Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/49

] 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.