Provencal poetry itself, to which the inspiration of the book has
been referred. Let me gather up these morsels of deeper colour,
these expressions of the ideal intensity of love, the motive which
really unites together the fragments of the little composition.
Dante, the perfect flower of ideal love, has recorded how the
tyranny of that "Lord of terrible aspect" became actually
physical, blinding his senses, and suspending his bodily forces.
In this, Dante is but the central expression and type of
experiences known well enough to the initiated, in that passionate
age. Aucassin represents this ideal intensity of passion--

Aucassin, le biax, li blons,
Li gentix, li amorous;--

the slim, tall, debonair, dansellon, as the singers call him, with
his curled yellow hair, and eyes of vair, who faints with love, as
Dante fainted, who rides all day through the forest in search of
Nicolette, while the thorns tear his flesh, so that one might have
traced him by the blood upon the grass, and who weeps at
eventide because he has not found her, who has the malady of his
love, and neglects all knightly duties. Once he is induced to put
himself at the head of his people, that they, seeing him before
them, might have more heart to defend themselves; then a song
relates how the sweet, grave figure goes forth to battle, in dainty,
tight-laced [24] armour. It is the very image of the Provencal
love-god, no longer a child, but grown to pensive youth, as Pierre
Vidal met him, riding on a white horse, fair as the morning, his
vestment embroidered with flowers. He rode on through the
gates into the open plain beyond. But as he went, that great
malady of his love came upon him. The bridle fell from his