, and lo,
Found him whole as ne'er before.
From his bed he rose once more,
And to his own land did flit,
Safe and sound, whole ever whit.

Flow'r o' the lily, Nicolette!
Coming, going, ever pleasing,
In thy talk and in thy teasing,
In thy jest and in thy joying,
In thy kisses, in thy coying!
There is none could hate thee, dear!
Yet for thy sake am I here,
In this dungeon hid from day,
Where I cry Ah, well-a-way!
Now to die behoveth me,
Sweet friend, for thee!"

_Here they speak and tell the story_.

Aucassin was put in prison, as you have listened and heard, and Nicolette
was elsewhere in the chamber. 'Twas the summer time, the month of May,
when the days are warm and long and bright, and the nights still and
cloudless. Nicolette lay one night in her bed, and saw the moon shine
bright through a window, and heard the nightingale sing in the garden;
and she remembered Aucassin her friend, whom she loved so well. Then she
fell a-thinking of Warren Count of Beaucaire, and how he hated her to
death; and she thought within herself that she would abide there no
longer; since if she were betrayed and Count Warren knew of her, he would
put her to an evil death. She perceived that the old woman who was with
her slept. And she arose and clad her in a goodly gown that she had of
cloth-of-silk; and she took bedclothes and towels, and tied one to other
and made a rope as long as she could, and made it fast to the
window-shaft; and so got down into the garden. Then she took her dress
in one hand before, and in the other behind, and girded herself, because
of the dew she saw heavy on the grass, and went her way down the garden.
She had golden hair in little curls, and laughing blue eyes, and a face
finely curved, and a proud shapely nose, and lips more red than cherry or
rose in summertime, and small white teeth, and little breasts that
swelled beneath her clothes like two nuts of a walnut-tree. And her
waist was so fine that your two hands could have girdled her; and the
daisy-flowers snapped by her toes, and lying on the arch of her foot,
were fairly black beside her feet and ankles, so very white the girl was.

She came to the postern, and unfastened it, and went out through the
streets of Beaucaire, keeping to the shadow, for the moon shone very
bright; and she went on till she came to the tower where her friend was.
The tower had cracks in it here and there, and she crouched against one
of the piers, and wrapp