The latter mediaevalized and feudalized the tale. Nor were they halted by any absurdity, or conscious of the characterlessness of the puppets of the tale.[1]
Further to pursue the fortunes of antique themes in mediaeval literature would lead us beyond bounds. Yet mention should be made of the handling of minor narratives, as the Metamorphoses of Ovid. They were very popular, and from the twelfth century on, paraphrases or refashionings were made of many of them. These added to the old tale the interesting mediaeval element of the moral or didactic allegory. The most prodigious instance of this moralizing of Ovid was the work of Chrétien Légouais, a French Franciscan who wrote at the beginning of the fourteenth century. In some seventy thousand lines he presented the stories of the Metamorphoses, the allegories which he discovered in them, and the moral teaching of the same.[2]
Equally interesting was the application of allegory to Ovid's Ars amatoria. The first translators treated this frivolous production as an authoritative treatise upon the art of winning love. So it was perhaps, only Ovid was amusing himself by making a parable of his youthful diversions. Mediaeval imitators changed the habits of the gilded youth of Rome to suit the society of their time. But they did more, being votaries of courtly love. Such love in the Middle Ages had its laws which were prone to deduce their lineage from Ovid's verses. But its uplifted spirit revelled in symbolism ; and tended to change to spiritual allegory whatever authority it imagined itself based upon, even though the authority were a book as dissolute, when seriously considered, as the Ars amatoria. It is strange to think of this poem as the very far off street-walking prototype of De Lorris's Roman de la rose.
- ↑ On Pseudo-Callisthenes see Paul Meyer, Alexandre le Grand dans la literature française du moyen âge (Paris, 1886); Taylor, Classical Heritage, etc., pp. 38 and 360. In the last quarter of the twelfth century Walter of Lille, called also Walter of Chatillon, wrote his Alexandreis in ten books of easy-flowing hexameters. It is printed in Migne, Pat. Lat. 209, col. 463-572. Cf. ante, page 192. His work shows that a mediaeval scholarpoet could reproduce a historical theme quite soberly. His poem was read by other bookmen ; but the Alexander of the Middle Ages remained the Alexander of the fabulous vernacular versions.
- ↑ See Gaston Paris, "Chrétien Légouais et autres imitateurs d'Ovide," Hist, lift, de la France, t. xxix., pp. 455-525.
