Tag: la chanson de roland

Les extraits et leurs traductions

Selected passages:
CCLXXXVII
Quant Tierris ad vencue sa bataille
Venuz i est li emperere Carles,
Ensemb l’od lui de ses baruns quarante,
Naimes li dux, Oger de Danemarche,
Geifrei d’Anjou e Willalme de Blaive.
Li reis ad pris Tierri entre sa brace,
Tert lui le vis od ses granz pels de martre,
Celes met jus, puis li afublent altres;
Mult suavet le chevaler desarment.
[Munter l’unt] fait en une mule d’Arabe;
Repairet s’en a joie e a barnage;
Vienent ad Ais, descendent en la place.
Des ore cumencet l’ocisiun des altres.

CCLXXXVIII
Carles apelet ses cuntes e ses dux:
«Que me loez de cels qu’ai retenuz?
Pur Guenelun erent a plait venuz,
Pur Pinabel en ostage renduz.»
Respundent Franc: «Ja mar en vivrat uns!»
Li reis cumandet un soen veier, Basbrun:
«Va, sis pent tuz a l’arbre de mal fust!
Par ceste barbe dunt li peil sunt canuz,
Se uns escapet, morz ies e cunfunduz.»
Cil li respunt: «Qu’en fereie jo e el?»
Od .C. serjanz par force les cunduit.
.XXX. en i ad d’icels ki sunt pendut.
Ki hume traïst, sei ocit e altroi. AOI.

CCLXXXIX
Puis sunt turnet Bavier e Aleman
E Peitevin e Bretun e Norman.
Sor tuit li altre l’unt otriet li Franc
Que Guenes moerget par merveillus ahan.
Quatre destrers funt amener avant,
Puis si li lient e les piez e les mains.
Li cheval sunt orgoillus e curant;
Quatre serjanz les acoeillent devant,
Devers un’ewe ki est en mi un camp.
Guenes est turnet a perdiciun grant;
Trestuit si nerf mult li sunt estendant
E tuit li membre de sun cors derumpant:
Sur l’erbe verte en espant li cler sanc.
Guenes est mort cume fel recreant.
Hom ki traïst altre, nen est dreiz qu’il s’en vant.

CCXC
Quant li empereres ad faite sa venjance,
Sin apelat ses evesques de France,
Cels de Baviere e icels d’Alemaigne:
«En ma maisun ad une caitive franche.
Tant ad oït e sermuns e essamples,
Creire voelt Deu, chrestientet demandet.
Baptizez la, pur quei Deus en ait l’anme.»
Cil li respundent: «Or seit faite par marrenes:
Asez cruiz e linees dames…»
As bainz ad Aís mult sunt granz les ci…
La baptizent la reïne d’Espaigne:
Truvee li unt le num de Juliane.
Chrestiene est par veire conoisance.

CCXCI
Quant l’emperere ad faite sa justise
E esclargiez est la sue grant ire,
En Bramidonie ad chrestientet mise,
Passet li jurz, la nuit est aserie.
Culcez s’est li reis en sa cambre voltice.
Seint Gabriel de part Deu li vint dire:
«Carles, sumun les oz de tun emperie!
Par force iras en la tere de Bire,
Reis Vivien si succuras en Imphe,
A la citet que paien unt asise:
Li chrestien te recleiment e crient.»
Li emperere n’i volsist aler mie:
«Deus,» dist li reis, «si penuse est ma vie!»
Pluret des oilz, sa barbe blanche tiret.
Ci falt la geste que Turoldus declinet.

Modern version

CHATIMENT DE GANELON
G. CCCXVII (Vers 3934-3946)
Dès que Tierri sort du combat vainqueur, l’empereur
Charles vient à lui, accompagné de quatre de ses barons :
le duc Naimes, Ogier de Danemark, Geoffroi d’Anjou
et Guillaume de Blaye.^ Le roi prend Tierri dans ses
bras, lui essuie le visage avec ses grandes fourrures de
martre qu’il enlève ensuite et en revêt d’autres. Tout
doucement on désarme le chevalier ; puis on le fait mon-
ter sur une mule arabe. C’est ainsi que le baron tout
joyeux s’en revient. On rentre à Aix et l’on descend
sur la place. C’est alors que le supplice de Ganelon
et de ses parents commence.

G. CCCXVIII (Vers 3947-3959)
Charles fait venir ses comtes et ses ducs : « Que me con-
seillez-vous au sujet des otages que j’ai gardés ? Ils sont
venus au procès pour Ganelon et ils se sont livrés en
otages pour Pinabel.» «Qu’il meurent tous,» répondent
les Français. Alors le roi appelle Basbrun, l’exécuteur
de sa haute justice: «Va,» lui dit-il, «pends-les tous à
cet arbre maudit ; et par cette barbe aux poils blancs,
s’il en échappe un seul, tu es iport, tu es perdu.» «Soyez
tranquille,» répond Basbrun ; « pourquoi ferais-je autre que
mon devoir ?» Puis, avec cent sergents, il les entraîne.
Trente ils étaient qui furent tous pendus. Ainsi homme
qui trahit amène sa propre perte et celle d’autrui.

Aoi.

G. CCCXIX (Vers 3960-3924)
Là-dessus Bavarois, Allemands, Bretons, Poitevins et
Normands de retour, tous sont d’accord, et surtout les
Français, que Ganelon meure d’un supplice extraordi-
naire.^ On fait donc amener devant lui quatre coursiers
auxquels on lie Ganelon pieds et mains. Les chevaux
sont fringants et emportés. Quatre valets les dirigent
vers une jument au milieu d’un champ. Ganelon subit
un supplice atroce. Tous ses nerfs sont affreusement
tendus et tous ses membres s’arrachent de son corps.
Son sang vermeil s’épand sur l’herbe verte. Ganelon
meurt en traître avéré. Homme qui trahit les autres ne
doit jamais pouvoir s’en vanter.

G. CCCXX (Vers 3975-3987)
Quand l’empereur a ainsi fait vengeance, il s’adresse
aux évêques de France, de Bavière et d’Allemagne: «Il
y a à ma cour une noble captive, qui a entendu tant de
beaux sermons et vu tant de bons exemples, qu’elle veut
croire en Dieu et demande à être chrétienne. Baptisez-la
afin que Dieu ait son âme.» Les évêques lui répondent:
«Qu’elle ait des marraines* choisies parmi les dames
nobles et de haut lignage.» Les bains d’Aix attirent
beaucoup de monde ; c’est là qu’on baptise la reine
d’Espagne en lui donnant le nom de Julienne. C’est par
conviction qu’elle est devenue chrétienne.

G. CCCXXI (Vers 3988-40022)
Quand l’empereur eut fait justice et que sa grande
colère fut apaisée, il fit entrer dans le cœur de Brami-
monde la foi chrétienne. Le jour fini, voici venir la
nuit sombre. Le roi se couche dans sa chambre voûtée.
Mais saint Gabriel vient lui dire de la part de Dieu:
«Charles, rassemble les armées* de ton empire, va à
marches forcées dans la terre de Bire porter secours au
roi Vivien à Imphe,* dans la ville que les païens assiègent,
et oh t’appellent les chrétiens à grands cris.» Mais l’em-
pereur aimerait mieux ne pas y aller. « Dieu,» s’écrie-t-
il, « que ma vie est pénible ! » Et les larmes aux yeux, il
tire sa barbe blanche. Ici s’arrête la geste que Thé-
roulde expose.*

English Translation

As soon as Tierri emerges from the victorious combat, the Emperor
Charles comes to him, accompanied by four of his barons:
the Duke Naimes, Ogier of Denmark, Geoffroi d’Anjou
and Guillaume de Blaye. The king takes Tierri in his
arms, he wipe his face with his big marten furs,
which he then removes and puts on others.
Very slowly, the knight is disarmed;
then he is placed on an Arab mule. This is how the
happy baron comes back. We return to Aix and we go down
to the square. It is then that the torture of Ganelon
and his parents begins.

Charles summons his counts and dukes: “What do you think
of the hostages I have kept? They
came to a trial for Ganelon, and they gave themselves
as hostages to Pinabel. “” Let him all die, “replied the French.
Then the king calls Basbrun, the executor of his high justice:
“Go,” he said to him, “hang them all to this cursed tree; and
by that white-haired beard, if one escapes, you are lost, you are lost.””
Be quiet, “replied Basbrun; “Why should I do other than my duty?”
Then, with a hundred sergeants, he leads them away.
Thirty of them were all hanged.
Thus a betraying man brings his own loss and that of others.

Aoi.

On this subject, Bavarians, Germans, Bretons, Poitevins,
and Normans, all agree, and especially the French,
that Ganelon died of extraordinary torment. Thus four couriers
were brought before him to whom Ganelon was bound.
feet and hands. The horses are frisky and carried away.
Four valets lead them to a mare in the middle of a field.
Ganelon suffers an agonizing torture. All his nerves were terribly
tense and all his limbs are torn from his body. His blood
is spreading on the green grass. Ganelon dies as a proven traitor.
A man who betrays others must never be able to boast about it.

When the emperor has done revenge, he addresses the bishops
of France, Bavaria, and Germany: “There is at my court a noble captive,
who has heard so many beautiful sermons and seen so many good examples,
that she wants to believe in God and asks to be Christian.
Baptize her so that God has his soul. “The bishops answer him:”
May she have godmothers * chosen from the noble and high-ranking ladies.
“The baths of Aix attract a lot of people; it is there that one baptizes the queen
of Spain by giving her the name of Julienne.
It is by conviction that she became a Christian.

When the Emperor had done justice and his great anger was appeased,
he brought into the heart of Brami- monde the Christian faith.
The day is over, here comes the dark night.
The king lies down in his vaulted room. But St. Gabriel
comes to tell him from God: “Charles, gather the armies of your
empire, go on forced marches in the land of Bire to help King
Vivien at Imphe, * in the city which the pagans besiege, and Oh,
you call the Christians loudly. “But the Emperor would rather not go.
“God,” he exclaims, “my life is painful! And with tears in his eyes,
he draws his white beard. Here stops the gesture that Theroulde exposes.

Les commentaires sur l’étymologie

Gender Marking (nouns and adjs)
Number marking (nouns and adjs)
Pronouns (subj and obj)
Articles (def and indef)

Phrase: Modern and English Translation

1. Quant Tierris ad vencue sa bataille
1. Dès que Tierri sort du combat vainqueur,
1. As soon as Tierri emerges from the victorious combat,

  • The old French singular possessive adjective “sa” /sa/ comes from the Latin euis /ˈej.jus/, [ˈɛj.jʊs] which is the genitive singular possesive. The gender is feminine and is taken from the attached noun. The article was developed from regular phonetic analysis. Metathesis of s to the beginning of the word and assimilation of the vowel cluster /eui/ to the grapheme /a/.
  • The word bataille comes from the etymon battualia. The consonant cluster /tt/, became t after undergoing lenition. The /ua/ undergoes assimilation to the grapheme /a/ which then diphthongizes to /ai/. The word final vowels /ai/ assimilate to a and due to the rules of French, the a becomes the grapheme e.

2. Venuz i est li emperere Carles,             6. Quatre serjanz les acoeillent devant,
2. l’empereur Charles vient à lui,             6. Quatre valets les dirigent
2. the Emperor Charles comes to him,    6. Four valets lead them

  • The masculine old French li/les comes from the Latin plural illōs(m) and illās(f) which are the accusative plurals of the singular nominative masculine ille and feminine illa. The consonant cluster undergoes lenition and becomes l to yield the word ile. The word final vowel is lost and the l and i undergo metathesis to yield li and preserve the strength of the word.

3. Des ore cumencet l’ocisiun des altres.
3. C’est alors que le supplice de Ganelon et de ses parents commence
3. It is then that the torture of Ganelon and his parents begins.

  • The old French plural noun altres [aLTrez] comes from the Latin plural noun alters [aLTrez] which means the other. The number marking grapheme s was developed through analogy and there is no gender held. This yields the modern plural autres. There is no morphology which took place.

4. Carles apelet ses cuntes e ses dux:
4. Charles fait venir ses comtes et ses ducs
4. Charles summons his counts and dukes:

  • I could not find any information on the origin of the old plural French possessive ses, so I assume the Latin form was almost exactly the same and the word was yielded through morphology. There is no gender and the number marking grapheme is s.
  • The old plural French noun cuntes [kUntez] comes from the plural Latin noun comites [kOmitez]. The number marking grapheme s was developed through analogy and there is no gender held. The /i/ was lost due to it’s inter-consonantal position, the /m/ assimilated to /n/ and the /o/ evolved into a /u/.
  • The number marking grapheme “x” was developed through analogy and there is no gender held.

5. Li reis cumandet un soen veier, Basbrun:
5. Alors le roi appelle Basbrun, l’exécuteur de sa haute justice
5. Then the king calls Basbrun, the executor of his high justice:

  • The old singular masculine French un comes from the Latin singular numeral unum which means one as un refers to a singular item. The glide following /um/ was lost in evolution.
  • The old French singular noun reis [rejs] comes from the Latin etymon regis [regem], a singular noun, which occurred from loss of the intervocalic g, and evolution from ei [ej] to oi [wa] to become the modern rois [rwa].

Enregistrement Audio

When I read the passage I selected, I included the pronunciation of the end syllable because in the Middle French period, they pronounced the last syllable. Specifically in relation to the word final /e/ of conjugated verbs, since most verbs still contained the Latin /et/ ending, in which the /t/ was pronounced, the e would also have been pronounced and so I read it as though it was. As I read, I also tried to roll the sounds a bit as that is also something that was very popular. Some of the words I pronounced how I thought they would be pronounced, like serjanez for example, because they no longer exist in Modern French in the same style. With words such as that, I pronounced the grapheme /j/ as the affricate [dz]. Articles like li, I pronounced similar to how le/les is pronounced today since there is no clear Latin root, yet a version of it still exists today. I pronounced /c/’s at the beginning of the word as a hard k because that is the sound that was used for them and /c/’s within the body of the word that did not have a cedilla or other accent marker of some kind or were not followed by a /t/, I pronounced with a hard c because the cedilla indicates that an t was removed from the word during some stage of morphology or it can also represent the palatalization of the t and k plosives. When it came to articles like des, I pronounced the word ending velar fricative /s/ as [dz] because of it’s placement in the word. In some cases, the diphthongizing of words also changed the pronunciation but for my selected passage, it rarely happened.

L’Introduction

  The song of Roland was written down in the last years of the 11th century, although the events referenced in the song actually would have occurred around 778 AD. As a result, it is one of the oldest and revered surviving works in French history although it is not often taught. We can assume the epic is true because in 778, the then king of the Franks and the Lombards, Charlemagne 1, otherwise known as Charles the Great, was in a fierce battle with Spain(Basques) for dominance. This is what gave way for the Battle of Roncevalles, otherwise known in French as le Bataille de Ronceveaux. In the main story, King Charlemagne 1 has conquered the majority of the country and is seeking a treaty for the rest of the land. However, as that plan was not successful, in order to gain control, King Charlemagne intended to invade Spain in order to get rid of the standing Emir and replace him with a Muslim. King Charlemagne's plan was for the person he placed to be loyal to the Frankish king, i.e. King Charlemagne. In doing this, King Charlemagne was successful, however in the return back to the Frankish kingdom, now known as France, King Charlemagne's rear guard was attacked. This rear guard was commanded by Roland. Roland was one of the most loyal guards to King Charlemagne and so was bestowed with this great responsibility. The rear guard is the most important to the army because they must always be on the lookout for approaching enemy forces and if they are defeated, it is extremely likely that the rest of the arm will also be slain. So, Roland, who was also speculated to be the nephew of Charlemagne as well as one of the bravest commanders among his force, was in charge of the rear guard but because of his pride and hubris, decided not to call upon the rest of the army, even though he knew the rear guard was outnumbered. Although he finally he called for help, in the twelfth hour, because the rest of the army had gotten so far along and the rear guard was almost completely decimated, the entire rear guard was lost in that battle, including Roland himself. Thus, the story serves as a lesson to others to not let your pride and hubris get in the way of your logical thinking because it is speculated that had he called for help sooner, the rear guard could have been saved. In another story, King Charlemagne had ordered Ganelon, a paladin and also the supposed step father of Roland, to go to Spain and negotiate with the Emir leader in advance of sending Roland out. In Ganelon's jealousy over being forced to play the role of pawn, after Roland and the rear guard had departed and began making their way back to King Charlemagne's kingdom, Ganelon told the leader, the Emir, the route which Roland's army planned to take through the mountains and back to the kingdom. However, regardless of the version or the person telling it, the massacre on the way back to the kingdom of King Charlemagne is always a result of the treason done by Ganelon, a vassal of Charlemagne, as an action of his jealousy against Roland and his anger towards King Charlemagne. According to every story, Ganelon transpired with the Basques and gave them the location of where the Frankish army would be passing in order to rid himself of Roland. The Song of Roland shows a clear distinction between good and evil through Ganelon's character and behavior, but also shows a contrast between rashness, prudence, selfishness and rationality through Roland's character and behavior as well as through the behavior of the best friend of Roland, Oliver, who was also slain, as Oliver had begged Roland to make the call to the rest of the troops ahead so that the rear guard could be saved. This rashness is shown through the behavior of Roland because even after realizing that the rear guard is being attacked, he refuses to blow his horn to call for the rest of the army to return and come to their aid. However, as the Franks (those who are taking part in the rear guard led by Roland) are quickly being defeated, at the urging of Turpin the archbishop, and also his friend Oliver, Roland finally blows the signal to call for help from the leading parts of the army. At that point however, the Franks had become even more greatly outnumbered than they had been from the start. As Charlemagne arrives upon his beaten and slain troops, he realizes the treason which has occurred right under his very nose and upon arriving once again into his Frankish kingdom, he orders for Ganelon to be tried in front of his peers and killed for treason. Ganelon is therefore killed by quartering, i.e. each of his arms is tied to a male horse, and each of his legs is tied to a male horse, then the horses are led in their formation to a paddock which contains a mare and they are urged to each compete for her. It is a gruesome way to die. As a result of this treason however, his family is also punished although the epic makes no mention of by which means they are made to suffer. There is not much information on the time period during which the epopee or epic was written, as the first version of it was discovered in the 1000's but it is noted to have been referenced by those going to war prior to the discovery of its written form. The writer of the epopee is considered to be Turoldus as that is the name mentioned at the end of the verses.