Prologue, ll. 55-6.
53-4. 'That was elegantly compiled by a wise clerk—one Guido, a man who had searched carefully, and knew all the actions from authors whom he had by him.' See Introductory note, pp. 68 f.
66-7. Cornelius Nepos was supposed to have found the Greek work of Dares at Athens when rummaging in an old cupboard (Benoît de Sainte-Maure, Prologue, ll. 77 ff.).
157. Note the slovenly repetition from l. 151. So l. 159 repeats l. 152.
168-9. I have transposed these lines, assuming that they were misplaced by a copyist. Guido's Latin favours the change, and the whole passage will illustrate the English translator's methods:
Oyleus uero Aiax qui cum 32 nauibus suis in predictam incidit tempestatem, omnibus nauibus suis exustis et submersis in mari, in suis uiribus brachiorum nando semiuiuus peruenit ad terram; et, inflatus pre nimio potu aque, uix se nudum recepit in littore, vbi usque ad superuenientis diei lucem quasi mortuus iacuit in arena, [et] de morte sua sperans potius quam de uita. Sed cum quidam ex suis nando similiter a maris ingluuie iam erepti nudi peruenissent ad littus, dominum eorum querunt in littore [et] si forsitan euasisset. Quem in arena iacentem inueniunt, dulcibus uerborum fouent affatibus, cum nec in uestibus ipsum nec in alio possunt subsidio refouere. (MS. Harley 4123, fol. 117 a—the bracketed words are superfluous.)
178. Telamon was not at the siege, and his name appears here and in l. 150 as the result of a tangle which begins in the confusion of Oyleus Ajax with Ajax the son of Telamon. In classical writers after Homer it is Oyleus Ajax who, at the sack of Troy, drags Cassandra from the temple of Minerva. This is the story in Dictys. Dares, like Homer, is silent. In Benoît de Sainte-Maure's poem (ll. 26211-16), the best MSS. name Oyleus Ajax as Cassandra's captor, but others have 'Thelamon Aiax', i.e. Ajax, the son of Telamon. Guido read Benoît in a MS. of the latter class, and accordingly makes Telamonius Aiax do the sacrilege. With the English translator this becomes Telamon simply (Bk. xxix, ll. 11993-7). So when later, in Bk. xxxi, he comes to describe the shipwreck, he replaces Guido's Aiax by Telamon, and spoils the story of Minerva's vengeance on the actual violator of her sanctuary.
[VIII]
Dialect: South Midland, with mixture of forms.