Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/75

] "With wrath. And 'Well done, neighbor!' she says cheerly: 'This does one good! You 've still your caul$5$ on, clearly!' But when your head is turned, she casts upon 'em— The envious one—a look so full of venom, It knots and burns 'em up. And then you say It was the east wind plastered 'em that way!"

"I don't say that has naught to do with it," Quoth Zèu. "Still it had been quite as fit For me to close the window."—"Doubt you, then, The harm the eye can do," went on Taven, "When in the head it glistens balefully?" And herself scanned Zèu with piercing eye.

"Ye are such fools, ye seem to think," she said, "That scraping with a scalpel on the dead Would win its honey-secret from the bee! But may not a fierce look, now answer me, The unborn babe for evermore deform, And dry the cow's milk in her udders warm?

"An owl may fascinate a little bird; A serpent, flying geese, as I have heard, How high soe'er they mount. And if one keep A fixed gaze upon silk-worms, will they sleep? Moreover, is there, neighbors, in the land So wise a virgin that she can withstand