{"id":17213,"date":"2015-04-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=2028"},"modified":"2015-04-29T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T00:00:00","slug":"the-troilus-legend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2015\/04\/the-troilus-legend\/","title":{"rendered":"The Troilus Legend"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<\/head>

Troilus is mentioned in the Iliad<\/em>, long enough to die. Priam laments that his best sons have died at Greek hands, leaving him with only the dregs of his family. In Pope\u2019s translation:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Inglorious sons of an unhappy sire!\u00a0<\/p>\n

Why did you not all in Hector\u2019s cause expire?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wretch that I am! My bravest offspring slain,\u00a0<\/p>\n

You, the disgrace of Priam\u2019s house, remain!\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mestor the brace, renown\u2019d in ranks of war,\u00a0<\/p>\n

with Troilus, dreadful in his rushing car,\u00a0<\/p>\n

and last great Hectore, more than man divine,\u00a0<\/p>\n

for sure he seem\u2019d not of terrestrial line!\u00a0<\/p>\n

All those relentless Mars untimely slew,<\/p>\n

and left me these, a soft and servile crew,\u00a0<\/p>\n

whose days the feast and wanton dance employ,<\/p>\n

Gluttons and flatterers, the contempt of Troy.<\/p>\n

Troilus appears in the Aeneid too, and again he is mentioned only in connection with his death. According to Dryden\u2019s translation:<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, he [Aeneas] saw where Troilus defied\u00a0<\/p>\n

Achilles, and unequal combat tried;\u00a0<\/p>\n

then, where the boy disarmed, with loosened reins,\u00a0<\/p>\n

was by his horses hurried o\u2019er the plains,\u00a0<\/p>\n

hung by the neck and hair, and dragged around:<\/p>\n

the hostile spear, yet sticking in his wound,\u00a0<\/p>\n

with tracks of blood inscribed the dusty ground.<\/p>\n

The story of his death was often told this way (in the summary from Piero Boitani\u2019s\u00a0European Tragedy of Troilus<\/a>): \u201cTroilus goes with his sister Polyxena to the fountain; Achilles ambushes him; Troilus flees pursued by the Greek; Achilles kills him in the temple; there sometimes follows a fight between Greeks and Trojans over Troilus\u2019 corpse.\u201d In some versions of the tale, Achilles was enraged that because Troilus refused Achilles\u2019s advances.<\/p>\n

Boitani summarizes the ancient and early medieval tradition: \u201cFrom the epic cycles collected in the Kypria <\/em>to Homer, from Sophocles to Lycophonor, from Callimachus to Apollodorus, from Cicero to Virgil, Horace, Hyginus, and Seneca, down to Quintus Smyrnaeus, Ausonius, and Servius between the third and fourth centuries AD, to the Latin version of Dictys and Dares between the fourth and sixth, and on to Joseph of Exeter in the twelfth and Albert von Stade in the thirteenth, to the Ovide Moralise<\/em> and the erudite Boccaccio of the Amorosa Visione<\/em>, the De Casibus<\/em>, the Genealogie<\/em>, and the Esposizioni on the Divine Comedy<\/em>, the constant feature of Troilus\u2019 figure is his death at the hands of Achilles, a consequence of that \u2018wrath\u2019 of the Greek warrior which inspired the Iliad <\/em>and which solely becomes, as we shall soon see, not merely resentment at Agamemnon\u2019s vexations but pure menis<\/em>, anger, \u2018furor bellicus\u2019\u201d (18).<\/p>\n

By the high middle ages, a new factor has taken over the story \u2013 Cresyde. As\u00a0Roberto Antonelli puts it in his contribution to The European Tragedy<\/em>, \u201cThe figure of Briseis-Cressida, the lover of Troilus, is unknown in classical and medieval literature: the efforts of scholars to discover the existence of the character in works previous to the Roman de Troie<\/em>, written by Benoit de Sainte-Maure shortly after the middle of the twelfth century, have so far been fruitless\u201d (21).<\/p>\n

After that, Troilus\u2019s name became inseparable from that of his beloved, and his story was transformed from a brief account of youth cut down before its time into one of the central romantic stories of Western literature. Even so, the new Troilus is still a tragic Troilus. As Boitani says, \u201cThe Boccaccio of the Filostrato <\/i>and the Chaucer of Troilus and Criseyde<\/i>, who prefer the new theme of Troilus\u2019 love, cannot eliminate his death from their stories, and with supreme tragic irony show the connection between it and Achilles\u2019 wrath by inverting the sequence. The stanzas devoted by both authors to the hero\u2019s death begin with Troilus\u2019 wrath, only to end with Achilles\u2019 slaughter of his opponent, matter of fact and \u2018wretched\u2019 in Boccaccio, \u2018despitous\u2019 in Chaucer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Troilus is mentioned in the Iliad, long enough to die. Priam laments that his best sons have died at Greek hands, leaving him with only the dregs of his family. In Pope\u2019s translation:\u00a0 Inglorious sons of an unhappy sire!\u00a0 Why did you not all in Hector\u2019s cause expire?\u00a0 Wretch that I am! My bravest offspring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1255,1260],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chaucer","category-troilus-and-creysede"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Troilus Legend<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Troilus is mentioned in the Iliad, long enough to die. 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