sounds inverted, with the stress on the second.

Lastly, the example is given of the name Jeuse. It is spelled without
the accent mark, and the reader is led to infer that it is pronounced as
though it were a French name. Here the _eu_ is a diphthong. The first
vowel is the French _e_, the second the Italian _u_. The stress is on
the first vowel.]

CHAPTER IV

THE VERSIFICATION OF THE FELIBRES

The versification of the Felibres follows in the main the rules observed
by the French poets. As in all the Romance languages the verse consists
of a given number of syllables, and the number of stressed syllables in
the line is not constant. The few differences to be noted between French
verse and Provencal verse arise from three differences in the languages.
The Provencal has no _e mute_, and therefore all the syllables
theoretically counted are distinctly heard, and the masculine and the
feminine rhymes are fully distinguished in pronunciation. The new
language possesses a number of diphthongs, and the unaccented part of
the diphthong, a _u_ or an _i_, constitutes a consonant either before or
after a vowel in another word, being really a _w_ or a _y_. This
prevents hiatus, which is banished from Provencal verse as it is from
French, and here again theory and practice are in accord, for the
elision of the _e mute_ where this _e_ follows a vowel readmits hiatus
into the French line, and no such phenomenon is known to the Provencal.
Thirdly, the stressed syllable of each word is strongly marked, and
verse exists as strongly and regularly accentual as in English or
German. This is seen in the numerous poems written to be sung to an air
already existing. The accents in these pieces fall with the rhythmic
beat the English ear is accustomed to and which it so misses on first
acquaintance with French verse. A second consequence of this stronger
stress is that verse is written without rhyme; the entire _Poem of the
Rhone_ is written in ten-syllable feminine verses unrhymed.

"O tems di viei d'antico bounoumio,
Que lis oustau avien ges de sarraio
E que li gent, a Coundrieu coume au nostre,
Se gatihavon, au caleu per rire!"

(Canto I.)

Mistral has made use of all the varieties of verse known to the French
poets. One of the poems in the _Isclo d'Or_ offers an example of
fourteen-syllable verse; it is called _L'Amiradou_ (The Belvedere). Here
are the first two stanzas:--

"Au casteu de Tarascoun, i