La Chanson des Chétifs

So Corbaran ran away across all the plains of Syria, taking only two kings along with him and carrying Brohadas, son of the Sultan of Persia. The noble and brave Duke Godfrey had killed [Brohadas] with his shining sword in battle outside Antioch.¹ The kings had not left him there; they wrapped him up inside a deer hide and put him on a Hungarian mule. They fled towards the Black Mountain, giving Edessa a wide berth and crossing the Euphrates without ship or galley. My lords, that is a river blessed by God which comes and flows and takes its origin from Paradise, from which the Lord God expelled Adam for his foolishness.² Once they reached the other side with its lush grass, they lifted the youth down from the good Russian mule and laid him down on his back on the flower-strewn grass. By God! How the brave King of Nubia mourned him. Corbaran of Oliferne wept over him, shouting and crying; whilst the King of Falerne sobbed bitterly, overcome by grief and hitting himself about the head.³ Together the three of them presented a picture of complete despair. Corbaran wrung his hands and tore at his beard, lamenting him eloquently from the depths of his grief. ‘Oh splendid youth, what a terrible end to your life! What will your gentle and beautiful mother do? Take her own life once she finds out, that is what she will do. She will kill herself from grief unless there is someone to kill her first. And your father the Sultan, our overlord, will have us all hanged when he realises you are not coming back’. He collapsed in a faint across the corpse, his face congested; once he came round all he could say was: ‘I know for sure that neither Mahomed nor Termagant – let alone his magic – are worth one rotten apple. Anyone who worships you and prays to you is a miserable loser. Any god who forgets to look after his own men is completely worthless and has to be rejected as not worth even one sorb apple.⁴ Now that God of the Franks really is a powerful lord. He looks after his people and helps them properly’. ‘Too true’, said his companions. ‘Our religion is a failure. All our gods put together are not worth as much as one sorb apple’.⁵ ‘It wouldn’t take much to make me believe in Jesus, the son of Mary’ [said another].