366 THE HELLISH WEDDING.-THEBAID OF A TROUBADOUR. MEGERA and THESIPHONEE, ALECTO eke: with LABOUR, and ENVIE, All these folkes were at weddyng new : : The bare conception of the attendance of this allegorical groupe on these incestuous espousals, is highly poetical and although some of the personifications are not presented with the addition of any picturesque attributes, yet others are marked with the powerful pencil of Chaucer. This poem is the THEBAID of a troubadour. The old classical tale of Thebes is here cloathed with feudal manners, enlarged with new fictions of the Gothic species, and furnished with the descriptions, circumstances, and machineries, appropriated to a romance of chivalry. The Sphinx is a terrible dragon, placed by a necromancer to guard a mountain, and to murther all travellers passing by. Tydeus being wounded sees a castle on a rock, whose high towers and crested pinnacles of polished stone glitter by the light of the moon: he gains admittance, is laid in a sumptuous bed of cloth of gold, and healed of his wounds by a king's daughters. Tydeus and Polymite tilt at midnight for a lodging, before the gate of the palace, of King Adrastus; who is awakened with the din of the strokes of their weapons, which shake all the palace, and descends into the court with a long train by torch-light: he orders the two combatants to be disarmed and cloathed in rich mantles studded with pearls; and they are conducted to repose by many a stairtoa stately tower, after being served with a refection of hypocras from golden goblets. The next day they are both espoused to the king's two daughters, and entertained with tournaments, feasting, revels, and masques. Afterwards Tydeus, having a message to deliver to Eteocles king of Thebes, enters the hall of the royal palace, completely armed and on horseback, in the midst of a magnificent festival10. This palace, 7 Pag. 627, col. 2, pag. 635, col. 2. 3 Burning. 5'Oaths which proved false in the end." 8 Pag. 640, col. 2, seq. 9 Pag. 633, col. 1, seq. Concerning the dresses, perhaps in the masques, we have this line. And the DEVISE of many a SOLEIN WEDE 10 Pag. 637, col. 2. like a Norman fortress, or feudal castle, is guarded with barbicans, portcullisses, chains, and fosses1. Adrastus wishes to close his old age in the repose of rural diversions, of hawking and hunting2. The situation of Polymite, benighted in a solitary wilderness, is thus forcibly described. Holding his way, of herte nothing light, Ne, him to shrowde, saw no where no succour, When Oedipus consults concerning his kindred the oracle of Apollo, whose image stood on a golden chariot with four wheels burned bright and sheen, animated with a fiend, the manner in which he receives his answer is touched with spirit and imagination. And when Edipus by great devotion The fiend anon, within invisible, In this poem, exclusive of that general one already mentioned, there are some curious mixtures of manners, and of classics and scripture. The nativity of Oedipus at his birth is calculated by the most learned astronomers and physicians. Eteocles defends the walls of Thebes with great guns. And the priests Amphiorax, or Ampharus, is styled a bishop, whose wife is also mentioned. At a council held at Thebes, concerning the right of succession to the throne, Esdras and Solomon are cited: and the history of Nehemiah rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem is introduced1o. The moral intended by this calamitous tale consists in shewing the pernicious effects of war: the diabolical nature 2 Pag. 635, col. 1. 3 Afraid. Fatigued. 4 Pag. 631, col. 2. 6 Pag. 625, col. 1. 1 Pag. 644, col. 2. Pag. 626, col. 2. 7 Pag. 644, col. 2. Great and small, and some as large as tonnes. 8 As in Chaucer Pag. 645, col. 1. 10 Pag. 636, col. I. 368 LYDGATE'S TROY BOKE, AND HISTORY THEREOF. of which our author still further illustrates by observing, that discord received its origin in hell, and that the first battle ever fought was that of Lucifer and his legion of rebel angels1. But that the argument may have the fullest confirmation, Saint Luke is then quoted to prove, that avarice, ambition, and envy, are the primary sources of contention; and that Christ came into the world to destroy these malignant principles, and to propagate universal charity. At the close of the poem, the mediation of the holy virgin is invoked, to procure peace in this life, and salvation in the next. Yet it should be rememembered, that this piece is written by a monk, and addressed to pilgrims2. THE third of Lydgate's poems which I proposed to consider, is the TROY BOKE, or the DESTRUCTION OF TROY. It was first printed at the command of king Henry VIII., in the year 1513, by Richard Pinson, with this title, ‘THE HYSTORY SEGE AND DESTRUCCION OF Troye. The table or rubrisshe of the content of the chapitres, &c. Here after foloweth the TROYE BOKE, otherwise called the SEGE OF TROYE, Translated by JOHN LYDGATE monke of Bury, and emprynted at the 'commaundement of oure souveraygne lorde the kynge Henry the eighth, 'by Richarde Pinson, &c. the yere of our lorde god a M.CCCCC.and XIII3? Another, and a much more correct edition followed, by Thomas Marshe under the care of one John Braham, in the year 15554. It was begun in the year 1414, the last year of the reign of king Henry IV. It was written at that prince's command, and is dedicated to his successor. It was finished in the year 1420. In the Bodleian library there is a MSS. of this poem elegantly illuminated, with the picture of a monk 1 Pag. 660, col. 1. 2 Lydgate was near fifty when this poem was written, pag. 622, col. 2. 3 Among other curious decorations in the title page, there are soldiers firing great guns at the city of Troy. Caxton, in his RECUYLE OF THE HYSTORYES OF TROVE, did not translate the account of the final destruction of the city from his French author Rauol le Feure, for as muche as that worshipfull and religious man Dan John Lydgate monke of Burye did 'translate it but late, after whose worke I feare to take upon me, &c.' At the end of B. ii. 4 With this title. The auncient historie, and only true and syncere chronicle, of the warres 'betwixte the Grecians and the Troyans, and subsequently of the fyrst evercyon of the aun'cient and famouse cyte of Troye under Laomedon the king, and of the last and fynall 'destructyon of the same under Pryam: wrytten by Daretus a Troyan and Dictus a Grecian, 'both souldiours and present at and in all the sayd warres, and digested in Latyn by the 'learned Guydo de Columpnis, and sythes translated into Englyshe verse by John Lydgate moncke of Burye and newly imprinted.' The colophon, Imprinted at London in Flete'strete at the sygne of the Princes Armes by Thomas Marshe. Anno. do. M.D.L.V.' This book was modernised, and printed in five-lined stanzas, under the title, 'THE Life and 'DEATH OF HECTOR, &c. written by John Lydgate monk of Berry, &c. At London, printed 'by Thomas Purfoot. Anno Dom. 1614,' fol. But I suspect this to be a second edition. 'Princip. In Thessalie king Peleus once did raigne.' Farmer's ESSAY, p. 39, 49, edit. 1767. This spurious TROYE-LOKE is cited by Fuller, Winstanley, and others, as Lydgate's genuine work. presenting a book to a king1. From the splendour of the decorations, it appears to be the copy which Lydgate gave to Henry V. This poem is professedly a translation or paraphrase of Guido de Colonna's romance, entitled HISTORIA TROJANA2. But whether from Colonna's original Latin, or from a French version3 mentioned in Lydgate's Prologue, and which existed soon after the year 1300, I cannot ascertain. I have before observed, that Colonna formed his Trojan History from Dares Phrygius and Dictys Cretensis"; who perpetually occur as authorities in Lydgate's translation. Homer is however referred to in this work; particularly in the catalogue, or enumeration, of the ships which brought the several Grecian leaders with their forces to the Trojan coast. It begins thus, on the testimony of Colonna". Myne auctor telleth how Agamamnon, The worthi kynge, an hundred shippis brought. And is closed with these lines. Full many shippes was in this navye, Of Grekes shippes maketh mencion, In another place Homer, notwithstanding all his rhetoryke and sugred eloquence, his lusty songes and dytees swete, is blamed as a prejudiced writer, who favours the Greeks: a censure, which flowed 1 MSS. Digb. 232. 2 Princip. Licet cotidie vetera recentioribus obruantur.' 3 Of a Spanish version, by Petro Nunez Degaldo, see Nic. Anton. Bibl. Hispan. tom. ii. P. 179 Yet he says, having finished his version, B. v. Signat. EE. i. I have no more of Latin to translate, After Dytes, Dares, and Guydo. Again, he despairs of translating Guido's Latin elegantly. B. ii. c. x. B. iii. Sign. R. iii. 6 As Colonna's book is extremely scarce, and the subject interesting, I will translate a few lines from Colonna's Prologue and Postscript. From the Prologue. 'These things, originally written by the Grecian Dictys and the Phrygian Dares, (who were present in the Trojan war, and faithful relators of what they saw,) are transferred into this book by Guido, of Colonna, a judge. And although a certain Roman, Cornelius by name, the nephew of the great Sallustius, translated Dares and Dictys into Latin; yet, attempting to be concise, he has very improperly omitted those particulars of the history, which would have proved most agreeable to the 'reader. In my own book therefore every article belonging to the Trojan story will be comprehended. And in his Postscript. 'And I Guido de Colonna have followed the said Dictys in every particular; for this reason, because Dictys made his work perfect and com'plete in everything. And I should have decorated this history with more metaphors and ornaments of style, and by incidental digressions, which are the pictures of composition. 'But deterred by the difficulty of the work, &c.' Guido has indeed made Dictys nothing more than the ground-work of his story. All this is translated in Lydgate's Prologue. 4 7 From Dict. Cretens. lib. i. c. xvii. p. 17. seq. edit. Dacer. Amstel. 1702. 4to. And Dar. Phryg. cap. xiv. p. 158. ibid. There is a very ancient edition of Dares in 4to, without name or place. Of Dictys at Milan, 1477. 4to. Dares is in German, with cuts, by Marcus Tatiust August. Vindel. 1536. fol. Dictys, by John Herold, at Basil, 1554. Both in Russian, a Moscow, 1712. 8vo. 8 B. ii. c. xvi. B. iv. c. xxxi. And in the PROLOGUE, Virgil is censured for following the traces of 370 HOMER WAS LITTLE KNOWN IN THE MIDDLE AGES. from the favorite and prevailing notion held by the western nations of their descent from the Trojans. Homer is also said to paint with colours of gold and azure1. A metaphor borrowed from the fashionable art of illumining. I do not however suppose, that Colonna, who flourished in the middle of the thirteenth century, had ever seen Homer's poems: he might have known these and many other particulars, contained in the Iliad, from those factitious historians whom he professes to follow. Yet it is not, in the mean time, impossible, that Lydgate might have seen the Iliad, at least in a Latin translation. Leontius Pilatus, already mentioned, one of the learned Constantinopolitan exiles, had translated the Iliad into Latin prose, with part of the Odyssey, at the desire of Boccacio2, about the year 1360. This appears from Petrarch's Epistles to his friend Boccacio3: in which, among other curious circumstances, the former requests Boccacio to send him to Venice that part of Leontius's new Latin version of the Odyssey, in which Ulysses's descent into hell, and the vestibule of Erebus, are described. He wishes also to see, how Homer, blind and an Asiatic, had described the lake of Averno and the mountain of Circe. In another part of these letters, he acknowledges the receipt of the Latin Homer; and mentions with how much satisfaction and joy the report of its arrival in the public library at Venice was received, by all the Greek and Latin scholars of that city. The Iliad was also translated into French verse, by Jacques Milet, a licentiate of laws, about the year 14305. Yet I cannot believe that Lydgate had ever consulted these translations, although he had travelled in France and Italy. One may venture to pronounce peremptorily, that he did not understand, as he probably never had seen, the original. After the migration of the Roman emperors to Greece, Boccacio was the first European that could read Homer; nor was there perhaps a copy of either of Homer's poems existing in Europe, till about the time the Greeks were driven by the Turks from Constantinople. Long after Boccacio's time, the knowledge of the Greek HOMERIS style, in other respects a true writer. We have the same complaint in our author's FALL OF PRINCIS. See supr. And in Chaucer's HOUSE OF FAME, Colonna is introduced, among other authors of the Trojan story, making this objection to Homer's veracity. B. iii. p. 468. col. 1. v. 389. Urr. edit. One saied that OMERE made lies, 1 B. iv. c. xxxi. Signat. X. ii. And feinyng in his poetries; 2 It is a slight error in Vigneul Marville, that this translation was procured by Petrarch. Mel. Litt, tom. i. p. 21. The author of MEMOIRES POUR LA VIE DE PETRARQUE, is mistaken in saying that Hody supposes this version to have been made by Petrarch himself, liv. vi. tom, iii. p, 633. On the contrary, Hody has adjusted this matter with great perspicuity, and from the best authorities. DE GREC. ILLUSTR. lib. i. c. 1. p. 2. seq. 3 SENIL. lib. iii. Cap. 5. 4 Hody, upi supr. p. 5. 6. 7. 9. The Latin Iliad in prose was published under the name of Laurentius Valla, with some slight alterations, in 1497. 5 Mem. de Litt. xvii. p. 761. ed. 4to. 6 Boccat. GENEAL. DEOR. xv. 6. 7. Theodorus archbishop of Canterbury in the seventh century brought from Rome into England a manuscript of Homer; which is now said to be in Bennet library at Cambridge. See the SECOND DISSERTATION. In it is written with a modern hand, Hic liber quondam THEODORI_archiepiscopi Cant. But probably this Theodore is THEODORE Gaza, whose book, or whose transcript, it might have been. Hody, ubi supr. Lib. i. c. 3. p. 59. 60. |