A thing which hath not happened, understand,
“For thirty years.” His fingers then he showed,
And the deep gash, wherefrom the blood yet flowed.
Then groaned, more piteously than before,
Mirèio’s parents; while a lusty mower,
One Jan Bouquet, a knight of La Tarasque
From Tarascon, a hearing rose to ask.
A rough lad he, yet kind and comely too.
None with such grace in Condamino threw
The pike and flag, and never merrier fellow
Sang Lagadigadèu’s ritournello87
About the gloomy streets of Tarascon,
When, once a year, they ring with shout and song,
And brighten up with dances and are blithe.
He might have been a master of the scythe,
Could he have held the straight, laborious path;
But, when the fête-days came, farewell the swath,
And welcome revels underneath the trees,
And orgies in the vaulted hostelries,
And bull-baitings, and never-ending dances!
A very roisterer he who now advances,
With, “As we, master, in long sweeps were mowing,
I hailed a nest of francolines, just showing
Under a tuft of tares; and, as I bent
Over the pendent grass, with the intent
“To count the fluttering things, what do I see
But horrible red ants—oh, misery!—
In full possession of the nest and young!
Three were then dead. The rest, with vermin stung,
Their little heads out of the nest extended,
As though, poor things, they cried to be defended;
“But a great cloud of ants, more venomous
Than nettles, greedy, eager, furious,
Them were o’erwhelming even then; and I,
Leaning upon my scythe right pensively,
Could hear, far off, the mother agonize
Over their cruel fate, with piteous cries.”
This tale of woe, following upon the other,
Is a lance-thrust to father and to mother:
The worst foreboding seemeth justified.
Then, as a tempest in the hot June-tide,
Gathering silently, ascends the air,
The weather darkening ever, till the glare
Of lightning shows in the northeast, and loud
Peal follows peal, another left the crowd,
One Lou Marran. It was a name renowned
In all the farms when winter-eves came round,
And labourers, chatting while the mules were stalled
And pulling lucerne from the rack, recalled
What things befell when first this man was hired,
Until the lights for lack of oil expired.
Seed-time it was, and every other man
Was opening up his furrow save Marran;
Who, hanging back, eyed coulter, tackle, share,
As he the like had seen not anywhere.
Till the chief-ploughman spake: “Here is a lout
To plough for hire! Why, a hog with his snout
I wager would work better!”—“I will take
Thy bet,” said Lou Marran; “and be the stake
Three golden louis! Either thou or I,
Master, that sum will forfeit presently.”
“Let blow the trumpet!” Then the ploughmen twain
In two unswerving lines upturn the plain,
Making for the chosen goal—two poplars high.
The sun-rays gild the ridges equally,
And all the labourers call out, “Well done!
Thy furrow, chieftain, is a noble one;
“Yet, sooth to say, so straight the other is,
One might an arrow shoot the length of this.”
And Lou Marran was winner—he who here
Before the baffled council doth appear,
All pale, his bitter evidence to bear:
“Comrades, as I was whistling, at my share,
“Not long ago, methought the land was rough,
And we would stretch, the day to finish off;
When, lo! my beasts with fear began to quake,
Bristled their hairy sides, their ears lay back.
They stopped; and, with dazed eyes, I saw all round
The field-herbs fade, and wither to the ground.
“I touch my pair. Baiardo sadly eyes
His master, but stirs not. Falet applies
His nostril to the furrow. Then I lash
Their shins; and, all in terror, off they dash,
So that the ash-wood beam—the beam, I say—
Is rent, and yoke and tackle borne away.
“Then grew I pale, and all my breath was gone;
And, seized as with a strong convulsion,
I ground my jaws. A dreadful shudder grew
Upon me—and my hair upraised, I knew,
As thistle-down is raised by the wind’s breath;
But the wind sweeping over me was Death.”
“Mother of God!” Mirèio’s mother cried
In torture, “do thou in thy mantle hide
Mine own sweet child!” and on her knees she dropped
With lifted eyes and parted lips: yet stopped
Ere any word was spoken, for she saw
Antéume, shepherd-chief and milker, draw
Hurriedly toward them. “And why,” he was panting,
“Was she the junipers untimely haunting?”
Then, the ring entering, his tale he told.
“This morn, as we were milking in the fold—
So early that above the bare plain showed
The sky yet hobnailed with the stars of God—
“A soul, a shadow, or a spectre swept
Across the way. The dogs all silence kept,
As if afraid, and the sheep huddled close.
Thought I—who scarce have time, as master knows,
Ever an Ave in the church to offer—
‘Speak, soul, if thou art blest. If not, go suffer!’
“Then came a voice I knew—it never varies—
‘Will none go with me to the holy Maries,
Of all the shepherds?’ Ere the word was said,
Afar over the plain the voice had fled.
Wilt thou believe it, master?—it was she,
Mirèio!” Cried the people, “Can it be?”
“It was herself!” the shepherd-chief replied:
“I saw her in the star-light past me glide,
Not, surely, as she was in other days,
But lifting up a wan, affrighted face;
Whereby she was a living soul, I knew,
And stung by some exquisite anguish too.”
At this dread word, the labourers groan, and wring
Each other’s horny palms. “But who will bring,”
The stricken mother began wildly shrieking,
“Me to the saints? My bird I must be seeking!
My partridge of the stony field,” she said,
“I must o’ertake, wherever she has fled.
“And if the ants attack her, then these teeth
Shall grind them and their hill! If greedy Death
Dare touch my darling rudely, then will I
Break his old, rusty scythe, and she shall fly
Away across the jungle!” Crying thus,
Jano Mario fled delirious
Back to the home; while Ramoun order gave,
“Cartman, set up the cart-tilt, wet the nave,
And oil the axle, and without delay
Harness Moureto.88 We go far to-day,
And it is late.” The mother, in despair,
Mounted the cart; and more and more the air
Resounded with the transports of her woe:
“O pretty dear! O wilderness of Crau!
O endless, briny plains! O dreadful sun,
Be kind, I pray you, to the fainting one!
But for her—the accursèd witch Taven—
Who lured my darling into her foul den,
And poured before her, as I know right well,
Her philters and her potions horrible,
And made her drink—now may the demons all
Who lured St. Anthony upon her
