Comfort me in my distress! 
    Surely, ’twas but yesterday,
    That the pilgrim came this way—­
    Weak and poor and travel-worn—­
    Who in Limousin was born. 
    With the falling sickness, he
    Stricken was full grievously. 
    He had prayed to many a saint
    For the cure of his complaint;
    But no healing did he get
    Till he saw my Nicolette. 
    Even as he lay down to die,
    Nicolette came walking by. 
    On her shining limbs he gazed,
    As her kirtle she upraised. 
    And he rose from off the ground,
    Healed and joyful, whole and sound. 
    Miracle of loveliness,
    Comfort me in my distress!”

As Aucassin was singing in his dungeon, Nicolette was devising how to get out of her tower.  It was now summer time, in the month of May, when the day is warm, long and clear, and the night still and serene.  Nicolette lay on her bed, and the moonlight streamed through the window, and the nightingale sang in the garden below; and she thought of Aucassin, her lover, whom she loved, and of Count Garin, who hated her.

“I will stay here no longer,” said Nicolette, “or the count will find me and kill me.”

The old woman that was set to watch over her was asleep.  Nicolette put on her fine silken kirtle, and took the bedclothes and knotted them together, and made a rope.  This she fastened to the bar of her window, and so got down from the tower.  Then she lifted up her kirtle with both hands, because the dew was lying deep on the grass, and went away down the garden.

Her locks were yellow and curled; her eyes blue-grey and laughing; her lips were redder than the cherry or rose in summertime; her teeth white and small; so slim was her waist that you could have clipped her in your two hands; and so firm were her breasts that they rose against her bodice as if they were two apples.  The daisies that bent above her instep, and broke beneath her light tread, looked black against her feet; so white the maiden was.

She came to the postern gate, and unbarred it, and went out through the streets of Beaucaire, keeping always in the shadows, for the moon was shining.  And so she got to the dungeon where her lover, Aucassin, lay.  She thrust her head through the chink, and there she heard Aucassin grieving for her whom he loved so much.

“Ah, Aucassin!” she said.  “Never will you have joy of me.  Your father hates me to death, and I must cross the sea, and go to some strange land.”

“If you were to go away,” said Aucassin, “you would kill me.  The first man that saw you would take you to his bed.  And, then, do you think I would wait till I found a knife?  No!  I would dash my head to pieces against a wall or a rock.”

“Ah!” she said.  “I love you more than you love me.”

“Nay, my sweet lady,” said he.  “Woman cannot love man as much as man loves woman.  Woman only loves with her eyes; man loves with his heart.”