While the sisters weep and pray,
Then I will be the holy earth
That on thee they shall lay.
—If thou wilt be the holy earth
That on me they shall lay—
Well—since some gallant I must have,
I will not say thee nay.
A distinguished French scholar thought that he heard in this an echo of Anacreon's ode κ' ἐῢς κόρην. The inference suggested is too hazardous for acceptance; yet that in some sort the song may date from Greek Provence would seem to be the opinion even of cautious critics. Thus we are led to look back to those associations which, without giving a personal or political splendour such as that attached to Magna Græcia, lend nevertheless to Provençal memories the exquisite charm, the "bouquet" (if the word does not sound absurd) of all things Greek. The legend of Greek beginnings in Provence will bear being once more told. Four hundred and ninety years before Christ a little fleet of Greek fortune-seekers left Phocæa, in Asia Minor, and put into a small creek on the Provençal coast, the port of the future Marseilles. As soon as they had disembarked, deeming it to be of importance to them to stand well with the people of the land, they sent to the king of the tribes inhabiting those shores an ambassador bearing gifts and overtures of friendly intercourse. When the ambassador reached Arles, Nann, the king, was giving a great feast to his warriors, from among whom his daughter Gyptis was that day to choose a husband. The young Greek entered the banqueting-hall and sat down at the king's board. When the feasting was over, fair-haired Gyptis, the royal maiden, rose from her seat and went straightway to the strange guest; then, lifting in her hands the cup of espousal, she offered it to his lips. He drank, and Provence became the bride of Greece.
The children of that marriage left behind them a graveyard to tell their history. Desecrated and despoiled though it is, still the great Arlesian cemetery bears unique witness as well to the civilised prosperity of the Provençal Greeks as to their decline under the influences which formed the modern Provence. Irreverence towards the dead—a comparatively new human characteristic—can nowhere be more fully observed than in the Elysii Campi of Arles. The love of destruction has been doing its worst there for some centuries. To any king coming to the town the townsfolk would make a gift of a priceless treasure stolen from their dead ancestors, while the peasant who wanted a cattle trough, or the mason in need of a door lintel, went unrebuked and carried off what thing suited him. Not even the halo of Christian romance could save the Alyscamps. The legend is well known. St Trefume, man or myth, summoned the bishops of Gaul and Provence to the consecration of this burial-ground. When they were assembled and the rite was to be performed, each one shrank from taking on himself so high an office; then Christ appeared in their midst and made the sign of the cross over the sleeping-place of the pagan dead. Out of the countless stories of the meeting of the new faith and the old—stories too often of a nascent or an expiring fanaticism, there is not one which breathes a gentler spirit. It was long believed, that the devil had little power with the dead that lay in Arles. Hence the multitude of sepulchres which Dante saw ove 'l Rodano stagna. Princes and archbishops and an innumerable host of minor folks left instructions that they might be buried in the Alyscamps. A simple mode of transport was adopted by the population of the higher Rhone valley. The body, bound to a raft or bier, was committed to the current of the river, with a sum of money called the "drue de mourtalage" attached to it. These silent travellers always reached their destination in safety, persons appointed to the task being in readiness to receive them. The sea water washed the limits of the cemetery in the days of the Greeks, who looked across the dark, calm surface of the immense lagune and thought of dying as of embarkation upon a voyage—not the last voyage of the body down the river of life, but the first voyage of the soul over the sea of death—and they wished their dead εὐπλοῖ.
The Greek traces that exist in the living people of Provence are few, but distinct. There is, in the first place, the type of beauty particularly associated with the women of Arles. As a rule, the Provençal woman is not beautiful; nor is she very willing to admit that her Arlesian sisters are one whit more beautiful than she. The secret of their fame is interpreted by her in the stereotyped remark, "C'est la coiffe!" But the coif of Arles, picturesque though it is in its stern simplicity, could not change an ugly face into a pretty one, and the wearers of it are well entitled to the honour they claim as their birthright. Scarcely due attention has been paid to the good looks of the older and even of the aged women; I have not seen their equals save among a face of quite another type, the Teutonic amazons of the Val Mastalone. In countries where the sun is fire, if youth does not always mean beauty, beauty means almost always youth. M. Lenthéric thinks that he detects a second clear trace of the Greeks in the horn wrestling practised all over the dried-up lagune which the fork of the Rhone below Arles forms into an island. Astride of their wild white steeds, the horsemen drive one of the superb black bulls of the Camargue towards a group of young men on foot, who, catching him by his horns, wrestle with him till he is forced to bend the knee and bite the dust. The amusement is dangerous, but it is not brutal. The horses escape unhurt, so does the bull; the risk is for the men alone, and it is a risk voluntarily and eagerly run. So popular is the sport that it is difficult to prevent children from joining in it. In Thessaly it was called κεράτισις, and the bull in the act of submission is represented on a large number of Massaliote and other coins.