of the other lyrics--_aubades_, _debats_,
and what not--are joined to them, they supply the materials of an
anthology of hardly surpassed interest, as well for the bubbling music
of their refrains and the trill of their metre, as for the fresh mirth
and joy of living in their matter. The "German paste in our
composition," as another Arnold had it, and not only that, may make us
prefer the German examples; but it must never be forgotten that but
for these it is at least not improbable that those would never have
existed.

[Footnote 129: This for convenience' sake is postponed to chap. viii.]

To select capital examples from so large a body is no easy task. One
or two, indeed, have "made fortune," the most famous of them being the
great _aubade_ (chief among its kind, as "En un vergier sotz folha
d'albespi" is among the Provencal albas), which begins--

"Gaite de la tor,
Gardez entor
Les murs, si Deus vos voie;"[130]

and where the _gaite_ (watcher) answers (like a Cornish watcher of the
pilchards)--

"Hu! et hu! et hu! et hu!"

[Footnote 130: _Romancero Francais_, p. 66.]

Then there is the group, among the oldest and the best of all,
assigned to Audefroy le Batard--a most delectable garland, which tells
how the loves of Gerard and Fair Isabel are delayed (with the refrain
"et joie atent Gerars"), and how the joy comes at last; of "belle
Ydoine" and her at first ill-starred passion for "li cuens [the Count]
Garsiles"; of Beatrix and Guy; of Argentine, whose husband better
loved another; of Guy the second, who _aima Emmelot de foi_--all
charming pieces of early verse. And then there are hundreds of others,
assigned or anonymous, in every tone, from the rather unreasonable
request of the lady who demands--

"Por coi me bast mes maris?
laysette!"

immediately answering her own question by confessing that he has found
her embracing her lover, and threatening further justification;
through the less impudent but still not exactly correct morality of
"Henri and Aiglentine," to the blameless loves of Roland and "Bele
Erembors" and the _moniage_ of "Bele Doette" after her lover's death,
with the words--

"Tant mar i fustes, cuens Do, frans de nature,
por vostre aor vestrai je la haire
ne sur mon cors n'arai pelice vaire."

This conduct differs sufficiently from that of the unnamed heroine of
another song, who in the sweetest and smoothest of verse bids he