Aucassin and Nicolette | Page 3

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? Were she Empress of Constantinople or of Germany, were she Queen of France or of England, there were but little in it, so noble is she and gracious and debonair and endued with all good conditions."
_Here they sing_.
Aucassin was of Beaucaire;?His was the fine castle there;?But on slender Nicolette?Past man's moving is he set,?Whom his father doth refuse;?Menace did his mother use:
"Out upon thee, foolish boy!?Nicolette is but a toy,?Castaway from Carthagen,?Bought a slave of heathen men.?If for marrying thou be,?Take a wife of high degree!"
"Mother, I will none but her.?Hath she not the gentle air,?Grace of limb, and beauty bright??I am snared in her delight.?If I love her 'tis but meet,
So passing sweet!"
_Here they speak and tell the story_.
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."
"Sir," said the Viscount, "'tis grief to me that he go to her, or come to her, or speak to her. I had bought her with my poor pieces. I had held her at the font, and christened her, and stood god-father to her; and I would have given her a young fellow to win bread for her in wedlock. What is this to Aucassin your son? But seeing your will is so and your good pleasure, I will send her to such a land and to such a country that he shall never set eyes on her more."
"See you do so!" said Count Warren. "Else it might go ill with you."
Thus they parted. Now the Viscount was a very rich man, and had a fine palace with a garden before it. He had Nicolette put in a room there, on an upper storey, with an old woman for company; and he had bread put there, and meat and wine and all they needed. Then he had the door locked, so that there was no way to get in or out. Only there was a window of no great size which looked on the garden and gave them a little fresh air.
_Here they sing_.
Nicolette is prisoner,?In a vaulted bed-chamber,?Strange of pattern and design,?Richly painted, rarely fine.?At the window-sill of stone?Leaned the maiden sad and lone.?Yellow was her shining hair,?And her eyebrow pencilled rare,?Face fine-curved and colour fair:?Never saw you lovelier.?Gazed she o'er the garden-ground,?Saw the opening roses round,?Heard the birds sing merrily;?Then she made her orphan cry:
"Woe's me! what a wretch am I!?Caged and captive, why, ah why??Aucassin, young lord, prithee,?Your sweetheart, am I not she??Ay, methinks you hate not me.?For your sake I'm prisoner,?In this vaulted bed-chamber,?Where my life's a weary one.?But by God, sweet Mary's son,?Long herein I will not stay,
Can I find way!"
_Here they speak and tell the story_.
Nicolette was in prison, as you have harkened and heard, in the chamber. The cry and the noise ran through all the land and through all the country that Nicolette was lost. There are some say she is fled abroad out of the land. Other some that Warren, Count of Beaucaire, has had her done to death. Rejoice who might, Aucassin was not well pleased. But he went straightway to the Viscount of the place, and thus addressed him:
"Sir Viscount, what have you done with Nicolette, my very sweet friend, the thing that I love best in all the world? Have you stolen and taken her from me? Rest assured that if I die of this thing, my blood will be required of you; and very justly, when you have gone and killed me with your two hands. For you have stolen from me the thing that I love best in all the world."
"Fair sir," said the Viscount, "now let be! Nicolette is a slave-girl whom I fetched from a foreign land and bought for money of the heathen. I held her at the font, and christened her and stood godfather to her, and have brought her up. One of these days I would have given