"As also 'cause his princely high degree
Provokes him study ancient histories,
Where, as in mirror, he may plainly see
How valiant knights have won the masteries
In battles fierce by prowess and by might,
To run like race, and prove a worthy knight.
"And as they sought to climb to honour's seat,
So doth my Lord seek therein to excel,
That, as his name, so may his fame be great,
And thereby likewise idleness expel;
For so he doth to virtue bend his mind,
That hard it is his equal now to find.
"To write his princely virtues, and declare
His valour, high renown, and majesty,
His brave exploits and martial acts, that are
Most rare, and worthy his great dignity,
My barren head cannot devise by wit
To extol his fame by words and phrases fit.
"This worthy Prince, whom I so much commend,
(Yet not so much as well deserves his fame,)
By royal blood doth lineally descend
From Henry King of England, Fourth by name,
His eldest son, and heir to the crown,
And, by his virtues, Prince of high renown.
"For by the graft the fruit men easily know,
Encreasing the honour of his pedigree;
His name Lord Henry, as our stories show,
And by his title Prince of Wales is he.
Who with good right, his father being dead,
Shall wear the crown of Britain on his head.
"This mighty Prince hath made me undertake
To write the siege of Troy, the ancient town,
And of their wars a true discourse to make;
From point to point as Guido set it down,
Who long since wrote the same in Latin verse,
Which in the English now I will rehearse."
In the poem called the "Siege of Troy," written in different metre, Lydgate, addressing Henry, "O most worthy Prince! of Knighthood source and well!" thus proceeds to state the circumstances under which he wrote his work:
"God I take highly to witness
That I this work of heartily low humbless
Took upon me of intention,
Devoid of pride and presumption,
For to obey without variance
My Lord's bidding fully and pleasance;
Which hath desire, soothly for to sayn,
Of very knighthood to remember again
The wortheness (if I shall not lie)
And the prowess of old chivalry,
Because he hath joy and great dainty
To read in books of antiquity
To find only virtue to sow
By example of them, and also to eschew
The cursed vice of sloth and idleness;
So he enjoyeth in virtuous business,
In all that longeth to manhood, dare I sayn,
He busyeth ever. And thereto is so fain
To haunt his body in plays martial,
Through exercise to exclude sloth at all,
(After the doctrine of Vigetius.)
Thus is he both manful and virtuous,
More passingly than I can of him write;
I want cunning his high renown to indite,
So much of manhood men may in him seen.
And for to wit whom I would mean,
The eldest son of the noble King
Henry the Fourth; of knighthood well and spring;
In whom is showed of what stock that he grew,
The root is virtue;
Called Henry eke, the worthy Prince of Wales,
Which me commanded the dreary piteous tale
Of them of Troy in English to translate;
The siege, also, and the destruction,
Like as the Latin maketh mention,
For to complete, and after Guido make,
So I could, and write it for his sake;
Because he would that to high and low
The noble story openly were knowe
In our tongue, about in every age,
And written as well in our language
As in Latin and French it is;
That of the story the truth we not miss,
No more than doth each other nation;
This was the fine of his intention.
The which emprise anon I 'gin shall
In his worship for a memorial.
And of the time to make mention,
When I began on this translation,
It was the year, soothly to sayn,
Fourteen complete of his Father's reign."
Though this Preface was written when Henry was still Prince of Wales, the work was not finished till he had ascended the throne; when the poet sent it into the world with this charge, which he calls "L'Envoy:"
"Go forth, my book! veiled with the princely grace
Of him that is extolled for excellence
Throughout the world, but do not show thy face
Without support of his magnificence."