The Song of Roland

The Song of Roland is the masterpiece of the medieval French heroic epic known as the chanson de geste. Composed around the eleventh century by an unknown author, it is one of the oldest surviving works of French literature and, together with Beowulf and the Nibelungenlied, ranks among the major heroic epics of medieval Europe. The poem is based on the historical event of 778, when Charlemagne campaigned in Spain and his rearguard was ambushed at Roncevaux (called the valley of Ronceval in the epic). After more than a century of oral performance and elaboration by minstrels, it became the story of Charlemagne, emperor of the Franks, campaigning in Spain for seven years while King Marsile holds out in Zaragoza and sends envoys to feign surrender; the peer Ganelon, harboring a grudge over an insult, plots with the enemy and betrays his stepson Roland, so that Roland, Oliver and twelve peers lead the rearguard into an ambush and are overwhelmed and annihilated; Roland sounds his horn to summon help and dies a heroic death. Charlemagne returns, destroys the enemy and takes revenge, and has the traitor Ganelon executed. Written in ten-syllable lines with interwoven assonance and alliteration, the epic has a ringing, plain, forceful rhythm; it celebrates courage, loyalty and feudal obligation while also presenting the conflict between the Christian and pagan worlds, between two civilizations, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. This edition is translated by Ma Zhencheng, a translator of French literature and winner of the first Fu Lei Translation and Publishing Award, and appears in the World Heroic Epic Translation Series.