e cross-roads where
Seven paths do all way fare;
Then she deemeth she will try,
Should her lover pass thereby,
If he love her loyally.
So she gathered white lilies,
Oak-leaf, that in greenwood is,
Leaves of many a branch, iwis,
Therewith built a lodge of green,
Goodlier was never seen.
Swore by God, who may not lie:
"If my love the lodge should spy,
He will rest a while thereby
If he love me loyally."
Thus his faith she deemed to try,
"Or I love him not, not I,
Nor he loves me!"

AUCASSIN, SEEKING NICOLETTE, COMES UPON A COWHERD

Aucassin fared through the forest from path to path after Nicolette, and
his horse bare him furiously. Think ye not that the thorns him spared,
nor the briars, nay, not so, but tare his raiment, that scarce a knot
might be tied with the soundest part thereof, and the blood spurted from
his arms, and flanks, and legs, in forty places, or thirty, so that
behind the Childe men might follow on the track of his blood in the
grass. But so much he went in thoughts of Nicolette, his lady sweet,
that he felt no pain nor torment, and all the day hurled through the
forest in this fashion nor heard no word of her. And when he saw vespers
draw nigh, he began to weep for that he found her not. All down an old
road, and grass-grown, he fared, when anon, looking along the way before
him, he saw such an one as I shall tell you. Tall was he, and great of
growth, ugly and hideous: his head huge, and blacker than charcoal, and
more than the breadth of a hand between his two eyes; and he had great
cheeks, and a big nose and flat, big nostrils and wide, and thick lips
redder than steak, and great teeth yellow and ugly, and he was shod with
hosen and shoon of ox-hide, bound with cords of bark up over the knee,
and all about him a great cloak two-fold; and he leaned upon a grievous
cudgel, and Aucassin came unto him, and was afraid when he beheld him.

AUCASSIN FINDS NICOLETTE'S LODGE

So they parted from each other, and Aucassin rode on; the night was fair
and still, and so long he went that he came to the lodge of boughs that
Nicolette had builded and woven within and without, over and under, with
flowers, and it was the fairest lodge that might be seen. When Aucassin
was ware of it, he stopped suddenly, and the light of the moon
fell therein.

"Forsooth!" quoth Aucassin, "here was Nicolette, my sweet lady, and this