With this first renaissance of the modern spirit came also the awakening of a new appreciation of the beauties of Nature. Man began to notice the first flowers, the song of birds, the signs of spring’s awakening. This gave rise to a species of popular song known as the pastoral—pastourelle—which was afterward adopted and cultivated by the Troubadours, who subjected it to certain rules, respecting the sequence of different lengths of verses, etc. Besides the pastourelle, numerous other forms of love songs (we need only mention the serenades peculiar to the south—the Basque country and Corsica especially) are of truly popular origin.
It may not be out of place here to quote the charming love romance in narrative form entitled Aucassin et Nicolette, dating from the beginning of the thirteenth century, which had an undoubted influence upon the music of chivalry both in France and in Germany. It comprises twenty-one vocal pieces interspersed with twenty prose sections, which are to be read, not sung, as the superscription Or se dient et content et flabloient indicates, in distinction from the Or se cante of the verse sections. The verse also forms part of the narrative, with the exception of Aucassin’s song to the evening star, which is purely lyric but of the same musical treatment as the epic songs of the piece:
![[PNG]](#5641759967176005169_.png.id-1538244686884271732.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
1. E-stoi-le-te je te voi
![[PNG]](#2189264214098753271_.png.id-3099030938640881625.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
2. Que la lu-ne trait a soi
(and twelve more verses)
