A. La corte de Alfonso VIII - Gonzalo de Berceo

monorhyme stanzas of varying length, and is composed of four principal parts, or
branches as they are termed, whose contents are as follows.
Branch I. Birth and childhood of Alexander, the war against Nicholas, the
expedition against Athens, the initial steps in the great campaign against Darius, and the
siege, but not the capture, of Tyre.
Branch II. The siege of Tyre, the Fuerre de Gadres, the captures of Arene and
Gaza, Alexander's entry into Jerusalem, and the defeat of Darius at the pres de Pale.
Branch III. The pursuit and death of Darius, Alexander's descent to the bottom of
the sea, the expedition to India and the first defeat of Porus, the marvels of India, the
second defeat of Porus, the voyage to the Pillars of Hercules, the duel between Alexander
and Porus, the episode of Queen Candace and the duke of Palatine, Alexander's ascent
into the air, the capture of Babylon, the Amazonian war, the treachery of Antipater and
Divinuspater.
Branch IV. Death and testament of Alexander, the regrets of the twelve peers,
and the burial of Alexander.
The three manuscripts standing apart from the main group are A2, B3, and L4,
each of which preserves a different and, in many respects, a more ancient version of the
RAlix than AdeP.
In manuscripts A and B, the first branch is written in decasyllabic verse and contains
accounts of Alexander's birth, education, mastery of Bucephalus, knighting, and
campaign against Nicholas. Originally an independent poem composed in the twelfth
century, this decasyllabic version served as the basis of the twelve-syllable first branch of
the standard version composed by Alexander of Paris. In manuscript B, in addition to the
ten-syllable first branch there occurs in the early part of the twelve-syllable portion a
passage of some ten stanzas devoted mainly to a description of Alexander's tent, whose
counterpart forms part of the first branch of the AdeP version.
In L, the first branch,
written
in dodecasyllabic verse, draws now upon the decasyllabic poem, now upon the
AdeP version of the first branch, and also offers numerous independent departures,
noteworthy among them being the insertion of long, novelistic accounts of Alexander's
submarine descent and aerial ascent.
Manuscript A lacks all the material of the second branch of the RAlix; B
incorporates the Fuerre de Gadres material in its Branch III material; in L, except for
certain minor omissions and rearrangements of material, the second branch conforms to
the AdeP version.