CHAPTER XII
NICOLETTE  AND   MARION
C'est d'Aucassins et de Nicolete.
Qui vauroit bons vers oir
Del deport du viel caitif
De deus biax enfans petis
Nicolete et Aucassins;
Des grans paines qu'il soufri
Et des proueces qu'il fist
Por s'amie o le cler vis.
Dox est li cans biax est li dis
Et cortois et bien asis.
Nus horn n'est si esbahis
Tant dolans ni entrepris
De grant mal amaladis
Se il l'oit ne soit garis
Et de joie resbaudis
Tant par est dou-ce.
This is of Aucassins and Nicolette.
Whom would a good ballad please
By the captive from o'er-seas,
A sweet song in children's praise,
Nicolette and Aucassins;
What he bore for her caress,
What he proved of his prowess
For his friend with the bright face?
The song has charm, the tale has grace,
And courtesy and good address.
No man is in such distress,
Such suffering or weariness,
Sick with ever such sickness,
But he shall, if he hear this,
Recover all his happiness,
So sweet it is!
THIS little thirteenth-century gem is called a "chante-fable," a
story partly in prose, partly in verse, to be sung according to
musical notation accompanying the words in the single manuscript
known, and published in facsimile by Mr. F. W. Bourdillon at Oxford
in 1896. Indeed, few poems, old or new, have in the last few years
been more reprinted, translated, and discussed, than "Aucassins,"
yet the discussion lacks interest to the idle tourist, and tells him little.
Nothing is known of the author or his date. The second line alone of-
fers a hint, but nothing more. "Caitif " means in the first place a cap-
tive, and secondly any unfortunate or wretched man. Critics have
liked to think that the word means here a captive to the Saracens, and
that the poet, like Cervantes three or four hundred years later, may
have been a prisoner to the infidels. What the critics can do, we can
do.  If liberties can be taken with impunity by scholars, we can take