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V.—The Sege of Troye

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Extract

The hitherto unpublished English version of the Trojan war entitled The Sege of Troye exists in the unique Oxford ms., Rawlinson D 82. The Sege of Troye occupies second position in the manuscript, being preceded by a brief prose redaction of Statius’Thebaid and followed by an extract from Gower's Confessio Amantis. The version in question is an anonymous prose text of the fifteenth century, written in the Southern dialect. The story, which is told in simple, almost naive, language, and in a brisk, lively fashion, opens with the Argonautic Expedition and ends with the Destruction of Troy.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1907

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References

page 157 note 1 The redaction of Statius’ Thebaid, entitled The Sege of Thebes, extends from fol. 1a to fol. 10a; The Sege of Troye, from fol. 11a to fol. 24b; the extract from Gower's Confessio Amantis, entitled The Court of Venus, from fol. 25a to fol. 34a. The Court of Venus opens with v. 2377 of the eighth book of the Confessio Amantis (ed. G. C. Macaulay, E. E. T. S., ex. ser., lxxxii) and extends, with the omission of the lines to Chaucer (vv. 2941–2959), to v. 2970.

page 157 note 2 Evidence that The Sege of Troye was written in the fifteenth century is to be found in the appearance of aphetic forms, such as crece (175, 14), longing (187, 32), lighting (194, 25), like (195, 22); of double consonants after a short vowel, as in goddis (179, 35), shippes (183, 5), fressh (188, 33), ravesshing (190, 3), and grettest (194, 34); in the survival of the strong conjugation in flowe (180, 32); of intervocalic d in fader (177, 23), togidre (179, 23), weder (188, 14); in the concurrence of the adverbial endings es and st in myddes (184, 22) and ayenst (175, 24); of s and ce in adverbs and nouns of French extraction, such as hens (176, 29), thens (187, 28), malis (176, 13), licens (179, 30), and licence (176, 17), defence (179, 20), avice (181, 13); of h and th in the third person pronoun (cf. p. 1, note 3); and of early and late French formations, such as aventur (180, 1), avice (181, 13) and aduerting (174, 22).

page 157 note 3 The dialect of The Sege of Troye is shown to be Southern by the appearance of as representative of W. G. in londe (175, 32), holding (189, 16), won (189, 26) and stone (199, 26); of as representative of the i-umlaut of O. E. u in lust (177, 2); of ē as representative of O. E. éa in sle (183, 2), sleing (183, 23); of ch as representative of O. E. ĉ in eueryche (180, 28), moche (189, 29); of O. E. th in writeth (174, 4), axeth (196/23); of O. E. n in the infinitive, benM, (175, 7; 185,16), and in the preterit plurals, werenM (174, 8), tokenM (177, 5); of the third person pronoun here (177, 5), her (178, 8) and hem (178, 7); and of the plurals, childerenM (185, 24), and breenM 182, 10).

page 157 note 1 All references to Guido are made to the Strassburg 1486 impression of the Historia Trojana.

page 157 note 1 The number of books found in the Strassburg 1486 impression. The numbering differs in different impressions,

page 157 note 1 Such as Guido's reflections upon the sudden passion of Medea for Jason (a 5 vers. 1, 37-a 6 rect. 1, 31) and of Helen for Paris (d 3 rect. 2, 32-d 3, vers. 1, 41), and upon Jason's faithlessness to Medea (b 1 rect. 1, 1–2, 15); and his disquisitions upon the origin of various proper names (a 1 vers. 1, 28–2, 28; a 3 vers. 2, 14-a 4 rect. 1, 17), upon the golden image of Apollo (e 4 vers. 1, 34–2, 43), and the beginnings of idolatry (e 5 rect. 1, 1-e 6 rect. 2, 23), etc.

page 157 note 2 He reduces, for example, Guido's innumerable speeches to four and his nineteen distinct engagements to six. The speeches of Antenor to Peleus, Telamon, Castor and Pollux, and Nestor (c 3 vers. 1, 38-c 4 vers. 1, 22), of Deiphobus, Helenus, and Troilus to Priam (d 1 rect. 1, 19-d 2 rect. 2, 43), of Priam to the Trojan princes (d 2 vers. 1, 26–2, 21), and of Agamemnon to the Greek leaders (e 3 vers. 2, 28-e 4 rect. 2, 22) are omitted outright. All the others are greatly abridged. Only in two instances does the translator introduce additional speeches of his own. Thus he makes Jason repeat to Peleus (181, 30–182, 4) the account of the indignities sustained by the Argonauts at the hands of Laomedon already related (176, 7–177, 2), in accordance with Guido (a 4 vers. 2, 32-a 5 rect. 1, 3), and represents (187, 20–24) Hector as addressing to Paris a portion of the speech which in Guido (c 5 vers. 2, 14-c 6 rect. 2, 15) he directed entirely to Priam.

page 157 note 3 Cases of close verbal parallelism are not infrequent. The English “viol” (179, 21) translates the Latin “fialam” (b 1 vers. 2, 19); the English “e withholding” (186, 19), the Latin “detentar” (c 3 vers. 2, 13); “restitucion“(186, 36), the Latin “restitutione” (c 4 rect. 2, 19); “if hit lust you” (187, 26), “si placet” (c 6 rect. 2, 36); “in a poer sowdiours array” (195, 34), “inermis” (k 2 vers. 1, 18).

page 157 note 1 Thus in the English text (179, 19–20) Medea does not, as in Guido (b 1, vers. 2, 21–22), instruct Jason to anoint himself with a certain salve when about to encounter the bulls, but performs this office for him herself prior to his departure for the isle of the Golden Fleece; Jason (180, 3–5) does not set forth to the isle alone, as in Guido (b 2, rect. 1, 34–38), but is attended by Hercules and other companions; Hercules (182, 5–11), instead of going of his own accord to report to Telamon, Castor, Pollux, and Nestor the injuries sustained by the Argonauts at the hands of Laomedon (b 3, vers. 2, 3–8), is sent on that errand by Peleus; the name Pylos (182, 11) is applied by the English redactor to Nestor, not, as in Guido (b 4, rect. 1, 25–28), to the kingdom of Nestor; the Greeks (182, 15), about to depart on their first expedition against Troy, assemble “in a faire grene playne,” not, as in Guido (b 4, rect. 2, 13–14), at the port of Thessaly “cum … virent prata variorum florum coloribus illustrata”; after the Greeks have landed at Simois, Castor (182, 29) advances against Troy while Peleus (183, 16–17) remains behind by the ships, whereas in Guido (b 4, vers. 2, 41–43) the case is exactly reversed; in the English text it is Hercules (183, 4), not Peleus (b 4, vers. 1, 38–2, 2), who promises rich booty to the Greeks in case they capture the city; it is Castor (183, 10–13), not Nestor (b 5, rect. 1, 26–2, 10), who is the first to engage the Trojans, and Telamon, not Nestor, who comes to the rescue; finally, Hercules (183, 22) does not, as in Guido (b 5, rect. 2, 8–22), slay Laomedon unaided, but with the assistance of other Greeks; though a mistaken identification of Hector's dead body with a golden statue of Hector (i 6, vers. 1, 40–2, 2), the English redactor is led (196, 5–7) to represent the body, not the statue, as gazing “fresshly and sternely” upon the beholder “with sword drawne in honde”; Achilles (198, 4–5) is slain by an unnamed warrior “vnder fote,” not, as in Guido (1 3, vers. 2, 26–28; 1 4, rect. 1, 3–5), by Paris and his attendants.

page 157 note 1 Thus the devilish origin of the dragon's teeth was unquestionably suggested by the Christian tradition with regard to the seed of Cain (cf. O. F. Emerson, Modern Lang. Publ., xxi, No. 4, 1906, pp. 831 ff.); the story of the fate that overtook Medea and her children is, of course, told by Euripides; and mention of Polydorus as a son of Priam is made by Virgil, Aen., iii, 43, and Dictys, ii, 20, 22, 27. From what source the author derived his notion that Ganymede was also a son of Priam it is not possible to determine. According to one tradition (Cicero, Tusc., i, 22, Euripides, Troad., 822), Ganymede was son to Laomedon, from whom the transfer to Priam might easily have been accomplished.

page 157 note 2 All other English versions of the story of Troy are derived either from Benoît or Guido or both. From Benoît come The Seege of Troye, ed. C. H. Wager, New York, 1899, and the Troy materials in Gower's Confessio Amantis, ed, G. C. Macaulay, 1901, E. E. T. S., ex. ser., lxxxi, lxxxii; from Guido The Gest Historiale of the Destruction of Troy, ed. Panton and Donaldson, 1869 and 1874, E. E. T. S., xxxix and lvi, the two anonymous metrical fragments formerly ascribed to Barbour, ed. K. Horstmann, 1886, “Barbour's des schott. Nationaldichters Legendensammlung,” ii, 217 ff., Lydgate's Troy Book, now in process of preparation for the E. E. T. S., and the anonymous poem contained in ms. Laud 595, ed. J. E. Wülfing, 1902–3, E. E. T. S., cxxi, cxxii; and from both these authors Chaucer derived the materials which he used, to supplement Boccaccio, in his Troilus and Criseyde. Vid. E. T. Granz, 1888, “Ueber die Quellengemeinschaft des me. Gedichtes Seege oder Batayle of Troye u. des mhd. Gedichtes vom troj. Kriege des Konrad von Würzburg” and Wager, “The Seege of Troye,” p. xli ff.; G. L. Hamilton, 1905, “Gower's Use of the Enlarged Roman de Troie,” Modern Language Publications, xx, 179 ff.; W. Boch, 1883, “Zur Destruction of Troy,” pp. 5 ff., and H. Brandes, 1885, “Die me. Destruction of Troy u. ihre Quelle,” Englische Studien, viii, 398 ff.; G. L. Hamilton, 1903, a note on Lydgate's sources, “Chaucer's Indebtedness to Guido delle Colonne,” p. 14, note 1; D. Kempe, 1901, “A Middle English Tale of Troy,” Englische Studien, xxix, 1 ff., and E. Wülfing, “Das Laud Troy book,” ibid., 374 ff.; J. W. Broatch, 1898, “The Indebtedness of Chaucer's Troilus to Benoît's Roman,” Journal of Germanic Philology, ii, No. 1, 14 ff., and Hamilton, op. cit., passim.

page 157 note 1 Thus Guido derived the main substance of his Historia from Benoît de Ste. More, who, in his turn, based the earlier portion of his Roman de Troie upon Dares, the later portion upon Dictys.

page 157 note 2 In both instances Dares is cited in immediate conjunction with Guido, first (174, 2) as authority for the story of Jason and Pelleus, and secondly (199, 32) for the story of the Return of the Greeks. Since Dares (cap. i) devotes but a few lines to the story of Jason and Pelleus and says nothing whatsoever of the Return of the Greeks, it is quite evident that the English author has simply borrowed his Dares citations from Guido who cites that author constantly.

page 157 note 3 Ed. F. Meister, Leipsic, 1873.

page 157 note 1 Benoît abandons his earlier source, Dares, before the point at which that historian ends and relates (Roman de Troie, vv. 24329–30108) the story of the Capture and Destruction of Troy, as well as of the Return of the Greeks, according to Dictys.

page 157 note 2 The present writer has as yet made no search for a possible French original, but he hopes to do so in the near future.

page 157 note 3 Viz., from Raoul Lefevre's Recueil des Histoires de Troie.

page 157 note 4 Although English authors down to the time of Lydgate constantly cite Dares, it is clear that, with the exception of Joseph of Exeter who wrote in Latin, no one of them ever possessed a first hand acquaintance with that author but that each of them derived his knowledge of the earlier historian only through the medium of Benoît and Guido. Only in the case of the author of The Seege or Batayle of Troye has any attempt been made to demonstrate a direct acquaintance with Dares. Zietsch's contention in favor of this position (op. cit., p. 10, note 5) has, however, been sufficiently refuted by Granz and Wager (op. cit. ibid).

page 157 note 1 P. Meyer (Romania, xiv, 42) quotes the opening portion of a French prose translation of Dares contained in a fourteenth century compilation of ancient history (ms. Bibl. Nat., fr. 12586.)

page 157 note 2 Other French words are, accorded (198, 24); achewe (175, 9); aggreued (176, 23); apese (190, 8); askope (200, 6); assay (191, 10); assent (179, 1); asstonyed (196, 8); avayle (178, 2); aventur (185, 1); avice (175, 25); avised (177, 33); batail (183, 2); causes (177, 26); certefying (189, 26); chambr (181, 15); charge (177, 34); chef (190, 16); chere (177, 9); colored (195, 23); comons (198, 26); compasse (184, 21); compassed (174, 25); conceyving (175, 15); conseruing (195, 14); corage (183, 10); crece (175, 14); damage (198, 24); demenyng (188, 34); despite (184, 7); disconfite (183, 16); disconfitur (194, 24); disporte (177, 9); eir (180, 21); enprice (178, 20); ensurans (179, 10); ensured (178, 30); entent (178, 33); ese (185, 32); feld (195, 6); fers (183, 16); fortune (188, 16); fortuned (189, 26); gise (176, 17); grisfull (180, 12); infortune (176, 25); inspexionM (175, 34); labored (176, 8); laboure (176, 11); leysour (181, 19); licence (176, 17); malis (176, 14); maner (178, 9); mased (184, 2); menys (178, 31); meued (187, 7); meyne (180, 33); moustred (182, 15); mysplesed (187, 2); nevowe (174, 24); noyse (194, 30); ordeyning (195, 10); ordenaunce (188, 11); paas (180, 12); part (192, 5); party (198, 11); passedenM (183, 23); passing (177, 13); perauenture (183, 3); perfite (174, 9); performed (185, 10); peyne (194, 16); playne (183, 29); plesaunce (177, 11); poynte (189, 15); prece (196, 11); preue (182, 24); priuely (179, 18); prosses (199, 33); pursute (190,16); purveied (191, 29); rased (180, 25); releve (192, 16); reme (174, 9); remeve (176, 18); repaired (190, 14); repreue (178, 23); resonable (174, 9); rial (174, 12); simple (187, 33); sotel (184, 19); sowdiours(195, 34); strange (176, 31); terme (192, 26); trete (192, 15); vengeable (186, 16); vitaile (188, 11); volunte (193, 29); werre (176, 17); yssed (183, 10).

page 157 note 1 Vid. F. H. Sykes, French Elements in Middle English, Oxford, 1899, p. 52.

page 157 note 2 Ibid., p. 60.

page 157 note 3 Edited by W. T. Cully, Early English Text Society, ex. ser., lvii.

page 157 note 4 Ibid., p. 18.

page 157 note 5 Ibid., p. 46.

page 157 note 1 Although the employment of doublets occurs in original as well as in translated texts, it is quite possible that the practice may, in part at least have originated and it is certain that it prevailed more generally in the latter case than in the former. Thus as a general rule doublets occur less frequently in original works, as the Hymn of Caedmon and the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (examined by O. F. Emerson, Modern Language Notes, 1893, pp. 403 ff.), than in translations, as the Alfredian Bede (cf. J. M. Hart, An English Miscellany, Oxford, 1901), the Romaunt of the Rose (cf. Kittredge, Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, i, 61 ff.), Berner's translation of Froissart (cf. W. P. Ker, Studies in Mediæval Literature, p. 165), and the Book of Common Prayer (cf. Emerson, op. cit., p. 407). Caxton in his translations from the French regularly renders one French word by two English synonym us. In the Eneydos (E. E. T. S., ex. ser., lvii), for example, “la force troyanne” is translated “the force and the strengthe of the troyians” (13, 9); “peu de dommaige,” “lytyl damage and hurte” (13, 12); “magnifeste,” “shewe and manyfeste” (19, 27); “dabbandoner,” “to habandonne and leve” (29,4); “naissance,” “nayssaunce and byrthe” (27, 1); “chacer,” “chasse and hunte” (51, 36); “prins en grant hayne,” “hate and haue enuye” (68, 7). Moreover, this practice of writing doublets abounds, as we know, in Old French (cf. R. Grosse, “Der Stil Crestien's von Trojes,” Französische Studien, i, 238; F. Heinrich, “Ueber den stil von Guillaume de Lorris und Jean de Meung,” Ausgabe u. Abhandlungen, xxix, 42, and Caxton himself frequently retains these French doublets as when he translates “rompu, viole, ne brise,” “rented, vyolated ne broken” (En., 36, 33); “construed, edyfyed, and made” (ibid., 59, 19); and “voulu subinger a servir et soubzmectre,” “subdued and submitted herself” (ibid., 111, 20). While, therefore, there can be no doubt that the practice of using doublets had from very early times become a recognized feature of native style—Caxton, for example, making free use of them in his original preface to Lefevre's Recueil, as well as in his translation of that work—and may have been originally employed, as Dr. G. P. Krapp of Columbia has suggested, by pulpit orators, it is nevertheless clear that the effort of the translator to find a word adequate to render his original frequently resulted in the employment of doublets and that the conspicuous presence of this phenomenon in The Sege of Troye may therefore be regarded as one among the many indications of his use of a French source.

page 157 note 1 Ms. verry.

page 157 note 2 Ms. heuenM.

page 157 note 1 Ms. or.

page 157 note 1 ms. oyment.

page 157 note 1 Ms. and.

page 157 note 1 Half of fol. 20a and the whole of fol. 20b are blank.

page 157 note 1 Ms. made.

page 157 note 1 Ms. the.

page 157 note 1 Ms. made.

page 157 note 1 ms. desiroes.