Nicolette the bright of face
Leaned her at the buttress-base,
Heard within her lover dear
Weeping and bewailing her;
Then she spake the thought in her:
“Aucassin, most gentle knight,
High-born lording, honoured wight,
What avails you to weep so?
What your wailing, what your woe?
I may ne’er your darling be,
For your father hateth me;
All your kin thereto agree.
For your sake I’ll pass the sea,
Get me to some far countrie.”
Tresses of her hair she clipped,
And within the tower slipped.
Aucassin, that lover true,
Took them and did honour due,
Fondly kissed them and caressed,
And bestowed them in his breast.
Then in tears anew he brake
For his love’s sake.
Here they speak and tell the story.
When Aucassin heard Nicolette say that she would depart into another country, he felt nothing but anger.
“Fair sweet friend,” said he, “you shall not depart, for then would you have killed me. The first man that set eyes on you and could do so would straightway lay hands on you and take you to be his concubine. And once you had lived with any man but me, now dream not that I should wait to find a knife wherewith to strike me to the heart and kill me! Nay, verily, that were all too long to wait. Rather would I fling me just so far as I might see a bit of wall, or a grey stone; and against that would I dash my head so hard that my eyes should start out and all my brains be scattered. Yet even such a death would I die rather than know you had lived with any man but me.”
“Ah!” said she, “I trow not that you love me so well as you say; but I love you better than you do me.”
“Alack!” said Aucassin, “fair sweet friend! That were not possible that you should love me
so well as I do you. Woman cannot love man so well as man loves woman. For a woman’s love lies in her eye, in bud of bosom or tip of toe. But a man’s love is within him, rooted in his heart, whence it cannot go forth.”