Collection gérée par Jeffrey Graf à Indiana University, Bloomington

La Chanson de Gefrei

Fragment d'un classique perdu de la litterature française.

Source:
Veuillez voir a la fin du fragment les notes sur la découverte de cette merveille inconnue et inattendue

Gefrei li cuents, chevalier mult barun,
Deuz anz et plus, occit paiens feluns
Ki arrosant la tere de lur sanc
Feri a mort de suen espiet trenchant.
C milie perirent, ceo m'est avis,
Nuls n'a voulut estre li suen ami;
Tant fust li cuents e proz et valliant
Noble e fier, sage, curteis, et franc,
Ke pur aveit assez li paien reis,
Kentensperanz, de lui e ses Franceis.

Kentensperanz, li reis, en apelet
De sun regne e ses dux e ses quens:
"Oez, dist il, cumfaitement nus occit
Gefrei li bers, ki ne nus amot mie;
Mult par m'estuet ke om l'occit a mort,
Si n'avruns plus ni effrei ni dolor."
N'i ad paien ki un sul mot respundet
For Zamoel, sieur de Rosemunt.

Dist Zamoel, ki saveit bien parler:
"Kentensperenz, nostre emperere mut ber,
Cuide saveir cumfaitement les occir:
Et jo ferai tuz les franceis mourir.
Jo seis ke beivre assez il ont talent.
Tut nuit e jur, cervoise freis ament.
Mandez Gefrei carres de cerveise chargez.
Dedanz le beivre, ke carrier en ferez,
Si jo mettrai un tant puisant pociun
De la desse, nostre Guiragossiun."
Kentensperanz en tint sun chef embrunc
Si purpensa, afaitad sun gernun.

Apres ico, parlet li reis de Leke,
Sarazins est, de la sezieme tere.
Kentensperanz, fierement areisuna
Et dist al reis: "Kentensperanz li grant,
Si parlet bien, Zamoel nostre ber,
Malmis sera e more Gefrei le fier;
Si jo irai od les carres a Gefrei."
Si dist, parlet, et areisuna le reis.

Uns sarazins i ad de Munt Ana
Plus court a pied que ne fait un cheval:
Russel li fols, de vassalage aloez,
Fust chrestiens, asez oust barnet.
Dist li paiens: "Voil con li reis aler
Occir a mort Gefrei et guerre mener
Cuntre li Francs, Ki ne nus amot mie,
Lur malmetre, pur lor vallanie."

Anpres ico i est venud Edouart,
Ki n'a ja ame: co dist il con grant art:
"Oez seignurs, pociun mut fort avruns;
Puons occir Gefrei li cuents felun.
Aler jo voil, jo en ai mot grant talent.
Forment me plaist lor duner tel present."

Curant i vint Mani de Mikaiel
Haist fust de Deu e de tute la tere
Devant le rei s'escriet en la presse:
"Cuntre li Francs irai grant colps duner.
Par Mahumet, le Francs ne mie pount
Encuntre mei, l'espiet, e la pociun."

De l'altre part est Jehan li lonc d'Ustun
Li reis apelet de mut riere raisun:
"Bel sire reis, serai de vos baruns
Ki Frans occier et malmetre volunt;
Pociun avrons, unckes telle ne fut.
M'en escient, li frans seront vaincus."

Grant sarassins i ad, Robert des Champs.
Plus cort a piet que ne fait un cheval.
Mult oscurement, cil en est escriet:
"Si truis Gefrei de mort serat finet.
Gefrei li cuents par mien epee trenchant
A mort feri n'aura de mort garant."
Co endendist li dux Richart de Kar.

In 1969 my Uncle Otto Graf died in Philadelphia after a day at the Jersey Shore where he went crabbing on Barnegat Bay each summer Saturday. He had lived alone in his house on Belgrade Street, since his sister moved in with her youngest daughter across the river in Cherry Hill. During those years, he became something of a hermit, although not entirely so. He did, however, manage to alienate his rather staid, conservative relatives with his odd ways and peculiar habits.

Someone had to make arrangements for the old man, and the family decided I was perfect for the job, even if I had to come east from Indiana to so. No one else wanted the task, and Otto, after all, had managed to alienate his siblings and he hardly had a bean. I was not going to find gold in the basement or run off with negotiable securities from the closet. In fact the family worried it might have to chip in for the funeral expenses.

As it turned out, Otto's small saving account nearly saw him out in modest style. I made up the deficit out of my own pocket to avoid arguments with my parents and my aunts, who would have had a fit about spending money on the "old tosspot," that being about the best they were willing to say about him. The house fetched a fair price in that changing Kensington neighborhood, but since it actually belonged to Aunt Carolyn, the money eventually crossed the Delaware into her pockets, or her daughter's.

Cleaning out the place proved easier than expected. A used furniture dealer took all the used furniture no one wanted. Otto's few clothes went off to the Salvation Army, which seemed glad to get them. In the end only two ancient, dented trunks remained, and I put them in the back of my car. I gladly left the heat of the city and headed for home, my work done. I did not open Otto's trunks for a couple of weeks, but on a Saturday afternoon in late August, I decided to get rid of the things that were taking up valuable space in the garage.

One trunk contained musty books, a collection of erotica he had hoarded against Aunt Carolyn, I suspect. The second contained his youth. He had preserved his uniform from the First World War, the Great War, "the War to end all Wars," the last war fought before we began giving them numbers for convenience. He had medals, too, citations for bravery and a croix de guerre in a box, and beneath those ornaments was the faded picture of an attractive woman who could hardly have been much more than eighteen.

I knew that he had served in the war, and family tradition had it that he returned from France "a little peculiar." He had fought at Chateau-Thierry. He had participated in all the bloody battles of the Rainbow Division, and I imagined him launching German oaths at the Huns, his Swabian cousins from the old country. He probably even learned to say "Boche." After the Armistice, Otto stayed on for the occupation, perhaps feeling it his duty to make sure the Germans did not attack again.

A second box, from a long-gone cigar manufacturer, held a packet of letters, all in French. I read one, then put the bundle aside, feeling I had oafishly invaded the privacy of a man now dead and a woman perhaps still alive. I took out the uniform and held the tunic up to me. I had not realized how tall and slim Otto had been as a young man. I remembered him only as a slightly irrascible, slightly stooped, thin-haired individual who barely tolerated our annual visit of duty. Beneath the khaki trousers, I found what I took for a bit of protective lining. On the lining, a piece of paper, or parchment, about a two feet long and one foot wide and torn off at the botton, a hesitant scrawl had written, "Chere Madeleine," and then stopped.

I turned the parchment over and found lines of what looked like poetry, stanzas composed in what Americans seem to think of as old (or "olde") English script. Let's call it Gothic lettering. Even if that is not quite accurate, it was clearly the work of an accomplished scribe. From the language of the document, I recognized the manuscript as dating most probably from the 13th century, or thereabouts. Still, it was odd to believe that I had opened Uncle Otto's trunk to discover a lost Chanson de Geste beside my Chevrolet.

I read the text, and I read it again. I made out its meaning, with less effort than I thought. It was a Chanson de Geste, undoubtedly, but cut short, only a page of it, and that page incomplete. Since I lived in a university town, I showed it to a medievalist I knew through the Sassafrass Audobon Society. The document intrigued her. When I refused to entrust my find to her eager, salivating hands, it intrigued her less, and she moved on to something else to secure tenure. For my part, I brushed up on my early French grammar and reread the Song of Roland which it seemed to ressemble.

What I had, I decided, was truly an historical document. That it was unknown to the French, as far as I could tell from my research in the library, existing only in the bosom of America, of Indiana itself, made my discovery even more exciting. Unsure of what to do with it, I stuck it away in a file cabinet next to my 1956 Brooklyn Dodger program autographed by Jackie Robinson. Not long ago, I found it again and resolved to offer it to the world, although without the glosses, the footnotes and the rigorous textual examination it deserves. It was simply time, I felt, to make known this lost fragment of French letters and to reintroduce it into the world's body of literature.

Jeffrey Graf
Cabin 3, McCormick's Creek State Park
Spencer, Indiana
April 1, 1996