Aucassin and Nicolette

XXXVI

Spoken: Story and Dialogue

Let us now leave Aucassin to talk of Nicolette.

The ship holding Nicolette belonged to the King of Carthage who was her father, and she had twelve brothers, all princes or kings. When they saw the beautiful Nicolette, they lavished her with marks of honor and had a celebration for her, asked her insistently who she was, since she had all the traits of a noble woman of high parentage. But she was incapable of giving them information: she had been taken away during her early childhood.

Sailing on, they came under the high walls of the city of Carthage. As soon as she saw the castle's walls and the country, Nicolette recognized them, because she had been raised there and taken away in her early childhood, and she hadn't been young enough to not realize that she was the King of Carthage's daughter and that she had been brought up in this city.