these
personages, which will beguile the time and drive ennui away from
castle-halls. These poems form a whole cycle; Alexander is the centre of
it, as Charlemagne is of the cycle of France, and Arthur of the cycle of
Britain.

The poets who write about these famous warriors endeavour to satisfy at
once the contradictory tastes of their patrons for marvels and for
truth. Their works are a collection of attested prodigies. They are
unanimous in putting aside Homer's story, which does not contain enough
miracles to please them, and, being in consequence little disposed to
leniency, they reject the whole of it as apocryphal. I confess, says one
of them, that Homer was a "marvellous clerk," but his tales must not be
believed: "For well we know, past any doubt, that he was born more than
a hundred years after the great host was gathered together."[173]

But the worst forger of Alexandria obtains the confidence of our poets;
they read with admiration in old manuscripts a journal of the siege of
Troy, and the old manuscripts declare the author of this valuable
document to be Dares the Phrygian. The work has its counterpart executed
in the Grecian camp by Dictys of Crete. No doubt crosses their mind;
here is authenticity and truth, here are documents to be trusted; and
how interesting they are, how curious! the very journal of an
eye-witness; truth and wonder made into one.

For Alexander they have a no less precious text: the
Pseudo-Callisthenes, composed in Greek at Alexandria, of which a Latin
version of the fourth century still exists. They are all the better
disposed towards it that it is a long tissue of marvels and fabulous
adventures.[174] For the history of Thebes they are obliged to content
themselves with Statius, and for that of Rome with Virgil, that same
Virgil who became by degrees, in mediaeval legends, an enchanter, the
Merlin of the cycle of Rome. He had, they believed, some weird
connection with the powers of darkness; for he had visited them and
described in his "AEneid" their place of abode: no one was surprised at
seeing Dante take him for a guide.

What these poets wished for was a certificate of authenticity at
starting. Once they had it, they took no further trouble; it was their
passport; and with a well-worded passport one can go a long way. After
having blamed Homer and appealed to Dares, they felt themselves above
suspicion, laid hands on all they could, and invented in their turn.
Here is, for