Main Menu | List of entries | finished

DARES FRYGIUS. Homer says that Dares was a priest of Hephaestus at Troy, Iliad, V.9-11. During the medieval period there appeared a work, De excidio Troiae historia, or The Fall of Troy, a History, by one Dares Phrygius, purporting to be a true account of the Trojan War from an eyewitness. The work begins with the voyage of the Argonauts and ends with the destruction of Troy, frequently contradicting Homer. It is introduced by a letter, whose writer claims to be the Latin translator of a Greek original, presumed lost. Benoît de Sainte-Maure and Guido de Columnis acknowledge Dares as one of their sources for their versions of the Trojan War. The brief episode involving Troilus, Breseida, and Diomedes is developed in Benoît's Roman de Troie 13065-13782, and forms the basis for Boccaccio's Il Filostrato and Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde.

The Man in Black says that Achilles and Antylegyus were slain in a temple, so says Dares Frygius, BD 1066-1070 (De excidio Troiae historia XXXIV). Dares stands on a pillar of iron with Homer, Dictys (Tytus), and other poets of the Trojan War, HF III.1464-1472. The narrator mentions Dares, Dictys, and Homer as writers of "Trojan gestes," Tr I.146, and directs the reader to Dares, Tr V.1771. R.K. Root suggests that when Chaucer says "Dares" he really refers to Joseph of Exeter, whose work is called Frigii Daretiis Ylias.

The whole name Dares Frygius appears in final rhyming position, BD 1070; Frygius preserves the Latin adjective Phrygius, a byname of location used as a personal name. Dares occurs medially, HF III.1467, Tr I.146, Tr V.1771.


Benoît, Roman de Troie, ed. L. Constans, II: 273-323; Dares Phrygius, De excidio Troiae historia, ed. F. Meister, 40-42; Dares Phrygius and Dictys Cretensis, The Trojan War, trans. R.M. Frazer, 160-161; Homer, Iliad, ed. and trans. A.T. Murray, I: 194-195; R.K. Root, "Chaucer's Dares." MP 15 (1917-1918): 1-22.
From CHAUCER NAME DICTIONARY
Copyright © 1988, 1996 Jacqueline de Weever
Published by Garland Publishing, Inc., New York and London.

Main Menu | List of entries | finished