All for his love!

Then say they, speak they, tell they the Tale:

When Aucassin heard Nicolete say that she would pass into a far country,
he was all in wrath.

"Fair sweet friend," quoth he, "thou shalt not go, for then wouldst thou
be my death. And the first man that saw thee and had the might withal,
would take thee straightway into his bed to be his leman. And once thou
camest into a man's bed, and that bed not mine, wit ye well that I would
not tarry till I had found a knife to pierce my heart and slay myself.
Nay, verily, wait so long I would not: but would hurl myself on it so
soon as I could find a wall, or a black stone, thereon would I dash my
head so mightily, that the eyes would start, and my brain burst. Rather
would I die even such a death, than know thou hadst lain in a man's bed,
and that bed not mine."

"Aucassin," she said, "I trow thou lovest me not as much as thou sayest,
but I love thee more than thou lovest me."

"Ah, fair sweet friend," said Aucassin, "it may not be that thou shouldst
love me even as I love thee. Woman may not love man as man loves woman,
for a woman's love lies in the glance of her eye, and the bud of her
breast, and her foot's tip-toe, but the love of man is in his heart
planted, whence it can never issue forth and pass away."

Now while Aucassin and Nicolete held this parley together, the town's
guards came down a street, with swords drawn beneath their cloaks, for
the Count Garin had charged them that if they could take her they should