won.

The fourth canto, _Li Demandaire_ (The Suitors), recalls the Homeric
style, and is among the finest of the poem. Alari, the shepherd, Veran,
the keeper of horses, and Ourrias, who has herds of bulls in the
Camargue, present themselves successively for the hand of Mireio. 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. Alari, 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
are never subdued, and often, after years of exile from the salt meadows
of the Camargue, they throw off their rider, and gallop over twenty
leagues of marshes to the land of their birth, to breathe the free salt
air of the sea. Their element is the sea; they have surely broken loose
from the chariot of Neptune; they are still white with foam; and when
the sea roars and darkens, when the ships break their cables, the
stallions of the Camargue neigh with joy.

And Ramoun welcomes Veran, and hopes that Mireio will wed him, and calls
his daughter, who gently refuses. The third suitor, Ourrias, has no
better fortune. The account of this man's giant strength, the narrative
of his exploits in subduing the wild bulls, are quite Homeric. The
story is told of the scar he bears, how one of the fiercest bulls that
he had branded carried him along, threw him ahead on the ground, and
then hurled him high into the air. The strong, fierce man presents his
suit, describing the life the women lead in the Camargue; but before he
has her love, "his trident will bear flowers, the hills will melt away
like wax, and the journey to Les Baux will be by sea." This canto and
the next, recounting the fierce combat between Ourrias and Vincen, are
really splendid narrative poetry. The style is marvellously compressed,
and the story thrilling. The sullen anger of Ourrias, his insult that
does not spare Mireio, the indignation of Vincen, that fires him with
unwonted strength, the battle of the two men out alone in the fields
near the mighty Pont du G