Time Travel in the Alliterative Destruction of Troy
The
medieval Troy story is a story of adaptation. No matter where one begins, from Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde to Dante's Inferno to John Lydgate's Troy Book, the textual lineage is long,
deceptive, and only tenuously connected to the now well-known Homeric
tradition. Without knowledge of
Homer, most medieval adaptators of the Troy story relied on a widely
disseminated Latin prose version, Guido delle Colonne's thirteenth-century
account, the Historia destructionis
Troiae. Most apparently
believed this Sicilian judge's prologue, which claimed that his sources were
the infamous Trojan war correspondents, Dares the Trojan and Dictys the Greek,
who recorded events they witnessed with their own eyes. As we now know, however, Guido's textual
itinerary elides a crucial stop in the twelfth-century, when Benoît de
Sainte-Maure conceived his Roman de Troie,
the French romance that proved to be the actual, unacknowledged, source for
Guido's history. But even if we
take a vertical trip back in time through all of the adaptations of the Troy
story, we will likely neglect the horizontal influences along the way, such as
Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia regum
Britannie and other texts of the ubiquitous Virgilian tradition. In fact, the Aeneid is arguably the most influential of all, since nearly all of
the medieval Troy stories adapt a Virgilian providential perspective on future events. As scholars in pursuit of origins, we look
to the past for that elusive Ur-text,
but most medieval Troy stories turn their gaze from the ashes of Ilium toward imagined
times to come when Trojan progeny will establish their own empires and global
sovereignty.
Yet,
one adaptation, the late-fourteenth century Middle English romance known as the
alliterative Destruction of Troy,
suggests that this time travel fantasy, otherwise known as translatio imperii, deceives military leaders who must suffer the immediate
consequences for their arrogance and imperialism. Unlike the Aeneid, wherein gods manipulate events and
the destiny of the Trojan line seems to be transparent, the Destruction
constructs a martial world almost completely determined by the will of military
councils.[i] Within these councils, we hear the
declamations of the great Trojan heroes Hector, Troilus, and Aeneas and the
most direct arguments against war, which highlight the heightened agency of
humans in the progression of events.
By contrast, Lydgate’s Troy Book, another Middle English adaptation of Guido's Historia, illustrates
a world in which Fortune plays an enhanced role in causing a human tragedy that
can only be redeemed through God’s “good” providence. Providence assumes an empire-engendering
status for Lydgate that cannot be found in the Destruction. I want to suggest in this paper that the
absence of providence for the Destruction
confirms one of the poem's crucial claims – humans cannot anticipate that
martial investments will yield imperial benefits.
In
the words of Hector at the first war council in the Destruction, the Trojans suffer from an inability to perceive “the
fer end what may fall after” (2246).
This prophetic problem of failing to forsee one’s destiny pleads for
what Virgilian providence seems to provide: a certain future of imperial glory.[ii] This providential theory of empire is
most clearly articulated in Book VI of the Aeneid (#1), when Anchises
describes to Aeneas the transmigration of souls from Elysium into the future
bodies of the founders and defenders of the Roman Empire: “Come now, what glory
shall follow hereafter the Dardan race, what children of the Italian clan shall
remain, illustrious souls and heirs in our name . . .” (756-8).[iii] Examined uncritically, this ethereal
transfer of power, in which an imperial spirit inhabits new bodies across time,
provides hope and a justification for Roman imperialism that is notably absent
in the Destruction. Lydgate’s Hector, however, has a
Virgilian swagger (#2): he exalts
“good providence” but claims that “I hold it no prudence / To Fortune, ful of
doubilnes / (Sith we be sure) to putte oure sikernes” (2.2300-2302). Even though the council agrees to
acquiesce to Fortune’s “doubilnes,” Lydgate propagates a providential design
that contains the potential for heroic souls to transmigrate from oblivion to
glory. Destruction’s Hector instead laments the absence of such
providence; whereas Virgil’s Aeneas is constantly nudged on by his fate, the Destruction’s
Priam and his realm are essentially left to their own devices to determine
the future of Troy.
This
is not to say that fate plays no part in the Destruction, but a
comparison of the role of fate within Guido and Lydgate’s texts reveals Destruction’s enhanced attribution of
human error to the fall of Troy. (#3) Guido attributes blame for the “far-reaching
plague of great destruction” to both “the envious course of the fates” and
Laomedon’s inhospitality to the Argonauts. However, the role of the fates for Guido is minor and vague,
especially in comparison to Virgil, and the brunt of the blame is placed on the
actions of the military leaders such as Priam, who are the object of periodic
invective throughout the narrative.
After Antenor’s diplomatic mission to Greece fails and Priam organizes a
council of war, Guido halts the progression of the narrative briefly to reprove
Priam’s boldness and lack of self-control in pursuing war against the Greeks (#4a): “But, say, King Priam, what
unhappy accident of the fates incited your peaceful heart to such unfortunate
audacity, so that you were not able in the least to curb the unique impulses of
your heart by mature counsels (although, these impulses are not in the control
of man), so that while it was permitted, you might have withdrawn from evil
counsels, and while it was permitted, you would have known how to disguise your
past losses, which perhaps through the course of so many years could have been
obliterated by forgetfulness?” (6.56-7).[iv] The uncertain dynamic between fate and
human agency that Guido expresses here lessens the poignancy of his reprisal
and confuses his message. Even
though Guido acknowledges that the “fates incited” Priam to action and that
these “impulses are not in the control of man,” he expects that Priam should
have been able to restrain his passion, avoid bad advice, and cover up his
mistakes. In other words, “Even
though you could not have prevented it, you should have.”
For
us, this type of reproof seems ridiculous and reflects what David Benson calls
Guido’s “inability to find God’s guiding hand or any other logic in the ruin
and carnage of the Trojan War.”[v] Guido knows for certain what
destruction lay ahead for the Trojans, but fails to express in clear terms the
nature of providence and freewill.
Lydgate in his translation (#4b)
amplifies the confusion by claiming that the fault lies in “infelicité,”
“trouble,” “hap,” “destyné,” “hateful influence,” “sodeyn sort,” “fortune
graceles,” “chaunce unhappy,” “willful lust,” and “fonnyd hardynes”
(1797-804). Despite his variation
of causes, Lydgate characteristically turns to “providence” to which Priam has
been “[d]irked and blind” (1812).
Thus, Lydgate doubly remains faithful to Guido’s confusion and the
presence of Virgilian providence, which naturally leads to even more
frustrating interpretive ambiguity.
There is no such equivocation
in the Destruction. Instead of both the fates and Priam
sharing blame, the attack is focused directly upon Priam (#4c):
But
say me sir kyng what set in þi hede
What
wrixlit þi wit & þi wille chaunget
Or
what happont the so haastely þi with hardnes of wille
To
put þe to purpas þat pynet þe aftur
What
meuyt the with malis to myn on þi harme
And
to cache a counse to combur þi selue rewme
With
daunger and drede of a dede hate
ffor
a lure þat was light & of long tyme
Þat
wold Зepely haue bene forЗeton in yeres a few. (2059-67)
[But
tell me sir king, what controlled your mind, what overcame your wit and changed
your
will, or what happened to you so hastily with a willful eagerness to put you to
the
purpose
that you regretted afterwards?
What moved you with malice to bring trouble to
yourself
and to accept counsel to harm yourself realm with danger and dread of a
dire
hate
for a minor crime from a long time ago that would quickly have been forgotten
in
a few years?]
The Destruction
deftly avoids the discussion of the role of the fates through the obfuscation
of the grammatical subject. As a
faithful translation, the Destruction does
not contradict its source and only cuts references to the fates so that Guido’s
question, “what unhappy accident of the fates incited your peaceful heart?”
becomes a coupling of alliterative tags: “But say me sir kyng what set in þi
hede / What wrixlit þi wit & þi wille chaunget?” The poem’s reversion to generality about “what” incited
Priam’s war mongering allows him to remain consistent with Guido while at the
same time to alter slightly the object of the invective to the “malis” of the
Trojan king that causes him “to cache a counse to combur þi selue
rewme.” Here an examination of the
sole surviving manuscript, Glasgow University Library's Hunterian MS.V.2.8,
yields some interesting findings about this mystifying line.[vi] I have quoted Hiroyuki Matsumoto’s
diplomatic text to show how the reading of the manuscript leads to at least two
different renderings. Read
literally, the line means “to accept counsel to harm your self
realm.” The scribe Thomas Chetham
most likely crossed out “selue” and wrote in “rewme,” but we will never know
for certain whether “rewme” was in his copy text or was an addition by him or
another reader because the translation at this point in the passage is
relatively loose. Guido makes
references later in the invective to the broader implications of the decision
to go to war, but here they are less heavy handed than they are in Destruction. The poem continues to criticize Priam
by contending that “þi fall was so fuerse with so fele other” [your fall with
so many others was so fierce] (2083), which suggests that Priam’s actions will
not only harm him “selue,” but also his realm and future generations to
come. In contrast to Virgil’s
providential model and Guido and Lydgate’s oblique notions of the authority of
the fates and providence, the Destruction
creates a martial environment in which tragedy is driven not by the
machinations of fate, but rather by human error. This emphasis on human fallibility is why the treason of
Aeneas and Antenor, instead of the treachery of the Greeks, looms as the most
significant cause of the fall of Troy.
In
all of the texts, the argument against war falls on deaf ears and Troy’s
destruction commences. They all
effectively urge for reasonable approaches to war, but a comparative reading
reveals that Destruction emerges as the boldest expression of human
freewill. The poem’s Trojan
history does not deride the “doubilnes” of Fortune or throw up its hands in cosmologic
confusion, but instead directs its polemic at its human audience. To make the message palpable, the
attack upon martial designs continues through the figure of Hector and his
response to his father’s proposal to attack the Greeks.[vii] While this greatest of Trojan heroes
acknowledges the need to avenge the destruction of the first Troy, he proceeds
to beg Priam (#5):
Consider
to our cause with a clene wit
Let
our gate be so gouernet þat no grem follow
Ne
no torfer be tyde ne no tene after
Ouer
lokes all lures to the last ende
What
wull falle of þe first furth to þe myddis
Sue
forth to þe secund serche it within
And
loke to þe last end what lure may happyn.
Hit
is no counsel to encline ne to calle wise
Ne
not holsom I hope þat hedis to þe first
And
for ses not the fer end what may falle after. (2237-46)
[Consider
our cause with a clear mind. Let
our conduct be so guarded that no grief will
follow,
neither harm nor injury will be incurred afterwards. Examine all losses that will
occur
by the end, what will happen in the beginning onwards to the midway point.
Proceed
forth to the next effect, search it within, and look to the very end what
destruction
may follow. It is not wise or
prudent advice to follow, I think, to attend to
what
happens first and not forsee the far end or what may happen afterwards.]
Through this bold speech, Hector implores Priam
to consider not only the short term rewards or consequences, but also “the last
ende,” which signifies the future ramifications of their warlike
endeavors. The repetitive emphasis
on the “ende” in this passage not only encourages the reader to consider the
destructive end of the Trojans but also replicates Hector’s multiple references
to the “end” (fine) of their war with
the Greeks in Guido’s text (59-60), a compelling alteration to his
unacknowledged source, Benoît de Sainte-Maure’s Le Roman de Troie. In Benoît’s romance (#6), Hector also speaks these words of
caution about “la fin” (3804), but only after Antenor ardently urges the same
message: “For this is what authorities tell us: whoever wishes to attack a
great thing, if he is wise, will examine the conclusion at which he ought to
arrive so that he does not bring about shame and harm” (3646-50).[viii] By having Antenor remain silent and
Hector solely speak these wise words of caution, Guido makes the sentiment more
authoritative. After all, Antenor
becomes an insidious traitor while Hector dies valiantly for a cause he supports
only through his loyalty to his father.
Given this shift, the Guido-tradition posits Hector as the tragic hero
of the history, who represents the fall of reason that haunts imperial
ideologies, not simply of the Trojans, but also of their progeny.
Other
characters of the Guido-tradition such as Cassandra and Helenus support
Hector’s hesitations, but their speeches become swallowed up by the cacophony
of Trojan praise for the war effort.
Paris and Troilus both urge for war and their support of Priam sways the
council in favor of Paris’ expedition to Greece, thereby continuing the
progression of events that lead to the eventual destruction of Troy. Hector eventually joins the fray with
the rest of the Trojans and becomes so caught up in his bloodlust that even his
wife Andromache’s nightmare about his death cannot convince him to refrain from
battle. As soon as it seems that
his chilling words are forgotten, Achilles treacherously slays him, which
elicits an outpouring of Trojan grief that is embodied in Hector’s
pseudo-resurrected body seated in his tomb. Hector’s death is the "beginning" of the
"end" of Troy, and the many lines devoted to the description of his
tomb remind us of his wise counsel that urged Priam to consider the
consequences of war.
All
of the surviving medieval adaptations of the Troy story recognize the fall of
Troy as a lamentable tragedy, but few dwell on "the plague of great destruction"
caused by arrogant and foolish military campaigns. Instead, most medieval Troy stories, notably Lydgate's Troy Book and others of the Virgilian
tradition, operate as historiographic time machines that transport their
readers from this destructive past to the glorious futures of the New Trojans
in Rome and Britain. The
alliterative Destruction of Troy, by
contrast, consistently directs its science away from this fiction, suggesting
that the last stop for such imperial time travel will not be bliss – it will be
blunder.
[i] Of course, the fatum of Virgil’s Aeneas is not as
clear as it seems. Virgil shows great
sympathy for those who suffer the pain caused by Aeneas’ adherence to his
destiny (i.e. Creusa, Dido, and Pallas) and it is clear that Aeneas himself
doesn’t understand his fate. When
he observes his future on Vulcan’s shield, he doesn’t comprehend its
significance [“rerumque ignarus”].
See Virgil's Aeneid in Opera, ed. R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1969), 8.730.
See also Mihoko Suzuki, Metamorphoses of Helen: Authority,
Difference, and the Epic (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1989), 144-9.
[ii] By using the adjective “Virgilian,” I am not claiming that
the Aeneid and its imperialism can be read in any singular way at
all. Instead, I refer to the
Galfridian reading of Virgil that appropriates the Aeneid’s imperial
genealogy for its own political ends.
[iii] “Nunc age, Dardaniam prolem quae deinde sequatur / gloria,
qui maneant Itala de gente nepotes, / inlustris animas nostrumque in nomen
ituras . . .” As clear as this
vision seems, it is important to note that when Aeneas later leaves Anchises in
the Underworld, he passes through the ivory gate of false dreams. Suzuki, Metamorphoses of Helen,
144.
[iv] “Set dic, rex Priame, quis fatorum casus infelix ad tante
infelicitatis audaciam tue quietis animum instigauit ut frenare proprios animi
motus tui, licet non sint in hominis potestate, per matura consilia minime
potuisses, ut, dum licetbat, abstraheres ab iniquis consiliis pedem tuum, et
dum licebat, sciuisses tuas preteritas dissimulare iacturas, que per tot
annorum curricula forte poterant obliuione deleri?”
[v] Benson, “‘O Nyce World’: What Chaucer Really Found in
Guido Delle Colonne’s History of Troy,” The Chaucer Review 13, no. 4
(1978-9): 308-15, at 310.
[vi] Panton and Donaldson read the first part of the line as
“to cache a connse” and consider “connse” to be a corruption of “comse,” which
means “beginning,” but a close look at the manuscript indicates that the word
could also be the “counse” or “counsel” of Matsumoto’s text. Given Guido’s emphasis on mature and
evil “consilia,” “counse” is the preferable reading.
[vii] This folio of the manuscript is especially worn, possibly
indicating its interest or value to its readers.
[viii] “Quar ço nos diënt li autor: / Qui grant chose vueut
envaîr, / La fin a qu’il en deit venir / Deit esguarder, se il est sages, / Que
n’en vienge honte e damages.”
Benoît de Sainte-Maure, Le Roman de Troie, ed. Leopold Constans
(Paris: Firmin Didot, 1904-12).
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