Page:The Song of Roland.djvu/148

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That is Loewis, what further can I say;3715
He is my son, and shall my marches take.”
Aide answered him: “That word to me is strange.
Never, please God, His Angels and His Saints,
When Rollant’s dead shall I alive remain!”
Her colour fails, at th’ feet of Charlemain,3720
She falls; she’s dead. Her soul God’s Mercy awaits!
Barons of France weep therefore and complain.

CCLXIX

Aide the fair is gone now to her rest.
Yet the King thought she was but swooning then,
Pity he had, our Emperour, and wept,3725
Took her in ’s hands, raised her from th’ earth again;
On her shoulders her head still drooped and leant.
When Charlès saw that she was truly dead
Four countesses at once he summonèd;
To a monast’ry of nuns they bare her thence,3730
All night their watch until the dawn they held;
Before the altar her tomb was fashioned well;
Her memory the King with honour kept.

AOI.

CCLXX

That Emperour is now returned to Aix.
The felon Guene, all in his iron chains3735
Is in that town, before the King’s Palace;
Those serfs have bound him, fast upon his stake,
In deer-hide thongs his hands they’ve helpless made,
With clubs and whips they trounce him well and baste:
He has deserved not any better fate;3740
In bitter grief his trial there he awaits.

CCLXXI

Written it is, and in an ancient geste
How Charlès called from many lands his men,

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