Heroines of the French Epic
The epic tales of medieval France, called chansons de geste, or "songs of deeds", provided the chief means of cultural and imaginative expression in the French language for over one hundred and fifty years (c.1100-1250), during one of the most significant periods of social change in the history of Western civilisation. Yet they remain largely unknown to most English-speaking readers of the twenty-first century.
In Heroes of the Old French Epic (Boydell, 2005) Michael Newth translated a selection of the traditional militaristic narratives dominated by male heroes. This oral-based epic genre was increasingly influenced by the ethos of romance, and the present volume offers full English verse translations of six more of these songs, each chosen this time to illustrate the range of roles gradually accorded to women in these originally militaristic narratives. Four key narrative roles have been selected - woman as helpmeet, woman as lover, woman as victim, and woman as spiritual model - in order to illustrate some major changes in the social status of women that took place during the period of this popular genre's existence. These poems are a key witness to the final stages of the chansons de geste before they were overtaken by the new fashion for the fictions of courtly romance. Apart from "The Capture of Orange", which has never been translated into modern English verse, none of the poems have yet appeared in English translation.
For Sue,
my heroine
Translator’s Preface
Despite the growing shelves of Old French literature in translation that can be found in many university libraries, the epic tales of medieval France remain largely unknown to most English-speaking readers of the twenty-first century; and yet the genre to which they belong, called ‘chansons de geste’, or ‘songs of deeds’, provided the chief means of cultural and imaginative expression in the French language for over one hundred and fifty years (c.1100–1250), during one of the most significant periods of social change in the history of Western civilisation. The present volume, intended as a companion text to my Heroes of the Old French Epic (Woodbridge, 2005)1, offers full English verse translations of six more of these songs, each chosen this time to illustrate the range of roles gradually accorded to women in these originally militaristic narratives. Four key narrative roles have been selected – woman as helpmeet, woman as lover, woman as victim, and woman as spiritual model – in order to illustrate some major changes in the social status of women that took place during the period of this popular genre’s existence. The chronological presentation of the poems in this selection is not meant, however, to imply the existence of any strict division or development, historically or behaviourally, in the female roles highlighted by each.
Apart from their individual literary merits and their historical value as social documents, the poems translated here also show the amazing transformation, in form and content, of an oral-based Epic genre increasingly influenced by the ethos of Romance, as expressed in the contemporary ‘verse novels’ of courtly love and Arthurian adventure. In making each translation I have tried therefore, above all, to preserve most of the formal properties of the original texts. The chansons de geste of whatever period are still oral-based poems and the performance-driven qualities of such verse (the mesmeric effect of formulaic diction, the affective powers of assonance, rhyme and rhythm) need to be recreated in verse and declaimed (at least inwardly!) by the modern ‘reader’ if something of the fine and full effect of this fascinating art-form is to be appreciated today. Of necessity such an approach to translation is taken at the sacrifice of some literal accuracy, but I would ask any specialists in medieval studies who may find these versions too free, to consider whether a prose translation of any piece of verse is, in essence, a ‘strict’ translation at all. This being said, the translations in this volume are as faithful to the spirit and the letter of their originals as I could make them.
It would appear that in the main era, c.950–c.1150, of this genre’s oral popularity and performance (an early version of the surviving Song of Roland, for example, is reported to have been sung to William the Conqueror’s troops on the battlefield of Hastings in 1066), all the lines in every stanza of the same song were chanted to the same brief melodic phrase, like a litany. Most of the earlier songs were written in ten-syllable lines, most of the later ones in lines of twelve syllables (called alexandrines). In either case the lines were grouped together in stanzas of irregular length called laisses. The final syllables of all the lines in one Old French epic laisse were originally assonanced together (i.e. matched by vowel-sound only), but in later poems they were fully rhymed. This full rhyme, which is easy to achieve in the French language, is impossible to copy in English, and so I have employed the traditional assonance patterning for all six tales contained in this collection. The occasional rhyme occurs, of course, but it is, usually, fortuitous. The end-assonance changes with each stanza and is commonly masculine but occasionally feminine. A feminine ending is one in which the stressed syllable that carries the assonance was followed in the original poem by an unaccented e (e.g. baronnie, folie); a masculine ending is one in which it was not so followed: (e.g. baron, donjon). Thus, in the translations, not only do words like brave and jail assonate, but so do barons and madness. There is a break in the ten-syllable line after the fourth syllable and after the sixth in the alexandrine. The final syllable before this caesura may once again be either masculine or feminine.
While preserving the medieval verse-structure as much as possible, I have also tried to accommodate the needs and expectations of the modern reader. I have maintained a uniform past tense in narration that does not reflect the seemingly indiscriminate mixture of tenses to be found in some of the originals. I have created many more run-on lines than occur in the Old French productions, and have, more radically, but again for the ease of modern reading, divided each text artificially into numbered sections, to indicate narrative episodes which are discernible but not distinguished thus in the extant manuscripts or in any editions thereof. The editions used to make the translations are as follows:
Régnier, Claude. La Prise d’Orange. Paris 1977.
Andolf, Sven. Floovant. Uppsala 1941.
Guessard F. and P. Meyer. Aye d’Avignon. Paris 1861; repr. New York 1989.
Macaire. Paris, 1866; repr. New York 1989.
Henry, Albert. Adenet le Roi: Berte As Grans Piés. Geneva 1982.
These translations are intended for English-speaking general readers or students of Western civilisation in such disciplines as history, comparative literature and gender studies. The accompanying introductions, suggestions for further reading and end-glossary will, hopefully, also be of service and interest to these groups. The surviving chansons de geste (there are approximately one hundred) offer a fascinating insight into the matters and manners of their times. The translations in this volume aim to contribute further to an appreciation of the information, artistry, humour and wisdom to be found and still enjoyed within this poetic corpus.
My affectionate thanks go to my friend Emeritus Professor Len McGlashan for his unfailingly cheerful and patient support, both moral and practical, in the preparation of this volume.
1 All names and page references relate to authors and works cited in the Suggestions for Further Reading.
Contents
Front Cover
Translator’s Preface
Introduction
PART I–Saracen Sirens
THE CAPTURE OF ORANGE
THE SONG OF FLOOVANT
PART II–Bartered Brides
AYE OF AVIGNON
AYE OF AVIGNON – II
PART III–Martyred Minds
THE SONG
OF BLANCHEFLOR
BERTHA BROAD-FOOT
Glossary
Suggestions for Further Reading
Copyright
Titles of Related Interest
Introduction
‘In no period of French literature, – neither in the romans d’aventure, nor in the society literature of the grand siècle, nor in the emancipated treatment of the modern novelists, – is woman more attractively and more truthfully, albeit often naïvely, portrayed than in the chansons de geste.’
William Wistar Comfort (p.105)
The chansons de geste, inspired originally by the historical deeds and legendary exploits of the great Frankish king and Western emperor Charlemagne (742–814), began as an orally composed and publicly presented form of entertainment for the pleasure and edification of the Frankish barons, whose delight in combat they reflected. The masterly level of sustained epic diction achieved in the Song of Roland (c. 1100), the earliest complete chanson de geste that has survived in manuscript today, reflects and consummates a long legacy, over one hundred years in fact, of prior oral composition within the genre. Roland is justly considered today as the first masterpiece of French literature, and one of the world’s greatest epic poems. It remains also, unfortunately, the only example of the chanson de geste genre to which modern English-speaking students or general readers are usually exposed – and even then, again most probably, only through specially selected passages. As one critic has aptly said, such modern readers of the Song of Roland ‘must be led to conclude that women are unimportant or even non-existent in the French epic’(Harrison, p.672). Indeed, the only two female characters in this 4,000 line poem (featuring well over one hundred named warriors) are the Saracen king’s wife Bramimond, who is mentioned in four episodes totalling 147 lines, and Roland’s fiancée Aude, who is mentioned in only twenty nine lines, and speaks in only five of them.
Both quantitatively and qualitatively Aude and Bramimond in the Song of Roland demonstrate, to the different degrees of their status as maid/fiancée and wife/queen respectively, the subordinate and supportive role to which early medieval society, and hence its imaginative representations, had relegated them. For the aristocratic male audiences who listened to these epic tales in the eleventh century, men ‘for whom national or vassalic duties were of the supreme interest, men who had consecrated themselves above all to national and religious service’ (Hindley & Levy, p.79), it was warfare and its associated moral and physical virtues that were of most importance and interest in life – the pursuit of individual or clan honour, not that of amorous adventure. Thus in the earliest ‘songs of deeds’ women figure very much as minor characters whose honour, like their status in society, is dependent on and reflected from males. Although the physical beauty of these early heroines is assumed, even regularly stated, it is not emphasised, and never the sole motivation for the taking up of arms. It is rather the mental and moral strengths of a woman – her wit, intelligence, constancy, diligence, practicality, and powers of will and endurance, – attributes that would make her ‘a fitting companion for the epic hero’ (Herman, p.214), that ornament the earliest preserved songs, such as Roland and the Song of William, and remain an admirable feature of several of the later ones too, such as Raoul of Cambrai, Aliscans, The Knights of Narbonne and Aspremont. It is not until the middle of the twelfth century, as the aristocratic male audience for such tales developed rapidly into a more democratised, and female readership, delighting more in the emotionally tangled battlefields of ‘Romance’, that female characters begin to participate much more in the intrigues of the plot, advancing and eventually directing the actions of the hero by their physical, moral and intellectual qualities.
In the Song of Roland the maiden Aude dies of a broken heart immediately on hearing of her fiancé Roland’s death. She brusquely rejects Charlemagne’s offer of his own son as a replacement, ‘Which is Prince Louis: what better can I say/ He is my son, the heir to my domains,’ (ll.3715–6) – thus demonstrating her unswerving loyalty to her betrothed, which is clearly the focus of the little episode for the earliest poet. Her self-sacrificing death complements that of her fiancé on the battlefield: ‘She is thus Roland’s equal, and her death adds enormously to his posthumous prestige’ (Hindley & Levy, p.79). However, in the song called Girart of Vienne, written approximately a century later (c.1200), but describing a baronial conflict that is set, historically, twelve months before her betrothed’s famous last stand at the battle of Roncevaux, Aude reappears as an independent, even forward young beauty who is quick to exchange witticisms with any man and to flirt openly with her new admirer, an over-ardent Roland, throughout the seven thousand line narrative. The only other ‘heroine’ in the Song of Roland, the Saracen Queen Bramimond, although bearing the unforgivable stigma (in these early epic poems) of Paganism – a narrative attribute which precludes her immediately from being viewed as a figure of admirable i.e. Christian virtue, – is still portrayed in positive terms as a loyal, supportive wife to King Marsile, and as an articulate deputy who is more than capable of representing her husband’s cause in his own absence or incapacity to do so. Her very first words to the Christian traitor Ganelon are: ‘ I love you much, because my lord and all his men do so’(ll.635–6).
The most successfully drawn and the most admirable example of this ‘helpmeet-heroine’ figure in Old French poetry is that of Lady Guibourc, the wife of Duke William of Orange (the principal character in a major sub cycle of the Old French epic songs). Guibourc is indeed ‘a vivacious female personage of high relief who, with the possible exception of Aalais in Raoul de Cambrai, surpasses all other heroines in dignity and in accuracy of human portrayal’ (Herman, p.213). In her we can best see the literary embodiment of the early medieval Christian woman, who ‘was called upon to be her husband’s helpmate in every phase of his life, in his active military pursuits as well as in his pleasures. She was strong in her desires, vigorous in her efforts to satisfy them, and quite as crude in her manner of living as her husband.’(C.M. Jones, p.220) A Christian convert, Guibourc demonstrates a resilient, indeed energetic fidelity to her new husband and her new faith throughout every trial and tribulation she encounters in the course of her many appearances in the chansons de geste. She displays not only physical courage but a moral strength and a ready wit that cheer and inspire her husband even in his most despondent moods. In the Song of William (c.1120) we find her preparing huge meals for her husband and commending his healthy appetite as an innate proof of his momentarily self-doubted vigour. Assembling an army of thirty thousand men on her own initiative, she lies brazenly to them about William’s achievements in order to enlist their support. She offers them inducements of beautiful maidens, while telling William, however, whom she has advised to seek King Louis’ help in Paris, that if he does not bring back her nephew Guischard alive, she will withhold all her own conjugal favours. William’s ensuing query provokes a response that is equally revealing of this strong helpmeet-heroine’s character:
“Sweet sister, friend, your counsel I accept;
To Louis’ hall at Laon I’ll ride unchecked
And ask him there to lend and send us help;
But if the Moors observe that I have left,
The Saracens with their united strength
Will seize this hall and all that it protects;
Who will defend its walls and all its wealth?”
“My lord,” she said, “the Lord our God Himself,
And ladies more than thirty score of them!
White hauberk hides will be our battle-dress,
While pointed helms of green adorn our head.
We all shall stand upon the battlements
And hurl down stones and sticks and spears as well!
God willing, lord, it soon will have an end,
When you arrive with Louis and the French.”
(ll. 2437–51)
In the Song of Aliscans (c.1185), a subsequent and much long
er remake of the material contained in the second half of the above-quoted tale, the genre’s earlier martial bias is still heavily evident, and Guibourc’s response remains much the same to this same question asked of her by her husband. Significantly, however, I think, the later poet ends the above dialogue with an affective flourish:
On hearing this, the Count embraced his queen:
With deepest love they held each other near,
And wept alike to see each other’s grief.
( ll. 1963–5)
A significant example of the development of the chansons de geste from an oral, performance genre to a consciously written art-form can be witnessed in the form and content of the final exchange between the above couple that closes this later work. It is a dialogue worth quoting in full, being perhaps the finest example in the entire chanson de geste genre of how the female ‘helpmeet’ character of the earlier epic songs was able to develop smoothly into the romantic heroine of the later works, in the hands of a skilful poet:
The Count bewails and Guibourc says in comfort:
“Sir William, re-fill your heart with courage!
For what one day may lose the next recovers,
And poor one day may well be rich another,
As morning smiles may turn to tears at supper.
A healthy man should not bemoan his troubles;
The world began a long time ere our coming,
And Adam died, whom God made out of nothing.
Then all his seed, for greed, was made to suffer
Till in the Flood the sinful world was covered,
And nothing spared except the breed of Noah;
This was God’s will, Who built anew above it
The world that still exists, and still will flourish.
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