“To do this thing, my comrade, did you mean?2000
This is Rollanz, who ever held you dear;
And no mistrust was ever us between.”
Says Oliver: “Now can I hear you speak;
I see you not: may the Lord God you keep!
I struck you now: and for your pardon plead.”2005
Answers Rollanz: “I am not hurt, indeed;
I pardon you, before God’s Throne and here.”
Upon these words, each to the other leans;
And in such love you had their parting seen.
CL
Oliver feels death’s anguish on him now;2010
And in his head his two eyes swimming round;
Nothing he sees; he hears not any sound;
Dismounting then, he kneels upon the ground,
Proclaims his sins both firmly and aloud,
Clasps his two hands, heavenwards holds them out,2015
Prays God himself in Paradise to allow;
Blessings on Charles, and on Douce France he vows,
And his comrade, Rollanz, to whom he’s bound.
Then his heart fails; his helmet nods and bows;
Upon the earth he lays his whole length out:2020
And he is dead, may stay no more, that count.
Rollanz the brave mourns him with grief profound;
Nowhere on earth so sad a man you’d found.
CLI
So Rollant’s friend is dead; whom when he sees
Face to the ground, and biting it with ’s teeth,2025
Begins to mourn in language very sweet:
“Unlucky, friend, your courage was indeed!
Together we have spent such days and years;
No harmful thing twixt thee and me has been.
Now thou art dead, and all my life a grief.”2030
And with these words again he swoons, that chief,
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