ABSTRACT
John Lydgate follows the practices of both Hartmann von Aue and Geoffrey Chaucer: he generally stays with his original, but makes whatever alterations seem feasible to ensure that the product does not clash with his own views. When the changes he wishes to make clearly betray the original text he often intrudes explicitly upon his author to give his own version of the events described or to explain what he considers their true significance. Making the necessary allowances for the shift of person already mentioned, for the changes which we may expect from the translation of prose into verse, and for the contrast between Lydgate’s carefully worded sentences and Laurent’s stylistic carelessness, people detect only one difference between the two documents, and it is rather insignificant. The liberties which he allows himself in the translation are often aimed at darkening the already shady character allotted the ancient poets in the Historia.
