Song of Roland Good v. Evil Quotes

The poet is not subtle about telling us who is good and who is evil. King Marsile could have summoned "ten of his men," but the poet wants to make it clear from the beginning that this is not a story about two medieval rulers who happened to duke it out. This is good fighting wickedness.

Most of the pagans have pretty one-dimensional opinions of the Franks: "blah blah every Frank is wicked blah blah." But Blancandrin presents a more nuanced picture in his conversation with Ganelon: they are well-meaning knights but can give unwise advice. Do we detect some grudging admiration in Blancandrin's voice? Or is he just buttering up Ganelon?

Charlemagne's dreams are often moments when good and evil are not obvious and clear-cut. You might guess immediately that this dream is about Ganelon the treacherous snake, but the Franks in the dream and Charlemagne the dreamer are both confused. They see the battle but they don't know which side is true or which will win. This suggests that the issue of treachery occupies more grey area than religious differences.

Charlemagne and his Franks would understand if they were betrayed by a wicked pagan—what else can you expect from those rascals? But being betrayed by another Frank, (and a good Christian knight!) is a whole different game.

The Saracen knights are evil because they are non-Christian, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're bad knights. A lot of them are cowardly or ugly, but some of them are so brave and talented that the Franks can't help but admire them.

Not only are some pagans brave and valiant; some are total lookers too. The Song of Roland was written a little before the great age of chivalry, when good knights were supposed to write poetry and play lutes to beautiful ladies in walled gardens—in addition to riding out and fighting bad guys. But even here you can see that being attractive and elegant to women is already a knightly quality. Although most of the pagans are described as ugly, this dude is hot, a small plus.

Roland urges his men to battle with a simple but powerful argument: Christians are right and the pagans are wrong. That's the only justification they need to dig in.

Ganelon's evil is more ambiguous than the Saracens' evil and fools Roland for a while. But once he discovers it, he claims that finding it out was inevitable: nothing wicked can be concealed. This is the same belief behind the poet's descriptions of all the hideous Saracens. True evil seeps out of your heart and into your skin.

No wonder Oliver said Roland would be a terrible ambassador to Marsile. Granted, the heat of a battle is not a great place for diplomacy, but this declaration is pretty much expressive of Roland's basic philosophy. It's no use considering the pros and cons of the situation because there are only cons. And the cons are the pagans.

This killer description belongs to Abisme, a close friend of Marsile, who is a great example of evil not being hidden. According to the poet, black skin = not good, and in Abisme's case it is visual proof of his internal badness.

The Emir injects some reason into the good v. evil conflict. Instead of fighting Charlemagne because he is Christian and therefore wicked, he fights him for definite reasons—for specific things Charlemagne has done to him that he considers wrong. He accuses the Franks of being unjust rather than evil.