"
Again, the minstrel speaks out what many must have thought, in those
incredulous ages of Faith, about Heaven and Hell, Hell where the gallant
company makes up for everything. When he comes to a battle-piece he
makes Aucassin "mightily and knightly hurl through the press," like one
of Malory's men. His hero must be a man of his hands, no mere sighing
youth incapable of arms. But the minstrels heart is in other things, for
example, in the verses where Aucassin transfers to Beauty the
wonder-working powers of Holiness, and makes the sight of his lady heal
the palmer, as the shadow of the Apostle, falling on the sick people,
healed them by the Gate Beautiful. The Flight of Nicolete is a familiar
and beautiful picture, the daisy flowers look black in the ivory
moonlight against her feet, fair as Bombyca's "feet of carven ivory" in
the Sicilian idyll, long ago. {4} It is characteristic of the poet that
the two lovers begin to wrangle about which loves best, in the very mouth
of danger, while Aucassin is yet in prison, and the patrol go down the
moonlit street, with swords in their hands, sworn to slay Nicolete. That
is the place and time chosen for this ancient controversy. Aucassin's
threat that if he loses Nicolete he will not wait for sword or knife, but
will dash his head against a wall, is in the very temper of the prisoned
warrior-poet, who actually chose this way of death.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25