“ So tall art thou and so strong, ’tis no great thing to do; and it is thy devoir.”
“Father,” said Aucassin, “to what purpose is this oration? Never God give me ought that I ask of him, if I take knighthood or mount horse or go to the fighting to smite knight or be myself smitten, if you give me not Nicolette, my sweet friend, whom I love so well!” ”

“ When Warren Count of Beaucaire perceived that Aucassin his son was not to be moved from his love of Nicolette, he betook him to the Viscount of the place, who was his liegeman; and addressed him thus:
“Sir Viscount, come, rid me of Nicolette your god-daughter! A curse on the land whence ever she was fetched to this country! Now Aucassin is lost to me, and all because of her. He refuses knighthood and leaves undone all his devoir. Rest assured that if I can get hold of her I will burn her in a fire; and for yourself too you may fear the worst.” ”

“ She is a slave-girl, carried captive from a foreign land. The Viscount of this place bought her of the heathen, and brought her here. He held her at the font, and christened her, and stood godfather to her. Some day he will give her a young fellow to win bread for her in wedlock. What is this to you? If you want a wife, I will give you a king’s daughter or a count’s. There is never so rich a man in France but you shall have his daughter, if you want her.”
“Alack, father!” said Aucassin. “Where now is honour on earth so high, which Nicolette my sweet friend would not grace if it were hers? ”

“ And once I have my head cut off, nevermore shall I speak to Nicolette my sweet friend whom I love so well. Nay, I have yet a good sword, and under me a good steed untired. An I defend me not now for her sake, ne’er help her God if ever again she love me!”
The boy was tall and strong, and the horse beneath him was eager. He put his hand to his sword and began to strike to right and to left, slashing helmet and nose-guard, fist and wrist, and making havoc all around him as the boar does when the dogs set on him in the forest ”

“ And as we sometimes seek rest from the brilliant audacities and complex passions of Wagner or Tschaikowsky in the tender simplicity of some ancient English air, so we occasionally turn with relief from the wit and insight and subtlety of our modern novelists to the old uncomplicated tales of faerie or romance, and find them after all more moving, more tender, even more real, than all the laboured realism of these photographic days. ”

“ Woman cannot love man so well as man loves woman. For a woman’s love lies in her eye, in bud of bosom or tip of toe. But a man’s love is within him, rooted in his heart, whence it cannot go forth.”
While Aucassin and Nicolette were talking together, the town watch came down a street. They had their swords drawn under their cloaks, for Count Warren had given them command that if they could lay hands on her they should kill her. And the watchman on the tower saw them coming, and heard that they were talking of Nicolette and threatening to kill her. ”

“ Bulgarius, Count of Valence, heard say that they were about to hang Aucassin his enemy, and came that way. Aucassin failed not to espy him; and gripping his sword, he smote him through the helmet so that he clave it to the skull. He was so stunned that he fell to earth; and Aucassin put out his hand and took him prisoner, and led him off by the nose-guard p. 30of his helmet, and delivered him to his father.
“Father,” said Aucassin, “see here is your enemy who has made war on you so long and done you hurt so great. Twenty years has this war lasted, and never a man to put an end to it.” ”

“ Sorrow be his who ever again hold you in account! Why there is no man in this land so rich, of whom if your father asked ten, or fifteen, or twenty, he would not give them only too willingly, and be only too glad. Nay, ’tis I should weep and make sorrow.”
“And wherefore you, brother?”
“Sir, I will tell you. I was hireling to a rich farmer, and drove his plough—four oxen there were. Three days since a great misfortune befell me. I lost the best of my oxen, Roget, the best of my team ”

“ It is not our custom to kill one another.”
The other side turned to flight; and the king and Aucassin returned to the Castle of Torelore. And the people of the country bade the king drive Aucassin out of his land, and keep Nicolette for his son, since she seemed in sooth a lady of high degree. ”

“ Turn this name p. 10into French and we have Aucassin. And to reverse the rôles of Christian and heathen is a very usual device for a story-teller transplanting a story from another country to his own. Though the scene is nominally laid in Provence there are a good many signs of a Spanish origin in the places mentioned. By Carthage is meant, not the city of Dido, but Carthagena; and thus the husband devised for Nicolette is “one of the greatest kings in all Spain.” Valence again might originally have been not the Valence on the Rhone, but Valence le grand, or Valentia. ”

“ All who can should read this story in its own language—the simple easy-flowing Old-French, with its infantile syntax, and naïve but effective p. 12efforts at distinction and what we now call style. There are various editions of the old French text; but the two easiest to get and also to read are that of Professor Suchier, and my own. Those in search of learning will always turn to Germany, and Suchier is a very learned man. ”

“ I have a mother, poor p. 55woman, who had nothing worth ought save one poor mattress, and this they have dragged from under her back, so that she lies on the bare straw; and for her I am troubled a deal more than for myself. For wealth comes and goes ”

“ When they heard her speak thus, they knew well that she said truly; and they made very great rejoicing over her, and brought her to the palace with great honour, as a king’s daughter. A lord they wished to give her, a king of Paynim; but she had no care to wed. And when she had been there full three days or four, p. 71she considered with herself by what device she might go to seek Aucassin. She procured a viol and learned to play on it; till one day they wished to marry her to a king, a rich Paynim. ”