From: juthery@electrotex.com (Jeff Guthery) The Song of Roland Translation by: Dorothy L. Sayers 105 The Count Roland throughout the field goes riding; With Durendal, good sword, he stabs and slices, The toll he takes of Saracens is frightful. Would you had seen him, dead man on dead man piling, Seen the bright blood about his pathway lying! Bloody his hauberk and both his arms with fighting, His good horse bloody from crest to withers likewise; Oliver too doth never cease from striking, And the Twelve Peers are not a whit behindhand, And all the French are hammering and smiting; The Paynims fall, some dead and others dying. Quoth the Archbishop: "Right blessed be our knighthood"; He shouts "Mountjoy!" war-cry of Charles the mighty. 106 And Oliver goes riding through the press; His spear is broken, only the shaft is left. Against a Paynim, Malun, he rides addrest, Smashes the shield with flowers and gold bedecked, Both of his eyes he smites out of his head, So that his brains around his feet are spread, And flings the corpse amid sev'n hundred dead. Turgis he's slain, and slain Esturgot next, Till to the grips the spear-shaft splits in shreds. Roland cries out: "What are you doing, friend? I'd give no groat for sticks in such a stead! Here iron avails, and steel and nothing else. Where is your sword that Hauteclaire is y-clept, With its gold hilts and pummel crystal-gemmed?" "I've had no time to draw," Oliver said, "I've been so busy with striking right and left." 107 Now Oliver has drawn his goodly brand, As his friend Roland so urgently demands; Now will he prove him a stout knight of his hands! He smites a Paynim, Justin of Val Ferrat; Clean through the middle the skull of him he cracks, The saffron byrny splits, and his breast and back, And saddle, brave with gems and golden bands, And through the spine the horse in sunder hacks, And dead on field flings all before him flat. "I'll call you brother," quoth Roland, "after that! 'Tis for such strokes our Emperor loves a man." The shout "Mountjoy!" goes up on every hand. 119 When the Count Roland sees Samson thus laid low Well may you guess how he is grieved of soul. He spurs his horse and speeds to smite the foe With Durendal, more worth than finest gold. By might and main the Baron deals the stroke Full on the helm that is all gemmed with gold; The skull he splits, byrny and breast are broke, Cloven the saddle, that is all gemmed with gold; Through the beast's back deep down the weapon goes; Like it or leave it, he has destroyed them both. The Paynims say: "This is a bitter blow!" "I love you not," quoth Roland, "by my troth; Yours is the outrage, yours is the lying boast!" 126 Wondrous the battle, and it grows faster yet; The French fight on with rage and fury fell, They lop off wrists, hew ribs and spines to shreds, They cleave the harness through to the living flesh; On the green ground the blood runs clear and red. The Paynims say: "We cannot stand the stress, French Fatherland, be curst of Mhomet! Your sons are bravest of all the sons of men." There's none of them but cries: "Marsile to help! Ride, ride, O King, for we are hard beset." 127 Roland the Count calls out to Olivere: "Fair sir, companion, confess that for this gear Our lord Archbishop quits him like any peer; Earth cannot match him beneath the heavens' sphere, Well does he know to handle lance and spear." The Count replies: "Let's aid him now and here!" At this the French lay on the lustier, Hard are the strokes, the fight is very fierce, And for the Christians the losses are severe. Who then had seen Roland and Olivere Smite with their swords and through all the press pierce! And the Archbishop goes thrusting with his spear. Of those they slew the numbers are writ clear In many charters and tales of chroniclers: More than four thousand as in the Geste appears. Four great assaults they've borne with right good cheer; Then comes a fifth, doleful and dread and drear. All the French knighthood has fallen in career; Sixty alone by God's grace persevere; These ere they die will sell their bodies dear. 130 Said Roland then: "Full grievous is this fight. I'll sound my horn, and Charles will hear the cry." Quoth Oliver: "`Twould ill beseem a knight. I asked you, comrade, and you refused, for pride. Had Charles been here, then all would have gone right; He's not to blame, nor the men at his side. Now by my beard (quoth he) if e'er mine eyes Again behold my sister Aude the bright, Between her arms never you think to lie." 131 Quoth Roland: "Why so angry with me, friend?" And he: "Companion, you go us in this mess. There is wise valour, and there is recklessness: Prudence is worth more than foolhardiness. Through your o'erweening you have destroyed the French; Ne'er shall we do service to Charles again. Had you but given some heed to what I said, My lord had come, the battle had gone well, And King Marsile had been captured or dead. Your prowess, Roland, is a curse on our heads. No more from us will Charlemayn have help, Whose like till Doomsday shall not be seen of men. Now you will die, and fair France will be shent; Our loyal friendship is here brought to an end; A bitter parting we'll have ere this sun set." 133 Roland has set Olifant to his lips, Firmly he holds it and blows it with a will. High are the mountains, the blast is long and shrill, Thirty great leagues the sound went echoing. King Carlon heard it and all who rode with him. "Lo, now, our men are fighting", quoth the King. Gunes retorts: "If any man said this Except yourself, it were a lie, methinks." 135 Count Roland's mouth with running blood is red; He's burst asunder the temples of his head; He sounds his horn in anguish and distress. King Carlon hears, and so do all the French. Then said the King: "This horn is long of breath." "'Tis blown", quoth Naimon, "with all a brave man's strength; Battle there is, and that I know full well. He that would stay you is but a traitor fell To arms! let sound your battle-cry to heav'n! Make haste to bring your gallant household help! You hear how Roland makes desperate lament!" 136 The Emperor Charles lets sound his horns aloft. The French light down and arm themselves anon With helm and hauberk and gilded swords girt on; Goodly their shields, their lances stiff and strong, Scarlet and white and blue the gonfalons. Straightway to horse the warrior lords have got; Swift through the passes they spur and never stop. Each unto other they speak and make response: "Might we reach Roland ere he were dead and gone, We'ld strike good strokes beside him in the throng." What use is that? They have delayed too long. 164 The Count Roland, seeing his peers lie dead, And Oliver, who was his dearest friend, Begins to weep for ruth and tenderness; Out of his cheeks the colour all has fled, He cannot stand, he is so deep distressed, He swoons to earth, he cannot help himself. "Alas, for pity, sweet lord!" the Bishop said. 165 When the Archbishop saw Roland faint and fallen, So sad was he, he never had been more so; He reaches out; he's taken Roland's horn up. In Ronceval there runs a stream of water; Fain would he go there and fetch a little for him. With feeble steps he turns him thither, falt'ring; He is so weak, that he cannot go forward, For loss of blood he has no strength to call on. Ere one might cover but a rood's length in walking His heart has failed him, he has fallen face-foremost; The pangs of death have seized him with great torment. 166 The Count Roland has rallied from his faint, Gets to his feet, though he's in grievous pain, And looks about him over hill, over vale. Beyond his comrades, upon the grass-green plain, There he beholds the noble baron laid, The great Archbishop, vice-gerent of God's name. He beats his breast with eyes devoutly raised, With folded hands lifted to Heaven he prays That God will give him in Paradise a place. Turpin is dead that fought for Charlemayn; In mighty battles, and preaching right brave, Still against Paynims a champion of the Faith; Blest mote he be, the Lord God give him grace! 167 The County Roland sees the Archbishop lie; He sees his bowels gush forth out of his side And on his brow the brain laid bare to sight. Midst of his breast where the key-bones divide, Crosswise he lays his comely hands and white, And thus laments him as native use requires: "Ah, debonair, thou good and noble knight! Now I commend thee to the great Lord of might, Servant more willing than thee He shall not find. Since the Apostles no prophet was thy like, For to maintain the Faith, and win mankind. May thy soul meet no hindrance in her flight! May Heaven's gate to her stand open wide! 176 The Count Roland lay down beneath a pine; To land of Spain he's turned him as he lies, And many things begins to call to mind: All the broad lands he conquered in his time, And fairest France, and the men of his line, And Charles his lord, who bred him from a child; He cannot help but weep for them and sigh. Yet of himself he is mindful betimes; He beats his breast and on God's mercy cries: "Father most true, in whom there is no lie, Who didst from death St Lazarus make to rise, And bring out Daniel safe from the lions' might, Save Thou my soul from danger and despite Of all the sins I did in all my life." His right-hand glove he tendered unto Christ, And from his hand Gabriel accepts the sign. Straightway his head upon his arm declines; With folded hands he makes an end and dies. God sent to him His Angel Cherubine, And great St Michael of Peril-by-the-Tide; St Gabriel too was with them at his side; The County's soul they bear to Paradise. 177 Roland is dead, in Heaven God hath his soul. The Emperor Charles rides in to Roncevaux. No way there is therein, nor any road, No path, no yard, no foot of naked mould But there some French or Paynim corpse lies strown. Charles cries: "Where are you, fair nephew? Out, har! Where's the Archbishop? is Oliver laid low? Where are Gerin, Gerier his playfellow, And Berenger, and the good Count Othone? Ivor and Ives, so well I loved them both? Where's Engelier, the Gascon great of note? Samson the Duke, and Anse the Bold? And where is Gerard of Roussillon the Old? Where the Twelve Peers I left to guard the host?" What use to cry? all's still as any stone. "God!" says the King, "how bitter my reproach, That I was absent when they struck the first blow!" He plucks his beard right angerly and wroth; Barons and knights all weep and make their moan, Full twenty thousand swoon to the ground for woe; Naimon the Duke is grieved with all his soul.
Last updated: Mar 13, 1996