Gazed she o'er the garden-ground,
Saw the opening roses round,
Heard the birds sing merrily;
Then she made her orphan cry:
"Woe's me! what a wretch am I!
Caged and captive, why, ah why?
Aucassin, young lord, prithee,
Your sweetheart, am I not she?
Ay, methinks you hate not me.
For your sake I'm prisoner,
In this vaulted bed-chamber,
Where my life's a weary one.
But by God, sweet Mary's son,
Long herein I will not stay,
Can I find way!"
Here they speak and tell the story.
Nicolette was in prison, as you have harkened and heard, in the chamber. The cry and the noise ran through all the land and through all the country that Nicolette was lost. There are some say she is fled abroad out of the land. Other some that Warren, Count of Beaucaire, has had her done to death. Rejoice who might, Aucassin was not well pleased. But he went
