THE ROYAL HOUSE OF FRANCE - outriders poetry project

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© 2009 Max Wickert
Malzarisse, Isoler and Corsabrin of Carthage told the engineers who had prepared their machines to
put them into action. Then the engineers took the ropes they had rigged and caused the beams in
the mines beneath the camp to fall, and the whole campground began to collapse into the water with
a great crash, forming a huge lake, very deep. Ships are still sailing there, for that great lake has been
there ever since.
The night passed and day began to dawn, when Malgarisse thought that the men of Charles’ camp
had all been killed. Isoler climbed the walls to see the great flood, and discovered countless banners
and flags flying on the mountainside, and Charles’ whole army waiting there. He cried out to
Malzarisse: “Ah, divine Mahound, I think that the demon of hell has befriended Charles and warned
him.” In the manner that you have heard, Charles was now on the high mountain, all his men
suffering greatly from hunger.
Answig of Maganza, to whom Charles had entrusted the crown at his departure, saying, “I leave my
kingdom in your care; see that you honor my queen and do everything needful and reasonable,” and
who soon discovered that Roland had left Charles’ camp, now (if God did not prevent it) thought to
lay shame on Charles’ queen, for he intended to take her to wife and to exile Charles from all
France. Roland knew this state of affairs all too well, for his genie 87 told him of all Answig’s actions.
Roland asked the genie: “Can you inform Charles of all that Answig has done?” “Gladly,” the genie
replied, and sped away from Roland, rousing a storm at his departure that shook the tent posts and
lances and awnings and bent the horses’ knees to the ground. “My God,” said Charlemagne, “this
storm is so violent, could Malgarisse wreak greater damage?” The genie came to Charles’ tent, and
in the first hour of his repose, while all others were asleep, cried out to him: “Charles, Charles,
87 His genie: A part of the story here somewhat clumsily makes up for an earlier omission. In related texts, such as
the Entrée di Spagna, Roland, while at the enchanted fountain, uses a book of necromancy given him by the
Sultan to conjure up a genie and learns of Answig’s plot.