Author Description

In medieval Britain, the works of Homer were practically unknown. In his absence, the half-remembered story of the Trojan War took on a distinctly Arthurian flavour, with the heroes Achilles and Hector reimagined as armoured knights on horseback, duelling with broadsword and lance. In the sixth and final volume of this series, editor D. M. Smith presents a selection of excerpts from three Middle English long poems, all of which contain stories from or references to the Trojan War, but not in a proportion that would have justified a complete translation. Included are eighteen tales from Confessio Amantis by John Gower (c. 1390), two from The Fall of Princes by John Lydgate (c. 1438), and a lengthy excerpt from the Chronicle of Robert Mannyng (c. 1338) describing the mythical founding of Britain by Brutus of Troy, a descendant of Aeneas. Also included is the extant text of The Scottish Troy Book: a fragmentary and anonymous work discovered in the mid-nineteenth century preserved within two Scottish manuscripts of John Lydgate's Troy Book. Some 3,700 lines survive of this mysterious and unique poem, representing a lost Middle Scots translation of Guido delle Colonne's Historia Destructionis Troiae (c. 1287). All four texts have been fully annotated, and are presented in a sensitive Modern English translation which respects the original rhyme and metre, allowing them to continue to be enjoyed as works of poetry, the way their medieval authors intended.