Aucassin and Nicolette | Page 7

of face?Leaned her at the buttress-base,?Heard within her lover dear?Weeping and bewailing her;?Then she spake the thought in her:
"Aucassin, most gentle knight,?High-born lording, honoured wight,?What avails you to weep so??What your wailing, what your woe??I may ne'er your darling be,?For your father hateth me;?All your kin thereto agree.?For your sake I'll pass the sea,?Get me to some far countrie."
Tresses of her hair she clipped,?And within the tower slipped.?Aucassin, that lover true,?Took them and did honour due,?Fondly kissed them and caressed,?And bestowed them in his breast.?Then in tears anew he brake
For his love's sake.
_Here they speak and tell the story_.
When Aucassin heard Nicolette say that she would depart into another country, he felt nothing but anger.
"Fair sweet friend," said he, "you shall not depart, for then would you have killed me. The first man that set eyes on you and could do so would straightway lay hands on you and take you to be his concubine. And once you had lived with any man but me, now dream not that I should wait to find a knife wherewith to strike me to the heart and kill me! Nay, verily, that were all too long to wait. Rather would I fling me just so far as I might see a bit of wall, or a grey stone; and against that would I dash my head so hard that my eyes should start out and all my brains be scattered. Yet even such a death would I die rather than know you had lived with any man but me."
"Ah!" said she, "I trow not that you love me so well as you say; but I love you better than you do me."
"Alack!" said Aucassin, "fair sweet friend! That were not possible that you should love me so well as I do you. 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.
"Great Heavens!" he said, "what pity it were should they slay so fair a maid! 'Twere a mighty good deed if I could tell her, in such wise that they perceived it not, and she could be ware of them. For if they slay her, then will Aucassin my young lord die; and that were great pity."
_Here they sing_.
Valiant was the watch on wall,?Kindly, quick of wit withal.?He struck up a roundelay?Very seasonably gay.
"Maiden of the noble heart,?Winsome fair of form thou art;?Winsome is thy golden hair,?Blue thine eye and blithe thine air.?Well I see it by thy cheer,?Thou hast spoken with thy fere,?Who for thee lies dying here.?This I tell thee, thou give ear!?'Ware thee of the sudden foe!?Yonder seeking thee they go.?'Neath each cloak a sword I see;?Terribly they threaten thee.?Soon they'll do thee some misdeed
Save thou take heed!" {39}
_Here they speak and tell the story_.
"Ah!" said Nicolette; "now may thy father's soul and thy mother's be in blessed repose, for the grace and for the courtesy with which thou hast told me! Please God I will guard me well from them, and may God Himself be my guard!"
She wrapped her mantle about her in the shadow of the pier, till they had passed. Then she took leave of Aucassin and went her way till she came to the castle wall. There was a breach in it which had been boarded up. On to this she climbed, and so got over between the wall and the ditch; and looking down she saw the ditch was very deep and the sides very sheer, and she was sore afraid.
"Ah, gracious Heaven!" she said; "if I let myself fall I shall break my neck; and if I abide here, I shall be taken to-morrow and burned in a fire. Nay, I had liefer die here than be made a show to-morrow for all the folk to stare at!"
She crossed herself, and let herself slip down into the ditch. And when she came to the bottom, her fair feet and her fair hands, untaught that ought could hurt them, were bruised and torn, and the blood flowed in full a dozen places. Nevertheless she felt neither hurt nor pain for her great dread. And if she were troubled as to the getting in, she was far more troubled as to the getting out. But she bethought her that it was