To Saragossa did Marsil flee. He alighted beneath an olive tree, And sadly to his serfs he gave His helm, his cuirass, and his glaive, Then flung him on the herbage green; Came nigh him Bramimonde his queen. Shorn from his wrist was his right hand good; He swooned for pain and waste of blood. The queen, in anguish, wept and cried, With twenty thousand by her side. King Karl and gentle France they cursed; Then on their gods their anger burst. Unto Apollin's crypt they ran, And with revilings thus began: "Ah, evil-hearted god, to bring Such dark dishonor on our king. Thy servants ill dost thou repay." His crown and wand they wrench away, They bind him to a pillar fast, And then his form to earth they cast, His limbs with staves they bruise and break: From Termagaunt his gem they take: Mohammed to a trench they bear, For dogs and boars to tread and tear. CCXX Within his vaulted hall they bore King Marsil, when his swoon was o'er; The hall with colored writings stained. And loud the queen in anguish plained, The while she tore her streaming hair, "Ah, Saragossa, reft and bare, Thou seest thy noble king o'erthrown! Such felony our gods have shown, Who failed in fight his aids to be. The Emir comes--a dastard he, Unless he will that race essay, Who proudly fling their lives away. Their Emperor of the hoary beard, In valor's desperation reared, Will never fly for mortal foe. Till he be slain, how deep my woe[2]!" [Footnote 2: Here intervenes the episode of the great battle fought between Charlemagne and Baligant, Emir of Babylon, who had come, with a mighty army, to the succor of King Marsil his vassal. This episode has been suspected of being a later interpolation. The translation is resumed at the end of the battle, after the Emir had been slain by Charlemagne's own hand, and when the Franks enter Saragossa in pursuit of the Saracens.] * * * * * CCXXI Fierce is the heat and thick the dust. The Franks the flying Arabs thrust. To Saragossa speeds their flight. The queen ascends a turret's height. The clerks and canons on her wait, Of that false law God holds in hate. Order or tonsure have they none. And when she thus beheld undone The Arab power, all disarrayed, Aloud she cried, "Mahound us aid! My king! defeated is our race, The Emir slain in foul disgrace." King Marsil turns him to the wall, And weeps--his visage darkened all. He dies for grief--in sin he dies, His wretched soul the demon's prize. CCXXII