Her locks were yellow and curled, her eyes blue and smiling, her face featly fashioned, the nose high and fairly set, the lips more red than cherry or rose in time of summer, her teeth white and small; her breasts so firm that they bore up the folds of her bodice as they had been two apples; so slim she was in the waist that your two hands might have clipped her, and the daisy flowers that brake beneath her as she went tip-toe, and that bent above her instep, seemed black against her feet, so white was the maiden.  She came to the postern gate, and unbarred it, and went out through the streets of Biaucaire, keeping always on the shadowy side, for the moon was shining right clear, and so wandered she till she came to the tower where her lover lay.  The tower was flanked with buttresses, and she cowered under one of them, wrapped in her mantle.  Then thrust she her head through a crevice of the tower that was old and worn, and so heard she Aucassin wailing within, and making dole and lament for the sweet lady he loved so well.  And when she had listened to him she began to say: 

Here one singeth: 

   Nicolete the bright of brow
   On a pillar leanest thou,
   All Aucassin’s wail dost hear
   For his love that is so dear,
   Then thou spakest, shrill and clear,
   “Gentle knight withouten fear
   Little good befalleth thee,
   Little help of sigh or tear,
   Ne’er shalt thou have joy of me. 
   Never shalt thou win me; still
   Am I held in evil will
   Of thy father and thy kin,
   Therefore must I cross the sea,
   And another land must win.” 
   Then she cut her curls of gold,
   Cast them in the dungeon hold,
   Aucassin doth clasp them there,
   Kissed the curls that were so fair,
   Them doth in his bosom bear,
   Then he wept, even as of old,
      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.”