than a gift from one of the many pagan dukes to Ganelon. Additionally, laisse 50
             acts as the mirror image of laisse 23--the same idea, just backwards. Note how the mention of
             Ganelon's wife is employed in distinctly opposite ways: in laisse 23 Ganelon is attempting to
             avoid a task and in laisse 50 the Queen is providing him with extra incentive to accomplish a
             task. Bramimonde, in her very first appearance, completes one of the trademark symmetries
             employed so frequently in the Song of Roland.
             The Queen serves repeatedly to emphasize the failure of the pagans versus the success of
             the Franks. In laisses 187 and 188 Bramimonde laments the first decimation of the Saracens and
             curses the pagan gods: "She tears at her hair and bewails her
             ...