The task has never before been essayed, and certainly, now that it has been done for the first time, it is good to know that it has been done surpassingly well.
To find the original story-expression of a nation's myths, its legends, and its heroic creations is a high joy--a face-to-face interview with any great first-thing is a big experience; but to come upon whole scores of undefiled fountains is like multiplying the Pierian waters.
Even as all the epics herein collected in scenario were epoch-making, so will the gathering of these side by side prove to be.

Literary judgments must be comparative, and now we may place each epic in direct comparison with any other, with a resultant light, both diffused and concentrated, for the benefit of both critics and the general reader.
The delights of conversation--so nearly, alas, a lost art!--consist chiefly in the exchange of varied views on single topics.

So, when we note how the few primal story-themes and plot developments of all time were handled by those who first told the tales in literate form, the satisfaction is proportionate.
One final word must be said regarding the interest of epical material.
Heretofore a knowledge of the epics--save only a few of the better known--has been confined to scholars, or, at most, students; but it may well be hoped that the wide perusal of this book may serve to show to the general reader how fascinating a store of fiction may be found in epics which have up till now been known to him only by name.
J.Berg Esenwein CONTENTS Introduction by J.Berg Esenwein Foreword Greek Epics The Iliad The Odyssey Latin Epics The Aeneid French Epics The Song of Roland Aucassin and Nicolette Spanish Epics The Cid Portuguese Epics The Lusiad Italian Epics Divine Comedy The Inferno Purgatory Paradise The Orlandos Gerusalemme Liberata, or Jerusalem Delivered Epics of the British Isles Beowulf The Arthurian Cycle Robin Hood The Faerie Queene Paradise Lost Paradise Regained German Epics The Nibelungenlied Story of the Holy Grail Epics of the Netherlands Scandinavian Epics The Volsunga Saga Russian and Finnish Epics The Kalevala, or the Land of Heroes Epics of Central Europe and of the Balkan Peninsula Hebrew and Early Christian Epics Arabian and Persian Epics The Shah-Nameh, or Epic of Kings Indian Epics The Ramayana The Mahabharata Chinese and Japanese Poetry American Epics Index ILLUSTRATIONS Odin Bids Farewell to Brunhild before He Surrounds Her by a Barrier of Fire (Frontispiece) From the painting by Th.

Pixis Oedipus Solving the Sphinx's Riddle From the painting by Ingres Achilles Disguised as a Girl Testing the Sword in Ulysses' Pack From the painting by Battoni Circe and Ulysses' Companions Turned into Swine By L.Chalon Venus Meeting Aeneas and Achates Near Carthage From the painting by Cortona Roland at Roncevaux From the painting by L.F.

Guesnet The Palace Where Inez de Castro Lived and was Murdered Dante Interviewing Hugues Capet From an illustration by R.Galli Hermione Finds Tancred Wounded From the painting by Nicolas Poussin The Body of Elaine on its Way to King Arthur's Palace By Gustave Dora Una and the Red Cross Knight From the painting by George Frederick Watts The Heralds Summon Lucifer's Host to a Council at Pandemonium By Gustave Dore The Dead Sigfried Rome Back to Worms From the painting by Th.