modern poet who aims at the epic style. Here begins the recounting of
the numerous superstitions of the ignorant peasants, and the wonders of
Provence are interpolated at every turn. The maidens, while engaged in
stripping the cocoons, make known a long list of popular beliefs, and
then branch off into a conversation about love. They are surprisingly
well acquainted with the writings of Jean de Nostradamus, to whom the
Félibres are indebted for a lot of erroneous ideas concerning the
Troubadours and the Courts of Love. This literary conversation is not
convincing, and we are pleased when Noro sings the pretty song of
Magali, which, composed to be sung to an air well known in Provence, has
become very popular. The idea is not new; the young girl sings of
successive forms she will assume, to avoid the attentions of her suitor,
and he, ingeniously, finds the transformation necessary to overcome her.
For instance, when she becomes a rose, he changes into a butterfly to
kiss her. At last the maiden becomes convinced of the love of her
pursuer, and is won.

The fourth canto, _Li Demandaire_ (The Suitors), recalls the Homeric
style, and is among the finest of the poem. Alàri, the shepherd, Veran,
the keeper of horses, and Ourrias, who has herds of bulls in the
Camargue, present themselves successively for the hand of Mirèio. The
"transhumance des troupeaux" is described in verse full of vigorous
movement; the sheep are taken up into the Alps for the summer, and then
in the fall brought down to the great plain of the Crau near the Delta
of the Rhone. The whole description is made with bold, simple strokes of
the brush, offering a vivid picture not to be forgotten. Alàri, too,
offers a marvellously carved wooden cup, adorned with pastoral scenes.
Veran owns a hundred white mares, whose manes, thick and flowing like
the grass of the marshes, are untouched by the shears, and float above
their necks, as they bound fiercely along, like a fairy's scarf. They