- For the detailed parallels with Caxton’sRecuyell of the Historyes of Troye, see
Vernon Blair Rhodenizer,“Studies in Stephen Hawes’sPastime of Pleasure”
( 1918 ), 66 – 71. - All references are to William Caxton,The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, ed.
H. Oskar Sommer, 2 vols. (London, 1894 ). - Edwards says that Hawes“mentions the‘cronycles of Spayne’ ( 1030 ), a
compilation that cannot be identified”(Stephen Hawes, 28 ). Hawes’s mention
of the“cronycles of Spayne”provides further evidence of his use of Caxton. In
theRecuyell, Caxton faithfully duplicates four allusions in his source to the
“Croniques d’Espaigne”: see Raoul Lefèvre,Le Recoeil des Histoires de Troyes,
ed. Marc Aeschbach (Berne, 1987 ), 341 , 372 , 375 , 393 ; Caxton,Recuyell,ii, 346 ,
390 , 394 , 421. Over two decades ago, Gerd Pinkernell identified the text
referred to, and drawn on, by Lefèvre as theSumas de historia troyanaof
Leomarte, a medieval Spanish version of the Trojan cycle; see Pinkernell’s
article on Lefèvre inDizionario critico della letteratura francese, 2 vols. (Turin,
1972 ), 654 – 55. Leomarte’s work is edited by Agapito Rey:Sumas de historia
troyana(Madrid, 1932 ). G. R. Keightley points out that“there is no ground
whatever for supposing that [Caxton] himself knew the texts to which Le Fèvre
refers”:“TheCronyques of Spaygnein Caxton’s Version of the Trojan History
of Raoul Le Fèvre,”Medium Aevum 49 ( 1980 ), 73 – 89 ( 79 ). There is no reason
to suppose that Hawes did either, but his dogged adherence to Caxton’s
phrasing is proof of the borrowing. - As Aeschbach once again points out, the association of the Hydra with
sophisms comes from Boccaccio,Genealogia,xiii,i:“Eusebius autem in libro
Temporum de hac ydra aliter dicit sentire Platonem, quem ait asserere Ydram
callidissimam fuisse sophystam. Nam Sophystarum mos est, nisi quis advertat,
adeo propositiones suas tradere, ut uno soluto dubio multa consurgant”[“But
according to Eusebius in his Chronicles Plato judged otherwise, claiming the
Hydra was a most cunning sophist. For it is the way of Sophists to convey their
propositions to the unwary in such a manner that when one doubt is resolved
many more swarm in”]. See Giovanni Boccaccio,Genealogie deorum gentilium
libri(Bari, 1951 ), 640 ; Aeschbach, 518 , note to 60. 3 ). Boccaccio’s own source
here is Jerome’s continuation of Eusebius, where the claim is once again
ascribed to Plato:“Hydram autem callidissimam fuisse sofistriam adserit
Plato.”See Eusebius,Werke, 7 vols., ed. Rudolf Helm (Berlin, 1956 ),vii, 57 b;
for analogues, 307. - See Benoît de Sainte-Maure,Le Roman de Troie, 6 vols., ed. Léopold
Constans, SATF (Paris, 1904 – 12 ), i, 3646 – 650 ; Guido de Columnis,
Historia destructionis Troiae, ed. Nathaniel Edward Griffin (Cambridge, MA,
1936 ), 43 – 44 , 56 – 57 , 59 – 60 ; Lydgate,Troy Book,ii, 119 – 38 , 1797 – 899 , 2229 – 54 ,
5209 – 25.
51 .MervynJames,“English Politics and the Concept of Honour 1485 – 1642 ,”Society,
Politics and Culture in Early Modern England(Cambridge, 1986 ), 308 – 415 ( 357 ). - Roland Barthes,“The Death of the Author,”Image/Music/Text, trans. Stephen
Heath (Glasgow, 1977 ), 142 – 48.
Notes to Pages 125 – 28 209