But among the numerous origins of this wonderful time the origin of the short prose tale, in which France was to hold almost if not quite the highest rank among European countries, was also included. It would not seem that the kind was as yet very frequently attempted—the fact that the verse fabliau was still in the very height of its flourishing-time, made this unlikely; nor was it till that flourishing-time was over that farces on the one hand, and prose tales on the other, succeeded as fruit the fabliau-flower. But it is from the thirteenth century that (with some others) we have Aucassin et Nicolette.[159] If it was for a short time rather too much of a fashion to praise (it cannot be over-praised) this exquisite story, no wise man will allow himself to be disgusted any more than he will allow himself to be attracted by fashion. This work of "the old caitiff," as the author calls himself with a rather Hibernian coaxingness, is what has been called a cantefable—that is to say, it is not only obviously written, like verse romances and fabliaux, for recitation, but it consists partly of prose, partly of verse, the music for the latter being also given. Mr Swinburne, Mr Pater, and, most of all, Mr Lang, have made it unnecessary to tell in any detailed form the story how Aucassin, the son of Count Garin of Beaucaire, fell in love with Nicolette, a Saracen captive, who has been bought by the Viscount of the place and brought up as his daughter; how Nicolette was shut up in a tower to keep her from Aucassin; how Count Bongars of Valence assailed Beaucaire and was captured by Aucassin on the faith of a promise from his father that Nicolette shall be restored to him; how the Count broke his word, and Aucassin, setting his prisoner free, was put in prison himself; how Nicolette escaped, and by her device Aucassin also; how the lovers were united; and how, after a comic interlude in the country of "Torelore," which could be spared by all but folk-lorists, the damsel is discovered to be daughter of the King of Carthage, and all ends in bowers of bliss.
But even the enthusiasm and the art of three of the best writers of English and lovers of literature in this half-century have not exhausted the wonderful charm of this little piece. The famous description of Nicolette, as she escapes from her prison and walks through the daisies that look black against her white feet, is certainly the most beautiful thing of the kind in mediæval prose-work, and the equal of anything of the kind anywhere. And for original audacity few things surpass Aucassin's equally famous inquiry, "En Paradis qu'ai-je à faire?" with the words with which he follows it up to the Viscount. But these show passages only concentrate the charm which is spread all over the novelette, at least until its real conclusion, the union and escape of the lovers. Here, as in the earlier part of the Rose—to which it is closely akin—is the full dreamy beauty, a little faint, a little shadowy, but all the more attractive, of mediæval art; and here it has managed to convey itself in prose no less happily and with more concentrated happiness than there in verse.
CHAPTER VIII.
ICELANDIC AND PROVENÇAL.
RESEMBLANCES. CONTRASTS. ICELANDIC LITERATURE OF THIS TIME MAINLY PROSE. DIFFICULTIES WITH IT. THE SAGA. ITS INSULARITY OF MANNER. OF SCENERY AND CHARACTER. FACT AND FICTION IN THE SAGAS. CLASSES AND AUTHORSHIP OF THEM. THE FIVE GREATER SAGAS. 'NJALA.' 'LAXDÆLA.' 'EYRBYGGJA.' 'EGLA.' 'GRETTLA.' ITS CRITICS. MERITS OF IT. THE PARTING OF ASDIS AND HER SONS. GREAT PASSAGES OF THE SAGAS. STYLE. PROVENÇAL MAINLY LYRIC. ORIGIN OF THIS LYRIC. FORMS. MANY MEN, ONE MIND. EXAMPLE OF RHYME-SCHEMES. PROVENÇAL POETRY NOT GREAT. BUT EXTRAORDINARILY PEDAGOGIC. THOUGH NOT DIRECTLY ON ENGLISH. SOME TROUBADOURS. CRITICISM OF PROVENÇAL.
Resemblances.
These may seem at first to be no sufficient reason for treating together two such literatures as those named in the title of this chapter. But the connection, both of likeness and unlikeness, between them is too tempting to the student of comparative literature, and too useful in such a comparative survey of literature as that which we are here undertaking, to be mistaken or refused. Both attaining, thanks to very different causes, an extraordinarily early maturity, completely worked themselves out in an extraordinarily short time. Neither had, so far as we know, the least assistance from antecedent vernacular models. Each achieved an extraordinary perfection and intensity, Icelandic in spirit, Provençal in form.
Contrasts.