Aucassin and Nicolette | Page 6

her or three, and once only kiss her? This covenant you made
with me, and this covenant I will have you keep with me!"

"What, I?" said his father. "Ne'er help me Heaven if I keep this
covenant with you! and were she here now I would burn her in a fire;
and for yourself too you might fear the worst."
"Is this the whole conclusion?" said Aucassin.
"Aye," said his father, "so help me Heaven!"
"I' faith," said Aucassin, "then I am very sorry that a man of your age
should be a liar.--Count of Valence, you are my prisoner."
"Sir, it is even so," said the Count.
"Give me your hand!" said Aucassin.
"Sir, right willingly."
He put his hand in his.
"This you pledge me," said Aucassin, "that never in all your days to be
shall it be in your power to do shame to my father or to do hurt to him
or his, and you not do it!"
"Sir," said he, "for God's sake, mock me not, but set me a ransom! You
can ask me nothing, gold or silver, war-horses or palfreys, sables or
ermines, hounds or hawks, that I will not give you."
"How now?" said Aucassin. "Wot you not that you are my prisoner?"
"Aye, sir," said the Count Bulgarius.
"Ne'er help me Heaven," said Aucassin, "save you give me this pledge,
if I send not your head a-flying!"
"I' God's name," said he, "I give you what pledge you please!"
He gave the pledge; and Aucassin set him on a horse, and himself
mounted another, and conducted him till he was in safety.

_Here they sing_.
When Count Warren saw indeed
That he never will succeed

Aucassin his son to get
From bright-favoured Nicolette,
In a pris'n
he had him set,
In a dungeon hid from day,
Builded all of marble
grey.
Now when Aucassin came there
Sad he was--so was he ne'er.

Loud lamenting he fell on,
Thus as you shall hear anon.
"Flow'r o' the lily, Nicolette!
Bright-faced sweetheart, Nicolette!

Sweet as cluster of the vine,
Sweet as meed in maselyn.
This I saw
some yesterday,
How a pilgrim on his way--
Limousin his land
was--lay
Fevered on a bed within.
Grievous had his sickness been,

Great the fever he was in.
By his bedside Nicolette
Passing, lifted
skirts and let--
'Neath the pretty ermine frock,
'Neath the snowy
linen smock--
Just a dainty ankle show.
Lo, the sick was healed,
and lo,
Found him whole as ne'er before.
From his bed he rose once
more,
And to his own land did flit,
Safe and sound, whole ever
whit.
Flow'r o' the lily, Nicolette!
Coming, going, ever pleasing,
In thy
talk and in thy teasing,
In thy jest and in thy joying,
In thy kisses, in
thy coying!
There is none could hate thee, dear!
Yet for thy sake am
I here,
In this dungeon hid from day,
Where I cry Ah, well-a-way!

Now to die behoveth me,
Sweet friend, for thee!"
_Here they speak and tell the story_.
Aucassin was put in prison, as you have listened and heard, and
Nicolette was elsewhere in the chamber. 'Twas the summer time, the
month of May, when the days are warm and long and bright, and the
nights still and cloudless. Nicolette lay one night in her bed, and saw
the moon shine bright through a window, and heard the nightingale
sing in the garden; and she remembered Aucassin her friend, whom she

loved so well. Then she fell a-thinking of Warren Count of Beaucaire,
and how he hated her to death; and she thought within herself that she
would abide there no longer; since if she were betrayed and Count
Warren knew of her, he would put her to an evil death. She perceived
that the old woman who was with her slept. And she arose and clad her
in a goodly gown that she had of cloth-of-silk; and she took bedclothes
and towels, and tied one to other and made a rope as long as she could,
and made it fast to the window-shaft; and so got down into the garden.
Then she took her dress in one hand before, and in the other behind,
and girded herself, because of the dew she saw heavy on the grass, and
went her way down the garden. She had golden hair in little curls, and
laughing blue eyes, and a face finely curved, and a proud shapely nose,
and lips more red than cherry or rose in summertime, and small white
teeth, and little breasts that swelled beneath her clothes like two nuts of
a walnut-tree. And her waist was so fine that your two hands could
have girdled her; and the daisy-flowers snapped by her toes, and lying
on the arch of her foot, were fairly black beside her feet and ankles, so
very white the girl was.
She came to the postern, and unfastened it, and went out through the
streets of Beaucaire, keeping to the shadow, for the