Sant Jan, vèngue meissoun, abro si fiò de joio;
Amount sus l'aigo-vers lou pastre pensatiéu,
En l'ounour dóu païs, enausso uno mount-joio
E marco li pasquié mounte a passa l'estiéu.
Emai iéu, en laurant—e quichant moun anchoio,
Per lou noum de Prouvenço ai fa ço que poudiéu;
E, Diéu de moun pres-fa m'aguent douna la voio,
Dins la rego, à geinoui, vuei rènde gràci à Diéu.
En terro, fin qu'au sistre, a cava moun araire;
E lou brounze rouman e l'or dis emperaire
Treluson au soulèu dintre lou blad que sort....
O pople dóu Miejour, escouto moun arengo:
Se vos recounquista l'empèri de ta lengo,
Pèr t'arnesca de nòu, pesco en aquéu Tresor.
"Saint John, at harvest time, kindles his bonfires; high up on the mountain slope the thoughtful shepherd places a pile of stones in honor of the country, and marks the pastures where he has passed the summer.
"I, too, tilling and living frugally, have done what I could for the fame of Provence; and God having permitted me to complete my task, to-day, on my knees in the furrow, I offer thanks to Him.
"My plough has dug into the soil down to the rock; and the Roman bronze and the gold of the emperors gleam in the sunlight among the growing wheat.
"Oh, people of the South, heed my saying: If you wish to win back the empire of your language, equip yourselves anew by drawing upon this Treasury."
Such is the sonnet, dated October 7, 1878, which Mistral has placed at the beginning of his vast dictionary of the dialects of southern France. The title of the work is Lou Tresor dóu Felibrige or Dictionnaire provençal-français. It is published in two large quarto volumes, offering a total of 2361 pages. This great work occupied the poet some ten years, and is the most complete and most important work of its kind that has been made. The statement that this work represents for the Provençal dialect what Littré's monumental dictionary is for the French, is not exaggerated. Nothing that Mistral has done entitles him in a greater degree to the gratitude of students of Romance philology, and the fact that the work has been done in so masterful a fashion by one who is not first of all a philologist excites our wonder and admiration. And let us not forget that it was above all else a labor of love, such as probably never was undertaken elsewhere, unless the work of Ivar Aasen in the Old Norse dialects be counted as such; and there is something that appeals strongly to the imagination in the thought of this poet's labor to render imperishable the language so dear to him. Years were spent in journeying about among all classes of people, questioning workmen and sailors, asking them the names they applied to the objects they use, recording their proverbial expressions, noting their peculiarities of pronunciation, listening to the songs of the peasants; and then all was reduced to order and we have a work that is really monumental.
The dictionary professes to contain all the words used in South France, with their meaning in French, their proper and figurative acceptations, augmentatives, diminutives, with examples and quotations. Along with each word we have all its various forms as they appear in the different dialects, its forms in the older dialects, the closely related forms in the other Romance languages, and its etymology. A special feature of the work in view of its destination is the placing of numerous synonyms along with each word. The dictionary almost contains a grammar, for the conjugation of regular and of irregular verbs in all the dialects is given, and each word is treated in its grammatical relations. Technical terms of all arts and trades; popular terms in natural history, with their scientific equivalents; all the geographical names of the region in all their forms; proper historical names; family names common in the south; explanations as to customs, manners, institutions, traditions, and beliefs; biographical, bibliographical, and historical facts of importance; and a complete collection of proverbs, riddles, and popular idioms—such are the contents of this prodigious work.