Exemplumque mei: vel, si libet, arma retenta,
Et nihil hac venia, si viceris ipse, paciscor.”
That William Rufus should quote Lucan, as his brother Henry could most likely have done, was so very unlikely that William of Malmesbury need hardly have warned us against such a belief. At the same time it does not seem impossible that he might have heard of Cæsar without having read Lucan. But we must remember that whatever William Rufus said was said in French, and not in Latin. Without supposing either that Rufus had read Lucan or that the soul of Cæsar had passed into his body, we may believe that William of Malmesbury or his informant could not resist the temptation of translating his speech into the words of a really appropriate passage of a favourite author; then, when he had done this, the singular apology which I have quoted might seem needful.
It must be remembered that William of Malmesbury puts this story altogether out of place. It is put yet further out of its place by Wace (15106), who makes the capture of Helias follow the siege of Mayet (see [p. 289]). His version brings in some new details. Helias, having been taken prisoner, makes (15120) a boastful speech to his keepers, swearing by the patron saint of his city that, if he had not fallen by chance into an ambuscade, he would soon have driven the King of England out of all his lands beyond the sea (15120);
“Mais or vos dirai une rien:
Par monseignor Saint-Julien,
Se jo ne fusse si tost pris,
Mult éust poi en cest païs.
El rei eusse fait tant guerre,
Ke dechà la mer d’Engleterre