The paynim host is shattered and riven; but nearly all the Franks have fallen. Roland looks upon the mountains and the plain. Of those of France he sees so many lying dead, and he laments them like a high-born knight (chevaliers gentilz). “Seigneurs barons, may God have pity on you and grant Paradise to your souls, and give them to repose on holy flowers! Better vassals shall I never see; long are the years that you have served me, and conquered wide countries for Charles—the emperor has nurtured you for an ill end! Land of France, sweet land, to-day bereft of barons of high prize! Barons of France! for me I see you dying. I cannot save or defend you! God be your aid, who never lies! Oliver, brother, you I must not fail. I shall die of grief, if no one slay me! Sir comrade, let us strike again.”[697]
Roland and Oliver are almost alone, and Oliver receives a death-stroke. With his last strength he slays his slayer, shouts his defiance, and calls Roland to his aid. He strikes on blindly as Roland comes and looks into his face;—and then might you have seen Roland swoon on his horse, and Oliver wounded to death. “He had bled so much, that his eyes were troubled, and he could not see to recognize any mortal man. As he met his comrade, he struck him on his helmet a blow that cut it shear in twain, though the sword did not touch the head. At this Roland looked at him, and asked him soft and low: ‘Sir comrade, did you mean that? It is Roland, who loves you well. You have not defied me.’
“Says Oliver, ‘Now I hear you speak; I did not see you; may the Lord God see you! I have struck you; for which pardon me.’”
Roland replied: “I was not hurt. I pardon you here and before God.”
“At this word they bent over each other, and in such love they parted.” Oliver feels his death-anguish at hand; sight and hearing fail him: he sinks from his horse and lies on the earth; he confesses his sins, with his two hands joined toward heaven. He prays God to grant him Paradise, and blesses Charles and sweet France, and his comrade Roland above all men. Stretched on the ground the count lies dead.[698]
A little after, when Roland and Turpin the stout archbishop have made their last charge, and the paynim have withdrawn, and the archbishop too lies on the ground, just breathing; then it is that Roland gathers the bodies of the peers and carries them one by one to lay them before the archbishop for his absolution. He finds Oliver’s body, and tightly straining it to his heart, lays it with the rest before the archbishop, whose dying breath is blessing and absolving his companions. And with tears Roland’s voice breaks “Sweet comrade, Oliver, son of the good count Renier, who held the March of Geneva; to break spear and pierce shield, and counsel loyally the good, and discomfit and vanquish villains, in no land was there better knight.”[699] Knowing his own death near, Roland tries to shatter his great sword, and then lies down upon it with his face toward Spain; he holds up his glove toward God in token of fealty; Gabriel accepts his glove and the angels receive his soul.
This was the best of knighthood in the best of the chansons: and we see how close it was to what was best in life. As the fight moves on to Oliver’s blow and Roland’s pardon, to Roland’s last deeds of Christian comradeship, and to his death, the eyes are critical indeed that do not swell with tears. The heroic pathos of this rough poem is great because the qualities which perished at Roncesvalles were so noble and so knightly.
The poem passes on to the vengeance taken by the emperor upon the Saracens, then to his return to Aix, and the short great scene between him and Aude, Roland’s betrothed:
“Where is Roland, the chief, who vowed to take me for his wife?”
Charles weeps, and tears his white beard as he answers: “Sister, dear friend, you are asking about a dead man. But I will make it good to thee—there is Louis my son, who holds the Marches....”