title: Aucassin and Nicolette: A Facing-Page Edition and Translation
author: Robert S. Sturges
description: <DIV>This is a lively translation that beautifully captures the humor and playfulness of the original. Sturges is to be commended especially for his rendering of the lyric passages into English verse. The general reader will appreciate the introduction that locates the work within a medieval landscape at the same time that it presents an overview of current scholarly interest in the works treatment of gender, class, and race.<BR> <B>Deborah McGrady,</B> Associate Professor, Chair, Department of French, University of Virginia<BR></DIV>
zlib_text: ![](images/00001.jpg)
  
  * * *
  
  
    
    
  Aucassin and Nicolete
  
  
    
    
  [INTRODUCTION  
    
  ](Aucassin%20and%20Nicolete_split_001.html#filepos1419)[BALLADE OF AUCASSIN
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com
  
  
  # Aucassin and Nicolete
  
  
  ### Andrew Lang
  
  
  
  
  
  This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com  
    
  
  * INTRODUCTION
  
  
  * BALLADE OF AUCASSIN
  
  
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  ### INTRODUCTION
  
  
  
  
  
  There is nothing in artistic poetry quite akin to "Aucassin and
  
  
  Nicolete."
  
  
  
  
  
  By a rare piece of good fortune the one manuscript of the
  
  
  Song-Story has escaped those waves of time, which have wrecked the
  
  
  bark of Menander, and left of Sappho but a few floating fragments.
  
  
  The very form of the tale is peculiar; we have nothing else from the
  
  
  twelfth or thirteenth century in the alternate prose and verse of the
  
  
  cante- fable. {1} We have fabliaux in verse, and prose Arthurian
  
  
  romances. We have Chansons de Geste, heroic poems like "Roland