Mirèio/Notes to Canto I
NOTES TO CANTO I.
1 Lotus Farm, or Falabrego Mas. The word mas, meaning a farm or homestead, is used in the arrondissement of Arles and in Languedoc. Every mas has a distinctive name,—Mas de la Font, Fountain Farm; Mas de l'Oste, Host Farm; &c. The falabrego ia the fruit of a species of lotus, called in French micoculier. (It is the Celtis austratis of Linnæus; and nearly related to, if not identical with, Celtis occidentalis, the sugar-berry of our Northern woods, remarkable for the delicate texture of its foliage, and singularly rich crimson color of its tiny fruit.—Am. Tr.)
2 La Crau, from the Greek χρὰυρος, arid, is a vast stony plain, bounded on the north by the Alpines (Lower Alps), on the east by the meres of Martigue, west by the Rhone, and south by the sea. It is the Arabia Petræa of France.
3 Magalouno. Of this city, formerly a Greek colony, nothing now remains but a single church in ruins.
4 Li Baus, in French Les Baux, is a ruined town, formerly the capital of the princely house of Baux. It is three leagues from Arles, on the summit of the Alpines; and, as the name of this poetical locality occurs often in the poem, the following description from Jules Canonge's History of the town of Baux, in Provence, may interest the reader:—
"At length there opened out before me a narrow valley. I bowed to the remains of a stone cross that sanctify the way; and, when I raised my eyes, they were riveted in astonishment on a set of towers and walls on the top of a rock, the like of which I had never before seen, save in works in which the genius of painting had been inspired by the most fabulous imaginings of Ariosto. But, if my surprise was great at the first aspect, it was doubly so when I reached an eminence, whence the whole town was displayed to view. It was a spectacle of desolate grandeur, such as a perusal of the Prophets presents to the mind. It was something I had never suspected the existence of,—a town almost monolithite. Those who first had the idea of inhabiting the rock had hewn them a shelter out of its sides. This novel mode of architecture was plainly approved of by their successors; for soon from the vast compact mass a town issued, like a statue from a block touched by the wand of Art. An imposing town, with fortifications, chapels, and hospitals,—a town in which man seemed to have eternalized his habitation. The dominion of the city was extensive, and brilliant feats of arms have secured for it a noble place in history; but it has proved no more enduring than many others less solidly constituted."
The action of the poem begins at the foot of these ruins.
5 Sheet spread to catch the olives as they are shaken from the trees.
6 Valabrègo, a village on the left bank of the Rhone, between Avignon and Tarascon.
7 Font Vièio (the Old Woman's Well), a village in one of the valleys of the Alpines near Arles.
8 Martigau, an inhabitant of Martigue, a curious Provençal town inhabited almost solely by fishermen, built on some narrow islands, intersected by salt lakes and channels of the sea, by way of streets, which has occasioned it to be surnamed La Venise Provençale. It was the birthplace of Gerard Tenque (Thom or Tung), the founder of the order of St. John of Jerusalem.
9 "When Martha span," a proverbial expression signifying, "in the good old days," and alluding to Martha the hostess of Christ, who, after having, according to the legend, delivered Tarascon from a monster that ravaged its territory, ended her days in these parts. She is said to have inhabited a small house on the banks of the Rhone, at the door of which she used to sit, surrounded by her neophytes, and modestly ply her spinning-wheel.
10 The aster trifolium, common on the marshes of the South.
11 Li garrigo, swamps or barren lands where only the agarrus, or dwarf-oak, grows.
12 Li Santo is the Provençal name of a small town of 548 inhabitants situated on the island of Camargue, between the mouths of the Rhone. In obedience to a poetical and very venerable tradition, an innumerable host of pilgrims from every part of Provence and lower Languedoc assemble at this place every 25th of May. The tradition—which will be found very fully detailed in the eleventh canto of the poem—is, briefly, as follows: After the crucifixion, the Jews compelled some of the most ardent disciples to enter a dismantled ship, and consigned them to the mercy of the waves. The scene is thus described in an ancient French canticle;—
LES JUIFS.
Entrez, Sara, dans la nacelle,
Lazare, Marthe, et Maximin,
Cléon, Trophime, Satumin,
Les trois Maries et Marcelle,
Eutrope et Martial, Sidoine avec Joseph (d'Arimathée)
Vous peîrez dans cette nef.
Allez sans voile et sans cordage,
Sans mât, sans ancre, sans timon,
Sans aliment, sans aviron;
Allez, faire un triste naufrage!
Retirez-vous d'ici, laissez-nous en repoz,
Allez, crever parmi les flots.
Guided by Providence, the bark at length stranded on the isle of Camargue, in Provence; and the exiles, thus miraculously delivered from the perils of the sea, dispersed over Gaul, and became its first evangelists. Mary Magdalene retired to the desert of La Sainte Baume, to weep over her sins. The other two Maries,— the mother of St. James the Less, and Mary Salome, mother of St. John the Evangelist and St. James the Great,—accompanied by their maid Sara, converted to the new faith some of the neighboring people, and then returned to the place of their landing to die. (See Canto XI.)
"It is reported that a prince whose name is unknown, learning that the bodies of the holy Maries were interred on this spot, built a church over it in the form of a citadel, that it might be safe from piratical invasion. He also built houses round the church and ramparts, for the safety of the inhahitants. The buildings that remain bear out this tradition."
13 The choir of the church presents the peculiarity of being composed of three stories,—a crypt, which is pointed out as the very site of the ancient oratory of the saints; a sanctuary, raised higher than usual; and a chapel above, where the reliquaries are exposed. A chain is attached to the latter, so that, by the unwinding of a capstan, they may be let down into the church. The moment when they descend is the one propitious to miracles, like that which Vlncen describes.
14 John of Cossa, a Neapolitan noble who had followed King René. He was Grand Seneschal of Provence, and died in 1476. John of Cossa is very popular at Tarascon, where the people ascribe to him the building of St. Martha's steeple. He is interred in the crypt of that church; and his statue, in a recumbent attitude, surmounts the tomb.
15 The chivaus-frus, or painted cardboard horses, used in Provence at public rejoicings, and particularly at Aix in the Fête Dieu. The seeming riders attach them to the waist, and prance the streets to the sound of the tambourine.