We the reader read Titus and Vespasian, in accordance with Jesus' prophecies, talk about destroying the Temple to the extent that "no stone stands upon another." At the poem's conclusion, we can see that all of Christ's prophecies are being fulfilled: the destruction of Jerusalem, the Temple, and those who condemned Jesus to death. Christ is a great framing character in this tale. The Siege begins with his Passion and suffering, and ends with his various prophecies being fulfilled. The details of these events even correlate with one another: The Roman destruction of Jerusalem ("In plowes to putte and alle the place eyre"-1294) can be seen as a tie-in back to the Jews placing the scourge post into the ground ("A pyler plyght was doun upon the playn erthe"-line 9). In fact, the last lines of the poem also, in a way, allude to another Christ-centered event: the Second Coming.
The poet ends by discussing those who are saved will "han here wille forthred,/And hom riden to Rome. (1339-1340) It can be inferred that the "home" means two things: the actual, physical city of Rome as well as the spiritual dwelling that Rome now represents. Christ is a central figure in the Siege, despite the fact that he is killed in the very beginning. His significance is the driving, motivating force beyond the story's most intriguing moments.
I completely agree. Even though they are completely different genres, I'm going to choose to look at this ultimate motivating force of Christ as a parallel to the Green Knight character from "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." Although he is only present in 2 parts of the story (therefore "framing it), his presence in those sections, and the fact that he existed/exists at all is the motivating force behind all the action in the story. In terms of the "Siege," Christ and Christ's death are invoked at almost every major part in the story, and while we don't see the figure of Christ in the end, as we do the Green Knight, the implication of his "second Coming" is another framing mechanism that the author uses.
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