The fabliau version, “Le Lai de l’Oiselet,” as found in Méon’s edition of Barbazan’s collection, Paris, 1808, t. iii, 114, and (in modern French prose) in Le Grand, ed. 1784, t. iii, 430, can hardly have been the original of Lydgate’s poem, as may be seen from the following free rendering of Le Grand’s abridgment (in which, however, he omits the bird’s statement about the wonderful stone in its body), including a few lines from Way’s agreeable English metrical translation:
Once on a time there was a noble castle surrounded by a wide domain of field and forest, which was first owned by a worthy knight. His son and successor wasted his patrimony in riotous living—“ye know well,” quoth our poet, “that it needs but one spendthrift heir to bring great wealth to nought”; and now the fair castle and domain had become the property of a rich but sordid churl. This lofty and strong castle had been reared by magic art. A pebble-paved stream flowed round a beauteous orchard, where grew tall and shapely trees, flowers of every hue, and odorous plants; and such was the fragrance of the air that it might have arrested a man’s parting breath. In the midst of this fair scene a gushing fountain sparkled in the sunlight, while near it a lofty pine tree’s deathless verdure afforded grateful shade at noontide.
A marvellous bird had fixed his abode in this tufted pine, and ever he sat and sang his lay of love in such sweet and moving strains that, matched against his magic melody, the music of viol and full-toned harp were as nought. Such was the power of this wondrous feathered minstrel that his strains could create unutterable joy in the heart of the despairing lover; and should they cease, and the songster take his flight from this enchanted ground, then would all the goodly scene—castle, trees, flowers, forest—fade away and forever disappear.
“Listen, listen, to my lay
(Thus the merry note did chime),
All who mighty Love obey,
Sadly wasting in your prime,
Clerk and laic, grave and gay;
Yet do ye, before the rest,
Gentle maidens, mark me tell!