Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/662

Rh 638 ROMANCE the time of ^Elian this Iliad of Dares, priest of Hephaestus at Troy, was believed to exist. Nothing has since been heard of it ; but an unknown Latin writer living between 400 and 600 took advantage of the tradition to compile what he styled Daretis Phrygii de Excidio Trojx Historia. It is in prose, and professes to be translated from an old Greek manuscript. Of the two works that of Dares is the later, and is inferior to Dictys. The matter-of-fact form of narration recalls the poem of Quintus Smyrnaeus. Both compilations lack literary merit ; the gods and every- thing supernatural are suppressed; even the heroes are degraded. The long success, however, of the two works distinguishes them above all apocryphal writings, and they occupy an important position in literary history on account of the impetus they gave to the diffusion of the Troy legend throughout western Europe. The Byzantine writers from the 7th to the 12th century exalted Dictys as a first- class authority, with whom Homer was only to .be con- trasted as an inventor of fables. Western people preferred Dares, because his history was shorter, and because, favour- ing the Trojans, he flattered the vanity of those who be- lieved that people to have been their ancestors. Many MSS. of both writers were contained in old libraries ; and they were translated into nearly every language and turned into verse. In 1272 a monk of Corbie translated "sans rime L'Estoire de Troiens et de Troie [de Dares] du Latin en Roumans mot a mot " because the Roman de Troie (to be mentioned lower down) was too long. Geoffrey of Waterford put Dares into French prose ; and the British Museum possesses three Welsh MS. translations of the same author, works indeed of a much later period. We know that the taste for Greek letters was never entirely lost in western Europe. Eginhard tells how Charlemagne understood Greek and how he encouraged the study. Alcuin states, with pardonable pride, that the library at York contained " Graecia vel quidquid trans- misit clara Latinis," which may, however, simply refer to Latin translations. Under any circumstances, however, this knowledge must have been confined to a few. It Tfljas through Latin that the Middle Ages knew the ancient world, and in that language read the Pseudo- Dares and Dictys, the Fables of ^Esop, and the Iliad of Homer. 1 Through these translations came many of the traces of Greek literature which occur in the fabliaux and romances. How numerous these traces were in the Arthurian cycle will be pointed out. The tale of the Dog of Montargis, familiar to readers of Milles et Amys (Carolingian cycle), is derived from Plutarch. Cerberus may be found in the Chanson d'Antioche ; the story of Tarquin in the chanson de geste Montage Guillaume ; the judgment of Paris in Foulkes de Candie and Cupid and Psyche in the romance of Parten- opex of Blois. For a thousand years the myth of descent from the dis- persed heroes of the conquered Trojan race was a sacred literary tradition throughout western Europe, of which a possible survival still remains in the popular phrase which speaks of a generous and courageous fellow as a Trojan. The classical traditions of extensive colonization subsequent to the Trojan War were adopted by Western nations at a very early date. The first Franco-Latin chroniclers con- sidered it a patriotic duty to trace their history to the same origin as that of Rome, as told by the Latin poets of the Augustan era ; and in the middle of the 7th century Fredegarius Scholasticus (Rer. Gall. Script., ii. 461) relates how one party of the Trojans settled between the Rhine, 1 The name of Homer never ceased to be held in honour ; but he is invariably placed in company with the Latin poets. Few of those who praised him had read him except in the Latin redaction in 1100 verses which passed under the name of Pindar. It supplied the chief incidents of the Iliad with tolerable exactness and was taught in schools. the Danube, and the sea. In a charter of Dagobert occurs the statement, "ex nobilissimo et antique Trojanoruiu reliquiarum sanguine nati." The fact is repeated by chroniclers and panegyrical writers, who also considmd the History of Troy by Dares to be the first of national books. Succeeding kings imitated their predecessors in giving official sanction to their legendary origin : Charles the Bald, in a charter, uses almost the same words as Dagobert "ex praeclaro et antique Trojanorum sanguine nati." In England a similar tradition had been early formulated, as appears from the Psendo-Nennius (put together between the 7th and 9th centuries) and Geoffrey of Monmouth. Otto Frisingensis (12th century) and other German chroniclers repeat the myth, and the apocryphal hypothesis is echoed in Scandinavian sagas. In the llth century the tale of Troy became the theme of Neo-Latin verse. About 1050 a monk named Bernard wrote De Excidio Trojx, and in the middle of the 12th century Simon Chevre d'Or followed with another poem on the fall of the city and the adventures of ^Eneas, blend- ing the Homeric and Virgilian records. We now come to a work on the same subject in a modern language, which in its own day and for centuries afterwards exercised an extraordinary influence throughout Europe. Benoit de Benoii Sainte-More, the Anglo-Norman trouvere who wrote in Roma verse Chroniques des Dues de Normandie, composed in England, under the eyes of Henry II., about the year 1184 a poem in 30,000 lines entitled Roman de Troie. It forms a true Trojan cycle and embraces the entire heroic history of Hellas. The introduction relates the story of the Argo- nauts, and the last 2680 verses are devoted to the return of the Greek chiefs and the wanderings of Ulysses. With no fear of chronological discrepancy before his eyes, Benoit reproduces the manners of his own times, and builds up a complete museum of the 12th century, its arts, costumes, manufactures, architecture, arms, and even religious terms. Women are repeatedly introduced in unwarranted situa- tions; they are spectators of all combats. The idea of personal beauty is different from that of the old Greeks ; by Benoit good-humour, as well as health and strength, is held to be one of its chief characteristics. The love- pictures are another addition of the modern writer. We find traces of the Odyssey of Homer and the trilogy of ^Eschylus 2 as well as of Ovid and Virgil. The author speaks enthusiastically of Homer, but his chief source of information was the pseudo-annals of Dictys and Dares, more especially the latter, augmented by his own imagina- tion and the spirit of the age. It is to Benoit alone that the honour of poetic invention is due, and in spite of its obligation for a groundwork to Dictys and Dares we may justly consider the Roman de Troie as an original work. From this source subsequent writers drew their notions of Troy, mostly without naming their authority and generally without even knowing his name. This is the chef d'ceuvre of the pseudo- classical cycle of romances: it shows the most lofty conception, and in it poetical imagination has the freest and most lively play. The Roman de Troie was extremely popular. When Benoit, by reason of his lengthi- ness, failed to please, the Latin version of Guido revived general interest. The story passed through every country of Europe, first in verse and then as a prose fiction, and portions of it furnished matter for the genius of Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Shakespeare. The first work inspired by the success of the Roman de Imi' Troie was the De bello Trojano of Joseph of Exeter, in six *j* books, a genuine poem of no little merit, written soon after Benoit's work or about the years 1187-88. It was directly 2 The Middle Ages had their Latin Oresteia, see Orestis Tragcedia, carmen epicum seculo post Christum natum sexto compositum, ed. S. Schenkl, Prague, 1867, 8vo.