The Role Of Women In The Song

Of Roland Essay, Research Paper

The Role of Women in the Song of Roland

Women are not mentioned often in the Song of Roland. They appear in only seventeen

of almost three hundred laisses. It is because they are included so rarely, however, that the

women stand out amidst the throng of male characters and call attention to the areas of the text

in which they appear. One of the principle woman characters is Queen Bramimionde, wife of the

pagan King Marsile. She plays an important role at the end of the text, becoming by association

the whole of pagandom, and it is only through her that the French emperor Charlemagne can

achieve a true victory over the Saracens.

The first mention of women in the Song of Roland comes in laisse 23, when Ganelon

speaks to Charles: .I well know that I must go to Saragossa;/Whoever goes there cannot hope to

return./Moreover, I have your sister as my wife….. In these lines, Ganelon uses kinship as a

means to link himself to Charlemagne, via the woman. He is in effect communicating his .last

words. to the emperor and, being reluctant to perform the dangerous task set before him, is

attempting to evoke guilt in Charles. A suitable paraphrase of the lines would be: .Remember

that I am married to your sister, whom you are now effectively making a widow.. Laisse 23 is

not only significant because it makes first mention of a woman, but also because it is tied directly

to the introduction of Bramimonde.

The pagan Queen first appears in laisse 50: .Then Queen Bramimonde came forward:/.I

love you dearly, lord,.she said to [Ganelon],/.For my lord and his men hold you in very high

esteem./I shall send your wife two necklaces….. In this passage two women are mentioned; the

Queen promising rich gifts to the wife in exchange for the husband.s treachery. This passage

immediately stands out from those before it because it tells of a gift that is from woman to

woman rather than a gift from one of the many pagan dukes to Ganelon. Additionally, laisse 50

acts as the mirror image of laisse 23–the same idea, just backwards. Note how the mention of

Ganelon.s wife is employed in distinctly opposite ways: in laisse 23 Ganelon is attempting to

avoid a task and in laisse 50 the Queen is providing him with extra incentive to accomplish a

task. Bramimonde, in her very first appearance, completes one of the trademark symmetries

employed so frequently in the Song of Roland.

The Queen serves repeatedly to emphasize the failure of the pagans versus the success of

the Franks. In laisses 187 and 188 Bramimonde laments the first decimation of the Saracens and

curses the pagan gods: .She tears at her hair and bewails her fate;/Thereupon she cries out at the

top of her voice:/.O, Saragossa, how you have been deprived this day/Of the noble king who

held you in his power!/Our gods committed a grave crime/In failing him this morning in

battle.. In laisse 195, when an emissary from the pagan emir greets her with a praise of

Tervagant and Apollo, she replies: .Now I hear great foolishness,/These gods of ours have

abandoned the fight;..

Often in the same breath as these complaints she will praise Charlemagne and the

Franks: .…these bold men/Who are so fierce that they disregard their own lives./The emperor

with the hoary-white beard/Is full of valour and great daring..(Laisse 188) As well as: .Charles

will have the whole of Spain in his power,. in laisse 195. She describes the wound received by

her husband in the same passage: .He has lost his right hand, he no longer has it;/Count Roland

the powerful cut it off.. Bramimonde manages to insult the pagan gods, tell of the injury

inflicted upon Marsile–and by association pagandom as a whole, and praise Charles–and by

association Christianity.

At first her identity to the reader is essentially a pagan woman. She does not participate

in combat, so perhaps instead of filling the text up with the women, elderly and all other pagan

people who are not warriors, one supplied the readers with Bramimonde. But perhaps she is

more than that. The text tells of many male pagan warriors who enter into the story only to fall

in battle; she is the sole constant pagan character. In laisse 195 she laments: .What will become

of me, miserable wretch./O, woe is me that I have no one to kill me.. It is easy to interpret this

statement as: .me. a.k.a. : The Pagan, a.k.a.: a .miserable wretch. who is better off dead.

Her attitude changes abruptly when the pagan emir and his army arrive on the scene.

It is Bramimonde who brings the emir to her husband to plan the second attack. It is

Bramimonde who directs the whole of pagandom to the Franks: .He need not go so far!/You

will find the Franks closer to where we are;.(laisse 196). Even when she learns that the Arabs

have been defeated, she offers up one last prayer to her gods in laisse 270: ..Help us

Muhammad!/O, noble king, now our men are vanquished;/the emir is slain with such g

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