Stories from the Italian Poets: with Lives of the Writers, Volume 1

by Leigh Hunt

But Charlemagne did not "fall," as Milton has stated. Nor does Pulci make him do so. In this respect, if in little else, the Italian poet adhered to the fact. The whole story is a remarkable instance of what can be done by poetry and popularity towards misrepresenting and aggrandising a petty though striking adventure. The simple fact was the cutting off the rear of Charlemagne's army by the revolted Gascons, as he returned from a successful expedition into Spain. Two or three only of his nobles perished, among whom was his nephew Roland, the obscure warden of his marches of Brittany. But Charlemagne was the temporal head of Christendom; the poets constituted his nephew its champion; and hence all the glories and superhuman exploits of the Orlando of Pulci and Ariosto. The whole assumption of the wickedness of the Saracens, particularly of the then Saracen king of Spain, whom Pulci's authority, the pseudo-Archbishop Turpin, strangely called Marsilius, was nothing but a pious fraud; the pretended Marsilius having been no less a person than the great and good Abdoùlrahmaùn the First, who wrested the dominion of that country out of the hands of the usurpers of his family-rights. Yet so potent and long-lived are the most extravagant fictions, when genius has put its heart into them, that to this day we read of the devoted Orlando and his friends not only with gravity, but with the liveliest emotion.

THE

BATTLE OF RONCESVALLES

A miserable man am I, cries the poet; for Orlando, beyond a doubt, died in Roncesvalles; and die therefore he must in my verses. Altogether impossible is it to save him. I thought to make a pleasant ending of this my poem, so that it should be happier somehow, throughout, than melancholy; but though Gan will die at last, Orlando must die before him, and that makes a tragedy of all. I had a doubt whether, consistently with the truth, I could give the reader even that sorry satisfaction; for at the beginning of the dreadful battle, Orlando's cousin, Rinaldo, who is said to have joined it before it was over, and there, as well as afterwards, to have avenged his death, was far away from the seat of slaughter, in Egypt; and how was I to suppose that he could arrive soon enough in the valleys of the Pyrenees? But an angel upon earth shewed me the secret, even Angelo Poliziano, the glory of his age and country. He informed me how Arnauld, the Provençal poet, had written of this very matter, and brought the Paladin from Egypt to France by means of the wonderful skill in occult science possessed by his cousin Malagigi—a wonder to the ignorant, but not so marvellous to those who know that all the creation is full of wonders, and who have different modes of relating the same events. By and by, a great many things will be done in the world, of which we have no conception now, and people will be inclined to believe them works of the devil, when, in fact, they will be very good works, and contribute to angelical effects, whether the devil be forced to have a hand in them or not; for evil itself can work only in subordination to good. So listen when the astonishment comes, and reflect and think the best. Meantime, we must speak of another and more truly devilish astonishment, and of the pangs of mortal flesh and blood.

The traitor Gan, for the fiftieth time, had secretly brought the infidels from all quarters against his friend and master, the Emperor Charles; and Charles, by the help of Orlando, had conquered them all. The worst of them, Marsilius, king of Spain, had agreed to pay the court of France tribute; and Gan, in spite of all the suspicions he excited in this particular instance, and his known villany at all times, had succeeded in persuading his credulous sovereign to let him go ambassador into Spain, where he put a final seal to his enormities, by plotting the destruction of his employer, and the special overthrow of Orlando. Charles was now old and white-haired, and Gan was so too; but the one was only confirmed in his credulity, and the other in his crimes. The traitor embraced Orlando over and over again at taking leave, praying him to write if he had any thing to say before the arrangements with Marsilius, and taking such pains to seem loving and sincere, that his villany was manifest to every one but the old monarch. He fastened with equal tenderness on Uliviero, who smiled contemptuously in his face, and thought to himself, "You may make as many fair speeches as you choose, but you lie." All the other Paladins who were present thought the same and they said as much to the emperor; adding, that on no account should Gan be sent ambassador to Marsilius. But Charles was infatuated. His beard and his credulity had grown old together.

Gan was received with great honour in Spain by Marsilius. The king, attended by his lords, came fifteen miles out of Saragossa to meet him, and then conducted him into the city amid tumults of delight. There was nothing for several days but balls, and games, and exhibitions of chivalry, the ladies throwing flowers on the heads of the French knights, and the people shouting "France! France! Mountjoy and St. Denis!"

Gan made a speech, "like a Demosthenes," to King Marsilius in public; but he made him another in private, like nobody but himself. The king and he were sitting in a garden; they were traitors both, and began to understand, from one another's looks, that the real object of the ambassador was yet to be discussed. Marsilius accordingly assumed a more than usually cheerful and confidential aspect; and, taking his visitor by the hand, said, "You know the proverb, Mr. Ambassador—'At dawn, the mountain; afternoon, the fountain.' Different things at different hours. So here is a fountain to accommodate us."

It was a very beautiful fountain, so clear that you saw your face in it as in a mirror; and the spot was encircled with fruit-trees that quivered with the fresh air. Gan praised it very much, contriving to insinuate, on one subject, his satisfaction with the glimpses he got into another. Marsilius understood him; and as he resumed the conversation, and gradually encouraged a mutual disclosure of their thoughts, Gan, without appearing to look him in the face, was enabled to do so by contemplating the royal visage in the water, where he saw its expression become more and more what he desired. Marsilius, meantime, saw the like symptoms in the face of Gan. By degrees, he began to touch on that dissatisfaction with Charlemagne and his court, which he knew was in both their minds: he lamented, not as to the ambassador, but as to the friend, the injuries which he said he had received from Charles in the repeated attacks on his dominions, and the emperor's wish to crown Orlando king of them; till at length he plainly uttered his belief, that if that tremendous Paladin were but dead, good men would get their rights, and his visitor and himself have all things at their disposal.

Gan heaved a sigh, as if he was unwillingly compelled to allow the force of what the king said; but, unable to contain himself long, he lifted up his face, radiant with triumphant wickedness, and exclaimed, "Every word you utter is truth. Die he must; and die also must Uliviero, who struck me that foul blow at court. Is it treachery to punish affronts like those? I have planned every thing—I have settled every thing already with their besotted master. Orlando could not be expected to be brought hither, where he has been accustomed to look for a crown; but he will come to the Spanish borders—to Roncesvalles—for the purpose of receiving the tribute. Charles will await him, at no great distance, in St. John Pied de Port. Orlando will bring but a small band with him; you, when you meet him, will have secretly your whole army at your back. You surround him; and who receives tribute then?"

The new Judas had scarcely uttered these words, when the delight of him and his associate was interrupted by a change in the face of nature. The sky was suddenly overcast; it thundered and lightened; a laurel was split in two from head to foot; the fountain ran into burning blood; there was an earthquake, and the carob-tree under which Gan was sitting, and which was of the species on which Judas Iscariot hung himself, dropped some of its fruit on his head. The hair of the head rose in horror.