And force the huge head with his shoulder round,
And shove it roughly back, till on the ground
Christian and beast together rolled, and made
A formless heap like some huge barricade.
The tamarisks46 are shaken by the cry
Of “Bravo Ourrias! That’s done valiantly!”
While five stout youths the bull pin to the sward;
And Ourrias, his triumph to record,
Seizes the red-hot iron with eager hand,
The vanquished monster on the hip to brand.
Then came a troop of girls on milk-white ponies—
Arlesians—flushed and panting every one is,
As o’er the arena at full gallop borne
They offer him a noble drinking-horn
Brimful of wine; then turn and disappear,
Each followed by her faithful cavalier.
The hero heeds them not. His mind is set
On the four monsters to be branded yet:
The mower toils the harder for the grass
He sees unmown. And so this Ourrias
Fought the more savagely as his foes warmed,
And conquered in the end—but not unharmed.
White-spotted and with horns magnificent,
The fourth beast grazed the green in all content.
“Now, man, enough!” in vain the neatherds shouted;
Couched is the trident and the caution flouted;
With perspiration streaming, bosom bare,
Ourrias the spotted bull charged then and there!
He meets his enemy, a blow delivers
Full in the face; but ah! the trident shivers.
The beast becomes a demon with the wound:
The brander grasps his horns, is whirled around—
They start together, and are borne amain,
Crushing the salicornes along the plain.
The mounted herdsmen, on their long goads leaning,
Regard the mortal fray; for each is meaning
Dire vengeance now. The man the brute would crush,
The brute bears off the man with furious rush;
The while with heavy, frothy tongue he clears
The blood that to his hanging lip adheres.
The brute prevailed. The man fell dazed, and lay
Like a vile rakeful in the monster’s way.
“Sham dead!” went up a cry of agony.
Vain words! The beast his victim lifted high
On cruel horns and savage head inclined,
And flung him six and forty feet behind!
Once more a deafening outcry filled the place
And shook the tamarisks. But Ourrias
Fell prone to earth, and ever after wore he
The ugly scar that marred his brow so sorely.
Now, mounted on his mare, he paces slow
With goad erect to seek Mirèio.
It chanced the little maid was all alone.
She had, that morning, to the fountain gone;
And here, with sleeves and petticoats uprolled
And small feet dabbling in the water cold,
She was her cheese-forms cleaning with shave-grass;
And, lady saints! how beautiful she was!
“Good-morrow, pretty maid!” began the wooer,
“Thy forms will shine like mirrors, to be sure!
Will it offend thee, if I lead my mare
To drink out of thy limpid streamlet there?”
“Pray give her all thou wilt, at the dam head:
We’ve water here to spare!” the maiden said.
“Fair one!” spake the wild youth, “if e’er thou come
As pilgrim or as bride to make thy home
At Sylvarèal47 by the noisy wave,
No life of toil like this down here thou’lt have!
Our fierce black cows are never milked, but these
Roam all at large, and women sit at ease.”
“Young man, in cattle-land, I’ve heard them say,
Maids die of languor.”—“Pretty maiden, nay:
There is no languor where two are together!”
“But brows are blistered in that burning weather,
And bitter waters drunk.”—“When the sun shines,
My lady, thou shalt sit beneath the pines!”
“Ah! but they say, young man, those pines are laden
With coils of emerald serpents.”—“Fairest maiden,
We’ve herons also, and flamingoes red
That chase them down the Rhône with wings outspread
Like rosy scarfs.”—“Then, I would have thee know
Lotus and pine too far asunder grow!”
“But priests and maids, my beauty, ne’er can tell,
The saw affirms, the land where they may dwell
And eat their bread.”—“Let mine but eaten be
With him I love: that were enough,” said she,
“To lure me from the home-nest to remove.”
“If that be so, sweet one, give me thy love!”
“Thy suit,” Mirèio said, “mayhap I’ll grant!
But first, young man, yon water-lily plant
Will bear a cluster of columbine48 grapes.
Yon hills will melt from all their solid shapes,
That goad will flower, and all the world will go
In boats unto the citadel of Baux!”
Canto V
The Battle
Cool with the coming eve the wind was blowing,
The shadows of the poplars longer growing;
Yet still the westering sun was two hours high,
As the tired ploughman noted wistfully—
Two hours of toil ere the fresh twilight come,
And wifely greeting by the door at home.
But Ourrias the brander left the spring,
The insult he had suffered pondering.
So moved to wrath was he, so stung with shame,
The blood into his very forehead came;
And, muttering deadly spite beneath his teeth,
He drave at headlong gallop o’er the heath.
As damsons in a bush, the stones of Crau
Are plentiful; and Ourrias, fuming so,
Would gladly with the senseless flints have striven,
Or through the sun itself his lance have driven.
A wild boar from its lair forced to decamp,
And scour the desert slopes of black Oulympe,49
Ere turning on the dogs upon his track,
Erects the rugged bristles of his back,
And whets his tusks upon the mountain oaks.
And now young Vincen with his comely looks
Must needs have chosen the herdsman’s very path,
And meets him squarely, boiling o’er with wrath.
Whereas the simple dreamer wandered smiling,
His memory with a sweet tale beguiling,
That he had heard a fond girl whispering
Beneath a mulberry-tree one morn in spring.
Straight is he as a cane from the Durance;
And love, peace, joy, beam from his countenance.
The soft air swells his loose, unbottoned shirt:
His firm, bare feet are by the stones unhurt,
And light as lizard slips he o’er the way.
Oh! many a time, when eve was cool and gray,
And all the land in shadow lay concealed,
He used to roam about the darkling field,
Where the chill airs had shut the tender clover;
Or, like a butterfly, descend and hover
Around the homestead of Mirèio;
Or, hidden cleverly, his hiding show,
Like a gold-crested or an ivy wren,
By a soft chirrup uttered now and then.
And she would know who called her, and would fly
Swift, silent, to the mulberry-tree hard by,
With quickened pulses. Fair is the moonlight
Upon narcissus-buds in summer night,
And sweet the rustle of the zephyr borne
In summer eve over the ripening corn,
Until the whole, in infinite undulation,
Seems like a
