1890-91.] CELTIC, ROMAN AND GREEK TYPES. 193 



objection to her first and only love, weak from the illness which has con- 

 fined her to her room, she leaves her home, alone, at night ; she crosses 

 the plains of La Crau, helped on the way by a fisherboy who ferries her 

 across the Rhone, and, half-famished and blinded by the sun which beats 

 too fiercely on her unhappy head, she faints as she reaches the church, 

 when in a trance she sees the Three Maries, who calmly and benignly 

 speak to her, and give her their divine and saintly comfort. She is 

 carried from the crypt to the sacristy. Her parents, who have called all 

 their dependents to aid their search, and have followed her traces, now 

 arrive, also her lover, who has surmised where she would be. Their 

 pride relents before such evident affection, suffering, and devotion, but 

 too late ; the hot sun has struck the troubled brain too fiercely, and with 

 the light of her heavenly vision in her eyes, and her lover's kiss upon her 

 lips, her soul takes wing. 



This charming poem had not even seen the light when a translation 

 was demanded, and it was republished, with a literal rendering into 

 French, and a dedication to Lamartine. Since that time it has become 

 known to all the world, and there are, I find, two English translations in 

 our Public Library. From that of Mr. M. Crichton I will quote one of 

 the songs — given at a rustic gathering at Mireids home — prefacing it 

 with a few words only. It was common among the Greeks* to compose 

 poems in which two persons spoke to each other a verse in turn. The 

 Romans copied this practice, and perhaps the best known Latin example 

 is the Horatian " Donee grains eram tibi'^ which has been translated by 

 many English scholars, including Professor Goldwin Smith.f Among 

 the Troubadours this form was so usual that it was called a Tenson^ 

 probably from the Latin word contensio, and thus, you see, Mistral is 

 strictly in the line of the Troubadours. We ought to call the lay an 

 anbade, not a serenade, and Mistral does so call it, but the translator has 

 used a word which the English better understand, for in these days of gas 

 such airs are thought of as evening melodies, not as early matin-songs. \ 



* Theocritus, Idylls, 

 t Et cantare paves, et respondere parati. — Virg., Eel. VII. 



Incipe Damoeta, tu deinde sequere Menalca 



Alternis dicetis ; amant alterna Camcenoe. — Virg., Ed. III. 



X In 1854, an association was formed to preserve the language of Provence and the South 

 of I'rance ; also to honor the present and past poets and other celebrated men of that 

 region. The members of this association are called F^libres, and the union is called the F^li- 

 brige. " La Felibrige," writes Henry Fouquier, " est un mouvement uniquement litteraire * * 

 pour sauver les langues locales du Midi. Sept poetes, dont les trois plus cel^bres sont Mistraj 

 que tons ont lu, Aubanel, Hunel et Chenier proven9al et le satirique Roumanille — eafioulie 

 actuel — se r^unirent pour d<5fendre et propager la vieille langue proven9ale, dont lis ont donn6 

 la grammaire et le dictionnaire, en menie temps qu'ils s'en servaient pour ^crire leurs poemes, 

 ^rudits et pontes tout ensemble. lis prirent le nom de felibre si doux et si vibrant, qui signifie 

 po^te, sage, maltre." 



