726 



PROTHKEITE PROVENCAL. 



and to sleep at mid-day, sometimes on the desert 

 island of I'luiros, near the western mouth of the 

 Nile, ami sometimes on the opposite side of the 

 Mediterranean, in Carpathus (the modern Scar- 

 panto), between Crete and Rhodes. He prophesied 

 only when compelled by force and art. He tried 

 every means to elude those who consulted him, and 

 changed himself, after the manner of the sea-gods, 

 into every shape, into beasts, trees, and even into 

 fire and water. But whoever boldly held him fast, 

 to such a one he revealed whatever he wished to 

 know, whether past, present, or future. Thus 

 Menelaus surprised him (Odyssey, iv, 351 ), and com- 

 pelled him to aid him by his prophecies and his 

 counsel. Homer calls Proteus Egyptian, either in 

 the literal sense, or to signify that he lived in the 

 neighbourhood of the river Egyptus. Later writers 

 represented Proteus as a king in the time of the 

 Trojan war, who, either by divine skill, or by an 

 artful change of the ornaments of his head, could 

 assume various forms. According to other accounts, 

 which, perhaps, Virgil had in view, Proteus was a 

 deified sorcerer of Pallene, a peninsula of Emathia 

 or Macedonia. Disturbed by the profligacy of his 

 sons, he went, in the time of Hercules, under the 

 sea to Egypt, and in that unfrequented part of the 

 sea kept the sea-calves of his master Neptune, who 

 Had given him the wonderful power of prophesying. 

 The later mystics made him an emblem of primeval 

 matter, and he is thus represented in the 24th Or- 

 phic hymn. This mortal-born sea-god now became 

 a son of Neptune and Phoenice, or of old Oceanus 

 himself and Tethys. Psamathe was his wife, by whom 

 he had many sons and daughters, whose names are 

 differently given. Any one who hastily changes his 

 principles is, from this old sea-god, called a Proteus. 



PROTHEEITE; a new mineral, found in the 

 valley of Zillerthal, in the Tyrol. It occurs in rec- 

 tangular prisms, with faces longitudinally striated; 

 colour chrysolite-green ; lustre between glass and 

 diamond; heavy; scratches glass; infusible before 

 the blow-pipe, and is electric by friction. 



PROTOCOL (from the Latin protocollum); a re- 

 cord or register. In French, protocol means the 

 prescribed formula for instruments accompanying 

 certain transactions, and in German it signifies the 

 minutes of any transaction. In the latter sense the 

 word has, of late, been received into international 

 law, and we hear much of the London protocols 

 respecting Greece, Belgium, &c. The word comes 

 from the Greek, and is used as early as in the for- 

 tieth novel of Justinian, which forbids the cutting 

 the protocollum of charters a short note, showing 

 the year in which the paper or parchment was made, 

 and the officer commissioned for the delivery of the 

 instruments, by means of which frauds were fre- 

 quently detected. See Du Fresne's Glossary. 



PROTOGENES; a Greek painter, contemporary 

 with Apelles, according to some, born in Rhodes, ac- 

 cording to others, in Caria. (See dpelles.) Several 

 master-pieces of his are mentioned, particularly a 

 picture of Jalysus, who is said to have been the 

 founder of the city of Rhodes. In this picture a 

 hound was represented panting, and with froth on 

 his mouth. Pliny relates, that for a long time the 

 painter was unable to satisfy himself in the execu- 

 tion of the froth; but that, at last, in a fit of anger, 

 he threw the sponge, with which ho used to wipe 

 off the colours, on the painting, and thus accident- 

 ally produced a natural representation of it. This 

 picture saved the city of Rhodes, when it was be- 

 sieged by Demetrius. In the time of Cicero it was 

 still in that city, but Cassius carried it to Rome, and 

 placed it in the tempie of Peace, in which it was 

 burnt during the reign of Commodus. 



PROTRACTOR. An instrument for laying 

 down and measuring angles on paper with accuracy 

 and despatch, and by which the use of the line of 

 chords is superseded. It is of various forms semi- 

 circular, rectangular or circular. 



PROVENCAL POETS were romantic poets of 

 chivalry, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in 

 the south of France and in Spain. These southern 

 countries at that time bore the common name of Pro- 

 vence, which included, beside the country situated 

 between the Rhone and the Var, Languedoc, Gas- 

 cony, Auvergne and Burgundy. They were united in 

 the beginning of the twelfth century, under Raymond 

 Berengarius IV., previously count of Barcelona or 

 Catalonia, and by marriage, count of Provence (as 

 such, Raymond Berengarius I.), and afterwardscom- 

 prehended also Arragon, and a great part of the south 

 of Spain. The people were called Provencaux, and 

 were separated from the less polished French by the 

 Loire. Southern France, already refined by colonies 

 from Greece, and by its vicinity to the Romans, fa- 

 voured with a milder climate and a freer government, 

 was, until the eleventh century, far in advance of the 

 north in civilization, and possessed a language com- 

 posed of Roman and Teutonic words, and so much 

 distinguished for clearness, tenderness, sweetness 

 and copiousness, that it was spoken by the higher 

 classes even in Catalonia, Valencia, Majorca, &c. 

 The language, the cultivation of the nobles by their 

 intercourse with the East, particularly with the 

 poetical Arabs, an imagination awakened, and an 

 understanding enlarged by travel and adventure, a 

 romantic spirit, and the wealth produced by com- 

 merce, all these circumstances contributed to foster 

 genius and to produce poetry. The poet sang of 

 war and adventures, religion and love, and found 

 encouragement and applause, particularly from the 

 ladies, who were celebrated in his verses. The 

 taste for poetry became general among the nobles 

 and cultivated classes in Provence, and the princes, 

 particularly Raymond Berengarius III. and V., favor- 

 ed the poetical art. In their court, at that time the 

 most refined and splendid in Europe, it was cus- 

 tomary to collect a circle of noble poets. Poetry 

 and song, accompanied by the lute, harp, or viol, 

 were demanded at every feast, and many persons 

 therefore wandered about to enliven festivals with 

 such accompaniments. The words Provencal and 

 poet became almost synonymous. Their* songs, 

 which were in rhyme, and which often proceeded 

 less from poetic inspiration than from a spirit of 

 imitation, are divided into three principal classes : 

 1. Canzonets, love songs and joyful (soulas), plain- 

 tive (Ms), pastoral (pastourelles) , and religious or 

 didactic songs ; 2. Sirventes, songs in honour of 

 heroes and princes, in which class were included 

 patriotic and war songs ; 3. Tensons, sometimes on 

 questions of gallantry, which were recited in the 

 courts of love (cours d'amour). The favourite sub- 

 jects were love and ladies ; and the poets endea- 

 voured to rival each other in the praises of their 

 mistresses ; but they were less tender and chaste 

 than the German Minnesingers, (q. v.) Although 

 their poems, as a whole, are not much to our taste, 

 they contain occasional fine passages (which must 

 be read in the original, as their principal charm 

 consists in the expression), and although they have 

 little true poetical merit, as they consist rather of 

 fantastic conceits and hackneyed rhymes, than of 

 the outpourings of an elevated soul, yet it is not to 

 be denied that they were of great advantage to that 

 age, by forming the mind, enriching the language, 

 exciting men to action, and ladies to make them- 

 selves worthy of love. The Provencal poets were 

 also called Romans, and the Provengal language 



