ces, the _Epopee courtoise_ may be
taken to include many poems of Greek, of Byzantine, or of uncertain
origin, such as the _Roman de la Violette_, the tale of a wronged
wife, having much in common with that novel of Boccaccio with which
Shakespeare's _Cymbeline_ is connected, the _Floire et
Blanchefleur_; the _Partenopeus de Blois_, a kind of "Cupid and
Psyche" story, with the parts of the lovers transposed, and others.
In the early years of the thirteenth century the prose romance
rivalled in popularity the romance in verse. The exquisite
_chante-fable_ of _Aucassin et Nicolette_, of the twelfth century,
is partly in prose, partly in assonanced _laisses_ of seven-syllable
verse. It is a story of the victory of love: the heir of Count Garin
of Beaucaire is enamoured of a beautiful maiden of unknown birth,
purchased from the Saracens, who proves to be daughter of the King
of Carthage, and in the end the lovers are united. In one remarkable
passage unusual sympathy is shown with the hard lot of the peasant,
whose trials and sufferings are contrasted with the lighter troubles
of the aristocratic class.

In general the poems of the _Epopee courtoise_ exhibit much of the
brilliant external aspect of the life of chivalry as idealised by
the imagination; dramatic situations are ingeniously devised; the
emotions of the chief actors are expounded and analysed, sometimes
with real delicacy; but in the conception of character, in the
recurring incidents, in the types of passion, in the creation of
marvel and surprise, a large conventional element is present. Love
is independent of marriage, or rather the relation of wedlock excludes
love in the accepted sense of the word; the passion is almost
necessarily illegitimate, and it comes as if it were an irresistible
fate; the first advance is often made by the woman; but, though at
war with the duty of wedlock, love is conceived as an ennobling
influence, prompting the knight to all deeds of courage and
self-sacrifice. Through the later translation of the Spanish _Amadis
des Gaules_, something of the spirit of the mediaeval romances was
carried into the chivalric and pastoral romances of the seventeenth
century.

CHAPTER II
LYRICAL POETRY--FABLES, AND RENARD THE FOX--FABLIAUX--THE ROMANCE
OF THE ROSE

I
LYRICAL POETRY

Long before the date of any lyrical poems that have come down to us,
song and dance were a part of the life of the people of the North
as well as of the