The Fall of Troy was one of the most popular subjects of mediaeval
story. Lydgate wrote a _Troy Book_ about 1420; fragments of another are
attributed to 'Barbour', whose identity with the author of _The Bruce_
has been questioned; a third version, anonymous, is known as the _Laud
Troy Book_; and Caxton chose as the first work to be printed in English
the _Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye_ (about 1474). More famous than
any of these full histories are two single stories detached from the
cycle: Jason's Quest of the Golden Fleece, which is admirably told by
Gower in the fifth book of his _Confessio Amantis_; and the Love of
Troilus and Cressida, which gave a theme both to Chaucer and to
Shakespeare.
The _Gest Hystoriale of the Destruction of Troy_, from which our
extracts are taken, is a free rendering of the prose _Historia Troiana_
finished in 1287 by Guido de Columna (most probably the modern Terranova
in Sicily). The translation, which appears to have been made in the
North or North-West Midlands in the second half of the fourteenth
century, is preserved only in an imperfect fifteenth-century MS. at the
Hunterian Museum, Glasgow. In the Early English Text Society's print,
edited by Panton and Donaldson, the text extends to over 14,000 lines.
The table of contents prefixed to the MS. promises '_the nome of the
knight þat causet it_ [sc. _the story_] _to be made, and the nome of hym
that translatid it out of Latyn into Englysshe_'; but the extant MS.
does not fulfil the promise. The execution suggests a set task and a
journeyman poet. Phrases are repeated carelessly; there is a great deal
of padding; the versification is monotonous; and the writer is too often
at the mercy of the alliteration to maintain a serious level. Yet he is
not a slavish or a dull translator. The more romantic elements of the
story, such as the matter of the _Odyssey_, had already been whittled
away in his original, and he shows little desire or capacity to restore
them. But he knew as well as the Old English poets the forcefulness of
alliterative verse in scenes of violence, and describes with unflagging
zest and vigour the interminable battles of the siege, and storms such
as that which wrecked the fleet of Ajax.
The Prologue is a curious example of the pseudo-critical attitude of the
Middle Ages. Homer is despised as a teller of impossible tales, and a
partisan of the Greeks,—for Hector is the popular hero of the mediaeval
versions. The narratives of Dares Phrygius and Dictys Cretensis,
products of the taste for fictitious history that spread westward from
Greek-speaking lands in the fourth and following centuries, are accepted
as reliable documents; and Guido de Columna as their authoritative
literary interpreter. No mention is made of Benoît de Sainte-Maure,
whose _Roman de Troie_, written in French about 1184, served as source
to Guido, and, directly or indirectly, as inspiration to the whole body
of Western writers who dealt with the 'Matter of Troy'. For these lapses
the English translator need not be held responsible. On the merits of
Homer, Dares, Dictys, and Guido de Columna, he probably accepted without
question the word of his master Guido.