V.
In this region, too, lies the famous pass of Ibañeta or Roncesvalles. It may be readily visited in a two days' excursion from St. Jean or from Biarritz. There is a carriage-road to Valcarlos, a small village on the way; beyond, a mule-path winds on up through the pass and down to the convent on the other side.
This convent was founded to commemorate the one greatest tradition of the pass,—the destruction of Charlemagne's rear-guard by the Basques in ambush and the death of the hero Roland.
"Oh for a blast of that dread horn
On Fontarabian echoes borne
That to King Charles did come;
When Rowland brave and Olivier
And every paladin and peer
On Roncesvalles died!"
Of the few writers who have visited this region, all make airy mention of the battle of Roncesvalles; scarcely one, however, condescends to details. Yet it gave rise to a great epic poem,—the greatest epic of France, the delight of all her ancient minstrels. One often hears named the Song of Roland; one seldom hears more than the name. By many the charm of its story is all unknown.
"In truth and fact," observes a recent anonymous writer, "the chain can claim one single real legend. That one, however, is so great, so grand, so dominating,—it is so immense, so universal, so world-wide,—that it suffices all alone; it creates a doctrine by itself, it needs no aid, no support, no companions,—it is the mighty tale of Roland. The mountain is full of Roland. His hands, his feet, his horse, his sword, his voice, have left their puissant mark on almost every crest, in almost every glen. Above Gavarnie, amidst the eternal snow, gapes the slashed fissure hewn by Durandal, his sword; ten miles off in a gorge you see the indents of the hoofs of Bayard on a rock which served as his half-way touching-point when he sprang in two flying bounds from the Breach to the Peak of the Chevalier near St. Sauveur. At the Pass of Roland, above Cambo, the rock remains split open where the hero stamped and claimed a passage. The ponds of Vivier Lion, near Lourdes, were dug by the pressure of his foot and knee when Vaillantif, a charger which carried him in his last fight, but who was then unbroken, had the audacity to throw him. At St. Savin, where the monks had lodged him, he paid his bill by slaying the irreverent giants, Passamont and Alabaster, whose neighborhood, was unpleasant to the convent. And so on, all about. His tremendous figure is everywhere, all full of the superbest violence and of the most wondrous acrobatry. But it is at Roncesvalles that his great name is greatest. There, where he died, his memory lives in an unfading halo. In Spain, beneath the Peak of Altabiscar amongst the beech groves, on the 15th of August, 778, perished the astounding paladin. The Song of Roland tells how he fell, not quite exactly but very amazingly; the story is so intensely interesting that the reader is carried away by it and finds himself for a moment almost able to believe it. It does not matter that the defeat is attributed to the Saracens, not one of whom was present, (the whole thing having been got up and carried out by the Basques alone;) that error was indispensable to the tale, and gives it much of its strange charm."
There is an excellent reason why the poem might fail in sharp historical accuracy; it was not formally composed until between three and four hundred years after the battle. The event itself happened in 778; the first known MS. was made, by a scribe, about 1150. All during the long interval, ballad-singers and minstrels had been extolling France and Roland; the love of the heroic was as strong as before Homer; the hero's name had grown: with his fame into titanic proportions; the actual author, (conjectured to have been one Turoldus or Theurolde, a monk,) had but to take the poetic material ready at his hand and fashion it into the epic. Time had dimmed and enlarged the details; the Song of Roland deals in mass and massive heroes; in this it is like a book from the Iliad.
It is not a long poem; there are only about 3,500 lines in all, but the Old French in which it is written makes it difficult reading, at least to one not a Frenchman. The briefest citation will show this:
"Carles li Reis, nostre Emperere magnes,
Sela anz tuz pleins ad estet en Espaigne;
Tresqu'en la mer, cunquist la tere altaigne.
N'i ad castel ki devant lui remagnet."
("Charles le Roi, notre grand Empereur,
Sept ans entiers est resté en Espagne;
Jusqu' à la mer, il a conquis la haute terre.
Pas de château qui tienne devant lui."
—GAUTIER.)
However, it has been transmuted into modern French, and latterly twice translated into English verse; and the English translations appear to have preserved remarkably both the power and sweetness of the original.
The poem centres almost wholly upon this deadly battle in the Pyrenees,—the last battle of Roland its hero. Charlemagne and the Franks had invaded Spain, and spent seven years warring with the Moors and conquering their cities. On their return, as the poem narrates it, the Moors, instigated by a traitor in Charlemagne's army, plotted an ambush in this pass of Roncesvalles. The army began its march. The main body defiled through in safety, and turned westward to await the rear-guard nearer the coast. But when that division, the flower of the Frankish forces,—commanded by Roland, his bosom friend Oliver, the warrior-archbishop Turpin, and the others of the twelve great paladins,—reached the pass, hostiles began to appear,—in front, above, behind. More and more they thickened around it,—fierce Basques or swarthy Moslems, "a hundred thousand heathen men;" and the three leaders soon realized their betrayal. Oliver exclaimed:
"'Ganelon[[9]] wrought this perfidy!
It was he who doomed us to hold the rear.'
'Hush,' said Roland, 'O Olivier,
No word be said of my step-sire here,'"
—a touch of magnanimity strange for that brutal age, yet only one of many in the poem. Roland rather exulted than shrank at the prospect of a battle, by whatever means brought about. Oliver was the cooler of the two, and he promptly urged Roland to sound his great horn, which might be heard for thirty leagues, and so summon Charlemagne to the rescue. He saw that the danger was real, for the odds were overwhelmingly against them. But Roland impetuously refused. Thrice, though not in cowardice, Oliver pleaded with him:
"'Roland, Roland, yet wind one blast!
Karl will hear ere the gorge be past,
And the Franks return on their path full 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 dishonor my lineage true.
* * *
"'Death were better than fame laid low.
Our Emperor loveth a downright blow!'"
The Moors at last swarmed to the attack. They were no cravens, the Moors; the fight grew rapidly desperate. The Franks performed wonders; they tingled with the Archbishop's glorious assoilment:
"In God's high name the host he blest,
And for penance he gave them—to smite their best!"
The twelve paladins slew twelve renowned Paynims; the mailed phalanx hewed its way into the infidels, laying them low by thousands. But thousands more were behind,—the reserve was inexhaustible; the "hundred thousand" were cut to pieces, when the Moorish king, hastily summoned, came up with a fresh army of myriads more. It was too much; little by little the Franks were beaten down, not back, and melted unyielding away. The peers fell one by one, upon heaps of the Moslem dead; the day wore on; of the twenty thousand Frankish warriors, but sixty men at length remained. Too late Roland would wind his horn; it was Oliver's turn to disdain the now useless expedient. Roland sounded nevertheless:
"The mountain peaks soared high around;
Thirty leagues was borne the sound.
Karl hath heard it and all his band;
'Our men have battle,' he said, 'on hand!'
Ganelon rose in front and cried;
'If another spake, I would say he lied!'"
Again the desperate sound was faintly heard:
"'It is Roland's horn,' said the Emperor,
'And save in battle he had not blown!'
'Battle,' said Ganelon, 'is there none.
Old you have grown,—all white and hoar!
* * *
"'He would sound all day for a single hare.'"
The third time, Roland blew; his nostrils and mouth are filled with blood, his temples crack with the stress:
"Said Karl: 'That horn is full of breath!'
Said Naimes: ''Tis Roland who travaileth,'"
—and the Emperor instantly gave the command to turn and rush to the rescue.
But the battle had gone too far. Again and again the little band of Franks clove its way into the enemy; the latter wavered, retreated, fell by hundreds, and came back in thousands. Roland's tears fell fast over his dead companions:
"'Land of France, thou art soothly fair!
To-day thou liest bereaved and bare.
It was all for me your lives ye gave,
And I was helpless to shield or save.'"
The last Frankish man-at-arms at length fell; only the three foremost paladins remained of all the host. But the Saracens dared no longer to approach them; they hurled their lances from afar. Spent and faint and bleeding, the three still stood out, but the death-wound of Oliver finally came; his vision swam, he swayed blindly on his horse. There is no more touching and beautiful incident in the whole range of song than this of his death:
"His eyes from bleeding are dimmed and dark,
Nor mortal near or far can mark;
And when his comrade beside him pressed,
Fiercely he smote on his golden crest;
Down to the nasal the helm he shred,—
But passed no further nor pierced his head.
Roland marveled at such a blow,
And thus bespake him, soft and low:
'Hast thou done it, my comrade, wittingly?
Roland, who loves thee so dear, am I;
Thou hast no quarrel with me to seek?'
Oliver answered: 'I hear thee speak,
But I see thee not. God seeth thee.
Have I struck thee, brother? Forgive it me.'
'I am not hurt, O Olivier,
And in sight of God I forgive thee here.'
Then each to each his head hath laid,
And in love like this was their parting made."
And now but Roland and the Archbishop were left,—the former on foot, his charger dead. Wounded and gasping, they rushed forward upon the enemy; the sword-arm of the Moorish king was cut from his side, his son fell dead before him. The Moors quailed; their lances fell in storms upon the heroes. Suddenly a long, far sound was heard; it was of the trumpets of Charlemagne's returning army rushing to the rescue but still miles and hours away. The Saracens turned at the very sound; a final lance-shower, and they fled; the two held the pass of Roncesvalles, unconquered,—but dying.
For it was too late.
The Archbishop had sunk to the ground, gasping,—lifeless. Roland, stricken himself, placed his companion gently on the grass:
"He took the fair white hands outspread,
Crossed and clasped them upon his breast."
Then with his remaining strength, he sought one by one for the corpses of the other ten paladins; one by one he brought them to the feet of the dead prelate and laid them before the august body,—Oliver's corpse last and dearest of all. There he might leave them, the solemn assembly of the peers. It was his last task. His wound too was mortal; his time had come to join them.
"In vigor and pathos," justly observes the review before mentioned, "this poem rises to the end. There are few things in poetry more simply grand than the death of Roland. He moves feebly back to the adjoining limit-line of Spain,—the land which his well-loved master has conquered,—and a bow-shot beyond it, and then drops to the ground:"
"That death was on him he knew full well;
Down from his head to his heart it fell.
On the grass beneath a pine tree's shade,
With face to earth, his form he laid;
Beneath him placed he his horn and sword,
And turned his face to the heathen horde
Thus hath he done the sooth to show
That Karl and his warriors all may know
That the gentle Count a conqueror died.
'Mea culpa,' full oft he cried,
And for all his sins, unto God above
In sign of penance he raised his glove.
* * *
"He did his right-hand glove uplift;
Saint Gabriel took from his hand the gift.
—Then drooped his head upon his breast,
And with clasped hands he went to rest."
There is indeed little in epic poetry to surpass the high simplicity of this loving portrayal of a hero's death.
It is the climax of the poem. The Emperor's army burst upon the scene, frantic with anxiety; but no eye was open to give them greeting. Roland was dead with his slaughtered rear-guard, and lying with his face to the foe. For three days the sun stayed its motion, at Charlemagne's frenzied petition, and the Moors were chased and cut to pieces, Saragossa taken,—a full and furious vengeance exacted. The whole army mourned for their companions; holy rites attended their stately burial; Ganelon was tried, condemned, torn to pieces by wild horses. But the joy of the Franks, their hero, their idol, was gone forever from them; retribution, even the bitterest, could count for little against the passing of that peerless spirit.
A pathetic meeting was afterward the old Emperor's with Alva, the affianced of Roland:
"'Where is my Roland, sire,' she cried,
'Who vowed to take me for his bride?'"
Brokenly at length he told her of the news. A moment she gazed at him unseeing:
"'God and his angels forbid, that I
Should live on earth if Roland die!'
Pale grew her cheek,—she sank amain
Down at the feet of Charlemagne."
So let us leave this tender poem, tender unwontedly among its times; an epic which sincerely merits a vogue more near to its value.