תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

command, and is dedicated to his fucceffor. It was finished in the year 1420. In the Bodleian library there is a manufcript of this poem elegantly illuminated, with the picture of a monk prefenting a book to a king". From the fplendour of the decorations, it appears to be the copy which Lydgate gave to Henry the fifth.

This poem is profeffedly a tranflation or paraphrafe of Guido de Colonna's romance, entitled HISTORIA TROJANA. But whether from Colonna's original Latin, or from a French verfion' mentioned in Lygdate's Prologue, and which existed foon after the year 1300, I cannot ascertain. I have before obferved', that Colonna formed his Trojan History from Dares Phrygius and Dictys Cretenfis "; who perpetually occur as authorities in Lydgate's tranflation. Homer is however referred to in this work; particularly in the catalogue, or enumeration, of the fhips which brought the

MSS. Digb. 232.

Princip. Licet cotidie vetera recentioribus obruantur."

Of a Spanish verfion, by Petro Nunez Degaldo, fee Nic. Anton. Bibl. Hifpan. tom. ii. p. 179.

See fupr. vol. i. p. 127. Notes. Yet he fays, having finifhed his verfion, B. v. Signat. EE. i.

I have no more of Latin to translate,
After Dytes, Dares, and Guydo.
Again, he defpairs of tranflating Guido's
Latin elegantly. B. ii. c. x. See alfo B.
iii. Sign. R. iii. There was a French
tranflation of Dares printed, Cadom. 1573.
See WORKS OF THE LEARNED. A. 1703.
P. 222.

Ibid. P. 126.

"As Colonna's book is extremely scarce, and the fubject interefting, I will translate a few lines from Colonna's Prologue and Poftfcript. From the Prologue. "Thefe "things, originally written by the Gre

cian Dictys and the Phrygian Dares, (who "were prefent in the Trojan war, and

-

"faithful, relators of what they faw,) are "transferred into this book by Guido, of "Colonna, a judge. And although a " certain Roman, Cornelius by name, the "nephew of the great Salluftius, tran"flated Dares and Dictys into Latin, yet,

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

every

attempting to be concife, he has very "improperly omitted thofe particulars of "the hiftory, which would have proved "most agreeable to the reader. In my 66 own book therefore article belonging to the Trojan ftory will be compre"hended."-And in his Poftfcript. "And "I Guido de Colonna have followed the "faid Dictys in every particular; for this "reafon, because Dictys made his work "perfect and complete in every thing."And I fhould have decorated this history "with more metaphors and ornaments of "ftyle, and by incidental digreffions, "which are the pictures of compofition. "But deterred by the difficulty of the work, "&c." Guido has indeed made Dictys nothing more than the ground-work of his ftory. All this is tranflated in Lydgate's Prologue.

feveral

everal Grecian leaders with their forces to the Trojan coaft.
It begins thus, on the testimony of Colonna".

Myne auctor telleth how Agamamnon,

The worthi kynge, an hundred fhippis brought.

And is closed with these lines.

Full many fhippès was in this navye,
More than GUIDO maketh reherfayle,
Towards Troye with Grekès for to fayle:
For as HOMER in his difcrypcion

Of Grekès fhippès maketh mencion,

Shortly affyrminge the man was never borne
That such a nombre of fhippes fawe to forne*.

In another place Homer, notwithstanding all his rhetoryke and
fugred eloquence, his lufty fonges and dytees fwete, is blamed as a
prejudiced writer, who favours the Greeks: a cenfure,
which flowed from the favorite and prevailing notion held
by the western nations of their defcent from the Trojans.
Homer is also faid to paint with colours of gold and azure.
A metaphor borrowed from the fashionable art of illumining.
I do not however suppose, that Colonna, who flourished in
the middle of the thirteenth century, had ever seen Homer's
poems: he might have known these and many other par-
ticulars, contained in the Iliad, from thofe factitious hif-

From Dict. Cretenf. lib. i. c. xvii. p.
17. feq. edit. Dacer. Amftel. 1702. 4to.
And Dar. Phryg. cap. xiv. p, 158. ibid.
There is a very ancient edition of Dares in
quarto, without name or place. Of Dictys
at Milan, 1477. 4to. Dares is in German,
with cuts, by Marcus Tatius, Auguft.
Vindel. 1536. fol. Dictys, by John He-
rold, at Bafil, 1554. Both in Ruffian,
at Moscow, 1712. 8vo.

* B. ii, c. xvi.

y B. iv. c. xxxi. And in the PROLOGUE,
Virgil is cenfured for following the traces
M 2

of HOMERIS ftyle, in other respects a true
writer. We have the fame complaint in
our author's FALL OF PRINCIS. See fupr.
And in Chaucer's HOUSE OF FAME, CO-
lonna is introduced, among other authors of
the Trojan ftory, making this objection to
Homer's veracity. B. iii. p. 468. col. 1.
v. 389. Urr. edit.

One faied that OMERE made lies,
And feinyng in his poetries;
And was to the Grekès favorable,
And therefore held he it but fable.
2 B. iv. c. xxxi. Signat. X. ii.

torians

torians whom he profeffes to follow. Yet it is not, in the mean time, impoffible, that Lydgate might have seen the Iliad, at leaft in a Latin tranflation. Leontius Pilatus, already mentioned, one of the learned Conftantinopolitan exiles, had tranflated the Iliad into Latin profe, with part of the Odyffey, at the defire of Boccacio, about the year 1360. This appears from Petrarch's Epiftles to his friend Boccacio": in which, among other curious circumftances, the former requests Boccacio to fend him to Venice that part of Leontius's new Latin verfion of the Odyssey, in which Ulyffes's descent into hell, and the vestibule of Erebus, are described. He wishes alfo to fee, how Homer, blind and an Afiatic, had described the lake of Averno and the mountain of Circe. In another part of these letters, he acknowledges the receipt of the Latin Homer; and mentions with how much fatisfaction and joy the report of its arrival in the public library at Venice was received, by all the Greek and Latin scholars of that city. The Iliad was alfo translated into French verse, by Jacques Milet, a licentiate of laws, about the year 1430°. Yet I cannot believe that Lydgate had ever confulted these translations, although he had travelled in France and Italy. One may venture to pronounce peremptorily, that he did not understand, as he probably never had feen, the original. After the migration of the Roman emperors to Greece, Boccacio was the first European that could read Homer; nor was there perhaps a copy of either of Homer's poems exifting in Europe, till about the time the Greeks were driven

[blocks in formation]

by the Turks from Conftantinople. Long after Boccacio's time, the knowledge of the Greek tongue, and confequently of Homer, was confined only to a few scholars. Yet fome ingenious French critics have infinuated, that Homer was familiar in France very early; and that Christina of Pisa, in a poem never printed, written in the year 1398, and entitled L'EPITRE D' OTHEA A HECTOR', borrowed the word Othea, or WISDOM, from w Jea in Homer, a formal appellation by which that poet often invocates Minerva3.

This poem is replete with descriptions of rural beauty, formed by a selection of very poetical and picturesque circumstances, and cloathed in the most perfpicuous and musical numbers. The colouring of our poet's mornings is often remarkably rich and splendid.

When that the rowes and the rayes redde
Eaftward to us full early ginnen spredde,
Even at the twylyght in the dawneynge,
Whan that the larke of custom ginneth fynge,
For to falüè in her heavenly laye,
The lufty goddeffe of the morowe graye,
I meane Aurora, which afore the funne
Is wont t'enchase the blackè skyès dunne,
And al the darknesse of the dimmy night:
And freshe Phebùs, with comforte of his light,

6. 7.

See Boccat. GENEAL. DEOR.XV. Theodorus archbishop of Canterbury in the feventh century brought from Rome into England a manufcript of Homer; which is now faid to be in Bennet library at Cambridge. See the SECOND DISSERTATION. In it is written with a modern hand, Hic liber quondam THEODORI archiepifcopi Cant. But probably this Theodore is THEODORE Gaza, whofe book, or whofe tranfcript, it might have been. Hody, abi fupr. Lib. i. c. 3. p. 59. 60.

' In the royal manufcripts of the British

Museum, this piece is entitled LA CHEVALERIE SPIRITUELLE de ce monde. 17 E. iv. 2.

& Monf. L'Abbè Sallier, Mem. Litt. xvii.
P. 518.
Streaks of light. A very common
word in Lydgate. Chaucer, Kn. T. v.
597. col. 2. Urr. p. 455.

And while the twilight and the rowis red
Of Phebus light.

i Salute.
* Chafe.

And

And with the brightnes of his bemès shene,
Hath overgylt the hugè hyllès grene;
And flourès eke, agayn the morowe-tide,
Upon their stalkes gan playn 'their leavès wide".

Again, among more pictures of the fame fubject.

When Aurorà the fylver droppès fhene,
Her teares, had fhed upon the freshè grene;
Complaynyng aye, in weping and in forowe,
Her chyldren's death on every fommer-morowe :
That is to fayè, when the dewe so foote,
Embawmed hath the floure and eke roote
With luftie lycoùr in Aprill and in Maye:
When that the larke, the meffenger of daye,
Of custom aye Aurora doth falúe,

n

With fundry notes her forowe to " tranfmuè ".

The spring is thus described, renewing the buds or blossoms of the groves, and the flowers of the meadows.

And them whom winter's blaftes have shaken bare

With fotè blofomes freshly to repare ;

And the meadows of many a fundry hewe,
Tapitid ben with divers flourès newe
Of fundry motlefs', lufty for to fene;
And holsome balm is fhed among the grene.

Frequently in these florid landscapes we find the fame idea differently expreffed. Yet this circumftance, while it weakened the defcription, taught a copiousness of diction, and a variety of poetical phrafeology. There is great softness and facility in the following delineation of a delicious retreat.

[blocks in formation]
« הקודםהמשך »