is an authentic old popular romance derived, it is believed, more or less directly from the Roman de Berthe, while the much later Melisendra ballad—
El cuerpo preso en Sansueña y en Paris cautiva el alma[78]—
owes most of its celebrity to the fact that it is quoted by Ginés de Pasamonte when he acts as showman of the puppets in Don Quixote. Again, The Lady Alda’s Dream—
En Paris está doña Alda la esposa de don Roldan[79]—
is an ancient romance of intensely pathetic beauty suggested by the famous passage in the Chanson de Roland describing Charlemagne’s announcement of Roland’s death to his betrothed Alde, Oliver’s sister:—
‘Soer, chere amie, d’hume mort me demandes...’
Alde respunt: ‘Cist moz mei est estranges.
Ne placet Deu ne ses seinz ne ses angles
Après Rollant que jo vive remaigne!’
Pert la culur, chiet as piez Carlemagne,