Roland tuče po kamenu sivom: Kol'ko ga je samo poodbijo!

Škripi, cvili oštrica od mača,

Ne lomi se, već k nebu odskače. Kad grof vidje da mač neće slomit, Poče blage suze nad
njim ronit: >>Durendale sveti, kako sijaš! Zlatni balčak pun ti relikvija: Petrov zub i krv od
Bazilija, Mog patrona Dioniza vlasi, Halja svete Marije te krasi. Nevjerničkoj ruci ne
priličiš, Kršćanin se treba tobom dičit. Za kukavca Gospod te ne stvori. Mnogo zemlje ja s
tobom pokorih, A za Karla rascvjetane brade, Hrabrog kralja, što im vladat znade.

plot

For seven years, the valiant Christian king Charlemagne has made war against the Saracens in
Spain. Only one Muslim stronghold remains: the city of Zaragoza, under the rule of King Marsile
and Queen Bramimonde. Marsile, certain that defeat is inevitable, hatches a plot to rid Spain of
Charlemagne. He will promise to be Charlemagne's vassal and a Christian convert in exchange
for Charlemagne's departure. But once Charlemagne is back in France, Marsile will renege on his
promises. Charlemagne and his vassals, weary of the long war, receive Marsile's messengers and
try to choose an envoy to negotiate at Marsile's court on Charlemagne's behalf.

Roland, a courageous knight and Charlemagne's nephew, nominates his stepfather, Ganelon.
Ganelon is enraged, thinking that Roland has nominated him for this dangerous mission in an
attempt to be rid of him for good. Ganelon has long been jealous of Roland, and on his
diplomatic mission he plots with the Saracens, telling them that they could ambush
Charlemagne's rear guard as Charlemagne leaves Spain. Roland will undoubtedly lead the
rearguard, and Ganelon promises that with Roland dead Charlemagne will lose the will to fight.

After Ganelon returns with assurances of Marsile's good faith, Roland, as he predicted, ends up
leading the rearguard. The twelve peers, later known as the Paladins, Charlemagne's greatest and
most beloved vassals, go with him. Among them is Oliver, a wise and prudent man and Roland's
best friend. Also in the rearguard is the fiery Archbishop Turpin, a clergyman who also is a great
warrior. At the pass of Roncesvalles, the twenty thousand Christians of the rearguard are
ambushed by a vastly superior force, numbering four hundred thousand. Oliver counsels Roland
to blow his olifant horn, to call back Charlemagne's main force, but Roland refuses. The Franks
fight valiantly, but in the end they are killed to the man. Roland blows his olifant so that
Charlemagne will return and avenge them. His temples burst from the force required, and he dies
soon afterward. He dies facing the enemy's land, and his soul is escorted to heaven by saints and
angels.

Charlemagne arrives, and he and his men are overwhelmed with grief at the sight of the
massacre. He pursues the pagan force, aided by a miracle of God: the sun is held in place in the
sky, so that the enemy will not have cover of night. The Franks push the Saracens into the river
Ebro, where those who are not chopped to pieces are drowned.
Marsile has escaped, though Roland cut off his right hand in the battle. Wounded and
demoralised, he returns to Saragossa, where the remaining Saracens are plunged into despair by
their losses. But Baligant, the incredibly powerful emir of Babylon, has arrived to help his vassal.
The emir goes to Roncesvals, where the Franks are mourning and burying their dead. There is a
terrible battle, climaxing with a one-on-one clash between Baligant and Charlemagne. With a
touch of divine aid, Charlemagne slays Baligant, and the Saracens retreat. The Franks take
Saragossa, where they destroy all Jewish and Moslem religious items and force the conversion of
everyone in the city, with the exception of Queen Bramimonde. Charlemagne wants her to come
to Christ of her own accord. With her as a captive, the Franks return to their capital, Aachen or
Aix-la-Chapelle.

Ganelon is put on trial for treason. Pinabel, Ganelon's kinsman and a gifted speaker, nearly sways
the judges to let Ganelon go. But Thierry, a brave but physically unimposing knight, says that
Ganelon's revenge should not have been taken against a man in Charlemagne's service: that
constitutes treason. To decide the matter, Pinabel and Thierry fight. Though Pinabel is the
stronger man, God intervenes and Thierry triumphs. The Franks give Ganelon a traitor's death:
"Four chargers are brought out and tied to Ganelon's feet and hands...four sergeants drive them
past the spectators towards a stream...Ganelon is lost, his ligaments will be stretched intolerably
until all his limbs are torn apart." [6] They also hang thirty of his kinsmen, including Pinabel.

Charlemagne announces to all that Bramimonde has decided to become a Christian. Her baptism
is celebrated, and all seems well. But that night, the angel Gabriel comes to Charlemagne in a
dream, and tells him that he must depart for a new war against the pagans. Weary and weeping,
but fully obedient to God, Charlemagne prepares for yet another bloody war.

[edit] Form
The poem is written in stanzas of irregular length known as laisses. The lines are decasyllabic
(containing ten syllables), and each is divided by a strong caesura, which generally falls after the
fourth syllable. The last stressed syllable of each line in a laisse has the same vowel sound as
every other end-syllable in that laisse. The laisse is therefore an assonal, not a rhyming stanza.

On a narrative level, the Song of Roland features extensive use of repetition, parallelism, and
thesis-antithesis pairs. Unlike later Renaissance and Romantic literature, the poem focuses on
action rather than introspection.

The author gives few explanations for characters' behavior. Characters are stereotypes defined by
a few salient traits: for example, Roland is proud and courageous while Ganelon is traitorous and
cowardly.

The story moves at a fast pace, occasionally slowing down and recounting the same scene up to
three times but focusing on different details or taking a different perspective each time. The effect
is similar to a film sequence shot at different angles so that new and more important details come
to light with each shot.
Modern readers should bear in mind that the Song of Roland, like Shakespeare's plays, was
intended to be performed aloud, not read silently. Traveling jongleurs performed (usually sections
of) the Song of Roland to various audiences, perhaps interspersing spoken narration with musical
interludes.

CONTENT:

Charlemagne and his army have been fighting for seven years in Spain. Marsilion, or Marsile, the
Saracen King of Sarragossa, or Zaragoza, enters into a parliament with his nobles. At the behest
of Blancandrin, Marsilion decides to fake a surrender in order to secure the Frankish withdrawal
from his lands. Marsilion sends envoys to negotiate the terms of surrender with Charlemagne:
Blancandrin, as chief envoy, promises in bad faith that if Charlemagne returns home to Aix-la-
Chapelle, Marsilion will soon follow and convert to Christianity. The Christian lords enter into a
discussion on how to respond to Marsilion's offer. Roland distrusts Marsilion, but Ganelon,
Naimon and most of the others are in favour of taking the chance that he is sincere. Charlemagne
agrees, but there is still the difficulty of finding an ambassador who will bear the message to
Marsilion. Charlemagne is reluctant to choose a valued knight, since Marsilion murdered the last
ambassadors that had been sent. Accordingly, Charlemagne rejects the offers of Roland and
Turpin to carry the message and decrees that none of the Twelve Peers will be sent. Roland
recommends that Ganelon, his detested stepfather, be the one to undertake the embassy to
Marsilion. Ganelon construes this as an insult, threatens Roland and then, while travelling in
company with Blancandrin to Zaragoza, plots revenge. In Zaragoza, Ganelon lies to Marsilion,
telling him that Charlemagne's agreement is contingent upon two conditions. First, Marsilion will
only be allowed to keep half of Spain, while the rest must go to Roland. Second, Marsilion's
uncle must be among the hostages offered as guarantees of good faith. After threatening to kill
Ganelon, Marsilion is advised by Blancandrin that the Frank is willing to betray Roland and the
Twelve Peers. Marsilion offers Ganelon friendship and gifts of great wealth, and Ganelon
promises to ensure that Roland and the Twelve Peers of France will be placed in the rearguard of
the army rather than with the main body of Charlemagne's forces. This will enable Marsilion,
who lacks the forces to defeat the Franks outright, to kill the twelve champions of France,
without whom, Ganelon says, the French will be unwilling to wage war. After Ganelon fulfills his
side of the bargain, Roland, along with Oliver and the other Twelve Peers, takes charge of the
20,000-member rearguard of the Frankish army. An army of Saracens, 100,000 strong, led by the
nephew of Marsilion and 11 other Saracen champions, is seen to be approaching the rear guard.
Roland's friend Oliver advises him to blow his olifant to summon the rest of the army, but
Roland's code of honour obliges him to fight despite being outnumbered. The battle that follows
comprises two parts. The initial onslaught of Saracens is repelled by the Franks, but only 300
Frankish knights, including Roland and most of the Twelve Peers, survive. The Saracens attack a
second time, with Marsilion himself leading a host of 300,000 warriors. It soon becomes clear
that the Franks will lose. Upon the advice of Archbishop Turpin, Roland blows his horn, not in
the expectation of rescue, but hoping that Charles will return to bury their bodies and revenge
their martyrdom. Roland blows his horn so hard that 'the temple of his head' is ruptured, and
blood pours from his mouth. When only Roland, Turpin and Gualter de Hum are still alive,
Roland slices off the right hand of Marsilion. Marsilion flees from the field and is followed by
those of his men that still survive. Roland and Turpin are the only warriors still standing on the
field of battle, and are as such victorious.Nevertheless, Turpin has been wounded in many places
by Saracen projectiles and is bleeding to death as he administers the last rites to his fellow
soldiers. Roland himself, while unharmed by any weapon, is bleeding to death from his ruptured
temple. After Turpin dies, Roland climbs to the top of a hill looking south into Spain. He cracks
his Olifant, bludgeoning a pagan to death who tries to steal his sword, then tries to break his
sword on a rock: the sword does not break. Roland dies under a tree, facing south holding his
sword Durendal and his olifant. Charlemagne meanwhile has been riding back from France with
all possible speed and has arrested Ganelon for his treachery. When he arrives at the battlefield in
Roncevaux, he faints with grief. Charlemagne mourns and then sets out to overtake the fleeing
Saracen army. Catching up to them in the fields before Sarragossa, Charlemagne's army
slaughters them, and many Saracens who escape the sword drown in the waters of a nearby river.
Marsilion escapes into his citadel in Sarragossa. Because their army had received no aid from
their Gods, the anguished inhabitants of Sarragossa deface the idols of their infernal 'trinity': the
statues of Mahound, Tervagent, and Apollyon are dragged from the mosque and beaten with
sticks. That night Baligant, the Emir of Babylon (i.e., Cairo, and not the Babylon in
Mesopotamia), arrives with reinforcements from Asia. Marsilion dies passing his authority to
Baligant. Charlemagne marshalls his forces into national divisions under his greatest remaining
champions: Bavarians, Germans, Normans, Bretons, Flemings, and Burgundians, to destroy the
Muslim army led by Baligant. The Christian forces destroy the Muslim army, and Charlemagne
defeats Baligant in personal combat. The Christian army swarms into Sarragossa: the idols and
artifacts of sorcery in the synagogues and mosques of Zaragoza are smashed, and 100,000
Muslims and Jews are baptized. Bramimonde, the widow of Marsilion, is captured, and
Charlemagne gives orders for her to be converted, not by force, but by 'parable and sermon'. The
Franks then return to Aix-la-Chapelle, where Roland's fiancée (and Oliver's sister) Aude dies of
grief. Ganelon is tried for treason, but claims that his actions constituted a justified vengeance. To
settle the dispute, Ganelon's relative Pinabel engages in judicial combat with Roland's friend
Thierry, who prevails. Following Thierry's victory, Ganelon is executed along with the members
of his family that stood as vouchsafes of his innocence; Ganelon is drawn and quartered, and his
relatives are hanged by their necks. Queen Bramimonde is baptized, and Charlemagne is finally
satisfied. While he is sleeping, an angel comes to Charles and instructs him to provide succour to
the city of Imphe, which is under attack from pagans. Charles weeps and wets his white beard,
crying that his life is miserable.