There is a sharp break before the poem’s last section, when Peter’s denial of Christ reverberates through history, amplified by the treachery of Roncesvalles. This dolorous sound reveals the true and exact character of human existence. The clue to the significance of the last section of the poem and its bearing on what goes before also lies outside the text: the proposal is that it is Jones’s distress, obliquely expressed, at the disintegration of the traditional Roman liturgy (a denial and a betrayal) that unifies the composition.