Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/94

68 questions of gallantry and love, and awarded prizes for Provençal poetry. The celebrated and lovely Laura was niece to Fanette de Gautelme, and a member of her graceful areopagus. The ruins of the Castle of Roumanin may still be seen, not far from St. Remy, at the foot of the northern slope of the Lower Alps.

$9$ "Countess Dio." A celebrated poetess of the middle of the twelfth century. Such of her poems as have come down to us contain strains more impassioned, and occasionally more voluptuous, than those of Sappho.

$10$ The vampire, or roumeso, is thus described in the "Castagnados" of the Marquis Lafare Alais:—

That is, "On twenty spider-legs its brown body, as on stilts, is mounted; its belly swelled with fever and rottenness; the horrid odor thereof exudes."

$11$ The Luberon, or Luberoun, is a mountain-chain in the department of Vaucluse.

$12$ The Vaumasco (from Vau and Masco, Valley of Sorcerers) is a valley of the Luberoun, formerly inhabited by the Vaudois.

$13$ The song of Magali belongs to the class of poems called aubado,—music performed under a window in early morning, as a serenade is in the evening. (Beside the version given in the text, I have rendered the Song of Magali—rather roughly— into the peculiar and most un-English metre of the original; for I would not have the American readers of "Mirèio" miss the possible pleasure of singing this unique love-song to the simple but charming Provençal air to which it belongs. This second version will be found in the Appendix, together with the melody aforesaid, as transcribed for the piano by M. Fr. Seguin.—)