S'an passe outre et a grant destrece:
Mains et genolz et piez se blece.
Mes tot le rasoage et sainne
Amors qui le conduist et mainne:
Si li estoit a sofrir dolz.
A mains, a piez et a genolz
Fet tant que de l'autre part vient.

[Sidenote: Romances of Antiquity. Chanson d'Alixandre.]

About the same time as the flourishing of the Arthurian cycle there
began to be written the third great division of Jean Bodel, 'la matiere
de Rome la grant[55].' The most important beyond all question of the
poems which go to make up this cycle (as it is sometimes called, though
in reality its members are quite independent one of the other) is the
Romance of _Alixandre_. Of the earliest French poem on this subject only
a few fragments exist. This is supposed to have been a work of the
eleventh or very early twelfth century, composed in octosyllabic verses,
and in the mixed dialect common at the time in the south-east, by
Alberic or Auberi of Besancon or Briancon. The _Chanson d'Alixandre_ is,
however, in all probability a much more important work than Alberic's.
It is in form a regular Chanson de Geste, written in twelve-syllabled
verse, of such strength and grace that the term Alexandrine has cleaved
ever since to the metre. Its length, as we have it[56], is 22,606
verses, and it is assigned to two authors, Lambert the Short[57] and
Alexander of Bernay, though doubt has been expressed whether any of the
present poem is due to Lambert; if we have any of his work, it is not
later than the ninth decade of the twelfth century. Lambert, Alexander,
and perhaps others, are thought to have known not Alberic, but a later
ten-syllabled version into Northern French by Simon of Poitiers. The
remoter sources are various. Foremost among them may undoubtedly be
placed the Pseudo-Callisthenes, an unknown Alexandrian writer translated
into Latin about the fourth century by Julius Valerius, who fathered
upon the philosopher a collection of stories partly gathered from
Plutarch, Quintus Curtius, and a hundred other authorities, partly
elaborated according to the fashion of Greek romancers. Some oriental
traditions of Alexander were also in the possession of western Europe.
Out of all these, and with a considerable admixture of the floating
fables of the time, Lambert and Alexander wove their work. There is, of
course, not the slightest attempt at antiquity of colour. Alexander has
twelve peers, he learns the favourite studies of