Gayferos
Gayferos was a figure dear to Spanish romance. His story was connected with the Charlemagne cycle, and was included in the pseudo-chronicle of Archbishop Turpin, but, though a knight of France, he appears to have possessed a special attraction for the Castilian mind, owing, probably, to the circumstance of his seven years’ search for his wife in Spanish territory.
Gayferos of Bordeaux was a kinsman of Roland, the invincible hero of the chansons de gestes, and husband of Charlemagne’s daughter Melisenda. Shortly after their marriage the lady was kidnapped by the Saracens and confined in a strong tower at Saragossa. Determined to rescue her from pagan custody, Gayferos set out in search of his wife, but after spending seven long years in diligent inquiry failed to locate the place where she was imprisoned. From province to province, from castle to castle of sunny Spain he journeyed, until at length, disconsolate and dejected, he returned to Paris.
In the hope of drowning the remembrance of his loss, Gayferos plunged into the recreations of the Court. One day as he played dice with the Emperor’s admiral, Charlemagne, seeing him thus employed, said to him: “How is it, Gayferos, that you waste your time on a paltry game, while your wife, my daughter, languishes in a Moorish prison? Were you as ready to handle arms as to throw dice, you would hasten to the rescue of your lady.” The Emperor’s speech was unmerited, for he had only just learned of the place in which Melisenda was held in durance, whereas the faithful Gayferos was not yet aware of it. But gathering from Charlemagne the name of the castle in which she was confined, he made speed to his uncle Roland, and begged him for armour and a horse.
Roland, seeing the dismay in which his nephew was plunged, pressed upon him his own famous arms and his favourite charger, and, thus equipped, Gayferos once more turned his face to the land of Spain. In due time he arrived at Saragossa, and, meeting with no opposition at its gates, he entered and rode straight to the house where his captive wife lay. Beholding him from the window, she begged him as he was a Christian knight to send the tidings of her to her husband Gayferos.
“Seven summers, seven winters have I waited in this tower,
While my lord Gayferos holdeth dalliance in hall and bower;
Hath forgotten Melisenda, hopes that she hath wed the Moor;
Yet the kindness of his memory shall I cherish evermore.”
Stands the champion in his stirrups. “Lady, dry the useless tear,
For thy husband and thy lover, thy devoted knight is here.
Spring to saddle from the casement, leap into my fond embrace
That shall hold thee and enfold thee from the Moor and all his race.”
Leaping from the casement into the arms of her faithful knight, Melisenda placed herself on the saddle before him, and setting spurs to his horse Gayferos made all speed to reach the gates. But a Moor who had witnessed the rescue gave the alarm, and soon the fugitives found themselves pursued by seven columns of horsemen.
The pursuers pressed hard upon them, but at the critical juncture Melisenda recognized the horse on which they rode to be Roland’s, and remembered that by loosening the girth, opening the breastplate, and driving the spurs into its sides it could be made to leap across any barrier with complete safety to those it carried. She hastily informed her husband of this, and, acting as she directed, he drove the steed toward the city wall, which it cleared with ease. On seeing this the Moors very naturally gave up the chase. In due time Gayferos and his wife returned to Paris, and their future was as bright as their past had been clouded.