"You will never again see Nicolette, my fair lord," said the captain. "What would you gain if you took the Saracen maid to bed? Your soul would go to hell. You would never win to heaven!"
"And what of that?" said Aucassin. "Who is it that win to heaven? Old priests, and cripples that grovel and pray at altars, and tattered beggars that die of cold and hunger. These only go to heaven, and I do not want their company. So I will go to hell. For there go all good scholars and the brave knights that died in wars, and sweet ladies that had many lovers, and harpers, and minstrels, and great kings. Give me but my Nicolette, and gladly I will keep them company."
II.--Love's Song in a Dungeon
Aucassin returned very sorrowfully to the castle, and there his father put him into a dungeon.
Aucassin is cast and bound
In a dungeon underground;
Never does the sunlight fall
Shining on his prison wall;
Only one faint ray of it
Glimmers down a narrow slit.
But does Aucassin forget
His sweet lady, Nicolette?
Listen! He is singing there,
And his song is all of her:
"Though for love of thee I die
In this dungeon where I lie,
Wonder of the world, I will
Worship thee and praise thee still!
By the beauty of thy face,
By the joy of thy embrace,
By the rapture of thy kiss,
And thy body's sweetnesses,
Miracle of loveliness,
Comfort me in my distress!
Surely, 'twas but yesterday,
That the pilgrim came this way--
Weak and poor and travel-worn--
Who in Limousin was born.
With the falling sickness, he
Stricken was full grievously.
He had prayed to many a saint
For the cure of his complaint;
But no healing did he get
Till he saw my Nicolette.
Even as he lay down to die,
Nicolette came walking by.
On her shining limbs he gazed,
As her kirtle she upraised.
And he rose from off the ground,
Healed and joyful, whole and sound.
Miracle of loveliness,
Comfort me in my distress!"
As Aucassin was singing in his dungeon, Nicolette was devising how to get out of her tower. It was now summer time, in the month of May, when the day is warm, long and clear, and the night still and serene. Nicolette lay on her bed, and the moonlight streamed through the window, and the nightingale sang in the garden below; and she thought of Aucassin, her lover, whom she loved, and of Count Garin, who hated her.
"I will stay here no longer," said Nicolette, "or the count will find me and kill me."
The old woman that was set to watch over her was asleep. Nicolette put on her fine silken kirtle, and took the bedclothes and knotted them together, and made a rope. This she fastened to the bar of her window, and so got down from the tower. Then she lifted up her kirtle with both hands, because the dew was lying deep on the grass, and went away down the garden.
Her locks were yellow and curled; her eyes blue-grey and laughing; her lips were redder than the cherry or rose in summertime; her teeth white and small; so slim was her waist that you could have clipped her in your two hands; and so firm were her breasts that they rose against her bodice as if they were two apples. The daisies that bent above her instep, and broke beneath her light tread, looked black against her feet; so white the maiden was.
She came to the postern gate, and unbarred it, and went out through the streets of Beaucaire, keeping always in the shadows, for the moon was shining. And so she got to the dungeon where her lover, Aucassin, lay. She thrust her head through the chink, and there she heard Aucassin grieving for her whom he loved so much.