The "Alexandreis" of Walter of Châtilon

A Twelfth-Century Epic

David Townsend, David Townsend

• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781512809473
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Medieval Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

Written sometime in the 1170s, Walter of Chatillon's Latin epic on the life of Alexander the Great loomed as large on literary horizons as the works on Jean de Meun, Dante, or Boccaccio. Within a few decades of its composition, the poem had become a standard text of the literary curriculum. Virtually all authors of the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries knew the poem. And an extraordinary two hundred surviving manuscripts, elaborately annotated, attest both to the popularity of the Alexandreis and to the care with which it was read by its medieval audience.

Book Four

The Headings of the Fourth Book

The fourth book turns the Great One to sad rites

for Darius’ wife. Laments and false suspicion

vex Darius. The legates bring him answer.

On either side, formations stand prepared

for combat. Alexander fears war’s image,

and calls a council. Spurning his men’s answers,

he puts off sleep until the daylight hours.

Aroused from sleep, he swiftly dons his arms,

and fortifies his men by word and deed.

The lines collide, the din assails the stars.

Book Four

His countenance besmeared with pitchy smoke,

the lurid Day-star rode out a fourth time

on breathless mount before the deadly tumult.

Between the sandy whirlpool’s nearby stream

5

and woods whose highest peaks were swathed in cloud,

the Grecian phalanx marched through verdant fields.

Driven by hope, it trod victoriously

a route the yielding enemy had left it.

Then Darius’ royal spouse fell down to death

10

among the captive women’s powerless throng:

grief for his absence, for her land’s subjection,

and endless travel on the toilsome road

made sure her passing. But the conqueror—

that mightiest and most devout of kings—

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felt grief no otherwise than if he’d heard

of his own mother’s and his sisters’ death.

The youth brought forth such tears of lamentation

as Darius might have shed. Now white old age

came to the place of death, and pious grace,

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forever rare in tyrants, broke the hardness

of an unvanquished prince, who though a foe

paid tears as tribute. Only once he’d glimpsed her

after her capture; from her sumptuous mien

he drew no cause for frenzy, wishing rather

25

to stand as guardian of her honor and

appearance—glory fell to him more richly

in shaming neither, than in violating both.

[24] Escaping from amidst the Grecian ranks,

the eunuch Tiriotes brought the news

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to Darius, who saw his clothing rent

with bloody nails, his tangled hair lying

upon his face, his visage drenched in tears.

“Whatever welfare still remains to me,”

the king said, “spoil it now, and change my fear

35

to mourning. I have learned unhappiness,

and know how to be buffetted by ills.

The wretched have this solace only, and

this cure for pain: they know their lot in life.

You bring news of my family’s mockery,

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cruel torments worse for them than any lash—

and yet I fear to say it.” Then replied

the other: “Every honor and respect

that could be paid to royal ladies has

been paid to yours. But—this I dread to tell—

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your noble consort, both your wife and sister,

has passed and left behind her lifeless body.”

Then you might have seen the whole encampment

reduced to groans and weeping. The old man

lay lifeless, fouling in the dust his white

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and noble locks: he privately supposed

his wife was slain in chaste refusal of

some outrage. Then he shut out all the others,

keeping with him only the eunuch, who

swore that the queen had borne no loss of honor,

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that at the captor’s hand the captive paid

no shameful price: she had received the tears

due from a husband, and a worthy bier.

But now suspicion, mingled with his grief,

pierced his loving mind, and in his frenzy

60

he guessed some passion sprang, as crime is wont,

between captive and captor: “In both flesh

and blood,” he said, “this prisoner was noble;

her master, still a youth.” What might have been

he reckoned as her will, and with such cares

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his sick mind seethed, until the slave bore witness,

upon the household g...