Baudri (Otter)

Mighty Xerxes could not have gathered a fleet so impressive,
Nor could have built even one ship of comparable size.
This will astonish you more: three thousand keels were assembled;
William manned them all, outfitting all the men.
Not only that: there were separate ships to carry the soldiers,
Others to carry the lords, others to carry their mounts.
Over all these rose the royal ship with its beak all gilded;
No need for it to fear the Channel’s turbulent seas.
From the royal ship’s stem comes a shout: “cast off the ropes!”
And the ropes are released; all hands tend to their tasks.
Nautical noises start up, a clamour, a wild confusion:
Those left behind on the shore, mothers and wives, are in tears.
This one blesses her man; that maid bids farewell to her sweetheart.
Every girl with her eyes follows the man she loves.
This woman here says a prayer for a happy and speedy reunion
Men and women alike give free rein to their tears.
Troy, the Asian fortress, Priam’s capital city,
Which, as the poets sing, fell to the conquering Greeks
At the moment when Sinon brought fighters and fire inside her,
Scarcely could have produced such a clamour and noise.
By a royal command Rome’s fathers were killed by the thousands;
Rome herself succumbed to the fires she’d caused.
Then as well, the pain and the loss caused a thunderous outcry;
Countless people were forced into a headlong flight.
Though the noise was surely tremendous, I don’t think it equalled
This noise, as all cry out; nobody will be silent.
If the world’s structure were lapsing,
the stars falling from the heavens,
All firm land swallowed up by the voracious sea,
The noise could not be louder, the chaos could not be greater;
Nor could the cries of the crowd top the cries at this scene.
Fleeing the harbour, the ships make haste and gain open waters;
Gradually the clamour recedes; suddenly all is quiet.
The pilot has already turned to observe the stars and the weather;
All the men on the ships see to their several tasks.
Turning their sails at an angle, they manage to make good speed,
Finally reach the shore, never touching the oars.
All the ships and the fighters, as well as the names of the fighters
Were to be found on this jobs cloth — could it be only a cloth?
As the fierce prince of the English approached the shore of England,
He said, “welcome, my land, if you, my land, welcome me.
The perjured tyrant is trying to take you from me and deny me,
Peijurer that he is, what is my own by right.
May we succeed in wresting you from the peijured tyrant,
And take what’s ours from him who has perjured himself.
I do not want you destroyed, my land, or your fields deserted.
To my foes I’m a foe; peace, my country, to you!”
Then he selects the men to bear standards or lead divisions;
Puts in formation the flanks, then the centre as well.
Soon the beach resounds with the martial sound of the trumpet:
The enemy’s there in force, ready to fight hand to hand.
Even before any Norman soldier had entered the battle,
Cold fear struck at their hearts; panic crept up on them.
For they were without number; nobody could have counted
How many soldiers there were waiting for them in the field.
So dense was the wall of lances that many a man was deceived:
But for the shine, it seemed like a forest of spears.
The enemies, shunning their horses, form a wedge shape together,
Which, while it stays in place, frustrates any attack.
For the Norman soldiers dared not attack them united;
Nor were they able to pry anyone loose from the wedge.
Therefore the duke uses archers first and also the crossbows;
England gets its first taste of this deadly device.
Here they learned to die from a weapon they knew not, the arrow;
Death, it appeared to them, fell from the very sky.
Backing up the enemy line, at a distance, were horsemen,
Waiting to intercept anyone trying to flee.
Arrow heads twist and pierce, and many are killed standing upright:
So densely the soldiers were packed, none of the dead could fall.
Some of those proud people then, in distress and humiliation,
Broke away from their ranks, going after the shooters.
The Normans simulate flight, they run to escape their pursuers,
Whom the swift horsemen then easily intercept.
Thus their ranks are thinned out; their losses mount; they are weakened;
Whereas the duke’s men remain fresh and strong through this ruse.
The English at last, provoked by the Normans’ continuous taunting,
Suddenly break their ranks, rush on their foes all at once.
Suddenly now the game turned; the Norman casualties mounted
Even the horsemen fled, under the eyes of the duke.
Fear now took hold in Norman hearts; they almost panicked;
Now they wished they had run, wished that their flight had been real.
Then a rumour went round that the duke himself had fallen:
Frightened in earnest now, Normans were fleeing in droves.
Sensing his soldiers’ panic, the duke went out to confront them,
Taking his helmet off, quickly he shows his face:
“Stay, I beg you; think who you are, and remember our honour.
I am alive, as you see; never fear, I’m alive.
Why are you fleeing, my men? We are so close to prevailing.
All it takes is that each use his sword and fight on.
Show your valour, come on; show the strength of our forebears.
Let’s make the enemy flee; now it’s our turn to attack.
Where could you run to?” he said. “The fleet is far out on the water.
We ourselves have cut off any hope of escape.
We have no castles to flee to; all we have is our weapons.
Death or survival lies squarely in your own hands.”
Quickly he turns, and with spurs of bronze urges on his charger,
Tearing into the foe with his lightning sword.
Hector was not as great as he slew the Greeks, nor Achilles
Slaughtering Trojan men, fearsome though they were both.
All the troops follow their leader, ashamed now to have been discouraged;
Burning with shame and rage, they turn their hands to the job.
One lashes out with his steel; his single-edged sword wields another,
Making manifold wounds through which souls can escape.
Mars favours both sides at times, smiles now on one, now the other;
Losses afflict both sides; many men stumble and fall.
Death follows quickly for them, reaping Normans as well as English.
Death himself, it seemed, rushed in with swords of his own
The Fates, I am sure, could no longer keep up with so many dying;
Many a soldier falls, though his tread is not cut.
Many thus fall and go to the nether regions unbidden;
And the Fates do their best to hasten their deaths with their hands.
Victory will not fall to either side without losses,
And the dry ground is steeped with the blood of the dead.
But in the end, lest the portents seen in the sky prove mistaken,
The deity, satisfied, lets the Normans prevail.
Harold is killed at last; he is pierced by a lethal arrow;
He was the end of the war, just as he was its cause.
He had crowned his unworthy head with the royal emblem
And with his peijured hand sullied the sceptre of the realm.
The English troops shrink back, and God increases their terror;
The entire army breaks up, scared into panicked flight.
So many soldiers could not be regrouped: this breakup was final.
The army is out of control, flees in a wild stampede.
The mad rush of the flight itself kills many a soldier:
As people fall, they are crushed; trapped in their armour, they perish.
Weapons hamper the fleeing; those who can, relinquish their armour.
Soldiers just minutes ago, now they flee headlong, unarmed.
The Norman horsemen in hot pursuit continue to worry
The fugitives from behind; swift horses trample the fallen.
Seeing that they are winning, the Normans’ energy rises;
The English are weakened by fear and by the death of their king.
The Normans are urged by the wish to prevent more fighting the next day.
Fear of imminent death spurs on the English in flight.
Norman courage is boosted, they surge, they attack like a tigress;
The English, chastened and humbled, meeker and feebler than sheep.
Just as a wolf, who is drawn to the sheep fold by savage hunger,
Could not, even if he wished, spare the defenseless flock,
And will not cease until he has tom every last of his victims,
Thus the Normans don’t flag in their ferocious attack.