"Give up forever your dreams of this captive girl, whom the Saracens brought from some strange land, and sold to the viscount here.
"He trained her; he baptized her; she is his god-child.
"Some day he will give her to some brave fellow who will have to gain his bread by his sword.
"But you, my son, when the time comes that you wish to take a wife, I will give you some king's daughter, or at least the daughter of a count.
"There is not in all France a man so rich that you may not marry his daughter, if you choose."
So said the old man. But Aucassin replied,—
"Alas, my father! there is not in this world the principality which would not be honored, if my darling Nicolette, my sweetest, went to live there.
"If she were queen of France or of England, if she were empress of Germany or of Constantinople, she could not be more courteous or more gracious; she could not have sweeter ways or greater virtues."
| [Now they sing it.] |
| All the night and all the day Aucassin would beg and pray,— "Oh, my father! give my Nicolette to me." Then his mother came to say,— "What is it that my foolish boy can see?" "Nicolette is sweet and gay." "But Nicolette's a slave.— If a wife my boy would have, Let him choose a lady fair of high degree." "Oh, no! my mother, no! For I love my darling so! Her face is always bright, And her footstep's always light; And I cannot let my dainty darling go. No, mother dear, she rules my heart; No, mother dear, we cannot part." |
[Now they speak it, and talk it, and tell it.] |
When the Count Garin de Beaucaire saw that he could not drag Nicolette out from the heart of Aucassin, he went to find the viscount, who was his vassal; and he said to him,—