French

Le Roman de Thèbes is a poem of some 10,000 lines that appears to be based, not on the Thebaid

Thebaid (Latin poem)

The Thebaid is a Latin epic in twelve books written in dactylic hexameter by Publius Papinius Statius . The poem deals with the Theban cycle of mythology and treats the assault of the seven champions of Argos against the city of Thebes.-Composition:Based on Statius' own testimony, the Thebaid was...

of Statius

Statius

Publius Papinius Statius was a Roman poet of the 1st century CE . Besides his poetry in Latin, which include an epic poem, the Thebaid, a collection of occasional poetry, the Silvae, and the unfinished epic, the Achilleid, he is best known for his appearance as a major character in the Purgatory...

, but on an abridgment of that work. This view is supported by the omission of incidents and details which, in spite of the altered conditions under which the poem was composed, would naturally have been preserved in any imitation of the Thebaid, while again certain modifications of the version of Statius can hardly be due to the author's invention but point to an ancient origin.

As in other poems of the same kind, the marvellous disappears; the Greeks

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

 adopt the French methods of warfare and the French code of chivalric

Chivalry

Chivalry is a term related to the medieval institution of knighthood which has an aristocratic military origin of individual training and service to others. Chivalry was also the term used to refer to a group of mounted men-at-arms as well as to martial valour...

 love. The Roman dates from the 12th century (c. 1150-55), and is written, not in the tirades of the chansons de geste, but in octosyllabic rhymed couplet

Couplet

A couplet is a pair of lines of meter in poetry. It usually consists of two lines that rhyme and have the same meter.While traditionally couplets rhyme, not all do. A poem may use white space to mark out couplets if they do not rhyme. Couplets with a meter of iambic pentameter are called heroic...

s. It was once attributed to Benoît de Sainte-Maure

Benoît de Sainte-Maure

Benoît de Sainte-Maure was a 12th century French poet, most probably from Sainte-Maure de Touraine near Tours, France. The Plantagenets' administrative center was located in Chinon - west of Tours....

; but all that can be said is that the Thebes is prior to the Roman de Troie, of which Benoît was undoubtedly the author.

The Thebes is preserved also in several French prose redactions, the first of which, printed in the 16th century under the name of Edipus, belongs to the early years of the 13th century, and originally formed part of a compilation of ancient history, Histoire ancienne jusqu'à Caesar. The first volume of Les histoires de Paul Crose traduites en français contains a free and amplified version of the Thebes.

English

The Siege of Thebes, written about 1420 by John Lydgate

John Lydgate

John Lydgate of Bury was a monk and poet, born in Lidgate, Suffolk, England.Lydgate is at once a greater and a lesser poet than John Gower. He is a greater poet because of his greater range and force; he has a much more powerful machine at his command. The sheer bulk of Lydgate's poetic output is...

 as a supplementary Canterbury Tale, was printed by Wynkyn de Worde

Wynkyn de Worde

Wynkyn de Worde was a printer and publisher in London known for his work with William Caxton, and is recognized as the first to popularize the products of the printing press in England....

 about 1500.

Anglo-Norman

From the Roman de Thebes also were possibly derived the Ipomedon and its sequel Protheselaus, two romans d'aventures written about the end of the 12th century by Hue de Rotelande

Hue de Rotelande

Hue de Rotelande was an important Cambro-Norman poet writing in Old French at the end of the 12th century.-Life:He was a cleric and a native of Rhuddlan. He wrote in Credenhill, Herefordshire...

, an Anglo-Norman

Anglo-Norman

The Anglo-Normans were mainly the descendants of the Normans who ruled England following the Norman conquest by William the Conqueror in 1066. A small number of Normans were already settled in England prior to the conquest...

 poet who lived in Credenhill

Credenhill

Credenhill is a village and civil parish in Herefordshire, England,Near Credenhill is the site of the former Royal Air Force station RAF Hereford, which is now the headquarters of 22 Special Air Service Regiment.-Notable residents:...

, near Hereford

Hereford

Hereford is a cathedral city, civil parish and county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, southwest of Worcester, and northwest of Gloucester...

. The author asserts that he translated from a Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 book lent him by Gilbert Fitz-Baderon, 4th lord of Monmouth, but in reality he has written romances of chivalry on the usual lines, the names of the characters alone being derived from antiquity.