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The dialogue on the secret death of the absent, only 
vestigial in the Scandinavian song, is enlarged upon in the 
Breton gwerz to the point of becoming the central theme. Here 
the knight was not proceeding to the home of his virginal fiancee, 
but to his own, where his wife had given birth to a son. Fan- 
tastic and dreamy, the Scandinavian story here becomes realistic 
and intensely dramatic. The French song omits the episode of 
the elves and the fairy, and consists almost wholly of a dialogue 
between the knight s mother and his wife. It confers upon the 
story fresh beauty and inspiration. Its master strokes reach 
the sublime. The wife, discovering the terrible truth, dies of a 
broken heart and is buried with her husband. 
“Renaud” closely resembles “The Count Nann”, its Breton 
parent. It differs in one point — unity — which makes it perhaps 
the best of the three songs. The gwerz is made of two separate 
themes, that of the fairy and of the secret death, which are 
consecutive. Thus it is divided in two halves, one legendary, 
the other actual and poignantly human. Lack of unity is its only 
fault. But all that is exotic is swept aside in the French song, 
which begins with the tragedy of the knight arriving home to 
meet his mother on the threshold. He dies in her arms, and the 
dialogue between the mother and the wife forms the whole 
drama. Narrative verse, introduced here and there, enhances 
the intensity of the plot and hastens it to a climax — the funeral 
bells, the tomb, and the oath at an open grave. 
GERMINE (Page 65) 
The splendid complainte of Germine or Germaine takes us 
back to the Middle Ages. It is a lyrical reminiscence of the 
Crusades. 
The Crusader returning home here is ostensibly the Prince 
of Ambroise, or better still, Guilhem de Beauvoir, who sailed the 
seas, and was absent for a long time, while his young wife met 
with adversity and remained true to her pledge of fidelity. 
The song begins at the moment when the Crusader arrives 
home. The scene opens with a dialogue. After so many years 
the Crusader is not recognized. He has to plead for hospitality. 
Before Germine will believe him, he must furnish proofs, and 
there lies the plot, and its intense dramatization. 
