Frédéric Mistral / Poet and Leader in Provence

by Charles Alfred Downer

"The applause of two thousand souls salutes them and acclaims them. 'Calendau, Calendau, let us plant the May for the conqueror of Esterello. He glorifies, he brings to the light our little harbor of fishermen, let us make him Consul, Consul for life!' So saying the multitude accompanies the generous, happy pair of lovers, and the sun that God rules, the great sun, rises, illumines, and procreates endlessly new enthusiasms, new lovers."

The poem clearly symbolizes the Provençal renascence; Calendau typifies the modern Provençal people, rising to an ideal life and great achievements through the memory of their traditions, and this ideal, this memory, are personified in the person of the beautiful Princess.

The time of the action is the eighteenth century, before the Revolution. This is a deliberate choice of the poet who has a temporal symbolism in mind. "I shall thus combine in my picture the three aspects of Provence on the eve of the Revolution: in the background, the noble legends of the past; in the foreground the social corruption of the evil days; and before us the better future, the future and the reparation personified in the son of the working classes, guardians of the tradition of the country."

As regards the execution, it is masterly, and cannot be ranked below Mirèio. There is the same enthusiastic love of nature, the same astonishing resources of expression, the same novelty and originality. In place of the rustic nature of Mirèio, we have the wild grandeur of mountains and sea. There is the same, nay, even greater, eloquence of the speakers, the same musical verse.

"Car, d'aquesto ouro, ounto es la raro
Que di delice nous separo,
Jouine, amourous que siam, libre coume d'aucèu?
Regardo: la Naturo brulo
A noste entour, e se barrulo
Dins li bras de l'Estiéu, e chulo
Lou devourant alen de soun nòve roussèu.

"Li serre clar e blu, li colo
Palo de la calour e molo,
Boulegon trefouli si mourre.... Ve la mar:
Courouso e lindo coumo un vèire,
Dòu grand soulèu i rai bevèire
Enjusqu'au founs se laisso vèire,
Se laisso coutiga pèr lou Rose e lou Var."

"For now, where is the limit that separates us from joy, young, amorous as we are, free as birds! Look: Nature burns around us and rolls in the arms of Summer, and drinks in the devouring breath of her ruddy spouse. The clear, blue peaks, the hills, pale and soft with the heat, are thrilled and stir their rounding summits. Behold the sea, glistening and limpid as glass; in the thirsty rays of the great sun, she allows herself to be seen clear to the bottom, to be caressed by the Rhone and the Var."

These are the words of Calendau when, seeking his reward after his final exploit, he learns that he has won the love of Esterello. The poet never goes further in the voluptuous strain, and the mere music of the words, especially beginning "Ve la mar" is exquisite. They are found in the first canto. This scene wherein the Princess refuses to wed Calendau is typical of the poet. The northern temperament is not impressed with these long tirades, full of ejaculations and apostrophes; they are apt to seem unnatural, insincere, and theatrical. Intense feeling is not so verbose in the north. In this particular Mistral is true to his race. We quote entire the words of Calendau after the refusal of Esterello, itself full exclamation and apostrophizing:—

"Then I have but won the thirst, the weariness of the midshipman, when he is about to reach the summit of the mainmast, and sees gleaming at the limit of the liquid plain naught but water, water eternally! Well, if thou wilt hear it, listen! and let the heath resound with it! It is thou, false woman that thou art, it is thou that hast deceived me, luring me on to believe that at the summit of the peaks I should find the splendor of a sublime dawn, that after winter spring would come, that there is nothing so good as the food earned by labor. Thou hast deceived me, for in the wilderness I found naught but drought; and the wind of this world and its idle noise, the embarrassment of luxury, and the din of glory, and what is called the enjoyment of triumph, are not worth a little hour of love beneath a pine tree! See, from my hand the bridle escapes, my skull is bursting, and I am not sure now that the people in their fear are not right in dreading thee like a ghost, now that I feel, as my reward, thy burning poison streaming through my heart. Yes, thou art the fairy Esterello, and thou art unmasked at last, cruel creature! In the chill of thy refusal I have known the viper. Thou art Esterello, bitter foe to man, haunting the wild places, crowned with nettles, defending the desert against those who clear the land. Thou art Esterello, the fairy that sends a shudder through the foliage of the woods and the hair of the terrified hermit; that fires with the desire of her perfumed embrace her suitors and in malevolence drives them to despair with infernal longings.

"My head is bursting, and since from the heights of my supernatural love a thunderbolt thus hurls me down, since, nothing, nothing henceforth, from this moment on, can give me joy, since, cruel woman, when thou couldst throw me a rope, thou leavest me, in dismay, to drink the bitter current—let death come, black hiding-place, bottomless abyss! let me plunge down head first!"