"Roncesvalles," and is in substance the "Song of Roland." "The Icelandic compiler," says M. Gaston Paris, "follows the Oxford text pretty closely, and seems to know nothing of the later French versions. But there is one most important difference. The saga wholly omits the episode of the Emir Baligant, and even the capture of Saragossa by Karl. A Danish abridgment of the "Karlomagnus Saga appeared in the fifteenth century under the name of "Keiser Karl Magnus Kronike," which, Keiser in a modern form, is still a popular book Magnus Karl in Denmark. Flemish translations or imita- Kronike." tions appeared as early as the fifteenth century. In England, the Carlovingian legend never became popular, notwithstanding the supposed AngloNorman origin of the "Song of Roland." England. Arthur of Britain and Armorica, with his knights of the Table Round, displaced every other band of heroes. In Ellis's "Metrical Romances" will, however, be found an account of three ballads on the Carlovingian theme. They are Roland Ferragus, Sir Otuel, and Sir Ferumbras. The first two are in the main taken from the "Pseudo-Turpin." The last seems a paraphrase of Fierabras, one of the later chansons de geste. In M. Michel's first edition there are given large extracts from an English MS. poem, apparently of the beginning of the fourteenth century, dealing more immediately with the subject of Roland. As a composition, it is poor in the extreme, so as to be pronounced by M. Michel, "almost worthless." D Ireland. There is in the British Museum a life of Charlemagne by Caxton, with the following title: "Th ystorie and Lyf of the Most Noble and Crysten Prince Charles the Grete, King of France and Emperour of Rome. Printed by William Caxton, December 1, 1485." The early part of this Life seems taken from the Romance of Fierabras. The later portion follows implicitly the "Pseudo-Turpin." Nor has Ireland been a stranger to the great legend. In the "Book of Lismore," of which the original is at Chatsworth, but of which both Trinity College and the Royal Irish Academy possess copies, there is found at fol. 46 a Narrative of the Conquests of Charles the Great. It has been expounded and partially translated for me by my friend, Professor O'Looney. It also is based on the "Pseudo-Turpin," but it possesses one very original feature-it professes to give the derivations of the names of the heroes, these derivations being almost wholly Celtic.* The fate of the legend in Spain was singular and yet most natural. National jealousy displaced Spain. religious zeal, and the disaster of Roncesvalles began to be claimed as a Spanish victory. The hero who slew Roland in the battle became no other than the famous Bernardo del Carpio. Mato Bernardo por si Al Roldan el esforzado De Francia muy estimados. Readers of "Don Quixote" will remember Sancho * e.g. Rolandus is "the wheel of wisdom" (Roth na hegna); Charles (Serlus) is "the light of the body" (soilloi na Colla). singing the ballad of the defeat of the French in Roncesvalles Mala la hubistes, Franceses La Caza de Roncesvalles. Italy. Of the Italian poems, I may well be dispensed from speaking. Roland (Orlando) is, as all the world knows, the prime figure in the masterpieces of Italian classical poetry. But in them the legend is in its third stage. The early gestes were sung by minstrels in Italian cities as well as beyond the Alps. We have seen that an Italianized version of the "Song of Roland," not much later in date than the Bodleian MS., is preserved in the library of St. Mark. That is only one of many manuscripts which are to be found in the same library, comprising almost all the Carlovingian legends. When, in the course of two centuries, the language of these earlier Italian lays had become obsolete, and the assonants were odious and contemptible, the legend in Italy descended into plain prose, and was expressed by the "Reali di Francia." But it had a glorious resurrection, unparalleled elsewhere. Pulci was the first to appropriate the ancient theme, and with grave mockery, alternating with elevated poetry, to bring vividly before his contemporaries the living figures of Charlemagne and his peers and his Saracen adversaries. "Pulci was sire of the half-serious rhyme, Who sang when chivalry was more Quixotic; Brave knights, chaste dames, huge giants, kings despotic." Alas! the Quixotism of chivalry had passed away long before Pulci, but no doubt the themes were 'the 66 Roland re by Pulci fancies of his time." For one thing, Pulci, as the sequel to all his humorous extravagances, gives a most spirited and stirring narrative of the disaster of Roncesvalles, in which neither the blow given presented by the dying Oliver to Roland in his blindness, nor Roland's endeavour to break his sword against the rock, is omitted. It is curious that Pulci (in this differing from all the other romancers) describes Roland not as young but old, "Antico e saggio." He makes him say of himself while dying as an old man. "Io dico pace dopo lunga guerra, Ch'io son per gli anni pur defesso e stanco, Il qual tu vedi già canuto e bianco." Cant. 27, st. 122. And again the poet apostrophizes him as "O Santo Vecchio!" (cant. 27, st. 153). This is an exaggeration of the "Pseudo-Turpin " itself, and is scarcely consistent with Roland's legendary character. It is entirely different from what we find both earlier and later. Pulci is the only poet among the Italian Cinquecentisti who even attempts to portray the disaster of Roncesvalles. Ariosto pursues a far different flight— "Le Donne, I Cavalier, gli armi, gl' Amori." His poem is a wondrous kaleidoscope, a perpetually shifting scene of love and enchantment, winged horses, warrior-maidens, fountains of desire and hatred, and a thousand other delightful fooleries, -if one may so translate the epithet applied to them by the Cardinal D'Este. Mr. Gladstone, in his lately republished essay on Leopardi, complains of the pre sent neglect of the Italian poets. It is true, and, as regards Ariosto, not easily explicable. But what a distance separates the deep and simple earnestness of the Roland from the light, playful touch of the Orlando Furioso! In another point, too, there is, unhappily for Ariosto, a difference as great. From the beginning to the end of the older poem, the page is not sullied by one evil thought or expression. All is pure, dignified, and chivalrous. The very love be- . tween Roland and the fair Alda is only shown by her dying for him. ballads on But the real victors, the Basques, had their own ballads in their own tongue. And these The Basque ballads were conceived, as was natural, in a Roncesstrain of exultation and scorn. M. Michel, valles. in the appendix to his first edition, gives extracts from the Basque song of Altabizar, with a translation into modern French. Thus the extracts run 66 'What came they to do in our mountains, those men of the north? Why came they hither to disturb our peace? God made the mountains for men to transgress them not. But the rocks hurled down fall on the soldiers and crush them. Their blood flows, their flesh quivers, their bones are shattered. What a sea of blood! "Fly, fly, ye who have strength and a steed! Fly, King Charlemagne, with thy dark plumes and thy crimson vesture! Thy nephew, thy bravest Roland, lies dead below. His courage availed him not. And now, Escualdunacs, let us quit the rocks and march down, flinging our shafts upon those who fly." |