登陆注册
14365600000001

第1章 INTRODUCTION(1)

There is nothing in artistic poetry quite akin to "Aucassin and Nicolete."By a rare piece of good fortune the one manu of the Song-Story has escaped those waves of time, which have wrecked the bark of Menander, and left of Sappho but a few floating fragments. The very form of the tale is peculiar; we have nothing else from the twelfth or thirteenth century in the alternate prose and verse of the cante-fable. We have fabliaux in verse, and prose Arthurian romances.

We have Chansons de Geste, heroic poems like "Roland," unrhymed assonant laisses, but we have not the alternations of prose with laisses in seven-syllabled lines. It cannot be certainly known whether the form of "Aucassin and Nicolete" was a familiar form--used by many jogleors, or wandering minstrels and story-tellers such as Nicolete, in the tale, feigned herself to be,--or whether this is a solitary experiment by "the old captive" its author, a contemporary, as M. Gaston Paris thinks him, of Louis VII (1130).

He was original enough to have invented, or adopted from popular tradition, a form for himself; his originality declares itself everywhere in his one surviving masterpiece. True, he uses certain traditional formulae, that have survived in his time, as they survived in Homer's, from the manner of purely popular poetry, of Volkslieder. Thus he repeats snatches of conversation always in the same, or very nearly the same words. He has a stereotyped form, like Homer, for saying that one person addressed another, "ains traist au visconte de la vile si l'apela" [Greek text which cannot be reproduced] . . . Like Homer, and like popular song, he deals in recurrent epithets, and changeless courtesies. To Aucassin the hideous plough-man is "Biax frere," "fair brother," just as the treacherous Aegisthus is [Greek text] in Homer; these are complimentary terms, with no moral sense in particular. The jogleor is not more curious than Homer, or than the poets of the old ballads, about giving novel deions of his characters. As Homer's ladies are "fair-tressed," so Nicolete and Aucassin have, each of them, close yellow curls, eyes of vair (whatever that may mean), and red lips. War cannot be mentioned except as war "where knights do smite and are smitten," and so forth. The author is absolutely conventional in such matters, according to the convention of his age and profession.

Nor is his matter more original. He tells a story of thwarted and finally fortunate love, and his hero is "a Christened knight"--like Tamlane,--his heroine a Paynim lady. To be sure, Nicolete was baptized before the tale begins, and it is she who is a captive among Christians, not her lover, as usual, who is a captive among Saracens. The author has reversed the common arrangement, and he appears to have cared little more than his reckless hero, about creeds and differences of faith. He is not much interested in the recognition of Nicolete by her great Paynim kindred, nor indeed in any of the "business" of the narrative, the fighting, the storms and tempests, and the burlesque of the kingdom of Torelore.

What the nameless author does care for, is his telling of the love-story, the passion of Aucassin and Nicolete. His originality lies in his charming medley of sentiment and humour, of a smiling compassion and sympathy with a touch of mocking mirth. The love of Aucassin and Nicolete -"Des grans paines qu'il soufri,"

that is the one thing serious to him in the whole matter, and that is not so very serious. The story-teller is no Mimnermus, Love and Youth are the best things he knew,--"deport du viel caitif,"--and now he has "come to forty years," and now they are with him no longer. But he does not lament like Mimnermus, like Alcman, like Llwyarch Hen. "What is Life, what is delight without golden Aphrodite? May I die!" says Mimnermus, "when I am no more conversant with these, with secret love, and gracious gifts, and the bed of desire." And Alcman, when his limbs waver beneath him, is only saddened by the faces and voices of girls, and would change his lot for the sea-birds."

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 太子追妻棒棒哒

    太子追妻棒棒哒

    她是阴差阳错穿越女,啥大抱负没有,偏生处处被逼婚;他是忍辱负重皇太子,万事运筹帷幄中,偏拿逃妻很没辄。今生到前世,若情到深处则天命亦可改,奈何玉帝老儿从中作梗,红线牵他人,惹她一世情债还不得;幸有痴情皇太子,护妻追妻任劳任怨,历经磨难终成眷属。民间传:太子治国棒棒哒?某宝答:爹爹追娘棒棒哒!
  • 《空间冒险》

    《空间冒险》

    空间我们又能够认识多少呢。一个人拥有了穿越平行空间的能力的时候,他该会做出怎样的选择呢。
  • 邪魅校草恋上大毒枭之女

    邪魅校草恋上大毒枭之女

    在消息公开后,作为大毒枭的女儿的沈乐妍在任何人那都抬不起头来了,在学校里,她受尽了冷眼和谩骂,见到她的人从来都不会忘记讽刺几句,但沈乐妍早已在种种不幸中学会了坚强和无视,她逐渐变得冷漠,不在意这些流言蜚语。直到他的出现。也像一个世俗的人一样,但却那么霸道,此后除了他再也不准任何人欺负她。‘呵,一个大毒枭的女儿,还那么高傲。’天使般的面孔却用恶魔般的表情,说出来的话也是。沈乐妍任他百般羞辱,硬是不理他一句。吃了一次闭门羹后,蓝亦风却以照片逼迫她开口。与他同样的另一个恶魔,却为了她而变得温柔。究竟哪个恶魔能够俘获她的心呢?
  • 童话使者明星恋

    童话使者明星恋

    三个女孩年龄只有15岁的女孩,背负着拯救整个童话王国存亡的重大使命。她们只是在那一瞬间,就承受了这样一个使命。为了尽快完成这项重任,她们与自己的父母商量,到A市去读书。也就是在那里,她们和三个帅气的男生有了一段难忘的经历,她们与他们相识,相知,甚至相爱…
  • tfboys之一生只爱你一人

    tfboys之一生只爱你一人

    在一次偶然之中,三位王子爱上了她们,而她们却远远离去,十年后,他们再次相遇,这次又有什么样的故事呢?
  • 大唐史歌.穿越

    大唐史歌.穿越

    其实,故事的开头很简单:他骑着汗血宝马来迎亲,我上了他的花轿,就在那一天,我随他入了东宫。我穿越回唐朝,看到了长安城巍峨的城楼,跑过了一座又一座宫墙,还从他们之间的腥风血雨中走过。这一切,到底是机缘巧合,还是宿命轮回。问天,问世,解,或无解。
  • 虚妄年华

    虚妄年华

    关于一个平凡的高中生的凌乱生活、只不过是年少轻狂、经历种种悲欢离合阴晴圆缺最终却发现一切都只不过是虚妄之中虚度的年华。
  • 鸾凤还巢

    鸾凤还巢

    她是才华横溢的才女,凤仪天下的皇后,却不想遇人不淑,最后含冤而死,一朝重生,她成了将军府最无能嚣张的三小姐,面对庶母的虚伪,庶姐的阴狠,看她如何扮猪吃老虎,书写她的快意人生。
  • 侠警猎魔

    侠警猎魔

    在美国生活的尹航,经常能够看到一些吓人的幻像,但凭着他超人的心理素质,避免了疯掉的可能,反而因工作出色得到升职,成为了一名警长;可某天,感觉幻象越来越真实的尹航家中,消失了几年的父亲突然造访,并告诉他了一个惊天秘闻,原来,自己乃是剑臣先生(蒲松龄)的传人,而他写的故事虽然是杜撰,但事迹却都曾经真实发生过。在得知自己继承了祖先的剑臣之眼能力,能够看破隐藏在普通人中的恶魔后,并且恶魔正在酝酿一个巨大的阴谋时,尹航下定决心,自己将不惜一切代价,来守护人类的安全。
  • 亘古诸天

    亘古诸天

    岁月如水远逝,今昔故人何在?他从那亘古战场中走出,只为最后一次的大战来临和自己所斩断的那段岁月不被发现。百万年前他让岁月断层,今日他要让时间倒流。不屠天地不轮回,不灭邪魔不转生…指殇群号:536059171欢迎大家加入其中。