This is not a revelation for anyone who knows me, or has seen my office, and especially not for anyone who loves me enough to have been put through times when I quote parts (or all) of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade verbatim…that includes lines for the female actors, Indy’s part, and my very special Sean Connery as Dr. Jones the elder complete with a Scottish accent. Spot on, in my own mind!
How does this pertain in any way to poetry? Is this a shameless way to post my favorite pictures of one of my favorite movies on the blog? Of course, that’s the beauty of being the Treegap Governess —complete control of editorial content.
However, it is the words in the script spoken by Professor Henry Jones Senior (Sean Connery) and who he attributes them to that are at issue today. The research and facts involved in making The Last Crusade were probably enormous and a lot of them check out. But, as it turns out, I wrongly took as fact one of Jones Senior’s lines to be fact, one line I love quoting in that (in my mind) spot on Sean Connery accent.
Right after they are blown out of the sky, Indy and his dad find themselves on a beach without any protection from the Nazi bombers circling overhead. Henry Jones then opens his umbrella to incite a flock of seagulls to fly, distracting the planes and the effort works, panning to a shocked Indy (Harrison Ford) wondering how in the heck that worked or how his dad could have thunk to do such a thing. Jones Senior then says, while casually flipping the umbrella over his shoulder:
“I suddenly remembered my Charlemagne: ‘Let my armies be the rocks and the trees and the birds in the sky’.”
The sad revelation for me is that I never studied my Charlemagne enough to know that it wasn’t a true quote. While he may be regarded as the “father of modern Europe,” among historians, meaning in the 700’s he created the French and German monarchies and tried to “unite” people across Europe a little more diplomatically than the Romans, it’s unclear what language(s) Charlemagne spoke. Maybe that’s the reason Charlemagne is probably the least oft quoted of all European Kings. Linguists agree it was probably a Germanic dialect but there is no definitive consensus on which one—Old Frankish (now extinct); Old Low Franconian (which would grow to be Dutch); Old French?
While I may not know my Charlemagne, one of my favorite books I was ever assigned to read was the Song of Roland, which captures the defeat of Charlemagne’s army at the battle of Roncesvalles in 778. The one thing that stands out from that reading experience is that I fell in love with the word olifant. I had to look up what it was, but I remember reading this book, an epic, that read and sounded like a poem and it greatly enhanced my appreciation for beautiful reading, the sounds and resounds that filtered through my head. I wrote an entire report of this book in the form in which it was written, with the same rhyming patterns.
Here are two of my favorite passages from Song of Roland including the introductory shout-out to Chrarlemagne, who never said those lines so well spoken by Sean Connery, but I’m sure he’d be happy to receive the attribution for them:
Charles the King, our Lord and Sovereign,
Full seven years hath sojourned in Spain,
Conquered the land, and won the western main,
Now no fortress against him doth remain,
No city walls are left for him to gain,
Save Sarraguce, that sits on high mountain.
Marsile its King, who feareth not God's name,
Mahumet's man, he invokes Apollin's aid,
Nor wards off ills that shall to him attain…
Was a fald-stool there, made of olifant.
A book thereon Marsilies bade them plant,
In it their laws, Mahum's and Tervagant's.
He's sworn thereby, the Spanish Sarazand,
In the rereward if he shall find Rollant,
Battle to himself and all his band,
And verily he'll slay him if he can.
And answered Guenes: "So be it, as you command!"
1 comment:
Leave your fantasies intact - there's no proof that Charlemagne didn't say those words. (Or their equivalent in Old Frankish) Perhaps Professor Jones had inside information.
That being said, it's never safe to rely on the movies for history. I had to laugh seeing that the new movie about Charles Darwin describes itself as "The True Story".
I too loved the Song of Roland. You might enjoy reading Ariosto's epic poem Orlando Furioso. There was a new translation last year that was fairly well regarded, I believe.
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