Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race Part 18

May He receive you into Paradise And grant you rest on banks of heavenly flowers!

Ne'er have I known such mighty men as you.

Fair France, that art the best of all dear lands, How art thou widowed of thy n.o.ble sons!

Through me alone, dear comrades, have you died, And yet through me no help nor safety comes.

G.o.d have you in His keeping! Brother, come, Let us attack the heathen and win death, Or grief will slay me! Death is duty now.'"

He Fights Desperately

So saying, he rushed into the battle, slew the only son of King Marsile, and drove the heathen before him as the hounds drive the deer. Turpin saw and applauded. "So should a good knight do, wearing good armour and riding a good steed. He must deal good strong strokes in battle, or he is not worth a groat. Let a coward be a monk in some cloister and pray for the sins of us fighters."

Marsile in wrath attacked the slayer of his son, but in vain; Roland struck off his right hand, and Marsile fled back mortally wounded to Saragossa, while his main host, seized with panic, left the field to Roland. However, the caliph, Marsile's uncle, rallied the ranks, and, with fifty thousand Saracens, once more came against the little troop of Champions of the Cross, the three poor survivors of the rearguard.

Roland cried aloud: "Now shall we be martyrs for our faith. Fight boldly, lords, for life or death! Sell yourselves dearly! Let not fair France be dishonoured in her sons. When the Emperor sees us dead with our slain foes around us he will bless our valour."

Oliver Falls

The pagans were emboldened by the sight of the three alone, and the caliph, rushing at Oliver, pierced him from behind with his lance. But though mortally wounded Oliver retained strength enough to slay the caliph, and to cry aloud: "Roland! Roland! Aid me!" then he rushed on the heathen army, doing heroic deeds and shouting "Montjoie!

Montjoie!" while the blood ran from his wound and stained the earth blood-red. At this woeful sight Roland swooned with grief, and Oliver, faint from loss of blood, and with eyes dimmed by fast-coming death, distinguished not the face of his dear friend; he saw only a vague figure drawing near, and, mistaking it for an enemy, raised his sword Hauteclaire and gave Roland one last terrible blow, which clove the helmet, but harmed not the head. The blow roused Roland from his swoon, and, gazing tenderly at Oliver, he gently asked him:

"'Comrade and brother, was that blow designed To slay your Roland, him who loves you so?

There is no vengeance you would wreak on me.'

'Roland, I hear you speak, but see you not.

G.o.d guard and keep you, friend; but pardon me The blow I struck, unwitting, on your head.'

'I have no hurt,' said Roland; 'I forgive Here and before the judgment-throne of G.o.d.'"

And Dies

Now Oliver felt the pains of death come upon him. Both sight and hearing were gone, his colour fled, and, dismounting, he lay upon the earth; there, humbly confessing his sins, he begged G.o.d to grant him rest in Paradise, to bless his lord Charlemagne and the fair land of France, and to keep above all men his comrade Roland, his best-loved brother-in-arms. This ended, he fell back, his heart failed, his head drooped low, and Oliver the brave and courteous knight lay dead on the blood-stained earth, with his face turned to the east. Roland lamented him in gentle words: "Comrade, alas for thy valour! Many days and years have we been comrades: no ill didst thou to me, nor I to thee: now thou art dead, 'tis pity that I live!"

Turpin is Mortally Wounded. The Horn Again

Turpin and Roland now stood together for a time and were joined by the brave Count Gautier, whose thousand men had been slain, and he himself grievously wounded; he now came, like a loyal va.s.sal, to die with his lord Roland, and was slain in the first discharge of arrows which the Saracens shot. Taught by experience, the pagans kept their distance, and wounded Turpin with four lances, while they stood some yards away from the heroes. But when Turpin felt himself mortally wounded he plunged into the throng of the heathen, killing four hundred before he fell, and Roland fought on with broken armour, and with ever-bleeding head, till in a pause of the deadly strife he took his horn and again sent forth a feeble dying blast.

Charles Answers the Horn

Charlemagne heard it, and was filled with anguish. "Lords, all goes ill: I know by the sound of Roland's horn he has not long to live!

Ride on faster, and let all our trumpets sound, in token of our approach." Then sixty thousand trumpets sounded, so that mountains echoed it and valleys replied, and the heathen heard it and trembled.

"It is Charlemagne! Charles is coming!" they cried. "If Roland lives till he comes the war will begin again, and our bright Spain is lost." Thereupon four hundred banded together to slay Roland; but he rushed upon them, mounted on his good steed Veillantif, and the valiant pagans fled. But while Roland dismounted to tend the dying archbishop they returned and cast darts from afar, slaying Veillantif, the faithful war-horse, and piercing the hero's armour. Still nearer and nearer sounded the clarions of Charlemagne's army in the defiles, and the Saracen host fled for ever, leaving Roland alone, on foot, expiring, amid the dying and the dead.

Turpin Blesses the Dead

Roland made his way to Turpin, unlaced his golden helmet, took off his hauberk, tore his own tunic to bind up his grievous wounds, and then gently raising the prelate, carried him to the fresh green gra.s.s, where he most tenderly laid him down.

"'Ah, gentle lord,' said Roland, 'give me leave To carry here our comrades who are dead, Whom we so dearly loved; they must not lie Unblest; but I will bring their corpses here And thou shalt bless them, and me, ere thou die.'

'Go,' said the dying priest, 'but soon return.

Thank G.o.d! the victory is yours and mine!'"

With great pain and many delays Roland traversed the field of slaughter, looking in the faces of the dead, till he had found and brought to Turpin's feet the bodies of the eleven Peers, last of all Oliver, his own dear friend and brother, and Turpin blessed and absolved them all. Now Roland's grief was so deep and his weakness so great that he swooned where he stood, and the archbishop saw him fall and heard his cry of pain. Slowly and painfully Turpin struggled to his feet, and, bending over Roland, took Olifant, the curved ivory horn; inch by inch the dying archbishop tottered towards a little mountain stream, that the few drops he could carry might revive Roland.

He Dies

However, his weakness overcame him before he reached the water, and he fell forward dying. Feebly he made his confession, painfully he joined his hands in prayer, and as he prayed his spirit fled. Turpin, the faithful champion of the Cross, in teaching and in battle, died in the service of Charlemagne. May G.o.d have mercy on his soul!

When Roland awoke from his swoon he looked for Turpin, and found him dead, and, seeing Olifant, he guessed what the archbishop's aim had been, and wept for pity. Crossing the fair white hands over Turpin's breast, he sadly prayed:

"'Alas! brave priest, fair lord of n.o.ble birth, Thy soul I give to the great King of Heaven!

No mightier champion has He in His hosts, No prophet greater to maintain the Faith, No teacher mightier to convert mankind Since Christ's Apostles walked upon the earth!

May thy fair soul escape the pains of h.e.l.l And Paradise receive thee in its bowers!'"

Roland's Last Fight

Now death was very near to Roland, and he felt it coming upon him while he yet prayed and commended himself to his guardian angel Gabriel. Taking in one hand Olifant, and in the other his good sword Durendala, Roland climbed a little hill, one bowshot within the realm of Spain. There under two pine-trees he found four marble steps, and as he was about to climb them, fell swooning on the gra.s.s very near his end. A lurking Saracen, who had feigned death, stole from his covert, and, calling aloud, "Charles's nephew is vanquished! I will bear his sword back to Arabia," seized Durendala as it lay in Roland's dying clasp. The attempt roused Roland, and he opened his eyes, saying, "Thou art not of us," then struck such a blow with Olifant on the helm of the heathen thief that he fell dead before his intended victim.

He Tries to Break his Sword

Pale, bleeding, dying, Roland struggled to his feet, bent on saving his good blade from the defilement of heathen hands. He grasped Durendala, and the brown marble before him split beneath his mighty blows; but the good sword stood firm, the steel grated but did not break, and Roland lamented aloud that his famous sword must now become the weapon of a lesser man. Again Roland smote with Durendala, and clove the block of sardonyx, but the good steel only grated and did not break, and the hero bewailed himself aloud, saying, "Alas! my good Durendala, how bright and pure thou art! How thou flamest in the sunbeams, as when the angel brought thee! How many lands hast thou conquered for Charles my King, how many champions slain, how many heathen converted! Must I now leave thee to the pagans? May G.o.d spare fair France this shame!" A third time Roland raised the sword and struck a rock of blue marble, which split asunder, but the steel only grated--it would not break; and the hero knew that he could do no more.

His Last Prayer

Then he flung himself on the ground under a pine-tree with his face to the earth, his sword and Olifant beneath him, his face to the foe, that Charlemagne and the Franks might see when they came that he died victorious. He made his confession, prayed for mercy, and offered to Heaven his glove, in token of submission for all his sins. "_Mea culpa!_ O G.o.d! I pray for pardon for all my sins, both great and small, that I have sinned from my birth until this day." So he held up towards Heaven his right-hand glove, and the angels of G.o.d descended around him. Again Roland prayed:

"'O very Father, who didst never lie, Didst bring St. Lazarus from the dead again, Didst save St. Daniel from the lion's mouth, Save Thou my soul and keep it from all ills That I have merited by all my sins!'"

He Dies

Again he held up to Heaven his glove, and St. Gabriel received it; then, with head bowed and hands clasped, the hero died, and the waiting cherubim, St. Raphael, St. Michael, and St. Gabriel, bore his soul to Paradise.

So died Roland and the Peers of France.

Charles Arrives

Soon after Roland's heroic spirit had pa.s.sed away the emperor came galloping out of the mountains into the valley of Roncesvalles, where not a foot of ground was without its burden of death.

Loudly he called: "Fair nephew, where art thou? Where is the archbishop? And Count Oliver? Where are the Peers?"

Alas! of what avail was it to call? No man replied, for all were dead; and Charlemagne wrung his hands, and tore his beard and wept, and his army bewailed their slain comrades, and all men thought of vengeance.

Truly a fearful vengeance did Charles take, in that terrible battle which he fought the next day against the Emir of Babylon, come from oversea to help his va.s.sal Marsile, when the sun stood still in heaven that the Christians might be avenged on their enemies; in the capture of Saragossa and the death of Marsile, who, already mortally wounded, turned his face to the wall and died when he heard of the defeat of the emir; but when vengeance was taken on the open enemy Charlemagne thought of mourning, and returned to Roncesvalles to seek the body of his beloved nephew.