The poem is the first of the great French heroic poems known as
"chansons de geste." It is written in stanzas of various length, bound
together by the vowel-rhyme known as assonance. It is not possible to
reproduce effectively this device in English, and the author of the
present translation has adopted what is perhaps the nearest
equivalent--the romantic measure of Coleridge and Scott.

Simple almost to bareness in style, without subtlety or high
imagination, the Song of Roland is yet not without grandeur; and its
patriotic ardor gives it a place as the earliest of the truly national
poems of the modern world._




THE SONG OF ROLAND



PART I

THE TREASON OF GANELON

SARAGOSSA. THE COUNCIL OF KING MARSIL


I

The king our Emperor Carlemaine,