THE ROYAL HOUSE OF FRANCE - outriders poetry project

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© 2009 Max Wickert
trumpeters and drummers and their ilk--jugglers and dancers on ropes (that is, beneath awnings),
and pipers. People should take note that all riffraff of this kind have more envy and hate in their
hearts than any other sort of men, and know only three regular habits: drunkenness, lechery, and
dicing.
One of these minstrels, seeing how Triamides had freed that other minstrel, went to young Troyan,
Anglant’s oldest son, who was very proud. He told him of all that had happened, adding much that
was not true. Troyan sent for the other minstrel and asked him about the matter. The wretched
clown believed that Troyan would behave in the same manner as Triamides, and told him exactly
what he had said in the hall. King Troyan, proud man that he was, having a silver basin by his side,
threw it at his face, breaking his forehead wide open, and rushed to the wall of the room to snatch a
mace with which to kill him. The minstrel took flight and ran to the great hall, where King Anglant
was in session. In his mind, he was saying: “I’m a dead man, and there’s no remedy for my case. But
I will say something that will give me the justice of revenge.”
He arrived where many lords were seated. King Anglant saw him and began to laugh, thinking he
had been squabbling with the other minstrels: “What has happened here?” he asked, laughing in
great merriment. The minstrel, who expected death at King Troyan’s hands, threw himself at King
Anglant’s feet, and cried: “It was your son, King Troyan, who has beaten me and done me wrong,
since I am of low degree, and a wolf may indeed strike at a poor lamb; but he would not in this
manner strike at Charlemagne, whom I praised--that same Charlemagne who killed King Bramant,
his uncle and your brother, and who also overthrew Polynor. But let him strike at the likes of me,
who have no power to gainsay him.” He was speaking like a desperate man, believing himself
already dead: “But you, my lord, who are master here, do not strike at those who have come from
foreign parts to serve you, or at those who are not bound to you by law; rather, if a man of theirs do