e have heard soothly, in the chamber. And
the noise and bruit of it went through all the country and all the land,
how that Nicolete was lost. Some said she had fled the country, and some
that the Count Garin de Biaucaire had let slay her. Whosoever had joy
thereof, Aucassin had none, so he went to the Captain of the town and
spoke to him, saying:

"Sir Captain, what hast thou made of Nicolete, my sweet lady and love,
the thing that best I love in all the world? Hast thou carried her off
or ravished her away from me? Know well that if I die of it, the price
shall be demanded of thee, and that will be well done, for it shall be
even as if thou hadst slain me with thy two hands, for thou hast taken
from me the thing that in this world I loved the best."

"Fair Sir," said the Captain, "let these things be. Nicolete is a
captive that I did bring from a strange country. Yea, I bought her at my
own charges of the Saracens, and I bred her up and baptized her, and made
her my daughter in God. And I have cherished her, and one of these days
I would have given her a young man, to win her bread honourably. With
this hast thou naught to make, but do thou take the daughter of a King or
a Count. Nay more, what wouldst thou deem thee to have gained, hadst
thou made her thy leman, and taken her to thy bed? Plentiful lack of
comfort hadst thou got thereby, for in Hell would thy soul have lain
while the world endures, and into Paradise wouldst thou have entered
never."

"In Paradise what have I to win? Therein I seek not to enter, but only
to have Nicolete, my sweet lady that I love so well. For into Paradise
go none but such folk as I shall tell thee now: Thither go these same old
priests, and halt old men and maimed, who all day and night cower
continually before the altars, and in the crypts; and such folk as wear
old amices and old clouted frocks, and naked folk and shoeless, and
covered with sores, perishing of hunger and thirst, and of cold, and of
little ease. These be they that go into Paradise, with them have I
naught to make. But into Hell would I fain go; for into Hell fare the
goodly clerks, and goodly knights that fall in tourneys and great wars,
and stout men at arms, and all men noble. With these would I liefly go.
And thither pass the sweet ladies and courteous that have two lovers, or
three, and their lords also thereto. Thither goes the gold, and the
silver, and cloth of vair, and cloth of gris, and h