Conclusion: the epilogue
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 October 2017
Summary
It is customary to consider the Roman de Rou as an unfinished work, abandoned by its author before its completion because Henry II decided to entrust the project to someone else (11419–24):
Die en avant qui dire deit;
j'ai dit por Maistre Beneeit,
qui cest'ovre a dire a emprise
com li reis l'a desor lui mise;
quant li reis li a rové faire
laissier la dei, si m'en dei taire.
This is certainly the impression derived from a first reading of these lines, and it must be admitted that the Roman de Rou ends rather abruptly. On the other hand, abruptness is the hallmark of the final section of the Troisième Partie, partly due to the increasingly present (and increasingly censorious) narrator. Moreover, from the battle of Val-ès-Dunes onwards – that is, in the part of the Rou where Wace writes as a historian rather than a historiographer – one senses a reticence, if not outright ambivalence, towards the material treated. Secure in his Bayeux prebend, Wace could easily have continued his work had he wished to do so; but there is nothing in the last 6000 lines of the Rou suggesting that he had ever contemplated going beyond Tinchebray. Bowing to the king's wishes reads as a convenient, non-controversial way of justifying this breaking point beyond which the subject-matter of the poem becomes subsumed under the history of the kings of England.
To this, one must add Wace's apparent disaffection towards Henry II himself. The warmth of the Prologue, where the king is lauded as a worthy scion of Rou, gives way in the Epilogue to an openly critical tone (11425–30):
Li reis jadis maint bien me fist,
mult me dona, plus me pramist,
e se il tot doné m'eüst
ço qu'il me pramist, mielz me fust;
nel poi aveir, ne plout al rei,
mais n'est mie remés en mei.
This unflattering image of the king reneging on his promises is not unlike that of Robert Curthose, who, like Henry II, was generous with his promises but less forthcoming when it came to keeping them.
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- Information
- A Companion to Wace , pp. 275 - 278Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2005