Miscellanea Troiana

In the sixth and final volume of this series, editor D. M. Smith presents a selection of excerpts from three Middle English long poems, all of which contain stories from or references to the Trojan War, but not in a proportion that would have justified a complete translation. Included are eighteen tales from Confessio Amantis by John Gower (c. 1390), two from The Fall of Princes by John Lydgate (c. 1438), and a lengthy excerpt from the Chronicle of Robert Mannyng (c. 1338) describing the mythical founding of Britain by Brutus of Troy, a descendant of Aeneas.

Also included is the extant text of The Scottish Troy Book: a fragmentary and anonymous work discovered in the mid-nineteenth century preserved within two Scottish manuscripts of John Lydgate's Troy Book. Some 3,700 lines survive of this mysterious and unique poem, representing a lost Middle Scots translation of Guido delle Colonne's Historia Destructionis Troiae (c. 1287).

All four texts have been fully annotated, and are presented in a sensitive Modern English translation which respects the original rhyme and metre, allowing them to continue to be enjoyed as works of poetry, the way their medieval authors intended.