Note on Technique
Carles li reis, nostre emperere magne
Set anz tus pleins ad ested en Espaigne,
Tresqu’en la mer cunquist la tere altaigne;
N’i ad castel ki devant lui remaigne,
Mur ni citet n’i est remés à fraindre,
Fors Sarraguce, k’est en une muntaigne.
Li reis Marsilie la tient, ki Deu n’enaimet,
Mahummet sert e Apollin reclaimet;
Ne s’poet guarder que mals ne li ataignet.
It is considerably more than forty years since the present writer first read the Chanson de Roland in the original, of which the above lines form the first section, and, up to a few months ago, he would have said, though in the interval he has read it often in various forms, that a satisfactory modernisation or translation of it was so difficult as to be nearly impossible, and that such an enterprise in English was the darkest tower of all. Among the considerations which determined this opinion we have nothing, in this particular place, to do with those affecting the spirit of the poem. It is with the language to some, though the least extent, with the prosodic character mainly, that it is proposed here to deal.
The above specimen of the original itself should make it tolerably easy for any one who can get rid of that singular terror of the unknown which still seems to beset Englishmen as to Old English and even Frenchmen as to Old French, to see what has to be done. There is a language, somewhat rough and uncut, but with the grandeur of uncut precious stones about it, and of a remarkable sonority. There is a measure, very exact and possessed of more definitely metrical rhythm than modern French poetry usually aims at. And
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