated. Roberts Bros., Boston, 1872. Second edition, 1891.

A. BERTUCH, Der Trommler von Arcole. Deutsche Dichtung, Dresden, 1890.

Nerto. Truebner, Strassburg, 1890.

Mireio. Truebner, Strassburg, 1892.

Espouscado. Zeitschrift fuer franzoesische Sprache und Litteratur, XV2, p. 267.

THE END