Since last month I did not
review anything particularly noteworthy (I simply made do with a cheap James Herbert
novel, and left it at that), so this month I’m going to shove some culture down
the internet’s throat. The Song of Roland,
or La Chanson de Roland, is a
medieval French epic poem, detailing the heroic last-stand of the eponymous
Roland and his buddy Oliver against a horde of Islamic warriors – or pagans, as
it shamelessly labels them. English translations are available and, as far as
these things go, it is not especially long. Think of it as a mini-Iliad, with
none of the nuance, or the plot, or the flare.
The story concerns the near semi-legendary king Charles the
Great (AKA. Charlemagne, 768-814 CE), ruler of the Franks, defender of the
Papacy, Holy Roman Emperor, and conqueror of large tracts of Western Europe. The
historical accuracy of this poem is quite suspect, viewing 8th
century events through an 11th century lens, so knowing the precise
history is not too important. The context of The Song of Roland is that Charles/Charlemagne is busy conquering
Spain, in this era under the power of Islamic Moorish rulers, when he gets held
up at Saragossa. The pagan king, Marsile, agrees to a truce, and Charles can
finally leave Spain and go back home to France (the Frankish empire). Only one
person is unhappy about this; Roland, the emperor’s heroic nephew, for he does
not trust the enemy. Sure enough, one of Charlemagne’s trusted officers,
Ganelon, goes over to king Marsile and hatches a plot with him to have Roland
killed.
As
Roland and his buddy Oliver are put in charge of the rearguard while the
Frankish army withdraws, they are set upon by the vast horde of Marsile’s army
in a battle at Rencesvals (Roncesvalles). Roland fights heroically, his mighty sword
Durendal in hand, but it is clear they cannot beat the enemy. In a last bid,
Roland blows his trusty Oliphant – an ivory horn, very much the prototype of a
certain Horn of Gondor – to summon Charlemagne’s army for help, but by this point it
is far too late, and he and his companions perish. When the emperor arrives he
is distraught by the loss of his men and his nephew, and makes one last attack
on Saragossa, conquering it and at last defeating the Saracen menace. In the
last scene, Ganelon is tried for treason, a trial-by-combat takes place,
the traitor is executed, but Charlemagne and his people are still sad at losing
Roland. The End.
The poem is made up of around 4000 lines, divided into 298
stanzas, all of varying lengths. Each line is basically its own simple, self
contained statement, a mere unambiguous description of what’s going on. Some verses are reinforced by having the following stanza essentially repeat what
was said in the previous one, but with very minor changes; which gets a bit
tiresome, but fortunately this rarely lasts too long. To show you how basic it
is, here’s a passage I selected by opening the book at random:
[118] “Count Roland calls out to Oliver:
‘Lord companion, now Engeler is dead;
We have no more valiant knight than
he.’
The count replies: ‘May God grant me
revenge.’
He urges on his horse with his spurs
of pure gold,
Wields Halteclere, whose steel is red
with blood,
And with great force goes to strike
the pagan.
He dealt his blow and the Saracen
falls;
Devils carry off his soul.
Then he slew Duke Alphaien
And next sliced off the head of
Escababi.”
[Lines 1545-1555.
Pg.78]
And so it goes on, and on,
and on a little bit more. It seems a much rawer piece of writing than any of
the Greek epics, much keener on saying simple, broad things here there and
everywhere. Much of it is written in the present tense, which makes it a mildly
odd thing to read to yourself in bed, but it’s not difficult to get used to –
despite the fact that it sometimes changes tense mid-verse, or mid-line even. However,
because each line pretty much works on its own, even the densest or most
befuddled reader will find it impossible to get lost, or to miss important
developments (I stand as my evidence for this, for there is no reader denser or
more easily befuddled by things like this). As such, maybe it’d be good to read
aloud to children.
Or
then again, maybe not. There’s not all too much moral ambiguity; you have your
goodies and you have your baddies – the good guys are called Christians or
Franks, and the bad guys are variously described as pagans and/or followers of
Muhammad. There’s not much more to it than that. Some guys get together and
beat the shit out of each-other, using religion as a pretext. Very much a
‘Crusades’-era’ piece of literature.
What
else needs mentioning? The death of Roland himself is apparently a famous event
in literature; having burst a vein in his temple, our hero spends his last
moments slapping his sword Durendal on a rock, trying to break it and thus prevent it
from falling into heathen hands. If you have a soft spot for famous moments,
then suppose it is your duty to seek this one out. We have a broken horn, Boromir-esque,
Charles the Great wins himself another princess and, all-in-all, you get a bit
of that hard-edged Norman chivalry you hear so much about. Would I recommend
it? Compared to the Iliad it’s a
piece of cake; just slog your way from one end to the other, which isn’t too
far, and feel as though you’ve achieved some culture. It’s just that this
particular piece of culture consists of a lot of people hitting eachother
over the head with chunks of sharpened metal.
The Bibliography of Roland
The
Song of Roland. Translated by Glyn Burgess. Penguin.
(1990).
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