Carmen (Barlow)

O what a great noise suddenly erupts from that place as the
sailors seek their oars, the knights their arms! Then a thousand
trumpets sound, and resound, their various calls. There are pipes
with their reeds and zithers with their strings; drums bellow like
bulls; and the loud cymbals chime in. The earth shakes; the heavens
quake; the ocean is amazed. Beasts flee, and likewise birds and fish,
for one hundred and fifty thousand different voices make the welkin
ring. But you seek the church of [St Valery] and, after making gifts,
hurry back to go on board. By a trumpet's call you command all
other vessels to leave the shore and make for the deep sea in safety.
The ships cast off their moorings and put out to sea in orderly
formation. The day was already closing in, the setting sun departing,
when your ship raced ahead and took the lead. When dark night
covers the sky with its shades and the hidden moon denies you her
aid, you fill the ocean with glowing torches just as the stars fill up the
heavens once the sun has set. You scatter light from every ship.
(missing text) The lanterns on the masts with their strong beams of
light direct the ships on a straight course over the sea. But you,
fearful that the dark night could harm your men or an adverse wind
should stir up the waves, order the ships to heave to, held by their
crooked anchors; and thus you create a harbour on the open sea. You
also bid them, while waiting for the dawn, to strike sail, so that the
exhausted crews should get some rest.

But once the rosy dawn had brightened the land and the sun had
irradiated the circle of the earth, you ordered a start, the ships to set sail
and anchors aweigh. When you left the sea behind and seized a safe
beachhead, the third hour of the day was rising over the earth and a
blazing comet with outstretched tail informed the English of their
destined ruin. The land owed to you, stripped of her terrified
inhabitants, joyfully welcomed you and yours into her tender bosom.
For the wicked king Harold was preparing his treacherous weapons for
the destruction of his brother in the remotest reaches of the realm.
This brother, having occupied no small part of the land, was setting
houses on fire and putting people to the sword; and Harold, hastening
with an army to meet the foe, did not shrink from delivering his
brother's limbs to death. Each waged against the other a worse than
civil war. But the victor, alas, was Harold. This envious Cain cut off
his brother's head with his sword and then buried head and trunk in
the earth. He who subjected the realm which was owed to you
ordained all these things so that you would go to avenge that violent
crime.

Guarding the shore and fearing to lose your ships, you protect them
with ramparts and pitch camp there. You repair the remnants of earlier
fortifications and set guards to protect them. With peace, indeed, but
little ground acquired, your men go out and devastate and burn the
land -- behaviour which, since the stupid people reject you as king, is
not to be wondered at. It is entirely just that they should perish and
come to naught.

When one of the English, hiding under a rock by the sea, saw the
countless ranks of men spreading out, the fields glittering with the
mass of shining weapons, Vulcan driving with his flames people from
their homes, a perfidious race falling by the raging swords, and what
tears the children shed at the slaughter of their parents, he ran to
mount his horse and hastened to inform the king. Harold was returning
from battle laden with great booty. The messenger came up with him
and told him his story.

'O king! I bring for certain dreadful news. The duke of the Normans
has invaded the land with French and Breton troops. He is destroying
it and setting it on fire. If you ask how many thousands of them there
are, no one can tell. He has as many knights as there are fishes in the sea.
And just as you cannot count the stars in the heavens, so you cannot
count his men. He has taken captive boys and girls,1 even widows, and
also all the cattle.'

These were the tidings the peasant gave, and the king hissed
contemptuously in reply. Although he really feared the news, he
feigned to welcome it. He summoned his captains and comrades,
and the great men of his realm, and is said to have made them the
following speech.  Pick of my army, nobly born, for whom there is
no shame save to prevail without fighting, with your help I have
defeated the forces sent by Norway and with your help laid low my
namesake4 and him whom my mother's breasts nourished with her
own milk. You, my guard, my defence and help, you have heard that
the Normans have invaded, and devastate, impoverish and despoil
our kingdom. It is William who does this, who seeks to subject you
to his rule. He has great renown, but a fearful heart. He is cunning,
avaricious, and most arrogant. He does not know how to keep treaties
or his knightly word. He would, if he could, try without compunction
to rob us of all we possess. But God Almighty will not suffer
this. What lamentation, what grief, how great the shame, what
misfortune for the kingdom there'll be, how dark the day, if he
gets what he seeks, if he should wield the sceptre of this realm! Let
all who wish to live shun this.'

At the end of his speech he asked them what they thought. Silent at
first while they searched for words, suddenly a great shout went up that
shook the stars. With one voice they cried, 'We would rather fight than
put our necks under the yoke of another king -- indeed, we would
rather die.' Rejoicing, the foolish king thanked his men, and then
added this one proposal. 'But first, as is proper, let us send envoys to
him to ask him to return home. If he wishes to enter into a treaty of
peace with us, I myself, after taking your advice, will not reject it. But if
he won't, he will not leave my shores of his own accord. Let him
abandon his scheme and return to his own mainland kingdom.'

On the advice of both the senior and lower ranks of his army, an
eloquent monk was chosen to reconnoitre the duke's camp and
carefully bring back the answer to the message entrusted to him. On
the king's orders he hastened on horseback, carrying the threatening
words hidden beneath his black cloak. The duke was in his camp. The
monk entered and spoke these words. 'You must bid farewell to this
land of ours. The king and also the magnates who have authority in the
kingdom order you to leave immediately. They are astonished at what
rumour reports of you that, without good reason, you are bringing
the kingdom to ruin. Release the jobs prisoners and whatever else you have
taken by force. If you want, the king condones all other injuries, for he
takes into account your age, your callowness, and the friendship which
once existed. But if you refuse this offer, or delay making restitution, he
declares war upon you. So you had better take care. He himself can
only just hold his army and people back, for it is a race which knows not
how to keep within bounds. And, as the Lord is my witness, he has
twelve hundred thousand warriors who are thirsting for battle.

At these reproaches the lion was transformed. The duke, a fearless
knight and full of valour, cared not a rap for what the foolish monk had
said and showed that the threats were empty. 'The words of your king',
he said, 'are not those of a wise man. In no way will he be able to skulk
at a distance from me. Let him know this: I am no longer a boy; nor
have I lightly attacked a kingdom to which I was entitled on the death of
my forebears. It is he who has wrongfully violated our peace-treaty by
taking unjustly what should rightly be mine. To order me to leave is
insanity, the height of madness, for the sea passage is hazardous and the
season forbidding. Although he threatens, unjustly, to make war, my
men, trusting in the Lord, will not retreat. Is he not aware of the oath
made to me and covertly forsworn? Does he not in his heart remember
that he was my vassal? If his perjured hand does not yet recoil
condemned, it has already been found guilty by the judgement of
God. If he seeks peace and wants to confess his crimes, I will be
indulgent and promptly overlook his faults. I will grant him the lands
which formerly his father held if he is willing to be, as before, my
vassal.'

The monk hastened back. The duke prepared to arm, for he knew
Harold's intention and guile. To hearten his men he incited and
inflamed them with these words. 'You warriors whom France,
renowned for its nobility, has bred, soldiers without malice, famed
youth chosen and beloved by God, whose enduring renown as
invincible in war flies through the four quarters of the world; you
nation of Bretons who excel in arms and for whom, unless the earth
itself should flee, there is no such thing as flight; you illustrious men of
Maine, who glory in battle with the help of your valour; you Normans,
accustomed to heroic deeds, and to whom the Apulians, Calabrians,
and Sicilians are slaves: I tell you all that this false, infamous, and
perjured king, this adulterer, is attempting to lay snares for us. It is his
wont to conquer not by force but by deceit, and, while pledging his
faith with his lips, to hand out death. We must therefore take care not
to be deceived by him lest we become a laughing-stock and a joke
among his people. We order you, therefore, to guard well the camp lest
that wicked robber should break in. But tomorrow, if you think it right
and just, let us send, in answer to him he sent with empty words to us,
an envoy to him, one without fear of him and ready to return word for
word. There is a monk here who is second to none in reasonableness
and yields to none in rhetoric, who would be a notable standard-bearer
if his monastic rule did not forbid it. If it please you, let him convey my
words.' The duke proposed and it was done: the plan was put into
action. The monk was summoned and immediately set off.
Meanwhile the king, the abode and inheritor of blackest deceit,
skilled in the robber's craft, under cover of darkness secretly ordered
his troops to arm and, if they could, attack the duke's army. He thought
that, using guile, he could destroy the enemy when off its guard. But
while he sought to deceive, he was himself deceived and destroyed,
because the duke, after sending the envoy, remained fully on the alert.
He was completely aware of the other's skill.

The envoy, using byways, came to where the unsuspecting king was
engaged in his stealthy deeds. He said, `Fitting greetings, O king, from
the duke, whom you are forcing unjustly to do wrong. And this is so,
because, as very many bear witnessÐand the duke himself maintains
-- King Edward with the assent of his people and the advice of his
nobles, promised and decreed that William should be his heir; and you
supported him. The ring and sword granted him, and, as you know,
sent to him through you, stand witness to this. You must, therefore,
keep faith and observe your oaths. Your right hand is bound by sacred
bonds. You should ensure that your perjury does you no harm.
Observe your oaths if you want to be saved.' Harold, twisting his
neck and scowling, replied, 'Get you behind me, you fool! Tomorrow it
will be seen by the judgement of the Lord of the kingdom which party
has right on its side, for the sacred hand of the Lord will make a just
award.'

The envoy, returning by the same paths as before, reported these
impieties to him who had sent him. The duke -- the ornament of the
empire, the peace and glory of the kingdom -- put himself in front of his
troops, called up the knights, ordered them to advance in close array
and with his lance mustered his willing men. The envoy's face, pallid
and robbed of its natural ruddiness, showed that the battle was about to
begin. 'Where is the king?', the duke asked. 'Not far off', the envoy
replied, and whispered in his ear, 'You can see his standards. I have
much information which I do not think I ought to repeat. But I will tell
you what it would be harmful to suppress. Harold hopes to be able to
catch you unawares. He is preparing for a great offensive on both land
and sea. He is reported to have sent five hundred ships to obstruct our
passage home. Where he marches he reduces the forest to bare land and
the rivers he crosses dry up. Perhaps you fear the numbers? But a
multitude without great strength is often forced back by a smaller
number. Harold's troops, with their combed and anointed hair, are
nancy-boys, reluctant warriors. And, many though they be, they are
like as many sheep, as fearful as foxes at the sound of thunder.
Remember your noble ancestors, great duke, and do what your grand-
father and father did. Your great-grandfather overcame the Normans
and your grandfather the Bretons, while your father put the necks of the
English under his yoke. And you, what will you do but, with the aid of
your great valour, surpass them by attempting even greater deeds?'

Holding himself back, William was silent for a moment, then
deployed his troops, who were already under arms. He put in front
the infantry to attack with arrows, and set crossbowmen in their
midst so that flying weapons should hit the enemy in the face. These
troops, after they had inflicted wounds, would then withdraw.
He had intended to station the cavalry in line behind them, but was
prevented from doing so by the onset of the battle, for he could see
enemy units not far away and the whole forest glittering with spears.

O Mars, god of war, who punishes kingdoms with swords and
rejoices in the bloody corpses of the young and men's gore spilled in
mass slaughter: how great then was your ardour, how strong your thirst
for evil, when, standing in the midst, you ordered the savage ranks to
join battle! No carnage delighted you more since Julius Caesar over-
came Pompey in war, deprived him of Rome and compelled him in fear
to cross the river Nile. No bloodshed, I think, gave you greater joy.
Neither the beauty of youth, nor the reverence due to old age, nor the
mean and pitiful throng of infantry, nor nobility of birth could deflect
you from doing whatever your savage mind desired. You forced those
deluded wretches into shining mail and sent them to death as though to
a game. But why do I toy with words when already Fury appears in
arms? Do what you will, O Mars. Do the work of death!

Suddenly the forest spewed out its cohorts; and columns of men
stormed out of their hiding-places in the woods. Near the forest was a
hill and a valley and land too rough to be tilled. The English, as was
their custom, advanced in mass formation and seized this position on
which to fight. For that people, unskilled in the art of war, spurn the
assistance of horses: trusting in their strength they stand fast on foot.
And they consider it the greatest honour to die in battle to prevent their
country falling under the yoke of another. To prepare for the encounter
the king mounted the hill, defended his flanks with noblemen, planted
his standard on the summit, and ordered all other banners to be joined
to his. They all dismounted and left their horses in the rear. Once in
position, they had the trumpets sound their calls to battle.
The duke, humble and God-fearing, had his men under better
control as he led them fearlessly to mount the steep hill. The infantry
go ahead to join battle with arrows. Against quarrels shields are not
secure. Helmeted soldiers rush to crash shields against shields. And
both sides rage with brandished spears. Just as a wild boar, wearied by
the hounds and at bay, protects itself with its tusks and with foaming
jaws refuses to submit to the weapons, fearing neither the enemy nor
the spears that threaten death, so the English phalanx fights on
unafraid.

Meanwhile, with the result hanging in the balance and the bitter
calamity of death by wounds still there, a juggler, whom a brave heart
ennobled, putting himself in front of the duke's innumerable army,
with his words encourages the French and terrifies the English, while
he played by throwing his sword high in the air. When one Englishman
saw a single knight, just one out of thousands, juggling with his sword
and riding away, fired by the ardour of a true soldier and abandoning
life, he dashed out to meet his death. The juggler, who was named
Taillefer, when he was attacked spurred on his horse and pierced the
Englishman's shield with his sharp lance. He then with his sword
removed the head from the prostrate body, and, turning to face his
comrades, displayed this object of joy and showed that the opening
move of the battle was his. They all rejoice and together supplicate the
Lord. They exult that the first blow was theirs. Both excitement and
passion run through their manly breasts, and they all hasten to engage
in the fight.

First the infantry units, furnished with quivers, attack, and from
afar transfix bodies with their darts. Crossbowmen, with a shower of
blows like a storm of hail, strike and destroy shields. The French
attacked the left and the Bretons the right, while the duke with his
Normans fight in the centre. The serried mass of the English stands
rooted to the ground. They meet javelin with javelin, sword with
sword. Bodies bereft of life are unable to fall. Nor do the dead make
space for the living, for every corpse, although lifeless, stands as though
unharmed and keeps its place. Nor would the attackers have been able
to penetrate the dense forest of the English had not invention
reinforced their strength.

The French, versed in stratagems, skilled in the arts of war,
cunningly pretend to flee as though they had been defeated. The
rustic folk rejoice, thinking that they have conquered, and pursue
them with naked swords. With the removal of the able-bodied, the
corpses fall, and the once thick wood is thinned. When the left wing of
the ducal army sees that the field of battle is being cleared, and the
right wing that a large breach has been opened up, both wings give free
rein and strive to be the first to destroy the dispersed enemy in
scattered encounters, while those who simulated flight turn upon
their pursuers and, holding them in check, force them to flee from
death. A large part of these perished there; but some, packed even
closer than before, fight on. Truly ten thousand there were killed. As
fall the gentle sheep before the ravening lion, so the accursed race is
forced to rush on to death. Most, however, of those who survived the
fighting fought on even more keenly, and counted their losses as
nothing. The English, superior in numbers, beat back the foe and
forcibly compel them to flee. Thus a flight which had started as a sham
became one dictated by the enemy's strength. The Normans turn tail;
their shields protect their backs.

When the duke saw that his people were beaten and in retreat, he
rode up; and, signalling with his hand, rebukes and strikes them, and
restrains and checks them with his lance. In his anger he himself
removed his helmet from his head. To the Normans he showed a
furious face; to the French he made entreaties. 'Where are you off to?'
he cried. 'Where do you want to die? France, the noblest of the earth's
kingdoms, how could you, when you had been the victors, allow
yourself to appear the vanquished? It is not from men but from sheep
that you run. Your fear is mistaken. What you are doing is the most
shameful disgrace. Behind you lies the sea. To return by sea is hard
when both the wind and the weather are against you. Hard it is to
return home, hard and long the way. There's no escape road for you
here. If you want merely to live you must strive to conquer.'

At the end of this harangue shame spread over their cheeks and they
turned their faces, not their backs, to the enemy. The duke, as he was
the leader, struck the first blow. The others, returning to their senses,
struck next. Throwing off their fear they take on strength. Just as
stubble is consumed when the wind fans the flames, so, you English
throng, you fall to the French. At the sight of the duke the enemy
trembles and falls away, like soft wax flowing from the face of the fire.
Drawing his sword, he cleaves helmets and shields and even his
charger strikes many a corpse. Harold's brother, Gyrth,3 born of
royal stock, was not frightened by the lion's face. Brandishing his
spear, he hurls it from afar with his quick strong arm, and it wounds
the duke's mount, forcing him to fight on foot. But, dismounted, he
fights even better, for swiftly, like a roaring lion, he follows the youth
and, tearing him limb from limb, exclaims, 'Take this trophy you have
won from us. Since my steed has perished, as a footman I give you this
trophy back.' From speech, he turned his efforts straightway to the
battle and withstood his opponents with the strength of a Hercules.
Some he beheaded, some he dismembered, and some he devoured
with his sword. Many were the souls he dispatched straight to hell.
When he saw riding amid the carnage a knight who hailed from
Maine, he signalled to him with his sword, which was defiled by brains
and streams of blood, to come to his aid. But the knight, fearing to die,
refused to help. For, like a hare before the hounds, he was frightened of
death. But the duke, like a mindful knight, turned sharply towards
him, and, infuriated, seized the nasal of his helmet, pulled him to the
ground head over heels, and speedily mounted the horse thus
presented to him.

O ruler of heaven, our gracious and merciful Lord Who rules by
divine will everything that is, what calamities do the surviving English
troops endure! Here pity goes down and pitilessness reigns. Life is
destroyed, cruel death rages and the sword runs wild. Where Mars
holds sway, no man spares another.

When the duke was again in the saddle, he attacked, wounded, struck
like lightning and pursued the enemy even more fiercely than before.
While he strove to conquer, while he bloodied the field of battle with the
gore of the slain, the son of Hellox, a quick and ready man, lay in wait
intending that the duke should meet his end. But when he threw a spear
the blow fell on the horse. The duke crashed to the ground, on foot
once again, and filled with rage. He wondered how he could protect
himself, what he should do, for he was astounded that he had suffered
the loss of two horses. He hesitated for a moment over this, and then
thought it no matter, for he reckoned that, if he acted with courage,
Fortune would smile upon him, and, without deceit, grant him all his
desires. And so he swore that, if his right hand did not fail, the death of
his horse would not go unavenged for long. When he spied the criminal
hiding among a crowd some distance away, he ran to attack him. With a
hard thrust of his right hand and his weapon's sharp point, he pierced
his groin and spilt his entrails on the ground. Then Count Eustace,
scion of a noble dynasty, accompanied by a large escort of soldiers,
hastened to be the first to give him aid. He dismounted so that the duke
could get away in the saddle. And then one of Eustace's household
knights did for his lord what the count had done for his. After these
auspicious events the count and duke return together to fight where the
weapons gleamed the most. By their two swords they clear the
battlefield of English troops. A good number desert, hesitate and are
destroyed. Just as a wood, when the axe is applied, is chopped to pieces,
so the English forest was reduced to nothing.

When France was almost mistress of the field of battle and was
already seeking the spoils of war, the duke caught sight of the king on
the top of the hill fiercely cutting down those who were attacking him.
He called up Eustace and, leaving there the French to continue the
fight, brought enormous relief to those under attack. With these two
went Hugh, the noble heir of Ponthieu, like a scion of Actor ready to do
his duty. The fourth was Gilfard, known by his father's surname.
These four bore arms to kill the king. Others indeed were there; but
these were better than the rest. If anyone doubts this, what they did
proves it true, for in accordance with the rules of war5 they compelled
Harold by many blows to go the way of all flesh. The first of the four,
piercing the king's shield and chest with his lance, drenched the
ground with a gushing stream of blood. The second with his sword cut
off his head below the protection of his helm. The third liquefied his
entrails with his spear. And the fourth cut off his thigh and carried it
some distance away. The earth held the body they had in these ways
destroyed.

The report 'Harold is dead' flew throughout the battlefield and fear
then softened brave hearts. The English refuse to fight. Defeated, they
ask for quarter; despairing of life, they flee from death. In this place the
duke dispatched two thousand to Hades besides thousands more
beyond counting. It was evening. The day was already swinging to
night when God granted victory to the duke. And only darkness and
flight through the thickets and coverts of the dense forest saved the
defeated English. The conqueror spent the night resting among the
dead, waiting for dawn to return. But Actor's scion, ever vigilant,
pursued and killed the fugitives. Mars bore his arms; death raged at his
side. Until the true dawn, he spent the night in encounters of every
kind, neither weighed down by sleep nor allowing himself to dream.

After the brilliant lamp of Phoebus had shone forth and cleansed the
world of its gloomy shades, the duke surveyed the battlefield, and,
removing his own dead, had them buried in the bosom of the earth. But
the bodies of the English that strewed the ground he left to be eaten by
worms and wolves, by birds and dogs. He assembled Harold's mangled
body, wrapped it in purple linen and took it with him when he returned
to his seaside camp in order to perform the usual funeral rites. When
Harold's mother, in the toils of overwhelming grief, sent to the duke
and prayed him to surrender to her, an unhappy widow now bereft of
three sons, the bones of the one in place of the three -- or, if he
preferred, he could weigh the body against pure gold -- the duke,
enraged, refused both requests on the spot, swearing he would sooner
put him in charge of the shore of that very port -- under a heap of stones.
Therefore, just as he had sworn, he ordered the body to be buried on the
summit of a cliff. In a short time a relation of Harold, a man part
English, part Norman, gladly carried out the command. He quickly
took and buried the king's body under a tombstone with the inscription,
'You rest here, King Harold, by order of the duke, so that you may still
be guardian of the shore and sea.' The duke, sorrowing with his
Normans over the buried bones, distributed alms to Christ's poor.
And with the king thus entombed, he renounced the title of duke,
assumed the royal style and left the place.

He remained encamped at the port of Hastings for a fortnight, and
then set off for Dover.