Song and Legend From the Middle Ages | Page 7

ballads composed by many different poets.
These ballads were never written down and are completely lost. The
epic is a compilation and adaptation,
presumably by a single poet, of
the material of the ballads. In every case the names of the poets of the
French epics are lost. They were trouveres and their poems were
carried about in memory or in manuscript by the jongleurs or minstrels,
and sung from castle to castle and in the market places. The best of
them are: "The Song of Roland"; "Amis et Amiles"; "Aliscans";
"Gerard de Roussillon"; "Raoul de Cambrai". Of these the oldest and

confessedly the greatest is The Song of Roland, from which our
extracts are taken.
The Song of Roland is based upon the following events (the events as
narrated in the poem differ widely from those of the actual history):
Charlemagne has warred seven years in Spain, when Marsile, king of
Saragossa, the only city that has withstood the emperor, sends a feigned
submission. Roland, the king's nephew, offers to go to Saragossa to
settle the terms of the treaty. He is rejected as too impetuous, when he
suggests that Ganelon go. This bitterly annoys Ganelon, and when he
meets Marsile he makes a treacherous plot by which Charlemagne is to

be induced to go back to France, with Roland in command of the rear
guard. The plan works, and when the advanced party of the French
army is out of reach, the Saracens fall upon the rear guard in the pass of
Roncevalles and completely destroy it. The death of Roland, the return
and grief of the king, and his vengeance on the pagans form the central
incident of the poem. Ganelon is afterwards tried for his treachery,
condemned, and executed.
THE SONG OF ROLAND.
Stanza I.--
The king, our Emperor Carlemaine,
Hath been for seven
full years in Spain.
From highland to sea hath he won the land;
City
was none might his arm withstand;
Keep and castle alike went
down--
Save Saragossa, the mountain town.
The King Marsilius
holds the place,
Who loveth not God, nor seeks His grace:
He prays
to Apollin, and serves Mahound;
But he saved him not from the fate
he found.
King Marsile held a council and decided to offer Charlemagne a
feigned submission. Karl summons his council to consider this.
Stanza 8.--
King Karl is jocund and gay of mood,
He hath Cordres
city at last subdued;
Its shattered walls and turrets fell
By catapult
and mangonel;
Not a heathen did there remain
But confessed
himself Christian or else was slain.
The Emperor sits in an orchard
wide,
Roland and Olivier by his side:
Samson the duke, and Anseis
proud;
Geoffrey of Anjou, whose arm was vowed
The royal
gonfalon to rear;
Gereln, and his fellow in arms, Gerier:
With them
many a gallant lance,
Full fifteen thousand of gentle France.
The
cavaliers sit upon carpets white
Playing at tables for their delight;

The older and sager sit at chess,
The bachelors fence with a light
address.
Seated underneath a pine,
Close beside an eglantine,

Upon a throne of beaten gold,
The lord of ample France behold;

White his hair and beard were seen,
Fair of body, and proud of mien,

Who sought him needed not ask, I ween.
The ten alight before his

feet,
And him in all observance greet.
The treacherous plot has succeeded. Charles, with the main part of his
army, has gone ahead, the Saracens have fallen on the rear-guard, and
are destroying it. Oliver begs Roland to sound his wonderful horn and
summon aid.
Stanza 87.--
"O Roland, sound on your ivory horn,
To the ear of
Karl shall the blast be borne:
He will bid his legions backward bend,

And all his barons their aid will lend."
"Now God forbid it, for
very shame,
That for my kindred were stained with blame,
Or that
gentle France to such vileness fell:
This good sword that hath served
me well,
My Durindana such strokes shall deal,
That with blood
encrimsoned shall be the steel.
By their evil star are the felons led;

They shall all be numbered among the dead!"
Stanza 88.--
"Roland, Roland, yet wind one blast!
Karl will hear ere
the gorge be passed,
And the Franks return on their path fall fast!
"I
will not sound on mine ivory horn:
It shall never be spoken of me in
scorn,
That for heathen felons one blast I blew;
I may not dishonour
my lineage true.
But I will strike, ere this fight be o'er,
A thousand
strokes and seven hundred more,
And my Durindana will drip with
gore.
Our Franks shall bear them like vassals brave.
The Saracens
shall flock but to find a grave."
Stanza 89.--
"I deem of neither reproach nor stain.
I have seen the
Saracen host of Spain,
Over plain and valley and mountain spread,

And the regions hidden beneath their tread.
Countless the swarm of
the foe, and we
A marvellous little company."
Roland answered
him, "All the more
My spirit within me burns therefore.
God and
the angels of heaven defend
That France through me from her glory
bend.
Death were better than fame laid low.
Our Emperor loveth a
downright blow."
At last Roland