Chapter 4

"Now the cruel Moor had a beautiful daughter called Susy Pye, who was accustomed to take a walk every morning in her garden, and as she was walking ae day she heard the sough o' Beichan's sang, coming as it were from below the ground."

All this is clearly analogous in form no less than in matter to our _cante-fable_. Mr. Motherwell speaks of _fabliaux_, intended partly for recitation, and partly for being sung; but does not refer by name to _Aucassin and Nicolete_. If we may judge by analogy, then, the form of the _cante-fable_ is probably an early artistic adaptation of a popular narrative method.

STOUR; an ungainly word enough, familiar in Scotch with the sense of wind- driven dust, it may be dust of battle. The French is _Estor_.

BIAUCAIRE, opposite Tarascon, also celebrated for its local hero, the deathless Tartarin. There is a great deal of learning about Biaucaire; probably the author of the _cante-fable_ never saw the place, but he need not have thought it was on the sea-shore, as (p. 39) he seems to do. There he makes the people of Beaucaire set out to wreck a ship. Ships do not go up the Rhone, and get wrecked there, after escaping the perils of the deep.

On p. 42, the poet clearly thinks that Nicolete, after landing from her barque, had to travel a considerable distance before reaching Biaucaire. The fact is that the poet is perfectly reckless of geography, like him who wrote of the set-shore of Bohemia.

PAINTED WONDROUSLY. No one knows what is really meant by a _miramie_.

PLENTIFUL LACK OF COMFORT: rather freely for _Mout i aries peu conquis_.

MALENGIN: a favourite word of Sir Thomas Malory: "mischievous intent."

FEATS OF YOUTH: ENFANCES, the regular term for the romance of a knight's early prowess.

TWO APPLES; nois gauges in the original. But _walnuts_ sound inadequate.

Here the MS. has a _lacuna_.

There is much useless learning about the realm of _Torelore_. It is somewhere between Kor and Laputa. The custom of the _Couvade_ was dimly known to the poet. The feigned lying-in of the father may have been either a recognition of paternity (as in the sham birth whereby Hera adopted Heracles) or may have been caused by the belief that the health of the father at the time of the child's birth affected that of the child. Either origin of the _Couvade_ is consistent with early beliefs and customs.

EYEBRIGHT. This is a purely fanciful rendering of _Esclaire_.

Footnotes:

{1} Gaston Paris, in M. Bida's edition, p. xii. Paris, 1878. The blending is not unknown in various countries. See note at end of Translation.

{2} I know not if I unconsciously transferred this criticism from M. Gaston Paris.

{3} "Love in Idleness." London, 1883, p. 169.

{4} Theocritus, x. 37.

{5} 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.