“Carles li Reis, nostre Emperere magnes,
  Sela anz tuz pleins ad estet en Espaigne;
  Tresqu’en la mer, cunquist la tere altaigne. 
  N’i ad castel ki devant lui remagnet.”

      ("Charles le Roi, notre grand Empereur,
  Sept ans entiers est reste en Espagne;
  Jusqu’ a la mer, il a conquis la haute terre. 
  Pas de chateau qui tienne devant lui.”

—­GAUTIER.)

However, it has been transmuted into modern French, and latterly twice translated into English verse; and the English translations appear to have preserved remarkably both the power and sweetness of the original.

The poem centres almost wholly upon this deadly battle in the Pyrenees,—­the last battle of Roland its hero.  Charlemagne and the Franks had invaded Spain, and spent seven years warring with the Moors and conquering their cities.  On their return, as the poem narrates it, the Moors, instigated by a traitor in Charlemagne’s army, plotted an ambush in this pass of Roncesvalles.  The army began its march.  The main body defiled through in safety, and turned westward to await the rear-guard nearer the coast.  But when that division, the flower of the Frankish forces,—­commanded by Roland, his bosom friend Oliver, the warrior-archbishop Turpin, and the others of the twelve great paladins,—­reached the pass, hostiles began to appear,—­in front, above, behind.  More and more they thickened around it,—­fierce Basques or swarthy Moslems, “a hundred thousand heathen men;” and the three leaders soon realized their betrayal.  Oliver exclaimed: 

  “’Ganelon[9] wrought this perfidy! 
  It was he who doomed us to hold the rear.’ 
  ‘Hush,’ said Roland, ’O Olivier,
  No word be said of my step-sire here,’”

—­a touch of magnanimity strange for that brutal age, yet only one of many in the poem.  Roland rather exulted than shrank at the prospect of a battle, by whatever means brought about.  Oliver was the cooler of the two, and he promptly urged Roland to sound his great horn, which might be heard for thirty leagues, and so summon Charlemagne to the rescue.  He saw that the danger was real, for the odds were overwhelmingly against them.  But Roland impetuously refused.  Thrice, though not in cowardice, Oliver pleaded with him: 

“’Roland, Roland, yet wind one blast! 
Karl will hear ere the gorge be past,
And the Franks return on their path full fast.’ 
’I will not sound on mine ivory horn! 
It shall never be spoken of me in scorn
That for heathen felons one blast I blew. 
I may not dishonor my lineage true.

* * * * *

“’Death were better than fame laid low. 
Our Emperor loveth a downright blow!’”

[9] Ganelon was the traitor and Roland’s own step-father.  The lines quoted are from the late version by JOHN O’HAGAN, outlined in an article in the Edinburgh Review to whose appreciative commentary much indebtedness is acknowledged.