Mirèio/Canto VIII

by Frederic Mistral

 

CANTO VIII.

 

LA CRAU.

 

THE rage of the mighty lioness
Who shall restrain?

She came to her den, and she found it bare:
A Moorish huntsman had entered there.
The huntsman came, and the whelp is gone.
Away through the canebrake they have flown,
Galloping far at a headlong pace.
To follow—vain!
She roars awhile in her deep despite,
Then rises and courses, lank and light,
Over the hills of Barbary.
As a maid bereft of her love is she.

Mirèio lay upon her little bed,
Clasping in both her hands her burning head.
Dim was the chamber; for the stars alone
Saw the maid weep, and heard her piteous moan,—
"Help, Mother Mary, in my sore distress!
Oh, cruel fate! Oh, father pitiless,

"Who tread me underfoot! Could you but see
My heart's mad tumult, you would pity me!
You used to call me darling long ago,
And now you bend me to the yoke as though
I were a vicious colt that you were fain
To break. Why does the sea not flood this plain?

"I would the wealthy lands that make me weep
Were hid for evermore in the great deep!
Ah, had I in a serpent's hole been born,
Of some poor vagrant, I were less forlorn!
For then if any lad, my Vincen even,
Had asked my band, mayhap it had been given.

"O Vincen, who so handsome are and true!
If only they would let me go to you,
I 'd cling as clings the tender ivy-vine
Unto the oak: I would not ever pine
For food, but life in your caresses find,
And drink at wayside pools with happy mind."

So on her pallet the sweet maid lay sobbing,
Fire in her heart and every vein a-throbbing,
And all the happy time remembering—
Oh, calm and happy!—of her love's fair spring,
Until a word in Vincen's very tone
Comes to her memory. "'Twas you, my own,—

"'Twas you," she cried, "came one day to the farm,
And said, 'If ever thou dost come to harm,—
If any lizard, wolf, or poisonous snake
Ever should wound thee with its fang,—betake
Thyself forthwith to the most holy Saints,
Who cure all ills and hearken all complaints.'

"And sure I am in trouble now," she said:
"Therefore we 'll go, and come back comforted."
Then lightly from her white cot glided she,
And straightway opened, with a shining key,
The wardrobe where her own possessions lay:
It was of walnut wood, and carven gay.

Here were her childhood's little treasured all:
Here sacredly she kept the coronal
Worn at her first communion; and anear
There lay a withered sprig of lavender;
And a wax taper almost burned, as well,
Once blessed, the distant thunder to dispel.

A smart red petticoat she first prepares,
Which she herself had quilted into squares,—
Of needlework a very masterpiece ;
And round her slender waist she fastens this;
And over it another, finer one
She draws; and next doth a black bodice don,

And fasten firmly with a pin of gold.
On her white shoulders, her long hair unrolled,
Curling, and loose like a dark garment, lay,
Which, gathering up, she swiftly coils away
Under a cap of fine, transparent lace;
Then decks the veilèd tresses with all grace,

Thrice with a ribbon blue encircling them,—
The fair young brow's Arlesian diadem.
Lastly, she adds an apron to the rest,
And folds a muslin kerchief o'er her breast.
In her dire haste, alone, the child forgat
The shallow-crowned, broad-brimmed Provençal hat,

That might have screened her from the mortal heat.
But, so arrayed, crept forth on soundless feet
Adown the wooden staircase, in her hand
Her shoes, undid the heavy door-bar, and
Her soul unto the watchful saints commended,
As away like a wind of night she wended.

It was the hour when constellations keep
Their friendly watch o'er followers of the deep.
The eye of St. John's eagle flashed afar,
As it alighted on a burning star,
One of the three where the evangelist
Hath his alternate dwelling. Cloud nor mist

Defaced the dark serene of star-lit sky;
But the great chariot of souls went by
On wingèd wheels along the heavenly road,
Bearing away from earth its blessed load.
Far up the shining steeps of Paradise,
The circling hills behold it as it flies.

Mirèio hasted no less anxiously
Than Magalouno¹ in the days gone by,
Who searched the wood with sad, inquiiing glance
For her lost lover, Pèire of Provence,
When cruel waves divorced him from her side,
And left her lone and wretched. Soon espied

The maid, upon the boundary of the lea,
Folds where her sire's own shepherds could she see
Already milking. Some the sheep compelled,
Against the pen-side by the muzzle held,
To suckle quietly their tawny lambs.
Always arose the bleat of oertain dams ;

While other childless ones the shepherds guide
Toward the milker. On a stone astride,
Mute as the very night, sits he, and dim ;
While, pressed from swollen udders, a long stream
Of warm fine milk into the pail goes leaping,
The white froth high about its border creeping.

The sheep-dogs all in tranquil slamber lay.
The fine, large dogs—as white as lilies they—
Stretched round the enclosure, muzzles deep in thyme.
And peace was everywhere, and summer clime;
And o'er the balmy country, far and near,
Brooded a heaven full of stars, and clear.

So in the stillness doth Mirèio dash
Along the hurdles, like a lightning flash,
Lifting a wailing cry that never varies,—
"Will none go with me to the holy Maries,
Of all the shepherds?" They and the sheep hear it,
And see the maiden flitting like a spirit,

And huddle up, and bow their heads, as though
Smit by a sudden gale. The farm-dogs know
Her voice, but never stir her flight to stay.
And now is she already far away,
Threads the dwarf-oaks, and like a partridge rushes
Over the holly and the camphyre bushes,

Her feet scarce touching earth. And now she passes
Curlews in flocks asleep amid the grasses
Under the oaks, who, roused from slumber soft,
Arise in haste, and wing their flight aloft
Over the sad and barren plain; and all
Together "Cour'li! cour'li! cour'li!" call,

Until the Dawn, with her dew-glittering tresses,
From mountain-top to level slow progresses,
Sweetly saluted by the tufted lark,
Soaring and singing o'er the cavers dark
In the great hills, whose pinnacles each one
Appear to sway before the rising sun.

Then was revealed La Crau, the bare, the waste,
The rough with stones, the ancient, and the vast,
Whose proud old giants, if the tale be true,
Once dreamed, poor fools, the Almighty to subdue
With but a ladder and their shoulders brave;
But He them 'whelmed in a destroying wave.

Already had the rebels dispossest
The Mount of Victory² of his tall crest,
Lifted with lever from its place; and sure
They would have heaped it high upon Ventour,
As they had piled the rugged escarpment
They from the Alpine range had earlier rent.

But God his hand extended o'er the plain:
The north-west wind, thunder, and hurricane
He loosed; and these arose like eagles three
From mountain clefts and caverns and the sea,
Wrapped in thick fog, with fury terrible,
And on the marble pile together fell.

Then were the rude Colossi overthrown;
And a denae ouvering of pudding-stone
Spread o'er La Crau, the desolate, the vast,
The mute, the bare to every stormy blast;
Who wears the hideous garment to this day.
Meanwhile Mirèio farther speeds away

From the home-lands, while the sun's ardent glare
Makes visible all round the shimmering air;
And shrill cicalas, grilling in the grass,
Beat madly evermore their tiny brass.
Nor tree for shade was there, nor any beast:
The many flocks, that in the winter feast

On the short, savory grasses of the moor,
Had climbed the Alps, where airs are cool and pure,
And pastures fadeless. Yet the maid doth fly
Under the pouring fire of a June sky,—
Fly, fly, like lightning. Lizards lai^e and gray
Peep from their holes, and to each other say,

"She must be mad who thus the shingle clears,
Under a heat that sets the junipers³
A-dancing on the hills; on Crau, the sands."
The praying mantes⁴ lift beseeching hands,
"Return, return, O pilgrim!" murmuring,
"For God hath opened many a crystal spring;

"And shady trees hath planted, ho the rose
To save upon your cheeks. Why, then, expose
Your brow to the unpitying summer heat?"
Vainly as well the butterflies entreat.
For her the wings of love, the wind of faith,
Bear on together, as the tempest's breath

White gulls astray over the briny plains
Of Agui-Morto. Utter sadness reigns
In scattered sheep-cots of their tenants left,
And overrun with salicorne. Bereft
In the hot desert, seemed the maid to wake,
And see nor spring nor pool her thirst to slake,

And slightly shuddered. "Great St. Gent!"⁵ she cried,
"O hermit of the Bausset mountain-side!
O fair yonng laborer, who to thy plough
Didst harness the fierce mountain-wolf ere now,
And in the flinty rock, recluse divine,
Didst open springs of water and of wine,

"And so revive thy mother, perishing
Of heat! like me, when they were slumbering,
Thou didst forsake thy household, and didst fare
Alone with God through mountain-passes, where
Thy mother found thee! For me, too, dear Saint,
Open a spring; for I am very faint,

"And my feet by the hot stones blisterèd!"
Then, in high heaven, heard what Mirèio said
The good St. Gent: and soon she doth discover
A well far off, with a bright stone laid over;
And, like a marten through a shower of rain,
Speeds through the flaming sun-rays, this to gain.

The well was old, with ivy overrun,—
A watering-place for flocks; and from the sun
Scarce by it sheltered sat a little boy,
With basket-full of small white snails for toy.
With his brown hands, he one by one withdrew them,
The tiny harvest-nails ; and then sang to them,—

"Snaily, snaily, little nun,
Come out of the cell, come into the sun!
Show me your horns without delay,
Or I 'll tear your convent-walls away."

Then the fair maid of Crau, when she had dipped
Her burning lips into the pail, and sipped,
Quickly upraised a lovely, rosy face,
And, "Little one! what dost thou here?" she says.
A pause. "Pick snailies from the stones and grass?"
"Thou hast guessed right!" the urchin's answer was.

"Here in my basket have I—see, how many!
Nuns,⁶ harvest-snails,⁷ and these,⁸ as good as any!"
"Well, and you eat them?"—"Nay, not I," replied he;
"But mother carries them to Arles on Friday,
And sells them; and brings back nice, tender bread.
Thou wilt have been to Arles?"—"Never!" she said.

"What, never been to Arles! But I 've been there!
Ah, poor young lady! Couldst thou see how fair
And large a city that same Arles is grown!
She covers all the seven mouths of the Rhone.
Sea-cattle has she on the isles, who graze
Of the salt-meres. Wild horses, too, she has;

"And, in one summer, corn enongh she raises
To feed her seven full years, if so she pleases.
She 's fishermen who fish on every sea,—
Seamen who front the storms right valiantly
Of distant waters." Thus with pretty pride
The boy his sunny country glorified,

In golden speech;—her blue and heaving ocean;
Her Mont Majour, that keeps the mills in motion,—
These with soft olives ever feeding fully;
Her bitterns in the marshes booming dully.
One thing alone, thou lovely, dusky town,
The child forgat,—of all thy charms the crown:

He said not, fruitful Arles, that thy fine air
Gives to thy daughters beauty rich and rare,
As grapes to autumn, or as wings to bird,
Or fragrance to the hill-sides. Him had heard
The country maiden, sadly, absently.
But now, "Bright boy, wilt thou not go with me?"

She said; "for, ere the frogs croak in the willow,
My foot must planted be beyond the billow.
Come with me! I must o'er the Rhone be rowed,
And left there in the keeping of my God!"
"Now, then," the urchin cried, "thou poor, dear lady,
Thou art in luck! for we are fishers," said he;

"And thou shalt sleep under our tent this night,
Pitched in the shadow of the poplars white,
So keeping all thy pretty clothing on;
And father, with the earliest ray of dawn,
In our own little boat will put thee o'er! "
But she, "Do not detain me, I implore:

"I am yet strong enough this night to wander."
"Now God forbid!" was the lad's prompt rejoinder:
"Wouldst thou see, then, the crowd of sorry shapes
From the Trau-de-la-Capo that escapes?
For if they meet thee, be thou sure of this,—
They 'll drag thee with them into the abyss!"

"Trau-de-la-Capo! What may that be, pray?"
"I 'II tell thee, lady, as we pick our way
Over the stones," And forthwith he began:
"Once was a treading-floor that overran
With wealth of sheaves. To-morrow, on thy ways,
Thou 'lt paas, upon the riverside, the place.

"Trod by a circle of Camargan steeds,
The tall sheaves had been yielding up their seeds
To the incessant hoofs, a month or more.
No pause, no rest; and, on the treading-floor,
Dusty and winding, there was yet bestowed
Of sheaves a very mountain to be trod.

"Also, the weather was so fiercely hot,
The floor would burn like fire; and rested not
The wooden fork's that more sheaves yet supplied;
While at the horses' muzzles there were shied
Clusters of bearded ears unceasingly,—
They flew as arrows from the cross-bow fly.

"And on St. Peter's day and on St. Charles'
Rang, and rang vainly, all the bells of Arles:
There was no Sunday and no holiday
For the unhappy horses; but alway
The heavy tramp around the weary road,
Alway the pricking of the keeper's goad,

"Alway the orders issued huskily,
As in the fiery whirlwind still stood he.
The greedy master of the treaders white
Had even muzzled them, in his despite.
And, when Our Lady's⁹ day in August came,
The coupled beasts were treading, all the same,

"The pillèd sheaves, foam-drenched. Their livers clung
Fast to their ribs, and their jaws drivelling hung,
When suddenly an icy, northern gale
Smit, swept the floor,—and God's blasphemers feel
It quake and part! On a black caldron's brink
They stand now, and their eyes with horror sink.

"Then the sheaves whirl with fiiry terrible,
Pitch-forkers, keepers, keepers-aids as well,
Struggle to save them; but they naught can do:
The van, the van-goats, and the mill-stones too,
Horses and drivers, treading-floor, and master
Are swallowed up in one immense disaster!"

"You make me shudder!" poor Mirèio said.
"Ah, but that is not all, my pretty maid!
Thou thlnkest me a little mad, may be:
But on the morrow thou the spot wilt see;
And carp and tench in the blue water playin,
And, in the reeds, marsh-blackbirds roundlaying.

"But on Our Lady's day, when mounts again
The fire-crowned sun to the meridian,
Lay thee down softly, ear to earth," said he,
"And eye a-watch, and presently thou 'lt see
The gulf, at first so limpid, will begin
To darken with the shadow of the sin;

"And slowly up from the unquiet deep
A murmuring sound, like buzzing flies, will creep;
And then a tinkling, as of tiny bells,
That soon into an awful uproar swells
Among the water-weeds! Like human voices
Inside an amphora the fearsome noise is!

"And then it is the trot of wasted horses
Painfully tramping round their weary courses
Upon a hard, dry surface, evermore
Echoing like a summer threshing-floor,
Whom drives a brutal keeper, nothing loth,
And hurries them with insult and with oath.

"But, when the holy sun is sinking low,
The blasphemies turn hoarse and fainter grow,
The tinkling dies among the weeds. Far off,
The limping, sorry steed is heard to cough;
And, on the top of the tall reeds a-swinging,
Once more the blackbirds begin sweetly singing."

So, full of chat, and with his basket laden,
Travelled the little man before the maiden;
While the descendiug sun with rose invests
The great blue ramparts and the golden crests
Of the hill-range, peaceful and pure and high,
Blending its outline with the evening sky.

Seemed the great orb, as he withdrew in splendor,
God's peace unto the marshes to surrender,
And to the great lake,¹⁰ and the olives gray
Of the Vaulungo, and the Rhone away
There in the distance, and the reapers weary,
Who now unbend, and quaff the sea-air, cheery.

Till the boy cries that far away he sees
The home-tent's canvas fluttering in the breeze.
"And the white poplar, dear maid, seest thou?
And brother Not, who climbs it even now?
He 's there after cicalas, be thou sure;
Or to spy me returning o'er the moor.

"Ah, now he sees us! And my sister Zeto,
Who helped him with her shoulder, turns this way too;
And seems to tell my mother that she may
Put the flsh-broth¹¹ to boil without delay.
And mother also, I can see her leaning
Over the boat, and the fresh fish a-gleaning,"

Then, as the two made haste with one accord
To mount the dike, the lusty fisher roared,
"Now this is charming! Look this way, my wife!
Our little Andreloun, upon my life,
Will be the prince of fishers one day," said he;
"For he has caught the queen of eels already!"

 

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See Notes.