Li Pastre / Pastors
Frederic Mistral
Occitan-Italian bilingual edition edited by Anselmo Roveda
illustrations by Sandro Natalini and Agnes Baruzzi
Editions Cuddles and boogers 2010
This short and funny folk tale, a "joke", was written by Frédéric Mistral
and published for the first time in 1889
Armani Provençau (Almanac Provencal). The author wrote this story in Provencal
or in langue d'oc or Occitan language.
Occitan is the language used by poets, who call
"Trovatore" at the beginning of European literature in the eleventh century. But it is also
the language, with its many dialects, is spoken today in
throughout the south of France, many Alpine valleys of Piedmont, in a
valley of the Pyrenees in Spain and in the town of Guardia Piemontese in Calabria
.
A note:
About of Li Pastre "(1889) Frédéric Mistral
In 1926 in Paris by Editions Bernard Grasset, offices at 61 rue des Saints-Peres, released" Almanac of Prose, "a book of writings Frédéric Mistral (1830-1914).
The writer, Nobel Prize in 1904, has been missing for over a decade in the title and the publisher states that these "inédites Œuvres de Frédéric Mistral" are "publièes sous la haute direction de Madame Frédéric Mistral avec traduction française de Pierre Devoluy" .
The French translator is also the author of the Avant-propos of the book, points out here Devoluy Mistral in life has been published in volume only the major works. Therefore remain in its view, to be published four groups of writings:
- tales and popular jokes (the cascarelettes ), the genius of its people of the Midi, released on Armani Provençau , the yearbook of Felibrige (the mid-nineteenth century cultural movement that will revive the Provencal language linking it to literary tradition born in the eleventh century with the Occitan troubadours)
- the verses are not included in the collections "isclo Lis d'or" (1875) and "Lis Oulivado "(1912);
- speeches and theoretical writings, and finally
- read poems and prose that called Mistral collectively I rapugo .
editor and translator began to publish the first group proposing - in the original Provencal with translations in French - a fifty (52) of short stories originally came out on Armani Provençau (Provencal Almanac), is among the chosen texts also "Li Pastre" (shepherds), a funny joke popular theme, or rather a pretext, Christmas. The old
Ferland, a pastor of Gres (territory north of Arles, the city beloved by Mistral), is sued for grazing issues. To defend - and defend the category - remember how the shepherds were the first to rush in at the Jesus' birth, it is not coincidence that we have a prominent place in the crib, which certainly can not claim the judges.
A witty and funny story, simple, popular originally published 1889 edition of the Almanac Provencal. Grasset, 1926 edition, in my possession, the original of 1889 (thanks to digitization consulted by the University of Toronto, Canada) there are two small omissions and typo. In the first case, omissions, this is an aside - "if a raubon Galina" - and one word - "beu" - needed to strengthen the popular Provencal spoken, restore both. In the second, the typo, I correct Noste-mark with the original Noste-Segnour. Otherwise follow the edition Grasset, more precise and orderly, though superfluous, for what concerns the punctuation. I did a translation of this text in 2002 for a Christmas present in 25 copies, in short inter amicos edition. It was a literal translation. On this occasion I put hand to the translation by dissolving some popular forms with less rigorous but more, I hope, narrative fluidity.
