(ii) the scene of action, which at the end of the Destruction is transferred to Spain, remains, according to Philippe Mousket, in the neighbourhood of Rome for the whole time.
(iii) Guy of Burgundy and Richard of Normandy play a most important active part before Rome, according to Ph. Mousket, whereas in the Destruction this is not the case.
Now, as to the last two items, they must have been in the original such as they are related by Ph. Mousket. For only thus some obscure passages of Fierabras, of which even the Destruction affords no explanation, are cleared up. Thus, Fierabras, l. 1049,
“Près fu du far de Rome, ses a dedens jetés”—
which is in contradiction to the Destruction, is explained by ll. 4705–6 of Mousket’s account (see above). Only Mousket relates that Floripas has seen Guy before Rome (Fierabras, l. 2240; Ashmole Ferumbras, l. 1413), and that Richard took part at the combat there. Therefore the account as given by Ph. Mousket, agreeing with what must have been the contents of the old original, is based on a version older than the Destruction, which exhibits significant differences.
These differences between Mousket and the Destruction, as well as the fact that several references to preceding events contained in Fierabras remain unexplained by the Destruction, were some of the reasons which led me in my Dissertation, pp. 41–49, to consider the Destruction as a poem written by another author than that of the Fierabras. In order to clear up the allusions to preceding events contained in the Fierabras, the very beginning of which necessarily requires some explanatory account—a circumstance which also gave rise to the ‘episode’ of the Provençal version—the Destruction was composed as a kind of Introduction to the Fierabras, whereby it happened that some allusions remained unexplained.
[32] For a description of this magnificent MS., see Sir Ferumbras, p. vi, footnote.
[33] Cf. Warton, Hist. of Eng. Poetry, ii. 197–8.
[34] Edited for the E. E. T. S. in 1879, by S. J. Herrtage, B.A.
[35] Cf. Gautier, Epopées Françaises, i. 221.—“Rien n’est plus fréquent, dans la Chanson de Roland et dans nos poèmes les plus anciens, que la répétition double, triple et même quelquefois quadruple, de certains couplets. Cette répétition n’a pas lieu dans les mêmes termes, ni surtout avec les mêmes rimes. Tout au contraire, la même idée est reproduite en vers différents, munis d’assonances ou de rimes différentes.”