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Diex! dist il, dame, merveilles avez dit: Ja mar croiroie sorciere ne devin; Par aventure vient li biens el païs, Je ne lairoie, por tot l'or que Diex fist, Que je n'i voise, que talens m'en est prins. |
The hunting of the boar is as good as anything of its kind in history, and it is impossible to read it without wishing that it had been printed a few years earlier to be read by Sir Walter Scott. He would have applauded as no one else can this story of the chase and of the hunter separated from his companions in the forest. There is one line especially in the lament for Begon after his death which is enough by itself to prove the soundness of the French poet's judgment, and his right to a welcome at Abbotsford: "This was a true man; his dogs loved him":—
Gentis hons fu, moult l'amoient si chien.
Begon came by his death in the greenwood. The forester found him there and reported him to Fromont's seneschal, who called out six of his men to go and take the poacher; and along with them went Thibaut, Fromont's nephew, an old rival of Begon. Begon set his back to an aspen tree and killed four of the churls and beat off the rest, but was killed himself at last with an arrow.
The four dead men were brought home and Begon's horse was led away:—
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En une estable menerent le destrier Fronce et hennit et si grate des pies Que nus de char ne li ouse aprochier. |
Begon was left lying where he fell and his three dogs came back to him:—
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Seul ont Begon en la forest laissié: Et jouste lui revindrent si trois chien, Hulent et braient com fuissent enragié. |
This most spirited passage of action and adventure shows the poet at his best; it is the sort of thing that he understands, and he carries it through without a mistake. It is followed by an attempt at another theme where something more is required of the author, and his success is not so perfect. He is drawn into the field of tragic emotion. Here, though his means are hardly sufficient for elaborate work, he sketches well. The character of Fromont when the news of his opponent's death is brought to him comes out as something of a different value from the sheer barbarism of Raoul de Cambrai. The narrative is light and wanting in depth, but there is no untruth and no dulness in the conception, and the author's meaning is perfectly clear. Fromont is different from the felons of his own household. Fromont is the adversary, but he is a gentleman. Even when he knows no more of the event than that a trespasser has been killed in the forest, he sends his men to bring in the body;—
Frans hons de l'autre doient avoir pitié