written about the fifth century, which pretends to be a translation of
a lost work on the fall of Troy by Dares, a Trojan priest mentioned in
Homer's _Iliad_.]

[Footnote 561: Ovid. A Roman poet who lived about the time of Christ,
whose best-known work is the _Metamorphoses_, founded on classical
legends.]

[Footnote 562: Statius. A Roman poet of the first century after
Christ.]

[Footnote 563: Petrarch. An Italian poet of the fourteenth century.]

[Footnote 564: Boccaccio. An Italian novelist and poet of the
fourteenth century. See note on "Italian tales," 539. It is supposed
that the plan of the _Decameron_ suggested the similar but far
superior plan of Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_.]

[Footnote 565: Provençal poets. The poets of Provençe, a province of
the southeastern part of France. In the Middle Ages it was celebrated
for its lyric poets, called troubadours.]

[Footnote 566: Romaunt of the Rose, etc. Chaucer's _Romaunt of the
Rose_, written during the period of French influence, is an incomplete
and abbreviated translation of a French poem of the thirteenth
century, _Roman de la Rose_, the first part of which was written by
William of Loris and the latter by John of Meung, or Jean de Meung.]

[Footnote 567: Troilus and Creseide, etc. Chaucer ascribes the Italian
poem which he followed in his _Troilus and Creseide_ to an unknown