Ganoid

“ Gather the host; lay siege to Zaragoz with all thy might, and conquer the last stronghold of the pagans; so win Spain, and end this long and weary war."
But Ganelon drew near to the king and spake: "Heed not the counsel of any babbler, unless it be to thine own profit. What has Marsilius promised? Will he not give up his gods, himself, his service and his treasure? Could man ask more? Could we get more by fighting him? How glorious would it be to go to war with a beaten man who offers thee his all! How wise to wage a war to win what one can get without! ”

“ Attempts have been made to find answers to these questions by the study of the scales, the skeleton, the limbs, the gills, and various internal organs. The embryology of the sturgeons is not fully known, while nothing whatever has been observed of the earlier stages of the so-called typical Ganoids. ”

“ Cried the king: "Our men make battle!" Ganelon Retorts in haste: "If thus another dared To speak, we should denounce it as a lie." Aoi. The Count Rollánd in his great anguish blows His olifant so mightily, with such Despairing agony, his mouth pours forth The crimson blood, and his swol'n temples burst. Yea, but so far the ringing blast resounds; Carle hears it, marching through the pass, Naimes harks, The French all listen with attentive ear. "That is Rollánd's horn!" Carle cried, "which ne'er yet Was, save in battle, blown!" But Ganelon Replies: "No fight is there! ”

“ Full of this thought, she turned to the young merchant and said, "Alas! Ganem, we are undone." Ganem looked through the lattice, and was seized with dread, when he beheld the caliph's guards with their naked cimeters, and the grand vizier, with the civil magistrate at the head of them. At this sight he stood motionless, and had not power to utter one word. "Ganem," said the favourite, "there is no time to be lost; if you love me, put on the habit of one of your slaves immediately, and disfigure your face and arms with soot. ”

“ Gaunt was a happy woman, and the saving of yourself into the bargain. Well, now, Captain Gaunt, will you deny another man, and that man a sailor, the very salvation that you had yourself?
Gaunt.
“Salvation, Christopher French, is from above.
Kit.
“Well, sir, that is so; but there’s means, too; and what means so strong as the wife a man has to strive and toil for, and that bears the punishment whenever he goes wrong? Now, sir, I’ve spoke with your old shipmates in the Guinea trade. Hard as nails, they said, and true as the compass: as rough as a slaver but as just as a judge. ”

“ But Ganelon, although a traitor, would say naught against the king.
"None can see him," said he, "but will say that he is a man. None can so praise or honor him, but that there shall yet be in him more worth and goodness."
"Yet, methinks," said the Moor, "that he is very old. His beard is white; his hair is flowered. It is strange that he grows not tired of fighting."
"That he will never do so long as Roland, his nephew, lives," answered Ganelon. "There, too, is Oliver; and there are the other peers of the realm, all of whom the king holds most dear. They alone are worth twenty thousand men." ”

“ So Blancandrin went and fetched Ganelon, and led him by the hand and brought him against the king. And the king said, "Good Sir Ganelon, I was wrong to be angry; but I will make amends. I will give thee five hundred pieces of gold in token of my favor." Ganelon answered, "He that taketh not counsel to his own profit is a fool. God forbid I should so ill requite thy bounty as to say thee nay."
Marsilius said, "Charles is very old. For years and years he has fought and conquered, and put down kings and taken their lands, and heaped up riches more than can be counted. ”

“ Seest thou?
Sobeide (as if demented) .
Aye, aye, now let us dance a merry round!
Take thou my hand and Ganem's; I Shalnassar's.
Our hair we'll loosen, and that one of us
That has the longer hair shall have the young one
Tonight—tomorrow just the other way!
King Baseness sits enthroned! And from our faces
Lies drip like poison from the salamander!
I claim my share in your high revelry.
(To Ganem, who angrily watches them mount
the stairs.)
Go up and steal her from thy father's bed
And choke him sleeping: drunken men are helpless!
I see how fain thou art to lie with her. ”

“ And Ganélon, the traitor, knew it too.
High were the mountains, and dark the valleys; terrible were the defiles amidst the black rocks. The army marched slowly and with great difficulty; fifteen miles [196] away you could hear the sound of their tramping. But when they caught sight of Gascony, of France, where they had left their homes and their wives, there was not a man among them who did not weep for happiness. Charles alone shed tears of sorrow, for he thought of his nephew in the passes of Spain. 'Ganélon has betrayed us,' said he to Duke Naimes, 'and he has betrayed Roland too. ”

“ With bent head the Emperor listened to Roland, twisting all the while his fingers in his moustache. He kept silent, turning over in his mind the things Roland had said, and the nobles kept silence, too, all except Ganélon. For Ganélon rose and stood before Charles and began to speak. 'Believe none of us,' he said; 'think of nothing but your own advantage when Marsile offers to become your vassal, and to do homage for the whole of Spain, and to receive baptism besides; he who wishes you to reject such offers cares nothing for the deaths the rest of us may die. ”

“ And Ganelon, laying his hand upon his sword Murglies, swore by the holy relics therein, that he would bring Roland to death.
Then came a heathen knight who gave to Ganelon a sword, the hilt of which glittered with gems so that the eyes were dazzled in looking upon it. "Let but Roland be in the rear-guard," he said, "and it is thine." Then he kissed Ganelon on both cheeks.
Soon another heathen knight followed him, laughing joyfully. "Here is my helmet," he cried. "It is the richest and best ever beaten out of steel. It is thine so that thou truly bring Roland to death and shame." ”

“ The other warrior with a quick motion withheld the bright weapon,
and then he reproved the prince with many proud words.
"Thou art not Gawain," said the man, "who is held so good,
who never flinched for any army by hill nor by vale;
and now thou fleest for fear before thou feelest any harm.
Such cowardice I never heard of that knight.
I neither winced nor fled, sir, when thou didst strike,
nor tried any tricks in King Arthur's house.
My head flew to my foot, and yet I never budged;
and thou, ere any harm taken, art fearful in heart.
Wherefore the better man I ought to be called
for it." ”

“ Ganelon answers:—"I reject it not. May God, if 'tis his will, your grace reward." Aoi. XLI.
Marsile spake thus:—"Sire Ganelon, believe, Much I desire to love you, and of Carle [29] I crave to hear. Is he not old, his prime Has he not passed? Men tell me he has lived More than two hundred years; his body dragged Throughout so many lands; so many blows Upon his shield!—So many mighty Kings To beggary reduced!—When will he cease To march on battle-fields?"—Then Ganelon Responded:—"Such is not King Carle; no man Alive who sees and knows him but will tell How our great Emperor is Baron true. ”

“ In my esteem the judgment is not just. Nevertheless, it is judgment: only God can alter it."
Then stepped forth the youth Thierry, Geoffrey's son. He was but a lad, very little and slender of body, and slight of limb. And he said, "Let not the king be sad. I Thierry do impeach Ganelon as a felon and a traitor who betrayed Roland and the rear-guard to the pagans, and I also say that thirty of Ganelon's kinsfolk have wrought treason and corrupted judgment. And this will I maintain with my sword, and prove upon the body of any man who will come to defend him or them." ”

“ Many of his good vassals would fain have accompanied him upon his journey, but Ganelon answered, "Nay. 'Tis better one should die than many." Then Ganelon leaped to horse, and rode on until he overtook the pagan messengers who had halted beneath an olive-tree to rest. There Blancandrin talked with Ganelon of the great Charles, and of the countries he had conquered, and of his riches and the splendor of his court. Ganelon also spake bitterly of Roland and his eagerness for war, and how he continually drove the king to battle, and was the fiercest of all the Franks against the pagans. ”

“ I exclaimed, and I felt for my dagger, "or by Alla! I will strike this steel into you."
"Boy," cried he, "you are mad; I fear you not; talk of daggers to others than Ganesha; he has seen too much of you to fear you. Give me the child, I say, his very cries will alarm the sepoys."
I felt for my dagger or sword, but I had left them in the tent; I tried if pity could move him. "Have you no compassion?" I said more gently: "Ganesha, have you no pity for a child? Can you bear to kill him?" ”

“ And Sir Gawain who saw that he was sore bestead, commended himself to the grace of God with a good heart and received his foes with drawn sword. With each blow that he smote he wounded one, or two, and wrought them much harm. None might withstand him, and he that wrought the most valiantly he abode there dead, or went hence so sorely wounded that he might never more find healing. Thus Gawain, the Father of Adventure, so daunted them with the blows that he smote that many drew aside and turned from the strife with deep wounds and wide. ”

“ Besides, would any man betray an army of his friends to rid himself of a single enemy? Blood enough has been shed. Slaying Ganelon will not bring Roland back. The Franks are angry since they have lost their captain, and blindly clamor for a victim. Heed not their foolish cry, for Ganelon has done no treason." To this the others all agreed, save Thierry, the son of Duke Geoffrey; and he would not.
The judges came to King Charles and said, "We find that Ganelon has done nothing worthy of death. Let him live and take anew the oath of fealty to France and the king." ”

“ A tall fine fellow like you is just the gladiator whom the Roman ladies like to look at, and they won’t have you killed in your first fight. But as for me—a mere Phrygian slave!—Yes, Glanydon, to-morrow your short sword will perhaps be red with my blood.’
‘Never!’ said Glanydon. ‘I will fight because I must, and will do my best; and when my blood is up I might kill you or any other opponent in the blind heat of the combat; but as for slaughtering in cold blood I could not do it—least of all could I murder the friend I love.’
‘You won’t be able to help yourself, Glanydon. ”

“ All we can do is to pity you, and exhort you to have patience."
"I know my son," answered Ganem's mother; "I have educated him carefully, and in that respect which is due to the commander of the believers. He cannot have committed the crime he is accused of; I dare answer for his innocence. But I will cease to murmur and complain, since it is for him that I suffer, and he is not dead. O Ganem!" added she, in a transport of affection and joy, "my dear son Ganem! is possible that you are still alive? ”

“ I never saw a better, Gaunt."
"I agree with you that I never saw a better: but the young girl we sold to that pale student Levator, how much handsomer to look upon."
"Right, Gaunt, for once. I never beheld anything in the shape of death, so fair. That female, she must have been very beautiful when living."
"I don't think that would follow as a natural consequence. Many homely persons make a handsome corpse." ”

“ I have set men to inquire after him, and I have found that when first he came here he was poor and of no account, so he must have grown rich either by magic or else by violence. I command, therefore, that my stoutest men-at-arms should buckle on their iron breastplates and ride in the dead of night to Wayland's house, and seize his goods and his person.'
'King Nidud,' answered one of the courtiers, 'that you should take himself and his goods is well, but why send a troop of soldiers against one man? ”

“ Then his patience gave way, and, seizing the bone, he beat Nidud about the head with it till the straps of the helmet gave way and the helmet itself fell off. The guests all took his side, and said that, though a cripple, he was braver than many men whose legs were straight, and begged the King to allow him to go back to his prison without being teased further. But the King cried that Wayland had done mischief enough, and must now be punished, and told them the story of his visit to the mountain and the loss of his followers. ”

“ Just say I died, don't say how it hurt."
"All right, mate," said the other, for he had no comfort to give.
And then they walked on again in silence till the moon declined before the coming day, the cruel day, which brought the heat and the following crows again. Dawn brought them to a patch of "dead finish," as the settlers call a dense and thorny scrub with pretty green leaves, through which it is well nigh impossible to force a way even under the most favourable circumstances; and which presented an utterly impassable barrier to men in their condition. ”

“ In view of the present facts I would submit that the problem posed in our first chapter may be held to be solved; that we accept as a fait acquis the conclusion that the woes of the land are directly dependent upon the sickness, or maiming, of the King, and in no wise caused by the failure of the Quester. The 'Wasting of the land' must be held to have been antecedent to that failure, and the Gawain versions in which we find this condition fulfilled are, therefore, prior in origin to the Perceval, in which the 'Wasting' is brought about by the action of the hero ”