676 THE SURVIVAL OF CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY
THE TROJAN LEGEND IN THE MIDDLE AGES
A different romantic tradition is embraced by the medieval versions of the Tro-
jan legend. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a number of epic ro-
mances were composed with classical themes. The most influential of these was
the Roman de Troie by Benoît de Ste. Maure, a 30,000-line romance written around- In scope it extends from the Argonautic expedition through the founding
and destruction of Troy to the death of Odysseus. Benoît was using two Latin
prose versions of the Trojan legend as his sources. The first, by Dictys Creten-
sis, describes the war and the returns from the Greek point of view. It is a for-
gery of uncertain date (second to fourth century A.D.), purporting to be a trans-
lation from the Greek version of a diary written on bark in Phoenician script by
Dictys of Crete during the Trojan War. The second of Benoît's sources, the De
Excidio Troiae of Dares Phrygius, is likewise a late Latin forgery (perhaps of the
sixth century A.D.), purporting also to be a translation from the Greek, this time
of the eyewitness diary of the war from the Trojan point of view kept by the
Phrygian Dares. These works were thought to be better sources than Homer be-
cause they were apparently written by eyewitnesses. They also had realistic de-
tails about the war and its participants and romantic elements. They appealed
to medieval tastes and they are, through Benoît, the ancestors of much writing
on the Trojan legend. Joseph of Exeter, for example, wrote a Latin verse para-
phrase of Dares, which Chaucer used as a source for his Troilus and Criseyde (ca.
1380). The legend of Troilus and Cressida, indeed, which was first elaborated
by Benoît, went through several stages of transformation. Benoît's narrative was
paraphrased in Latin by an Italian, Guido délie Colonne (ca. 1275), and Guido
was put into French by Raoul le Fèvre (1464). The French version was used by
Chaucer and Caxton, who were the principal sources for Shakespeare's play
Troilus and Cressida. Here are a few lines from Caxton's Recuyell of the Historye
of Troye:
Whan Troylus knewe certaynly that Breseyda [Cressida] shold be sente to her
fader he made grete sorowe. For she was his soverain lady of love, and in sem-
blable wyse Breseyda lovyd strongly Troylus. And she made also the grettest
sorowe of the world for to levé her soverayn lord in love. There was never seen
so much sorowe made betwene two lovers at their departyng. Who that lyste to
here of aile theyr love, late [let] hym rede the booke of Troyllus that Chawcer
made wherein he shall fynde the storye hooll [whole] whiche were to longe to
wry te here.^3DANTE
Dante (1265-1321), the last of the great medieval writers and the forerunner of
the Italian Renaissance, took Vergil as his guide in the Inferno and named Homer
and Ovid among the "great shades" of classical authors inhabiting the Inferno.