SOURCE: Ayers, R. W. “Medieval History, Moral Purpose, and the Structure of Lydgate's Siege of Thebes” Publications of the Modern Language Association 73, no. 5 (December 1958): 463-74.

[In the following essay, Ayers argues that morality is at the heart of Lydgate's purpose in Siege of Thebes.]

Lydgate's Siege of Thebes is presented within the framing fiction of a supplementary Canterbury Tale, and, as one of the pilgrims, Lydgate tells the story of Statius' Thebaid as it had been reshaped by the romancers of the Middle Ages. Following the prologue (1-176),¹ which is eminent as an imitation of Chaucer, Part i (177-1046) of the tale begins with the foundation of Thebes by King Amphioun and ends with the death of Oedipus and the abuse of his body by his sons, Ethiocles and Polymetus; Part ii (1047-2552) relates the joint succession of the sons to the Theban throne and their contentions for supremacy; Part iii (2553-4716) deals with the final destruction of Thebes as a result of their fratricidal struggles. But the poem is so long, it comprehends so many episodes, and its organization—alternating passages of narrative with passages of moralizing—is such that one critic described it as a rambling poem “with frequent moral digressions in the proper medieval manner,” in which “incidents follow one another with bewildering inconsequence,” while another asserted, to the same effect, that Lydgate in this poem “could no more deny himself a digression than could Browning.”²

These descriptions clearly assume, first, that the purpose of the work is simply to tell a story of romance or epic—and hence fictional—character,³ and second, that the linear narrative structure is central to that purpose. If these assumptions are correct, then the very numerous didactic passages in the poem can of course be only digressive and irrelevant. However, there is plentiful evidence that Lydgate regarded his material not as fiction but as history, and that his purpose in writing was not so much to tell a story of any kind as it was to teach some moral and political lessons by reference to what he regarded as ancient historical example. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that it is the morality which lies at the very heart of Lydgate's purpose, and that the incidents of the narrative are intended to reveal and illustrate—Lydgate himself says to “enlumyn”—that morality.⁴ My purpose here is to test that hypothesis: first, by defining Lydgate's assumptions relating to the historicity of his source materials and the instructional use to which he felt that he should put them; next, by describing the system or series of moral postulates which are expounded in the poem; and finally, by showing that it was the presentation of these materials for didactic purpose which determined the structure of his poem. I will argue that the structure of the work is therefore integral and appropriate to its purpose.

I

Although its ultimate source is the French verse Roman de Thèbes (ca. 1150),⁵ Lydgate's Siege of Thebes derived more directly from one of several late medieval prose redactions of that poem. One such redaction, later printed (in 1491, by Anthony Verard) with the title of Ystoire de Thèbes as part of the first folio volume of Les histories de Paul Orose traduites en François, resembles Lydgate's version to such an extent that it is regarded as one of several probable sources. Our interest here, of course, is not in the genealogy of Lydgate's poem, but in the fact that the Thebes story, as it came to him through the Roman de Thèbes and the Roman de Edipus, should have been accepted in the fifteenth century—in the way it had been earlier accepted—as history, and on that account admitted into an early printed edition of Orosius' great history. Had Lydgate believed that the main outlines of his story were factual, then, he would only have shared an assumption general among his contemporaries.⁶

Ten years or so before he undertook the Siege of Thebes Lydgate made it clear that he did in fact share not only this belief that the story of Thebes was history, but also a further assumption that such history is written in the first place for the edification and instruction of later generations.⁷ In the prologue to his Troy Book (ca. 1412) he explicitly praised his source for that poem, Guido de Columnis' Historia destructionis Troiae,⁸ as derived from truthful writers (152-153)⁹ who intended to represent without feigning the true history of their own age (177-179, 218-220) in order that men of times to come might remember the great deeds of their elders (169). Lydgate there indicated his acceptance, too, of the conventional view that the function and value of a writer as such is historical and moral: his true stories of great men enable us to see how things were before our own time (198-210), and they provide us with historical patterns of action (216-220). For example, he says, were it not for early authors and clerks of more recent times, Time would have tarnished the golden letters of knightly acts of old as they are represented in the Thebes story. If you would know of that colossal series of events, he says, “Crop and rote, riȝt as it was in ded, / On Stace loketh, and þer ȝe may it rede …” (229-230; cf. 240). And the function of the poet or clerk is to “enlumyn” the facts of history, he says, “with many corious flour / Of rethorik, to make vs comprehende / The trouthe of al, as it was in hende …” (216-220).

In the Siege of Thebes itself Lydgate signalizes his attitude concerning the historicity of his materials less overtly, possibly because the framing fiction of a supplementary Canterbury Tale imposed a less outright or forthright set of technical conventions than had been employed in the Troy Book. He based his work on what he regarded as good historical sources, which he identifies, and he handles his materials like a chronicler: he dates his main events (188, 4624); he frequently confirms details not in themselves important by openly comparing his authorities;¹⁰ otherwise, he often feels bound to register conflicting information from his authorities on a detail under debate;¹¹ finally, he sometimes refers the reader to his sources for details in the story which he himself feels no compulsion to present.¹² Such extreme deference to authority would itself seem to imply some degree of belief in the historicity of his materials.

Lydgate, then, treated his sources for the Siege of Thebes as history, and for him the function of the writer of such histories was to provide true stories of great men as historical patterns of action; this means that, according to his own assumptions, he wrote as an historian, because of his belief in the moral utility of history. And a hint that he valued the Thebes story precisely for its moral utility can be gotten from noting the character of his additions to his putative primary source: almost a third of the substance of the Siege of Thebes is believed to have been added by Lydgate himself to the story as it came to him, and most of the added matter—whether original with him or drawn from other acknowledged sources which are themselves moralistic—is moralistic in character.¹³ But more important evidence inheres in the fact that there is an apparent order and emphasis in the moralizations of the poem itself.

II

The moral and philosophical framework outlined by Lydgate in the almost countless moral passages of the poem appears to be essentially Boethian in character. It postulates hierarchies of both heavenly and earthly powers, the members of which are linked to one another in nature by the bond of love, except when sin in the form of falsehood or pride sets one member against another.¹⁴ The great Triune God is supreme (4704-08), and Fate and Fortune are the inscrutable instruments or agents of His management of human affairs (4647-48; cf. 1571-74). God and Fate are understandably not further individuated, but the author of the Fall of Princes does here in the Siege of Thebes characterize Fortune somewhat further in a conventional manner as mutable (1148-49); acting as the ordained instrument of God's disfavor, or in apparent caprice, by the sleight of her working she casts men down (1753-59; 4250-51), because they have mistakenly put their trust in the worth and stability of this world (887-894).

Lydgate here conventionally views mankind as divided into three classes—kings (lords, governors), nobles, and commons (“porayle”)—each of which requires both of the others. The disorder in Thebes following the murder of Laius (588-589), and again following the death of Ethiocles in the siege (4372-84), demonstrates that the common people must have the higher classes for direction and order and protection against external foes (756-772, 4372-79), while king and nobles obviously need the common people as the very pillar and foundation of their rule (262-267). And although the lower orders quite properly owe obedience to the higher (1391-95), both kings and nobles should note their need of the “porayle” and not contemn them; it is unnatural for the head to despise the foot which bears it up, and without the common people there would be no such thing as lordship or rule for kings and nobles to enjoy (262-271).

While the common people thus serve the social order in the execution of commands from above, the nobles serve primarily as counselors to the king (773), and so perform another critical function in the body politic. In this poem advisors to royalty are continually classified on the basis of their fidelity to truth: as with Ethiocles before the siege, there are the faithful and true ones who urge truth and constancy, the inconstant and changeable ones, and a group “betwixë tweyn,” false flatterers who forsake truth and bid a king consider not his right but his might (1715-24).¹⁵ And since the true object of his counsel should be to afford the king practical means for implementing truth, the good counselor will possess both wisdom and prudence, which are attributes of age, not of green youth (2941-84).

The Siege of Thebes was not written for the common people, of course; its limited audience would have been found within those groups which were generally preoccupied with the privileges, responsibilities, and problems of government; and already it will have become apparent that in the moralizing passages of the poem Lydgate continually directs explicit advice to the ruling classes generally, and particularly to kings, who, as he says, should be the stable centers of the social organism (1724). In purveying this advice, of course, Lydgate at once reveals the bases of his social philosophy—both Christian and conventional—and demonstrates his concern for the practicalities involved in its implementation; and we must recognize the essentials of that social philosophy in order to understand the function and character of the good king. Against all the divisive tendencies, both personal and social, which are fostered by sin in fallen man, he says, there is the great God-given power of love to bind all estates of heaven and earth into a peaceful unity. The Triune God is Himself “souereyn lord of pes” (4705), the prime example of unity in diversity (4704-05), and so Himself the model of a perfect society. Through love He brings suffering man to the heaven which man lost through sin (4706-08), so that love is the bond between man and God. But love is also the social cement between man and man; it is indispensable to social order and the art of government; it is a real treasure to a king, and will abide in life or death by the lord's side: “Farwel lordshipe bothë morowe and Eve / Specially whan louë taketh his leve!” (2721-22).¹⁶ In this connection, and in the instances of Oedipus, Ethiocles, and Creon—all of whom fell as rulers of Thebes when they lost the love of the people—the story of Thebes afforded a notable example of continuing and repeated misgovernment leading to social chaos and finally to the destruction of a mighty kingdom.

But time and time again Lydgate says that since a king's success and prosperity depend upon God (1771-72), and since above all things truth is sacred to God (1760-73), then truth is the chief treasure of a realm (1722-23),¹⁷ an indispensable support of a king, and the conserver of kingdom (176-93):

Allas therfor that eny doublenesse,
Variaunce or vnsicrenesse,
Chaunge of word or mutabilitè,
fraude or deceyte or vnstabiletè,
Shuld in a kyng han domynacioun,
To causen after his destruccioun.
Of kynggës redeth the story doune by rowe,
And seth how many han been ouerthrowe
Thorgh her falshede fro fortunes whel.

(1747-55)

If this is the fact, the king must hold to God's truth not only as an abstract ideal but also as a practical virtue, for falsehood can have no power against it (2236-47).¹⁸ And while truth and mercy will preserve a king (1743-47), God will allow Fortune to cast a false king down, “For vnto god it pleseth neuer a del, / A kyng to ben double of entent” (1756-57).¹⁹

As the only sure and stable principles by which a king may sustain his rule, love and truth have certain practical aspects in personal conduct. A king should be not proud in spirit and contentious in manner like Oedipus (468-478), but kind of heart and humble of cheer like Amphioun, who through kindness and humility so stirred the love of the people that they built Thebes for him (231-261). Ultimately, where there is not love among the estates of the social order, no force will avail to bind the people to the king, for with power it is possible to constrain only the body, not the heart (2695-97). Furthermore, the good king will honor the advice of his older, truer, and more seasoned advisors (2956-84), of course, and will not risk either the catastrophe that accrued to Ethiocles when he heeded evil advice in holding the Theban throne by force, or the disaster that befell Adrastus when he followed inexperienced advisors in ordering the attack on Thebes (2938-66). The good king will pay his just debts when they are due; he will not take the people's property and maintain himself in luxury while they live in poverty (one can not expect to possess both another man's goods and his heart); he will pay his soldiers promptly and provide for them well, and he will be just to the point of generosity (2703-05).

But the cardinal practical manifestation of truth lies in honesty and constancy of dealing, and so the good king will never descend to fraud or deceit to gain his ends (1747-53), for a violation of oath is a violation of sacrament (1137-38), and he who profanes a sacrament invites the wrath of God. Any king who may incline to personal perfidy should think on the utter ruin of Thebes, which resulted fundamentally from Ethiocles' treachery in going back on his pledged word to share the rule of Thebes with his brother Polymetus (2544-50).²⁰

Unless such precepts of love and truth are respected and given practical expression, a king may, like Ethiocles, spend his substance and energies in vain (2762-87); his people will no longer love or trust him, and they will fail him in his time of need (2636-48). And if a king would hold to these precepts, let him not set his heart on the false gifts of fickle Fortune, but remember that his true home is in heaven; from that abiding place his soul has been exiled to earth for a time of trial (3418-49), and while he is in this life the wise king will choose both ends and means appropriate to that fact.

Lydgate, then, regarded his narrative matter in the Siege of Thebes not as fiction but as history, and for him, as for any prudent man, there were lessons in history. The oneness of God and the sameness of man from generation unto generation insure the constancy of the moral relation, and since history records the deeds of men who in times gone by may have determined the fates of nations, present kings should be able to learn from history, not only how to govern their kingdoms, but also how to gain the rewards of the good and to escape the punishments appointed by God for evildoers. The events of time become the pattern of eternity, so that the war of Thebes demonstrates above all else that war is not an appropriate means to the accomplishment of any valid end: the cupidity and hate which caused the destruction of Thebes actually began, Lydgate says, with Lucifer's pride and revolt in heaven—the archetype of all war on earth (460-64)—and the consequent infection of mankind with original sin (2560-67; cf. 4656 ff.) through the serpent's sowing of the cockles of covetousness and ambition throughout the earth (460-71). These sins are the source of all social disorder (4675-89), for they bring about war, which comes in chastisement for the sins (4658-59).

War is then not only the consequence of Sin, and itself a moral evil, but it is practically ineffectual. In war all suffer, both high and low, victor and vanquished (4645-56); and when there is no exception to destruction, no man is wise to begin a war (4645-51). Just as Lydgate begins his tale with a long moralistic disquisition on the duties of kings as symbolized by Amphioun's foundation of Thebes (244-285), is in an even longer moralistic peroration (4628-16) he offers the destruction of Thebes and the bleeding of Greece, recounted in this poem at such length, as instancing the historical and social validity of his arguments against war as an instrument of personal or public policy and the practicality of his arguments for a high Christian morality in government. The agony and death of this great and ancient city teaches a melancholy lesson, Lydgate says, in Chaucerian tone:

Lo: her the fyn of contek and debat.
Lo: her the myght of Mars the froward sterre
Lo: what it is for-to gynne a werre.
¶ How it concludeth ensample ȝe may se
First of Grekys and next of the Cytè.

(4628-3)²¹

If this moral were not sufficiently clear in the Siege of Thebes itself, the fact that Lydgate himself took some such view of his materials might have been adduced from his later Fall of Princes, where, in “L'envoye” to his account of the Thebes story, he employs the refrain, “Kyngdamys deuyded may no while endure.”²² And evidence that the poem received this kind of reading by others too in its own time may be found in manuscript colophons of the fifteenth century, such as one which reads “Here endith the Sege of Thebes the cite Example yevyng to lyve in rest, love and charite,” or another, “In this wise endith the sege of Thebes / Ensample shewing for to levyn in pes / To all men that wiln it distinctly rede.”²³

In writing the Siege of Thebes, then, Lydgate surely regarded himself as in the line of those who had chronicled not a fiction but the history of a city of antiquity, and he certainly felt that his own function was to “enlumyn” the historical fact “with many corious flour / of rethorik” for moral purpose.²⁴ It is now clear, furthermore, that this moral purpose was, specifically, to document from history an argument against war as an instrument of public policy, by presenting in the story of Thebes a famous and dolorous instance of “the fyn of contek and debat.” But more generally, the purpose was to provide an historical “mirror” wherein kings and governors particularly might observe the social effects of their actions, on the assumption that similar historical antecedents would lead to similar consequents. Lydgate verbally marks this more general purpose by several invitations to regard his story as a “merour,” and thus suggests that, taken as a whole, the obvious intention of the Siege of Thebes is that of a species of medieval courtesy literature—the “king's mirror”—which related specifically to the office and duty of a king, and which has been described as usually consisting of “a theory of government; personal advice to the ruler on the conduct of his public career; and a more or less spirited contrast between the good king and the tyrant,” with particular stress upon the virtues of “justice, liberality, clemency, the maintenance of peace, wisdom in the choice of councillors, and high personal integrity …”²⁵ This general description of the type might well have been written as a description of the moral content of the Siege of Thebes, specifically.

III

Actually, the basic assumptions which we have considered here not only define the poet's purposes, but also determine the content, structure, and tone of his work to such an extent that they must have been constantly operative in the selection and disposition of his narrative materials. The fact that the work demonstrably has moral—and thus extraliterary—relevance and application strongly suggests that its very reasons for being are moral and social in nature. And the possibilities of contemporaneous social application are particularly evident in relation to this story, for intermittently until 1420—about the time that this poem was begun—Henry V, one of Lydgate's patrons, had been involved in the Hundred Years War, an international war of succession, against Charles VI of France. In 1420 he concluded this war with the Treaty of Troyes and his marriage to Katherine, daughter of Charles. And following Henry's death in 1422—possibly before this poem was completed²⁶—the royal power was dangerously divided between Henry's rival brothers, John, Duke of Bedford, in France, and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, in England. Before the end of 1422, also, the son of Charles VI abrogated the Treaty of Troyes and claimed the French throne as Charles VII, and with the aid of the Armagnacs kept up resistance to English arms.²⁷ Although not precisely parallel, these important contemporaneous situations are in some respects strikingly similar to very important incidents in the poem, and as moral and social motifs they might very well have suggested to Lydgate's mind the treatment of the story of Thebes, which involved them.²⁸ In any case, given Lydgate's purpose—to teach—and his subject—“the fyn of contek and debat”—the Thebes story, which portrayed the vast social consequences following upon internecine contention between princes for rule, would have clear and general contemporary relevance for a people upon whom these protracted struggles oppressively impinged, and it would be well adapted to the illustration of the wide range of social virtues and vices which come into play in such struggles. With its massed battles, its knightly duels, and its extraordinary adventures, this story would moreover be calculated to appeal to certain prominent aspects of late medieval literary taste. Finally, such a narrative might well have had unusual weight with contemporary audiences, owing to the “auctoritee” which attached to its supposed historicity, and to the celebrity of the persons involved.

Given the Thebes story, can we tell what principles determined Lydgate's inclusion or exclusion of specific materials? Their supposed historical character would certainly account for the presence of some details which do nothing to advance the narrative,²⁹ and moral purpose would of course justify as rhetorically appropriate and necessary both the bulk and the character of the overt moralizing passages. But more importantly, we will presently see that all the episodes are in fact explained, and the characters viewed, in terms of the prevailing moral purpose. This brings us directly to a consideration of the construction of the poem, by which term we refer to the practical disposition of basic narrative and didactic elements according to the unity of the prevailing idea.

Lydgate continually demonstrates that it is his preoccupation with moral and political principles and the fates of kingdoms, rather than with the fortunes of individuals, which causes him to tell this “story wonderful, / Towchinge the siege and destruccioun / Of worthy Thebees the myghty Royal toun” (184-187).³⁰ No episode in the poem is extraneous to the essential social and moral purpose of the plot pattern—to illustrate the “fyn of contek and debat” by the narration of a famous instance which involves certain purportedly historical persons, who, because of the parts they play in the story, are to be regarded as exemplary of good or evil. Lydgate carries this task forward with continual pointed thematic reference to those lessons of the poem which we have discussed. In this connection, his occasional description of the incidents of his narrative as “ensamples,” or his exhortations to “take hede” of one or another lesson,³¹ calls attention to the fact that his narrative procedure understandably resembles that of the typical medieval illustrative pulpit narrative—the exemplum. Each episode is immediately and appropriately followed by its elucidation in moral terms, with such resulting alternation of narrative and moralizing passages as might well make it appear to the unsympathetic reader that the poem is disjointed and digressive.

Part i (177-1046) relates the origins of the city (177-315) and the beginning of that fraternal quarrel which would finally bring the city to destruction (316-1046). According to the most generally received story, Lydgate says, Amphioun caused the city to be built by inspiring love in the hearts of his people through the sweetness of his harmony on Mercury's harp (177-212). In his first long moralistic passage (213-292) Lydgate expounds this “derke poysye” as a reference to Amphioun's humble speech and glad countenance, which availed to win the love of the people far more than would be possible to “gold rychessë pride or tyranye / Outher disdeyne daunger or surquedye” (281-282); and so he generalizes at length on the need for love to support the crown (243-292). Amphioun is explicitly offered as an example of the efficacy of love as opposed to the ineffectuality of pride and violence (286-288).

Following this introduction, with its theme of love in support of the throne, and its consideration of the legendary founder of Thebes as therefore an ideal king, Lydgate moves immediately to the darkly contrasting and hereafter dominant theme of pride and violence in the Oedipus story (316-1046) and its consequents. The first high point of this story is the Oedipus-Jocasta marriage (328-874) with events and moralizations immediately surrounding it. When the proud, disdainful, and contentious Oedipus married his own mother, there was not heard the harmony of either Mercury or the muses; his wedding guests were Cerberus, porter of Hell, Erebus, father to hatred, Night and her daughters, and

Drede and fraude and fals trecherie,
Tresoun pouerte Indigence, and nede,
And cruel deth in his Rentë Wede,
Wrechednesse compleynt and eke Rage,
Fer ful palë derknesse crokëd age,
Cruel mars as eny Tygre wood,
Brennyng Ire or vnkyndë blood,
Fraternal hatë depë sett the rote,
Saue only deth that ther nas no bote,
Assuryd othës at the fyn vntrewe:
All thise folk werën at this weddyng newe,
To make the towne desolat and bare,
As the story after shal declare.

(862-874)

Lydgate here emphasizes the relationship of this incident to the end of the city, by asserting that the social ills and moral evils which would later attend the destruction of Thebes were earlier present as corollaries and consequences of Oedipus' unwittingly evil marriage.

Following this marriage and its moralization, Lydgate passes rapidly over Oedipus' reign in Thebes to his death and the abuse of his body by his cruel sons, Ethiocles and Polymetus (1010-46). He then closes Part i with another moralizing passage in which he suggests that the honor due to parents—not rendered by Ethiocles and Polymetus to their parents—is necessary and proper to degree and social order (1022-23), and says that he who ignores the injunction to honor father and mother will fail in all undertakings: he will find

Fortunë froward to hym and contrayre,
Waast of his good, pleynly and appaire,
Fyndë plentè of contek werre, and striff,
Vnhappy ende and shortnesse of liff,
And gracëlees of what he hath to do,
Hatrede of god and of man also.

(1033-38)

Part ii (1047-2552) as a whole is strictly concerned with the developing dissension between the two sons of Oedipus, as it begins to involve more peoples in their struggle for the Theban throne. In the initial scene (1047-142) Lydgate treats together the brothers whose hatred and envy and pride, he says, are “Fully worchyng into destruccioun / And Ruyne of this noble toun” (1073-75), first in their proud contention with one another, and then in their huddled-up agreement that each should reign in alternate years while the other should go into a voluntary temporary exile, like two bound upon opposite sides of Fortune's wheel.

In the next episode (1143-673), as Ethiocles, the elder brother and the first to reign, insecurely sits “in his Royal See / Ful richëly vpon fortunës wheel” (1148-49), Lydgate's attention follows Polymetus, the younger, as he fearfully journeys into exile in Argos. There he meets Adrastus, the Argive king who is “louëd and drad for wisdam and Iustice” (1205), and in surly and enraged manner fights with an unoffending exile from Caledonia, named Tydeus, who as a knight is “The worthiest in this world lyvyng, / Curteys, lowly and right vertuous” (1264-65). Adrastus in manly fashion imposes an end to this useless quarrel, and as peacemaker causes the combatants to become such fast friends that they swear brotherhood to one another in vows that will be kept for life (1451-52). And “lik a prudent man” (1567), Adrastus ties this knot of alliance by marrying his two daughters to the two knights in a marraige far different from Oedipus', and by subsequently making a preliminary division of the kingdom between them.

Lydgate then turns his attention back to the “fell” usurper, Ethiocles (1674-794), who, hearing the news of his exiled brother's marriage, calls a council to consider what shall be done in the face of the threat which it poses to his own power. A description of three types of counselor there present occasions Lydgate's reflection at great length (1721-94) upon the necessity for truth in a king as the preserver of the kingdom, after which he exhorts present rulers:

… ȝe kyngges and lordës beth wel war
ȝour bihestës Iustly forto holde!
And thenk how Thebës with his wallës olde
Distroiëd was platly this no les,
For doublenesse of Ethiocles.

(1774-78)

When the news comes to Argos of Ethiocles' decision to follow the advice of his false counselors in abrogating his agreement and holding onto the Theban throne although his year has passed, the brave—and somewhat rash—Tydeus volunteers to undertake an embassy from the exiled brother to the usurper. This embassy, its consequences, and its significance are set out in the fourth episode (1795-2543). Upon his encounter with Ethiocles in the Theban court, Tydeus delivers a long lecture (2043-110) on the necessity for truth and the keeping of convenants in a king, and when Ethiocles proves defiant, Tydeus vows war to prove that “For this the fyn falshede shal not availe, / Ageynës trouth in feeld to hold batayle. / Wrong is croked bothen halt and lame” (2077-79). Later, as Tydeus rides back towards Argos, the enraged Ethiocles treacherously sends fifty armed knights to pursue and slay him, but the gallant knight fights so skilfully that he kills all but one of his assailants; “By [this] ensample,” Lydgate says, “ȝe opynly may se / Ageynes trouthë falshed hath no myght. … Record I take of worthy Tydeus, / which with his hand throgh trouthës excellence, / Fyfty knyghtës slogh in his dyffence” (2236-38, 2248-50). And as Tydeus arrives in Argos, in Thebes the one survivor of the ambush bitterly tells Ethiocles to his face that the reason for their debacle is that they had undertaken a false cause in support of Ethiocles' untruth and treachery to his brother, Polymetus. When friends and relatives of the dead knights want to take vengeance on Ethiocles, they are restrained by the nobles, and, with this ominous rumble of civil discord in Thebes as a consequence of the brothers' quarrel and Ethiocles' untruth, Lydgate closes Part ii in moral peroration:

          Lo her kalendys of aduersitè,
Sorowe vpon sorowe and destruccioun,
First of the kyng and all the Regyoun;
For lak oonly lik as I ȝow tolde,
That beheestës trewly wern not holde:
þe Firste grounde and Roote of this Ruyne,
As the story shal clerly determyne,
And my tale her-after shal ȝow lere,
ȝif that ȝow list the remenaunt for to here.

(2544-52)

Part iii relates those events which are immediately associated with the siege itself and the destruction of the city, beginning appropriately with an apostrophe to Mars (2553-67): What, Lydgate asks, is the cause that Mars was so wroth with Thebes? “The Citè brent and … sette a-fyre, / As bookës oldë wel rehercë konne” (2560-61), with the cruel hate sprung from blood corrupt and unnatural through original sin.

Immediately thereafter we enter upon mobilization of forces, Greek (2568-2736) and Theban (2737-87), for the approaching war. Some Thebans, moved by love of truth and their earlier oaths, forsake Ethiocles and come over to Adrastus' army. This occurrence, together with reflection upon the glorious composition of the Greek forces and Adrastus' prudent and generous treatment of all his soldiers, leads Lydgate to consider at length liberality in a king, and the love which it fosters in a people, which is “mor than gold or gret richesse” (2716). Gold often fails, he says, “And the tresour shortly, of a kyng / Stondeth in loue abouen allë thyng” (2719-20).

Lydgate now presents the Greek party in several situations (2788-4192) which cause him to despair of wisdom in a world where none heed it, and of wise counsel where people are neither prudent nor provident. In a parliament convened prior to their departure for Thebes, the young and inexperienced Greek lords ridicule the old seer Amphiorax' prophecies of disaster to come, and utterly reject his exhortations not to prosecute the war; Lydgate moralizes this (2941-88) to point the practical value of respecting that wisdom which comes of age and experience. Later, as they tarry during their journey to Thebes, the Greeks are involved in certain events which occasion Adrastus' counsel to Lycurgus, king of Thrace, to show pity to his subjects if he would enjoy Divine pity (3458-64), and to resign himself to God's will in this world (3442-49).

After the Greeks pitch their tents under the very walls of Thebes, a view of the opposed encampments and final prebattle councils, Theban (3567-732) and Greek (3733-821), emphasizes the overwhelming common resolution upon martial folly. Because of Ethiocles' falsehood and treachery, uncertainty and suspicion pervade Thebes and the Theban council (3610-732), with its advisors both good and bad. But both Thebans and Greeks ignore Jocasta's pleas to mark the folly of trusting to Mars in any quarrel (3655-73), and, in a climactic and symbolic act, Adrastus bids Amphiorax be silent when the old seer again warns of impending destruction if the Greeks persist in prosecution of this war.

The siege itself, the deaths of the rival brothers by one another's hands, and even Tydeus' death in duel, are passed over quickly (4193-384) while Lydgate accents the social significance of the siege: all the gentle blood of both Greece and Thebes was here destroyed in one day; among the Greek lords only Adrastus and Capaneus are left alive, while Thebes is without any ruler at all, and so stands in critical danger, “For though so be Comownerys be stronge / with multitude and have no gouernaylle / Of an hed, ful lytyl may avaylle” (4380-82). In this situation, power falls to the tyrant Creon, “fader of fellonye” (4493). And now, having committed himself at the beginning (184-186) to relate only the destruction of Thebes, Lydgate closes his narrative with the razing of the city's proud towers and walls by Theseus and the Greek ladies who had come to bewail their dead (4543-64), and with the departure from this scene of death of those who are still in the desolate land of the living. The poem ends with a long moralistic peroration (4628-716), in which the lessons of the narrative just concluded are generalized: here, in the disaster to Greece and Thebes, Lydgate says in short, you may see the incalculable social and economic cost of “contek and debat”—the spilling of blood, the wasting of property and the destruction of whole kingdoms.

This summary of the narrative indicates, then, that while Lydgate recounts a coherent series of incidents which are related to one another and to the destruction of Thebes, he has employed all episodes to point the central moral message. And this emphasis upon the moral message explains—among other things—Lydgate's emphasis upon events before the actual siege. Given this story, if he had felt no need to adhere to purportedly historical sources which themselves incorporate considerable delay, and if his principal interest had been in incident and adventure for their own sakes, then his chief narrative aim would have been to get the Greek army to Thebes with all possible speed. But as part of his moral view of his material, Lydgate viewed human action as the expression of pre-existing—not developing—moral character, and he regarded historical incident as an index to God's otherwise mysterious will in the world. The else inordinate emphasis upon events before the actual siege, then—almost two thirds of the poem—was required for delineating the moral preconditions from which the war followed in disastrous consequence.

When we come to consider Lydgate's characterizations, we find—not surprisingly—that none of them is in any sense remarkable for psychological insight. But this fact, too, is a function of the author's moral purpose. As he indicates by repeated suggestions to regard his characters as “mirrors”³² or as otherwise illustrative, the portraits are all conceived and are all used for illustrating lessons concerning Love and Truth as essential for the survival and success of the king, or for pointing up the consequences of defect in these virtues. Such didactic purpose does not demand, and indeed will generally not permit, particularity in the drawing of characters, for if their relevance as illustrative examples is to be clear, the emphasis in the portraits must be upon those features which relate them to those people who are being taught; if the purpose is to furnish guides to conduct, that is, then the method of the portraiture must be generalized and typical.

Amphioun, legendary founder of Thebes, and here obviously the type of the ideal king, is prudent (210), humble (277-285), benign (234), and wise, and possessed of such rhetorical (that is, practical) skill in communicating this wisdom to his people, and so ruling with perfect harmony, that he causes the walls of Thebes to be raised by miracle. But as ideal and wonder-working, Amphioun is exempt from mortal imperfections, and Lydgate seems to suspect his historicity: his miraculous building of Thebes without human hands by playing on Mercury's harp is “a þing of Poetës told, / Neuere yseyn neither of ȝong nor old” (211-212), a story “lich as Poetys feyne in here writying” (242, 292). But he serves to point a moral while he adorns the tale, in any case: a prince will advance among his people more with love than he will by all the machinations of money or force, and of this lesson Lydgate says, “I Takë record of kyng Amphyoun, / That byltë Thebës be his elloquence / Mor than of Pride or of violence” (286-288).

Adrastus, who is loved for his wisdom and feared for his justice as a king should be (1200), is clearly the pattern of the practically good king, as distinguished from the ideal king. Old (1200) and wise, of manly bearing, decisive character (1426) and knightly appearance (1377), he is so considerate and liberal in deportment to his people (1599) that he can serve as an example to all kings:

And who so list a merour forto make
Of kyngly fredam lat hym ensample take
Of Adrastus the manly kyng famous,
So liberal and so bountevous
Vnto his puple at al tymës found:
Which mad hym strong his foomen to confound;
And loue oonly his enmyes to werreye,
Alle grecë made his bidding to obeye.

(2723-30)³³

But this consideration for others is best bespoken in an unselfish identification of his personal wishes with concern for the national welfare. So, lacking a male heir, he acts in provident manner to assure continuity of the throne by a marriage of his daughters to Tydeus and Polymetus and a later division of the kingdom between the two sons-in-law. This characteristic prudence in practical affairs is evidenced more generally by a laudable tendency to choose good advisors (4117), and to consult them before making important decisions.³⁴

Opposed to Adrastus is “felle Ethyocles, / Rote of vnreste and causer of vnpes” (4259-60; cf. 4289), the great wrongdoer (3670-96), and the type of the bad king, whose breach of agreement with his brother and following support of this injustice by fraud and force was the prime cause of the destruction of Thebes (1781). Tydeus describes him as “false and double of entent” (2068), and indeed he does play falsely in all affairs; his acts illustrate the imprudence and impracticality of hate and untruth as social mode or motive in the ruler, and the social consequence of his persistent falsehood and malice is the destruction of his government as it leads him into avoidable war, and as it causes his subjects to desert him at the crisis in order to go over to Adrastus. A young man, he is imprudent in matters of state himself, and he is disposed to follow the advice of inexperienced, impulsive, and evil counselors. Sarcastic in manner (2002) and violent in temper, continually associated verbally with ire, anger, wrath, “woodnesse,” and malice,³⁵ he both hates and inspires hate, and so is bearer of the hate theme in the poem.

Not so wilfully vicious as his brother, Polymetus is essentially an example of the inglorious knight of ungentle and mean character. Along with his brother he dishonors his father's body, and as a younger son he involves two kingdoms in war for a throne to which he has no prior right (1084-92). When given his choice by the deferential Tydeus, he selfishly chooses both the more preferable of Adrastus' daughters and the better half of his lands; and although at his first meeting with Tydeus (1302-40) “of malys and hegh pride” (1323) he had attacked that knight, he is later craven and cowardly in allowing Tydeus to risk his life in an unjustified embassy (1814-60). He is never complimented by Lydgate, and he is associated with cruelty (1309), rage (1302), and ire (1309); in fact, his ways are seen as “vileyne” (1330), and “froward and contrayre” (1340). His character is only slightly redeemed by an unexpected act of compassion at the last (4279-92), it must be said, but at the end of Part i Lydgate had prophesied a bad end for both Polymetus and Ethiocles, as he pondered their profanation of their father's body, “Therefor no man be herof rekkëlees, / But make youre myrour of Ethiocles / And his brother callëd Polymyte” (1035-41).

Tydeus, on the other hand, is a veritable catalogue of knightly virtues; he is “worthynessë flour” (2622), “a verray gentil knight” (1629), “the most famous, gentle, and brave in Christendom” (2464 ff.), and the “worthiest in the world” (1622). His name rarely appears, in fact, without the addition of an approving modifier of a kind to make it apparent that he is a knightly parallel to the kingly Adrastus, a foil and contrast to Polymetus, and the type of the ideal knight. His gentilesse, particularly, is evident on his first appearance in the poem, when he answers Polymetus' surly rage with courtesy, and then attempts to avoid the needless fight which is provoked by Polymetus. Later, when he and Polymetus become sworn brothers and Adrastus offers his two daughters in marriage to the two knights, Tydeus “of gentilesse and curtesye” (1642-43) allows Polymetus to choose lady and land first. Still later, he generously undertakes the dangerous embassy to Thebes in behalf of Polymetus, and he repays Ipsiphyle's kindness in nursing him to recovery from the wounds which he received on that embassy by swearing to become her servant and knight (2422; cf. 3238-88). His bravery is undoubted, of course, and is demonstrated repeatedly—in the fight with Polymetus and in the final siege of the city, but particularly in the embassy, when he faces the cold malice of the enraged Ethiocles, and in the following ambush, when he slays all but one of the fifty knights sent to assault him (2115; cf. 2172 ff.).

Tydeus' character is such, then, as to make him worthy to bear the truth theme in the poem; so Lydgate employs him as the great exemplar of the power of truth, and as the major vehicle in the poem for the conveyance of its lessons. He it is who charges the usurper of the Theban throne with being “fals and double of entent” (2068; cf. 1757) and then delivers a long speech on the necessity for and the power of truth (1938-52), and it is he who emphasizes the keeping of covenants as an essential aspect of truth in a king (3774; cf. 3796). And it is his success in doing away with the fifty assassins in the ambush which is offered by Lydgate as an example of the power of truth over falsehood (2236-53). Tydeus is, in short, “most knyghtly forto se, / That manly man that noble werreyour, / As he that was of worthynessë flour, / Maister and myrour by prouesse of his hond” (2620-23).

Despite his possession of these virtues, it is dear that Tydeus' qualities are those of the knight and mainly martial hero, not those of a king and statesman such as Adrastus. As an advisor to the king, he is too young and relatively inexperienced in high matters; thus, he with other young advisors mistakenly opposes the farsighted advice of wise old Amphiorax to avoid the imminent war or face destruction (3806-14; cf. 2922 ff.). And his occasional rashness and imprudence is displayed when he undertakes the dangerous embassy to press the equivocal claims of Polymetus to the Theban throne despite the caution urged upon him by the prudent Adrastus (1828-43); or again, as he cruelly, obdurately, and wastefully presses the siege in the face of certain disaster (4119 ff.).

Thus, an emphasis upon those features which are common to men of all ages, for the purpose of permitting the most effective application of the lessons of the past to one's own time, leads to typification and blurring of distinctions of individuality in the characterizations; in other matters it leads to anachronism of detail which may be described in the result as “medievalization.” This is certainly understandable, and is probably justifiable, since from the moral viewpoint time, place, costume, and even persons, are accidents not affecting the essential truth and validity of the moral propositions. As a consequence, there is little beyond the names of the characters and Lydgate's dating of the action (4622-27) to indicate the period in which the events are supposed to have occurred. Amphiorax, high priest of a heathen divinity, becomes a “bysshop,” and is finally swallowed up, not in Hades but in Hell, for idolatry. The heroes of the narrative are “knights” or “princes” or “Dukes,” who dress in medieval clothing or armor, and who bear medieval arms, such as crossbows and poleaxes. Socially, they are divided into “estates” whose councils are “parlements,” and whose organization for war is feudal in character (2585 ff.).³⁶

Insofar as the poem and its teachings have general application, its tone is social and civil rather than personal and religious; Lydgate describes his tale as “a story wonderful, / Towchinge the siege and destruccioun / Of worthy Thebees the myghty Royal toun” (184-186), rather than one which recounts the lamentable death of Laius, or even the touching fate of Tydeus. He deplores the brothers' quarrel, that is, not because of their personal fates, but because of the doom which it brought to the city, and this emphasis upon the consequences to the state and to the society, rather than to individual persons, is constant:³⁷ Mars ruined the city (3669-78); Oedipus' wedding guests are all the social ills which are attendant upon the later destruction of Thebes (853-860); and the consequences of his incest are not so much his own or his sons' deaths, but “sorowe and woo and destruccioun, / Vtter ruyne of this Royal toun” (849-850). Furthermore, the virtues which the various incidents and characters of the poem illustrate are advocated, not as a means of escaping hell's fire but as making for the rulers' uprightness, temporal felicity, and worldly success. This generally social tone is just what we should expect in a work which was designed primarily for the moral cultivation of persons of high civil rank.

The unity of the Siege of Thebes, then, centers in the moral idea, and no episode, no characterization, and no tonal feature of the poem is extraneous to this essential moral purpose of the plot pattern; and despite the social tone which pervades the poem, this moral unity is facilitated by a teleological tendency, always present, but especially obvious and overt in the conclusion (4658-716), in which everything is finally referred to, and explained or judged by, its place in the divine plan of salvation and heavenly history. So the changing earthly is finally regarded in relation to the unchanging heavenly. Since all elements in the poem do thus contribute to instruction according to a clear and definite end, the poem is unified, and therefore is not “episodic,” if that implies dependency for its interest or appeal on mere episodes or incidents without inner connection or construction.

This teleological tendency suggests the larger sense within which this or any similar narrative should be judged; insofar as it might be truly said that incidents aside from the main line of Lydgate's narrative “follow one another with bewildering inconsequence,” that fact should be viewed as a reflection and embodiment of Lydgate's view of the world—indeed, as a part of his argument. In the first place, if events are to be interpreted as the working out of a divine plan which man can never know in its entirety, then a monstrous birth may be quite as significant to a reflective mind as a victory in battle, and history so based will jump readily from affairs admittedly of great moment to events now regarded as trivial. This will make such history discontinuous to any reader except one who perceives moral meaning in events. History such as this is written with the single idea of displaying all the calamities which spring from disordered and unstable worldly events, and the wretchedness of life's vicissitudes in this world of certain change and seeming chance. In a world where human success is often or always indeterminately a sign of God's favor or the caprice of Fortune or the bait of the devil, and where human failure is indeterminately the consequence of moral defect or the fulfillment of Fortune's mutable nature—in such a world, events will appear to “follow one another with bewildering inconsequence,” indeed, and the wise man will put no trust in that world. Lydgate thus emphasizes the vanity of this life in order to turn kings' minds to the true and abiding life of eternity with the King of Kings. Realization of the ethical ideals is their only possible means to that security.

It was, then, in performance of his moral office as a chronicler of history and as a social critic—not as a purveyor of romantic or epic fiction—that Lydgate undertook the Siege of Thebes, and it was the use of the moral implications of the incidents for hortatory purposes that determined the organization and the structure of the poem. Recognition of its express moralistic and practical purpose allows the poem to settle more naturally among the works of the Monk of Bury, a man of pervasive moral interests, and—as poet to English princes³⁸—one with a persistent concern for social and political principles.³⁹ This recognition also reveals some of the poem's relations to several well-known literary genres of its period, and suggests a point of view from which some other “romances” or “epics” might well be examined; but, most importantly, it allows the work itself some dignity as an independent composition whose content and structure consistently and integrally articulate its purpose.

Notes

1. Except for one section in the text where obvious reference is made to Lydgate's Troy Book, numbers within parentheses indicate lines in Lydgate's Siege of Thebes, ed. Axel Erdmann, Pt. i, EETS, Extra Ser. cviii (London, 1911)—hereafter designated as “Erdmann.” Textual quotations are from this edition, with certain diacritical marks irrelevant to my purpose omitted.

2. J. Harvey Darton, “A Chapter of Flattery,” London Mercury, xviii (1928), 629, and English Verse Between Chaucer and Surrey, ed. Eleanor P. Hammond (Durham, N. C., 1927), p. 80.

3. Walter F. Schirmer (John Lydgate, Tübingen, 1952, p. 55) calls the poem a “Versroman,” while Erdmann and Eilert Ekwall (eds. Lydgate's Siege of Thebes, Pt. ii, EETS, Extra Ser. cxxv, London, 1930, p. 15—hereafter designated as “Erdmann and Ekwall”) and H. S. Bennett (Chaucer and the Fifteenth Century, Oxford, 1947, p. 139) describe it as an epic.

4. Erdmann and Ekwall approach recognition of one of the theses of this study in saying that “it sometimes looks as if the story did not interest Lydgate so much in itself as for the opportunities it gave him to plead the cause of truth, justice, and clemency” (p. 14). For Lydgate's use of the term enlumyn, see Troy Book, Prologue, l. 216.

5. Ed. Léopold Constans, SATF (Paris, 1890). On the sources of the Siege of Thebes, see Erdmann, p. vi, and Erdmann and Ekwall, pp. 6-8. Cf. Emil Koeppel, Lydgate's Story of Thebes: Eine Quellenuntersuchung (Munich, 1884), esp. pp. 52, 60, 65. For the transmission of the story from Statius to Lydgate, and study of the differences among versions, see particularly Alain Renoir, “Lydgate's ‘Siege of Thebes’: A Study in the Art of Adaptation” (unpub. diss., Harvard, 1955), pp. 156-184. At various places in the present study I have profited from reading Professor Renoir's work.

6. Although it was no part of the original text (which only mentions in passing Oedipus, Ethiocles, and Polymetus, and derives that passing reference from Eusebius' Chronicle—see Orosius, Historiarum Adversos Paganos, ed. Carolus Zangemeister, Vienna, 1882, pp. 140-141), an expanded version of the Thebes story related to the Roman de Thèbes had long been included in manuscripts of the Orosius history. Accordingly, Constans, La légende d'Oedipe (Paris, 1881), pp. 315-350, describes several such manuscripts, as well as early printed editions, and says, in fact, that “Toutes les rédactions en prose du Roman de Thèbes que nous possédons appartiennent à ces recueils de chroniques ‘depuis le commencement du monde,’ à ces ‘histoires universelles,’ qui s'autorisent des noms des historiens latins et surtout de celui d'Orose” (p. 315).

   But a more general acceptance of the legend in whole or in part as history is, of course, indicated. On its incorporation in the “Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César,” see Paul Meyer, “Les premières compilations françaises d'histoire ancienne,” Romania, xiv (1885), 40-41, 67. Otto of Friesing (d. 1158) takes over from Orosius, i.12, the passing reference to Oedipus, Ethiocles, and Polymetus, and incorporates it in his own Chronica sive Historia de Duobus Civitatibus (ed. Adolfus Hofmeister, Hanover, 1912, pp. 53-54). In his Sacerdos ad Altare (printed in C. H. Haskins, Studies in the History of Mediaeval Science, Cambridge, Mass., 1924, p. 372), the educationalist Alexander Neckham (d. 1217) recommends study of the Thebaid and the Aeneid as among the works of the “ystoriographos.” Apparently with Isidore (Etymologiarum, xiv, Ch. iv, §10) as his authority, Ralph Higden refers to parts of the Thebes story at several points in his Polychronicon (ed. Churchill Babington, London, 1865, i, 196, and ii, 340, 342, 348). In his epilogue to The Historie of Jason (1477, in The Prologues and Epilogues of William Caxton, ed. W. J. B. Crotch, EETS, clxxviii, London, 1928, p. 35), and in a passage which assumes historical authority for both the Thebaid and Lydgate's poem, Caxton refers his readers to “Stacius” and the “siege of thebes” for more information. Constans says that “Stace est mentionné mème par les auteurs de Chroniques” (La légende, p. 147), and lists instances. In a general comment on medieval acceptance of the Latin classics, Gaston Paris, La littérature française au Moyen Age, 3rd ed. (Paris, 1905), p. 77, notes that they had never ceased to be studied in the schools, “mais on croyait y trouver toujours et une incontestable vérité historique et un profond enseignement moral.”

7. This moralistic and practical conception of history was so general that it can be documented almost at will from writers of all periods. See Thucydides, i.22; Livy, Preface, 11; Cicero, De Oratore, ii.ix.36, in a passage often imitated by medieval writers; Tacitus, Annales, iii.65; Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, x.i.31; St. Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, ii.28; Ralph Higden, Polychronicon, Ch. i; Henry Knighton, Chronicon, Ch. i; Geste Historiale of the Destruction of Troy (EETS, xxxix), Prologue. See also numerous Caxton prologues and epilogues (pp. 8, 10, 48, 86, 90, 94-95, 106, and esp. 64-65, in Crotch ed. above), as Professor Dorothy Bethurum has kindly suggested to me.

8. Ed. Nathaniel E. Griffin, Medieval Academy of America (Cambridge, Mass., 1936).

9. Numbers within parentheses in this section refer to lines in Lydgate's Troy Book, ed. Henry Bergen, Pt. i, EETS, Extra Ser. xcvii (London, 1906). Cf. ibid., 198-210.

10. E.g., 199-200, 3520-43. Here and hereafter all line references are to the Siege of Thebes.

11. E.g., 293 ff., 3188 ff., 3510 ff., 3971 ff., 4541.

12. See 837-840, 994 ff.

13. See Erdmann, p. vi, and Erdmann and Ekwall, pp. 12-14.

14. See 1068-69, 1076, 3605, 4660-64, 4674-78.

15. Cf. 1780-1800, 3635-54.

16. Cf. 276-286, 2711-2715, 4698-4704. Interesting evidence of the persistence of a theory of kingship, and recognition of the importance to the king of the love of his people, comes from C. L. Sulzberger, “The King Business: II—Method and Mystique,” New York Times, 16 Feb. 1957, p. 16, col. 5, quoting the present King Paul of Greece: “A king must remember also that there is something in the theory of kingship that makes people look up to a king—if he is a decent person. … People tend to place their best hopes and feelings on the person of a king. If he doesn't live up to this they feel let down. My father had an excellent motto: ‘My strength is the love of my people.’ I think that's the best motto in kingship.”

17. Cf. 1725-84, 1940-44.

18. Cf. 1728-46, 2077-79.

19. Cf. 2544-52, 3648-52.

20. Cf. 1064-83, 1774-81, 2498-2505, 3671-78.

21. This (like Siege of Thebes, 4047-58) seems to imitate Troilus and Criseyde, v, 1849-55 (ed. Robert K. Root, Princeton, 1945):

    Lo here, of payens corsed olde rites!
    Lo here, what alle hire goddes may availle!
    Lo here, thise wrecched worldes appetites!
    Lo here, the fyn and guerdon for travaille
    Of Jove, Apollo, of Mars, of swich rascaille!
    Lo here, the forme of olde clerkes speche
    In poetrie, if ye hire bokes seche!

22. Fall of Princes, 3822, 3829, 3836, 3843.

23. See Erdmann and Ekwall, pp. 44, 59.

24. From ancient times, works of historians and historic or epic poets had been studied as a part of grammar or rhetoric. For references and discussion, see Aubrey Gwynn, Roman Education from Cicero to Quintilian (Oxford, 1926), pp. 92, 100-108, 170-173, 198-201, 222; Theodore Haarhoff, Schools of Gaul (Oxford, 1920), pp. 209-219; Louis J. Paetow, The Arts Course at Medieval Universities with Special Reference to Grammar and Rhetoric, Univ. of Illinois Stud., iii, No. 7 (Urbana-Champaign, 1910), passim; Paul Abelson, The Seven Liberal Arts: A Study in Mediaeval Culture (New York, 1906), pp. 27-29, 59; P. O. Kristeller, “Humanism and Scholasticism in the Italian Renaissance,” Byzantion, xvii (1944-45), 360, 364-365. J. W. H. Atkins, English Literary Criticism: The Medieval Phase (London, 1952), p. 165, reports a tradition that Lydgate himself established a school of rhetoric and poetry at Bury St. Edmunds.

25. John E. Mason, Gentlefolk in the Making (Philadelphia, 1935), p. 10. There is a continuous tradition of the genre of the speculum principis from the time of Isocrates to the 20th century. For the best short discussion, see Chs. v (“The Perfect Prince from the Sixth Century to the Sixteenth Century”) and vi (“Summary of the Medieval Period”) in Desiderius Erasmus, The Education of a Christian Prince, ed. Lester K. Born (New York, 1936); see also bibliography, pp. 99-100. For Lydgate's use of the word merour, see n. 32, below.

26. Erdmann and Ekwall (p. 8) date the terminus a quo as May 1420, on what they regard as a reference in ll. 4690-4703, to ¶24 of the Treaty of Troyes; they fix the terminus ante quem as the date of the death of Henry V, 31 Aug. 1422, on the basis of what they believe to be a tone of “joy at the happy ending of the war and of hopefulness for the future” in the same lines (p. 9). Insofar as these lines do in fact embody any expression of hope for the future, they appear to me to be conventionally Christian in character, and therefore no grounds for the establishment of a terminus ante quem as early as 1422.

27. For events prior to Henry's death, see James H. Wylie and William T. Waugh, The Reign of Henry the Fifth (Cambridge, Eng., 1929), iii, particularly pp. 197-426; for the delicate situation following his death, see James H. Ramsay, Lancaster and York (Oxford, 1892), i, particularly pp. 322-372.

28. Independently of any such general interpretation of the poem as is here proposed, Erdmann and Ekwall (pp. 13-14 and notes to ll. 2688-94, 2701-08, 3425-32, 3655-73, 4690-4703) regard the poem as incorporating allusions to certain contemporary political events. Cf. n. 26 above.

29. Such as the alternate account of the foundation of Thebes by Cadmus (293-315), the account of Ipsiphyle's background (3188-3207), or her fate following the accidental death of Lycurgus' son (3510-43), who had been left in her care.

30. Cf. 4604-07; see further, 1072-74, 2553-67, 3669-73, 3677-78, and the important concluding moralization, 4628-4716.

31. E.g., “Ensample,” 807, 2236, 2724; “take(n) hede,” 802, 1020; cf. Lydgate's use of other hortatory words or phrases, such as “adverte,” 251, 1993, 4268, “rede,” 802, 1019.

32. See 1040, 2623, 2723, 3038.

33. Cf. 2671-87, 2712.

34. See 2573, 2788-93, 4107-12.

35. E.g., 1008, 1961, 2035, 2036, 2039, 2479-81, 2506, 3697, 3904, etc.

36. E.g., “knights,” 1316, 1346, 1349; “princes,” “Dukes,” 2063, 2579, 3298; clothing and armor, 1365, 1436 ff., 2145; weapons, 1081, 2744, 2785; social stratification, 1435, 1564, 2673; “parlements,” 764, 2573.

37. See 448, 756, 1072-74, 2560-67, 3669-78.

38. His Troy Book, Pilgrimage of the Life of Man, and Fall of Princes were executed on commissions from Henry V (while Prince of Wales), Edward, Earl of Salisbury, and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, respectively. See Bennett. p. 111, Hammond, p. 78, and Karl J. Holzknecht, Literary Patronage in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1923), p. 57.

39. From many of his works, see, e.g., The Churl and the Bird, The Fall of Princes, Secreta Secretorum: Secrees of Old Philosophers, or Governance of Kings and Princes, and Serpent of Division.