As we pass on to the last consideration, we meet with other contrasts between the forefathers and their posterity. Religion, in the time of Wace and of Chrestien of Troyes, was still powerful and honored. Their heroes, even the most worldly and pugnacious, are exact in saying their prayers, kneeling devoutly, and confiding their souls to the care of the Blessed Virgin; still, in times of great solemnity or extremity, in the midst of danger, or face to face with death, we do not find the calm and serene fervor, the submission as well as faith, which fill the heart of Roland and his companions.
With regard to another point: if the "Lay of Roland," or, rather, if the popular tradition which gave it birth, makes Saracens instead of Gascons appear at Roncevaux, it is not pure fiction. After the death of Charlemagne, the Saracens had so often quitted their province of Castile to make inroads upon Aquitaine, and Western Europe had them in such terror, that the fear of present misfortune had soon effaced the remembrance of the old combats of Christian against Christian on the Spanish frontier. A fixed belief had grown that every enemy ambushed in the Pyrenees could not at any period have been other than an army of mis-believers; and to this may be added the idea, which was germinating, that a day would come when, in defence of Europe and of the faith, it would be necessary to destroy the vulture in its nest by carrying the sword into the country of Mahomet. It was not only that the slaughter of Roncevaux cried out for vengeance; the Holy War was in the spirit of the times, and naturally passed into the poems. These, without preaching a crusade, prepared the way a century beforehand, and the idea, dimly shadowed, it is true, but actually present, is expressed in the last five or six lines of the poem, which is, moreover, especially noticeable as being one which immortalizes defeat and death. It is the glorification of courage, in misfortune and in success, vain as to this world, but of eternal value for the next, where the glory of the warrior pales before the glory of the martyr.
And this thought leads us to our last consideration, namely, the meaning of the vowels A O I, with which every stanza terminates. From the moment that Roland had died fighting against the Mussulmans, he became a saint, whose name must forthwith be inscribed in the popular martyrology. It was, therefore, only fitting to consecrate to him a poem after the model of the hymns of the church, so many of which, as well as the Latin poem on S. Mildred, are terminated by the vowels e u o u a e—the modulation of sæculorum amen. This is the opinion of the learned Abbé Henry, although neither he nor any of the other writers whom we have consulted mention their suppositions as to the exact meaning of the vowels A O I.
The Song of Roland is mentioned in numberless romances, was imitated in almost every language of Western Europe, and appears to have been made use of as a war-song by the French armies before it had developed itself to the proportions in which it has reached us. There is no reasonable doubt that it was parts of this poem that were sung by Taillefer on the advance of the Normans at the Battle of Hastings, and not the "Song of Rollo," their first duke, as several modern authors have supposed. We quote the words of Robert Wace:
"Taillefer, qui moult bien cantait,
Sur un cheval qui tost allait,
Devant as (eux) s'en alait cantant
De Carlemanne et de Rollant,
Et d'Olivier et des vassaus
Qui moururent à Raincevaus."[131]
Although we are not about to give a translation of the whole poem of four thousand lines, we will present the reader with an abridgment containing not only the thread of the narrative, but also all the principal parts of the poem, without change or abbreviation; commencing with the first stanza in the original French, as a specimen of the rest:
LA CHANSON DE ROLAND.
I.
Carles li reis, nostre emperère magne,
Set ans tuz pleins ad ested en Espaigne,
Tresqu'en la mer cunquist la tere altaigne,
Ni ad kastel ki devant lui remaigne,
Mur ne citet n'i est remes à fraindre
Fors Sarraguce, k'i est en une muntaigne.
Li reis Marsilie la tient, ki Deu n'enaimet;
Mahummet sert e Apollin recleimet
Ne s'poet guarder que mals ne li ateignet, AOI.[132]
ABRIDGED TRANSLATION OF THE SONG OF ROLAND.
Charles the king, our great emperor, has been for seven full years in Spain, where he has conquered the mountainous land even to the sea. Not a castle which has held out before him, not a town which he has not forced to open its gates; Saragossa on the height of its mountain alone excepted. King Marsilion holds it, who loves not God, serves Mahomet, and invokes Apollo(!) Nor can he hinder that evil shall befal him.