CCXVI

     “Sir Emperor,” Geoffrey of Anjou said,
     “Be not by sorrow so sore misled. 
     Let us seek our comrades throughout the plain,
     Who fell by the hands of the men of Spain;
     And let their bodies on biers be borne.” 
     “Yea,” said the Emperor.  “Sound your horn.”

     CCXVII

     Now doth Count Geoffrey his bugle sound,
     And the Franks from their steeds alight to ground
     As they their dead companions find,
     They lay them low on biers reclined;
     Nor prayers of bishop or abbot ceased,
     Of monk or canon, or tonsured priest. 
     The dead they blessed in God’s great name,
     Set myrrh and frankincense aflame. 
     Their incense to the dead they gave,
     Then laid them, as beseemed the brave—­
     What could they more?—­in honored grave.

     CCXVIII

     But the king kept watch o’er Roland’s bier
     O’er Turpin and Sir Olivier. 
     He bade their bodies opened be,
     Took the hearts of the barons three,
     Swathed them in silken cerements light,
     Laid them in urns of the marble white. 
     Their bodies did the Franks enfold
     In skins of deer, around them rolled;
     Laved them with spices and with wine,
     Till the king to Milo gave his sign,
     To Tybalt, Otun, and Gebouin;
     Their bodies three on biers they set,
     Each in its silken coverlet.

* * * * *

     CCXIX

     To Saragossa did Marsil flee. 
     He alighted beneath an olive tree,
     And sadly to his serfs he gave
     His helm, his cuirass, and his glaive,
     Then flung him on the herbage green;
     Came nigh him Bramimonde his queen. 
     Shorn from his wrist was his right hand good;
     He swooned for pain and waste of blood. 
     The queen, in anguish, wept and cried,
     With twenty thousand by her side. 
     King Karl and gentle France they cursed;
     Then on their gods their anger burst. 
     Unto Apollin’s crypt they ran,
     And with revilings thus began: 
     “Ah, evil-hearted god, to bring
     Such dark dishonor on our king. 
     Thy servants ill dost thou repay.” 
     His crown and wand they wrench away,
     They bind him to a pillar fast,
     And then his form to earth they cast,
     His limbs with staves they bruise and break: 
     From Termagaunt his gem they take: 
     Mohammed to a trench they bear,
     For dogs and boars to tread and tear.

     CCXX

     Within his vaulted hall they bore
     King Marsil, when his swoon was o’er;
     The hall with colored writings stained. 
     And loud the queen in anguish plained,
     The while she tore her streaming hair,
     “Ah, Saragossa, reft and bare,
     Thou seest thy noble