Aucassin and Nicolete. Lang Andrew
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Название: Aucassin and Nicolete

Автор: Lang Andrew

Издательство: Public Domain

Жанр: Зарубежная классика

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СКАЧАТЬ his lady. Romance has touched the book here with her magic, as she has touched the lines where we read how Consuelo came by moonlight to the Canon’s garden and the white flowers. The pleasure here is the keener for contrast with the luckless hind whom Aucassin encountered in the forest: the man who had lost his master’s ox, the ungainly man who wept, because his mother’s bed had been taken from under her to pay his debt. This man was in that estate which Achilles, in Hades, preferred above the kingship of the dead outworn. He was hind and hireling to a villein,

      ανδρι παρ ακληρω

      It is an unexpected touch of pity for the people, and for other than love-sorrows, in a poem intended for the great and courtly people of chivalry.

      At last the lovers meet, in the lodge of flowers beneath the stars. Here the story should end, though one could ill spare the pretty lecture the girl reads her lover as they ride at adventure, and the picture of Nicolete, with her brown stain, and jogleor’s attire, and her viol, playing before Aucassin in his own castle of Biaucaire. The burlesque interlude of the country of Torelore is like a page out of Rabelais, stitched into the cante-fable by mistake. At such lands as Torelore Pantagruel and Panurge touched many a time in their vague voyaging. Nobody, perhaps, can care very much about Nicolete’s adventures in Carthage, and her recognition by her Paynim kindred. If the old captive had been a prisoner among the Saracens, he was too indolent or incurious to make use of his knowledge. He hurries on to his journey’s end;

      “Journeys end in lovers meeting.”

      So he finishes the tale. What lives in it, what makes it live, is the touch of poetry, of tender heart, of humorous resignation. The old captive says the story will gladden sad men: -

      “Nus hom n’est si esbahis,

      tant dolans ni entrepris,

      de grant mal amaladis,

      se il l’oit, ne soit garis,

      et de joie resbaudis,

      tant par est douce.”

      This service it did for M. Bida, the painter, as he tells us when he translated Aucassin in 1870. In dark and darkening days, patriai tempore iniquo, we too have turned to Aucassin et Nicolete.5

      BALLADE OF AUCASSIN

      Where smooth the Southern waters run

      Through rustling leagues of poplars gray,

      Beneath a veiled soft Southern sun,

      We wandered out of Yesterday;

      Went Maying in that ancient May

      Whose fallen flowers are fragrant yet,

      And lingered by the fountain spray

      With Aucassin and Nicolete.

      The grassgrown paths are trod of none

      Where through the woods they went astray;

      The spider’s traceries are spun

      Across the darkling forest way;

      There come no Knights that ride to slay,

      No Pilgrims through the grasses wet,

      No shepherd lads that sang their say

      With Aucassin and Nicolete.

      ’Twas here by Nicolete begun

      Her lodge of boughs and blossoms gay;

      ’Scaped from the cell of marble dun

      ’Twas here the lover found the Fay;

      O lovers fond, O foolish play!

      How hard we find it to forget,

      Who fain would dwell with them as they,

      With Aucassin and Nicolete.

      ENVOY.

      Prince, ’tis a melancholy lay!

      For Youth, for Life we both regret:

      How fair they seem; how far away,

      With Aucassin and Nicolete.

      A. L.

      BALLADE OF NICOLETE

      All bathed in pearl and amber light

      She rose to fling the lattice wide,

      And leaned into the fragrant night,

      Where brown birds sang of summertide;

      (’Twas Love’s own voice that called and cried)

      “Ah, Sweet!” she said, “I’ll seek thee yet,

      Though thorniest pathways should betide

      The fair white feet of Nicolete.”

      They slept, who would have stayed her flight;

      (Full fain were they the maid had died!)

      She dropped adown her prison’s height

      On strands of linen featly tied.

      And so she passed the garden-side

      With loose-leaved roses sweetly set,

      And dainty daisies, dark beside

      The fair white feet of Nicolete!

      Her lover lay in evil plight

      (So many lovers yet abide!)

      I would my tongue could praise aright

      Her name, that should be glorified.

      Those lovers now, whom foes divide

      A little weep, – and soon forget.

      How far from these faint lovers glide

      The fair white feet of Nicolete.

      ENVOY.

      My Princess, doff thy frozen pride,

      Nor scorn to pay Love’s golden debt,

      Through his dim woodland take for guide

      The fair white feet of Nicolete.

      GRAHAM R. TOMSON

      THE SONG-STORY OF AUCASSIN AND NICOLETE

      ’Tis of Aucassin and Nicolete.

      Who would list to the good lay

      Gladness of the captive grey?

      ’Tis how two young lovers met,

      Aucassin and Nicolete,

      Of the pains the lover bore

      And the sorrows he outwore,

      For the goodness and the grace,

      Of his love, so fair of face.

      Sweet the song, the story sweet,

      There is no man hearkens it,

      No man living ’neath the sun,

      So outwearied, so foredone,

      Sick and woful, worn and sad,

      But is healèd, but is glad

      ’Tis so sweet.

      So say they, speak they, tell they the Tale:

      How the Count Bougars de Valence made war on Count Garin de Biaucaire, war so great, and so marvellous, and so mortal that never a day dawned but alway he was there, by the gates and walls, and barriers of the town with a hundred knights, and ten thousand men at arms, horsemen and footmen: so burned he the Count’s land, and spoiled his country, and slew his men. Now the СКАЧАТЬ

<p>5</p>

I have not thought it necessary to discuss the conjectures, – they are no more, – about the Greek or Arabic origin of the cante-fable, about the derivation of Aucassin’s name, the supposed copying of Floire et Blancheflor, the longitude and latitude of the land of Torelore, and so forth. In truth “we are in Love’s land to-day,” where the ships sail without wind or compass, like the barques of the Phaeacians. Brunner and Suchier add nothing positive to our knowledge, and M. Gaston Paris pretends to cast but little light on questions which it is too curious to consider at all. In revising the translation I have used with profit the versions of M. Bida, of Mr. Bourdillon, the glossary of Suchier, and Mr. Bourdillon’s glossary. As for the style I have attempted, if not Old English, at least English which is elderly, with a memory of Malory.