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Updated: June 4, 2025
These adventures are of the simplest sort, adventures which seem to be chosen for the happy occasion they afford of keeping the eye of the fancy, perhaps the outward eye, fixed on pleasant objects, a garden, a ruined tower, the little hut of flowers which Nicolette constructs in the forest whither she has escaped from her enemies, as a token to Aucassin that she has passed that way.
The normal fairy-tale is a sort of tiny informal child's religion, the baby's secular temple, and it should have for the most part that touch of delicate sublimity that we see in the mountain chapel or grotto, or fancy in the dwellings of Aucassin and Nicolette. When such lines are drawn by the truly sophisticated producer, there lies in them the secret of a more than ritualistic power.
And Nicolette is taken by Carthaginian pirates, and proves to be daughter to the King of Carthage, and leaves his court and comes to Beaucaire in the disguise of a ministrel, and "journeys end in lovers' meeting." That is all the tale, with its gaps, its careless passages, its adventures that do not interest the poet.
The Count de Perche came to its relief, and, after forcing him to retreat, attacked Lincoln Castle, which was bravely held by the late castellane's widow, Nicolette de Camville.
She could hear Nicolette protesting in her shrill patois, and a rather vulgar, but very determined English voice, vigorously asserting itself. Then there came the sound of something almost like a scuffle, and Nicolette came running in with red eyes. "Signorina, the brute, the brute!" she cried; "he will come in. He dared to lay his hands upon me. See, he is here!
So Nicolette was imprisoned high in a painted chamber. But the enemy were storming the town, and, for the promise of "one word or two with Nicolette, and one kiss," Aucassin armed himself and led out his men. But he was all adream about Nicolette, and his horse bore him into the press of foes ere he knew it. Then he heard them contriving his death, and woke out of his dream.
Of this spirit Aucassin and Nicolette contains perhaps the most famous expression: it is the answer Aucassin gives when he is threatened with the pains of hell, if he makes Nicolette his mistress. A creature wholly of affection and the senses, he sees on the way to paradise only a feeble company of aged priests, "clinging day and night to the chapel altars," barefoot or in patched sandals.
He went to the window which looked out on the street, threw it open with his aged and palsied hands, leaned out more than half-way, while Basque and Nicolette held him behind, and shouted: "Marius! Marius! Marius! Marius!" But Marius could no longer hear him, for at that moment he was turning the corner of the Rue Saint-Louis.
*Recently, Aucassin and Nicolette has been edited and translated into English, with much graceful scholarship, by Mr. F. W. Bourdillon. More recently still we have had a translation a poet's translation from the ingenious and versatile pen of Mr. Andrew Lang.
It was "Aucassin and Nicolette" only a month ago, and to-day you have been reading Lord Lytton's "Strange Story," I am sure, for you want information about Plotinus! Probably this prohibition caused Plotinus no regret, for he was a consistent vegetarian. However, we are advancing too rapidly, and we must discuss Plotinus more in order.
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