“Sebile, the wife of Guiteclin, is a peerless beauty, wise withal and courteous; ‘hair had she long and fair, more than the shining gold, a brow polished and clear, eyes blue and laughing, a very well-made nose, teeth small and white, a savourous mouth, more crimson than blood; and in body and limbs so winning was she that God never made the man, howsoever old and tottering, if he durst look at her, but was moved with desire.’”
Fair Helissend, the daughter of the murdered Milo of Cologne, is her captive at once and her favourite, and when the French host takes up its position before the Rune, names and points out young Baldwin to her.
With her husband’s sanction, Sebile has her tent pitched on the bank, and establishes herself there with her ladies to act as decoys to the Franks; for “fair lady’s look makes men undertake folly.” She is taken, however, in her own toils; falls in love with Baldwin one summer’s day on seeing him ride forth with hawk on wrist, and makes Helissend invite him over the river, under a very frank pledge that “she will be his, for loss or gain.” Their first meeting apparently takes place in the presence of Sebile’s ladies, and so little mystery is attached to their love that, on Baldwin’s return to the Frank host after killing and despoiling of his armour a Saxon chief, he not only tells his adventure publicly to the Emperor, but the latter promises in a twelvemonth to have him crowned king of the country and to give him Sebile for wife, forbidding him, however, to cross the river any more—a command which Baldwin hears without meaning to obey. Nay, when Baldwin has once broken this injunction and escaped with great difficulty from the Saxons, the Emperor imposes on him the brutal penance of entering Sebile’s tent to kiss her in the sight of the Saxons, and bringing back her ring—which Baldwin contrives to fulfil by putting on the armour of a Saxon knight whom he kills. As in The Taking of Orange, it never seems to occur to the poet that there can be any moral wrong in making love to a “Saracen’s” wife, or in promising her hand in her husband’s lifetime; and, strange to say, so benignant are these much-wronged paynim that Guiteclin is not represented as offering or threatening the slightest ill-treatment to his faithless queen, however wroth he may be against her lover; nor, indeed, as having even the sense to make her pitch her tent further from the bank. The drollest bit of sentimentality occurs, however, after the victory of the Franks and Guiteclin’s death, when Sebile is taken prisoner. After having been bestowed in marriage on Baldwin by the Emperor, she asks one boon of both, which is that Guiteclin’s body be sought for, lest the beasts should eat it—a request the exceeding nobleness of which strikes the Emperor and the Frank knights with astonishment. When the body is found and brought to Sebile, “the water of her eyes falls down her chin. ‘Ha, Guiteclin,’ said she, ‘so gentle a man were you, liberal and free-spending, and of noble witness! If in heaven and on earth Mahomet has no power, even to pray Him who made Lazarus, I pray and request Him to have mercy on thee.’” The dead man is then placed in a great marble tomb; Sebile is christened, marries her lover, and is crowned with him as Queen of Saxony, Helissend being in like manner given to Berard.
“It is now that the truly tragical part of the poem commences. Charles and his host depart, the Emperor warning his nephew to be courteous, loyal, and generous, to keep true faith to his wife, yet not to spend too much time in her arms, but to beware of the Saxons. The caution is needed, for already the two sons of Guiteclin, with one hundred thousand Russians and Bulgarians, and the giant Ferabras of Russia, a personage twelve feet high, with light hair plaited together, reddish beard, and flattened face, are within a day and a half’s journey of ‘Tremoigne,’ burning to avenge Guiteclin. One Thursday morning their invasion is announced to the young king, who has but fifteen thousand men to oppose to them. Sebile embraces her husband’s knees, and entreats him to send at once for help to his uncle; the barons whom he has called to counsel favour her advice. ‘Barons,’ said Baldwin, ‘I should fear the dishonour of it. It is too soon to seek and pray for succour. We have not yet unhorsed knights, cut arms from bodies, made bowels trail; we are fifteen thousand young men untried, who should buy our praise and our honour, and seize and acquire strange lands, and kill and shame and grieve our enemies, cleave the bright helmets, pierce the shields, break and tear the hauberks of mail, shed blood and make brains to fly. To me a pleasure it seems to put on hauberk, watch long nights, fast long days. Let us go strike upon them without more delay, that we may be able to govern this kingdom.’ The barons listen with an ill-will to this speech; Baldwin himself, on viewing the paynim host, is staggered at their numbers, and lets Sebile persuade him to send a messenger to his uncle. However, with five thousand men he makes a vigorous attack on the vanguard of the Saxons, consisting of twenty thousand, and ends by putting them to flight. On the news of this repulse the two sons of Guiteclin come out, apparently with the bulk of the army. The French urge the young king to re-enter the city, but he refuses—Sebile would hold him for a sleepy coward. He kills Ferabras, unhorses one of Guiteclin’s sons. But the disparity of numbers is too great; the French are obliged to retreat, and shut themselves up in the city.
“Meanwhile the messenger had reached Charlemagne at Cologne with the news of the renewal of the war. Whilst all his barons are summoned, the Emperor starts in haste himself for Saxony with ten thousand men. Baldwin was seated in his tower, looking out upon a league of hostile tents, complaining to Sebile, who ‘comforts him as a worthy lady,’ bidding him trust in his uncle’s succour. She is the first to descry the French host and to point it out to her husband. ‘Ah, God!’ said Charles’s nephew, ‘fair Father Creator, yet will I avenge me of the pagan people.’ He goes down from his palace, and cries to his men, ‘Arm ye, knights! Charles is returned.’
“The besieged prepare at once for a sally. Sebile places the helmet on her husband’s head and kisses him, never to see him more alive. The enemy are disarmed; three thousand of them are killed by the time Baldwin cuts his way to his uncle, to whom, as his liege lord, he makes complaint against the Saxons. The Emperor’s answer contains little but philosophic comfort: ‘Fair nephew, so goes war; when your day comes, know that you will die; your father died, you will not escape. Yonder are your enemies, of whom you complain; I give you leave, go and strike them.’ Uncle and nephew both perform wonders. But Berard is killed by Feramor, one of Guiteclin’s sons, and the standard which he bore disappears under him. Baldwin engages Feramor; each severely wounds the other; the fight is so well contested that Baldwin offers to divide the land with him if he will make peace. The Saxon spurns the offer, and is killed.
“But ‘Baldwin is wounded in the breast grievously; from thence to the spur his body is bloody.’ Saxons, Lusatians, Hungarians perceive that his blows lessen and fall slow. ‘Montjoie!’ he cries many a time, but the French hear him not. ‘When Baldwin sees that he will have no succour, as a boar he defends himself with his sword.... Who should have seen the proud countenance of the king, how he bears and defends himself against the paynim, great pity should surely take his heart.’ Struck with fifteen wounds, his horse killed under him, he offers battle on foot. They dare not approach, but they fling their swords at him, and then go and hide beneath a rock. Baldwin, feeling death approaching, ‘from the fair eyes of his head begins to weep’ for sorrow and rage. He now addresses an elaborate last prayer to God; but whilst he is on his knees, looking toward the East, a Saxon comes to cut off his head. Baldwin, furious, seizes his sword, which had fallen from his hand on the green grass, and with a last blow cleaves the Saxon to the shoulders, then dies.
“The news is carried to the Emperor, who laments his ill fate. Rest he has never had; the paynim folk have killed him the flower of his friends, Roland at Roncevaux and now Baldwin. ‘Ha, God! send me death, without making long delay!’ He draws his sword, and is about to kill himself when Naymes of Bavaria restrains him and bids him avenge his nephew’s death. The old man, however, exposes his life with such recklessness, the struggle is so unequal, that Naymes himself has to persuade him to leave the battle and enter the city until the Herupe nobles come to his aid. ‘Dead is Count Roland and Count Oliver, and all the twelve peers, who used to help in daunting that pride which makes us bend so; no longer at your right hand is Baldwin the warrior; the paynim have killed him and Berard the light; God has their souls.... If you are killed ... in your death alone a hundred thousand will die.’
“They lead him away, unwilling, from the field. Baldwin’s corpse is carried by him on his shield. Sebile comes to meet the Emperor and asks of her husband. Charles bids her look at him. She faints to the ground. There is true pathos (though somewhat wire-drawn) in her lament, when she comes to herself:
“’Sir King Baldwin, for God’s sake, speak! I am your love, mistake me not. If I have offended you in aught, it shall be made amends for wholly to your pleasure; but speak to me. For you was my body baptized and lifted; my heart leans on you, and all my affections, and if you fail me, it will be ill done. Too soon it seems to me, if already you repent. Baldwin, is it a trick? Are you deceiving me? Speak to me, friend, if you can.... I see your garments dyed and bloody, but I do not believe that you are killed; there is no man so bold or so outrageous who ever could kill you; he durst not do so. But I think by such a will you wish to try me, how I should behave if you were departed. Speak to me, for God’s sake who was born of virgin, and for that lady who kept chastity, and for the holy cross whereon Jesus suffered! Try me no more, friend, it is enough; I shall die now if you tarry longer,’ ‘Naymes,’ says the king, ‘take this lady away; if I see her grief any more, I shall go mad.’