Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 5.djvu/73

 ROLAND Sfc ROLAND (740-778) " O, for a blast of that dread horn, On Fontarabian echoes borne That to King Charles did come, When Rowland brave, and Olivier, And every paladin and peer On Roncesvalles died ! " Marmion, By Fontarabbia." Paradise Lost. " A ROLAND for an Oliver!" Saving the ton, quoted above, Roland and Olivier are almost unknown to English readers, and yet their once familiar names, knit together for centuries, have passed into a proverb, to be remembered as we remember the friendship of David and Jonathan, or to be classed by the scholar with Pylades, and Orestes of classic story, or with Amys and Amylion of romance. The " Song of Roland " might be called the national epic of France. It corresponds to the "Mort d' Arthur" of England, the "Cid Chronicles " of Spain, the " Nibelungen Lied " of Germany, and the Longobardian legends of North Italy. Italian mediaeval literature is rich in the Roland ro- mances, founded on the fabulous " Chronicle of John Turpin " and the " Chansons de Gestes," of which the " Song of Roland " is one. Of the Italian romances the "Morgante Maggiore" of Pulci was published as early as 1488, Boyardo's "Or- lando Innamorata" in 1496, and Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso" in 1515. English versions of Boyardo and Ariosto have since been translated into the rhyming couplets of Hoole, and as late as 1831 into the ottava rima stanzas of W. S. Rose. It was not, however, till April, 1880, that a full English translation of the original "Song of Roland," from MSS. written in the old langue d'oil of Northern France, was published by Kegan, Paul & Co., from the pen of Mr. O'Hagan, Q.C., of Dublin. Most probably it was a curtailed version of this ro- mance that is referred to by Wace in his " Roman le Rou," when he records how, as the Normans marched to Senlac Hill, in 1066, the minstrel Taillefer sang, " Of Roland and the heroes all Who fell at fatal Roncesvall."
 * When Charlemain with all his peerage fell,
 * passing reference by Scott and Mil-