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Digging for Truth: How Chaucer, Boccaccio, and Ovid Gave Life to Ancient
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 Digging for Truth:
How Chaucer, Boccaccio, and Ovid Gave Life to Ancient Tales

Prior to the 1710 Act of Ann in Great Britain, questions of copyright, authorship, and

ownership of works were a completely foreign concept for authors, poets, and playwrights

alike. Indeed, many—if not most—famous writers from before this time rewrote and even

copied other writers’ works, without really considering that they were essentially stealing from

others. Naturally, the concept of plagiarism was also foreign to them and, as such, they cannot

be blamed for their actions. Nevertheless, illustrious authors such as Shakespeare, Chaucer,

and Milton, to name a few, regularly borrowed from their predecessors and contemporaries

alike in order to create—or recreate—the timeless classics which the world is now familiar

with. This means that, in some cases, the literary sources and backgrounds for major English

works have been lost or completely muddled due to the lack of proper crediting and, as

shocking as that may seem to modern readers, this was an all-too common practice and not

regarded as insulting in the least. An especially striking example of this is Geoffrey Chaucer’s

fictional source of inspiration who, inadvertently, creates confusion and overshadows the true

sources of his texts. While Chaucer’s readers concentrated on a fictional source of reference,

the real inspiration remained hidden for a long time, that is, until critics began uncovering the

truth.

Far from being the only writer to do this, generations of artists either ignored the true

sources for their work or credited the wrong people. Whether accidental or malicious, one

cannot tell, but the truth lies in the fact that these lost sources sent scholars on wild chases

across history, trying to prove who did what, and in which context. John Dryden, for instance,

points to this now-uncovered history in his 1700 book Fables; Ancient and Modern translated

into verse, From Homer, Ovid, Boccace, & Chaucer: with original poems in which he writes:
 Digging for Truth| A.M. Maxwell

[While] both [Ovid and Chaucer] writ with wonderful Facility and Clearness;
neither were great inventors: For Ovid only copied the Grecian fables; and most
of Chaucer’s stories were taken from his Italian contemporaries, or their
Predecessors: Boccace his Decameron was first publish’d; and from thence our
Englishman has borrow’d many of his Canterbury Tales: … The Tale of Grizild
was the Invention of Petrarch; by him sent to Boccace; from whom it came to
Chaucer: Troilus and Cressida was also written by a Lombard author but much
amplified by our English Translatour. (23-4)

Through this analysis, Chaucer not only copied from other writers, but also his main literary

source, Boccaccio, did the same thing, as did Ovid—his source of inspiration in turn. Through

this nesting of sources, it is easy to see how authors and authorship can become confused and

jumbled. However, through careful examination of Ovid, Boccaccio, and Chaucer’s works, one

can uncover the threads that link all three writers across space and time.

If Chaucer relied on Boccaccio, the latter, in turn, depended on Ovid, who himself

needed the help of the ancient Greeks and Romans before him in order to write his mythological

tales. All of them were successful writers, and the fact that they borrowed from their

predecessors does not in any way tarnish their accomplishments. As far as these three are

concerned, the act of borrowing from one another was a positive thing that aided them in

creating their own literary masterpieces, without damaging each other’s reputation. Ultimately,

all three writers are incredibly well-known, studied, and respected and this is, in part, due to

the fact that through their individual writing, each of them casts light on one another’s work.

Chaucer and ‘Lollius’

In Troilus and Criseyde (c. 1380), Geoffrey Chaucer’s oft-considered finest and most

successful work of prose, he writes how he is “translating into [his] language from Latin,” (23)

apparently sourced from “[his] author, called Lollius” (9). In truth, there was never any

‘Lollius’ author of ancient Rome, so where did Chaucer get this idea from? George Lyman

Kittredge explains that Chaucer “wished—as all writers till—to lend his work an air of truth

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and a familiar device was, and still is, to appear to be accepted as authoritative” (49). As such,

Chaucer used this fictional person as a ‘source’ for several of his works, including Troilus and

Criseyde, The Knight’s Tale (c. 1387-1400), and The House of Fame (c. 1374-85). In actuality,

Chaucer’s real sources can be found in Italy and France, with his near-contemporaries Giovanni

Boccaccio and Benoît de Sainte-Maure, respectively. Boccaccio’s Il Filostrato (c. 1335) and

Benoît’s Le Roman de Troie (c. 1155-60) were major sources of inspiration for Chaucer’s

Troilus, while Boccaccio remained a constant source in his others works too. Indeed, Barry

Windeatt explains that: “a copy of Filostrato was evidently in front of Chaucer as he worked:

he often matches it stanza for stanza, and Boccaccio’s scene structure underlies Chaucer’s

narrative” (Tro. xvi). Even though he modified the characters and plot to suit his tastes, Chaucer

“constantly [adapted] and [deepened] Boccaccio’s characterization, and [went] back to the

older texts to supplement his own version of the story” (xvi). Chaucer’s Troilus, then, can be

seen as an adaptation of Boccaccio’s work rather than a new creation, since it is so heavily

reliant on the latter’s text.

Therefore, since Chaucer was more than aware of Boccaccio’s work, he should have

been properly credited for his contribution; however, this did not occur. According to

Kittredge, the reason is that “Benoit and Boccaccio would not answer, for the conditions of the

problem [of being perceived as authoritative] required an ancient (or at least an antique)

personage, and preferably one who had written in a learned language,” in this case, Latin (49).

Despite the fact that Latin was never the original language he worked with, and that “[he] drew

on such a variety of sources,” Chaucer nonetheless never “acknowledges [these sources]

directly but instead twice claims for his source an author, Lollius, who almost certainly never

existed” (Tro. xvi). Hence, should Chaucer have referred to any other authentic writer, his

credibility might have dwindled: using “Homer was manifestly out of the question. Dares,

Dictys, and Geoffrey were likewise unavailable, for their works were current, and notoriously

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did not contain any such story as that which Chaucer meant to tell” (Kittredge 49). Therefore,

Chaucer’s need for an ancient author is perhaps justified: Boccaccio, being at this point

unknown in England, could not become a serious source for Chaucer’s writing. Indeed,

Boccaccio’s “Filostrato was probably little known in England when Chaucer made it its main

narrative source for Troilus,” thereby forcing Chaucer to find—or rather establish—another

source for his text (Tro. xvi).

Furthermore, to solidify this fictitious author as being a real, credible source, Chaucer

goes as far as to “[include Lollius] along with such authorities as Homer, Dares, Dictys, and

Guido de Columnis,” all illustrious—and very much real—writers (Tro. xvii). This, however,

has led some critics to suggest that “Chaucer believed there was an ancient authority on Trojan

history called Lollius” (Tro. xvii). Perhaps initially, at the time of his writing of Troilus and

Criseyde, Chaucer truly thought that ‘Lollius’ had been a real person and author of Trojan

stories, as suggested “through textual corruption and misconstruing,” as “a line in an epistle by

the Roman poet Horace could be understood to address his friend Maximus Lollius as ‘the

greatest writer about Troy’” (Tro. xvii). Therefore, it is all too plausible that Chaucer “may

have thought Filostrato was based on [Lollius’] work” (Tro. xvii). However, in his subsequent

writing, Chaucer clearly chose to reuse the same tactic to give credibility to his work.

Unfortunately, this adopted strategy overshadowed the true sources behind his work. In

truth, “Chaucer never mentions Boccaccio’s name nor acknowledges his indebtedness to this

near-contemporary author. By contrast, Chaucer and his early readers could well have believed

in the existence of an early authority called Lollius, but no one had ever seen or read a copy of

his work” (Tro. xvii). Due to the heavy usage of this ‘author,’ many critics have sought in vain

a missing text, thinking that Lollius had perhaps been lost to history. Alack, no such person

ever existed, resulting in unfruitful research through historical documents. Chaucer’s ‘author’

therefore engendered studies into ancient writers and their works, thereby allowing the world

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to uncover ancient, forgotten texts. Through Chaucer’s innocuous desire to seem authentic,

several writers from the past have been discovered in an attempt to explain his true literary

sources.

Boccaccio and Latin Traditions

As with Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales, Giovanni Boccaccio is but a storyteller in

his Decameron, in which he “[narrates] a hundred stories or fables or parables or histories,”

intended for “ladies … in love” (3). Already, the veracity of his tales is put into question not

only because they are part truth, part fiction, but also because they contain a mixture of cultural

and literary traditions. As the editor of the Decameron G.H. McWilliam explains, “the

significance of the phrase … is underlined by pointing out its curious exact correspondence

with their known sources in French fabliaux, medieval Latin exempla and fourteenth-century

Italian chronicles, respectively” (xxvi). Amongst this vast array of literature are hidden several

figures whom Boccaccio does not acknowledge. Indeed, one of Boccaccio’s many unnamed

sources is Lucius Apuleius, a Roman writer and philosopher, active in the mid-100s AD.

According to Douglas Radcliff-Umstead,

Boccaccio is supposed to have copied newly discovered manuscripts of works

by Apuleius. Although the ancient writer’s Amor et Psyche was used by
Boccaccio in the De Genealogia Deorum (Bk. V, Ch. 22), it was the Asinus
Aureus that fascinated the Italian author through its combination of the magical
together with the salacious and realistic. (172)

The ancient Latin author was, therefore, a major source of inspiration for the later Italian writer,

and this in several of his works. Subsequently, “although classical antiquity supplied Boccaccio

with only the sources for three novelle, the large medieval body of Latin literature offered

almost innumerable tales for authors before and long after the writing of the Decameron” (177).

Among these Latin authors are, presumably, a slew of hidden source texts for Boccaccio’s

writing, all of which remain unnamed in his work.

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Unlike Chaucer who sought authenticity through sources, Boccaccio wished to

reinforce moral values by gathering, combining, and modifying old Latin stories to fit his

‘modern’ perception. Indeed, “not all medieval Latin literature … dealt with useful moral

lesson,” (186) which forced Boccaccio to reinterpret these texts to re-establish a religion-based

morality in Italian literature. To achieve this, Boccaccio shifted perspectives on some tales or

characters, such as with Pietro di Vinciolo, 1 wherein Boccaccio showed support for the

adulteress wife rather than the homosexual husband of whom the latter’s sexuality was deemed

an “offense against law and Nature [which] was what caused Pietro's wife to be unfaithful”

(174). This spin on Apuleius’ tale was completely in line with Renaissance Italian thinking, yet

opposite from classical thinking. Radcliff-Umstead explains how, “in the ancient novel, the

homosexual act is a momentary passion brought on by the desire for revenge. The classical

author, as is to be expected, does not find the act repulsive and unnatural in contrast with

Boccaccio's condemnation of homosexuality” (174). In fact, Boccaccio qualifies the trio of

characters as “[the wife] and the youth and her degenerate husband,” clearly showing his

support for the woman in this tale of adultery (Boccaccio 440). This should not be surprising,

as Boccaccio was a fervent Catholic, even choosing to take vows later in his life and dedicate

his later writing to religious texts rather than fictional stories.

Amongst his Latin predecessors, one must not overlook the importance of Ovid’s

influence in Boccaccio’s own work. In fact, Boccaccio often made use of his “favourite Latin

authors,” of which Ovid was included (lviii). From this perspective, “Boccaccio was well

acquainted with Ovid’s Metamorphoses [as] attested by his having transcribed it, in a

manuscript still preserved in the Florentine Biblioteca Laurenziana, at around the time he was

working on the Decameron” (lviii). Therefore, due to this irrefutable proof, Boccaccio could

not possibly hide Ovid as a source of inspiration—unlike what Chaucer had done with him—

1
Tenth story, fifth day (pp.432-43).

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 Digging for Truth| A.M. Maxwell

and yet, he does not directly acknowledge Ovid’s influence, nor anyone else’s for that matter.

Apart for the Decameron, however, Boccaccio also made use of Ovid’s myths in other works.

In fact, as Piero Boitani explains:

[Ovid’s] influence is much more general and precise reminiscences can be

located almost only in glosses. The Metamorphoses constitutes the primary
source … for the mythological stories of Teseida … Boccaccio seems to follow
the Ovidian version closely. Most often however, he summarizes, reduces,
touches in a theme. Always, he translates into prose and changes the wonder,
the colour, and the poetry of the original into an erudite commentary. Ovid
becomes decorative: remarkable when one considers the seriousness with which
he was regarded in the Middle Ages. (39-40)

As with Chaucer, Boccaccio also refines the information found in earlier sources and tailors it

to fit his own narrative and vision of the story. These important changes are what render his

work truly unique and ‘original’ inasmuch as it is not a direct copy of Ovid, Apuleius, nor

anyone else. Regardless of the ancient sources for Boccaccio’s work, one cannot ignore the

contemporary influences as well.

Naturally, one cannot discuss Boccaccio and his works without mentioning his mentor,

Dante Alighieri, from whom he borrowed whole lines and incorporated them into his work. In

actuality, a staggering amount of Dante is present throughout the Decameron. However, despite

this fact, “no amount of source-hunting can obscure the fact that the frame of the Decameron

is a unique and original creation, the product of a fertile and imaginative intellect” (xxvi). This

is perhaps the best proof in favour of Boccaccio’s genius: despite the background sourcing—

or lack thereof—his oeuvre is undeniably enchanting, magical, and a true Renaissance tour de

force.

Ovid and the Greeks

In terms of originality, Ovid also followed the same method of using ancient texts

without naming his sources. Much to Dryden’s dismay, he comments how he “can remember

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nothing of Ovid which was wholly his” (24). As with Chaucer much later after him, “both built

on the Inventions of other Men” (24). Unlike Chaucer who managed to create original work,

Ovid had to limit himself to things already established by his predecessors since he was dealing

with mythological stories that were deeply rooted in his country’s culture and traditions. In his

chief masterpiece Metamorphoses (8 AD), Ovid rewrites celebrated myths through a series of

fifteen books, each dealing with the transformation of one or several characters, such as with

Io’s transformation from woman to cow, or Daphne’s metamorphosis from nymph to tree.

Through his careful and meticulous gathering of myths, Ovid created the single-most

read and influential text of the Medieval and Renaissance ages. For example, Ovid’s version

of Hero and Leander—inspired by Virgil’s own tale—reappeared in numerous works,

including, but not limited to, Boccaccio’s Decameron; Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales;

Shakespeare’s As You Like It (c. 1599), Richard III (c. 1593), Othello (c. 1603), and Two

Gentlemen of Verona (c. 1589-93); and Marlowe’s aptly named Hero and Leander (1598).

Furthermore, Ovid’s influence reaches past literature and even dominates a large portion of art

history with paintings and sculptures representing his myths from artists such as Bernini,

Raphael, and Michelangelo.

Through this, it is easy to see Ovid’s magnitude in the literary and artistic world, despite

the fact that he himself was not the creator of these tales, but rather a translator and collector.

He may have popularised these myths, but the true ownership of these stories dates to the

ancient Greeks and Romans. However, Ovid was ingenious enough to be the first to link all

these stories together through the theme of metamorphosis. Indeed, “the myths that provide the

source material for Ovid’s torrent of stories are all linked together by this theme of

transformation, which Ovid, with an insight characteristic genius, had at some moment realized

to be the single unifying thread that ran through chaotically diverse bundles of stories in the

Greek and Roman traditions” (Ovid xiv). This mix of literary culture between the two major

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players of the ancient world attests to a very different historical time in which stories circulated

freely across borders and cultures.

It is important to note, however, that Ovid lived during the time in which the Roman

Empire had gained control over Greece. During this time, the two cultures melded and

transformed, combining elements of both cultures, as reflected in the blend of both Greek and

Roman myths in Metamorphoses. Even though the Roman Empire saw a tumultuous history,

Ovid “did not experience personal disaster in civil war as part of his adult life, and lived under

conditions of civil tranquillity that the Roman world had not known for a century” (xvii). Due

to this, Ovid was able to travel and learn from a variety of people and places, gathering stories

as he went. In truth, Ovid’s sources are incredibly varied due to his wide exposure to literature

and writers. Interestingly,

Ovid had read voraciously since childhood and had thought hard about the
whole Greek and Roman literary tradition. In a sense, the entirety of ancient
literature and myth is the background for his poem, although the particular
poetic sources for the theme of transformation itself are distinctly out-of-the-
way pieces of Hellenistic learning, the Heteroeumena (‘Metamorphoses’) of
Nicander, and Ornithogonia (‘Generation of Birds’) of Boios (or Boio). (xxviii)

Even though some of Ovid’s sources can be tracked, such as the ones presented above as well

as the more obvious Homerian texts, the core source material for these myths is incredibly

difficult to pin down to an exact author, since they stem from oral traditions in ancient Greece

and Rome. Nevertheless, Ovid not only successfully gathered tales from various sources, he

also popularised them and made them his own. Obviously, seeing as how well-read he was,

“Ovid [knew] and [loved] the traditions of his literary past, but [refused] to be intimidated or

enslaved by them,” therefore recreating them so that they become uniquely Ovidian in style

(xxviii).

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Ultimately, Ovid’s myths are powerful and important pieces of Western literature,

having served as a basis for countless subsequent oeuvres across history. His undertaking of

Græco-Roman myths is monumental in its task and execution, and incredibly important in

terms of its impact on the arts. Even though his sources are mostly unknown and lost in time,

through Ovid’s work, the world is able to enjoy such ancient fables and apply them to a variety

of modern contexts and situations.

Conclusion

Although all three writers ultimately can be said to have, in modern terms, plagiarised

from one another, it is evident that, if not for this act of borrowing, translating, and recreating,

many of today’s beloved classical literature would not exist. For instance, if Chaucer had not

referenced Ovid in Troilus and Criseyde, how would he have conveyed Criseyde’s anguish

other than through Venus’ love for Adonis? Or if Boccaccio had not used stories from

Apuleius, how would he have portrayed the Renaissance perspective on love and courtship?

These elements and many more are essential to the narratives and are what create spectacular

prose and poetry as a whole.

Therefore, one might conclude that this recombination of ideas is absolutely essential

in creating new perspectives, but still owing to earlier, well-known literary or cultural

traditions. In a way, it is unnecessary to know exactly from where this or that story came from;

what is important is being able to understand the message and the cultural value that all of these

texts have. For example, Chaucer’s sources are so confusing and disarrayed, that it is difficult

to know exactly where he got his inspiration from. As Boitani explains, “Chaucer could have

relied on either Boccaccio or Ovid for his mention of Meleager and Atalanta. The similarity

between glosses and The Knight’s Tale remains in all these three cases” (114). However, does

it truly matter from whom the mention came from? Both Boccaccio and Ovid, as proven before,

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also borrowed and recombined tales and stories from other people before them. It is in moments

like these that Charles Holland Duell’s famous quote resonates the most: “everything that

can be invented has been invented,”2 owing to the fact that nothing is truly original. Hence, this

does not diminish the accomplishments of these writers in the least. Perhaps the American

writer Mark Twain said it best:

There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of

old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn
and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making
new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass
that have been in use through all the ages.3

With this in mind, it is no surprise that Chaucer, Boccaccio, and even Ovid, omitted naming

sources for their work. It is possible that for them, despite having taken ideas from elsewhere,

the final result of their work was completely original and new. To this effect, Dryden highlights

the fact that “though the Englishman [Chaucer] has borrow’d many Tales from the Italian

[Boccaccio], yet it appears, that those of Boccace were not generally of his own making, but

taken from Authors of former Ages, and by him only modell’d: so that what there was of

Invention in either of them, may be judg’d equal” (31). By establishing an equality between

what is essentially the copier and the copied, Dryden solidifies the idea that their individual

works are important and valid, regardless of their backgrounds. Indeed, as previously

discussed, Chaucer, Boccaccio, and Ovid are all original in their own right, and very much

deserving of the praise they receive. Ovid’s Metamorphoses, for example, “succeeded beyond

any expectation he could conceivably have had, because Græco-Roman myth in Europe since

the fall of the Roman Empire has been Ovidian myth—even the category of Græco-Roman

myth is dependent on Ovid” (Ovid xxix). Ovid single-handedly revolutionised the whole genre

of mythology and, “apart from Homer’s Troy and Odysseus, Sophocles’ Oedipus and Virgil’s

2
Denis Crouch, “Tracing the Quote,” Patentlyo, 2011.
3
Mark Twain, Mark Twain's Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review (1907).

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Dido, it is hard to think of a Græco-Roman myth which is common coin in contemporary

culture that is not an Ovidian myth” (xxix). The same can be said of Boccaccio, who laid down

the foundations for Renaissance literature, and Chaucer, who is one of—if not the most—read

medieval writer.

Had it not been for their borrowing from other writers before them, then perhaps they

would not be regarded as foundational pillars of Western literature. Having started this paper

by wondering why classical writers might forgo naming their sources, this work culminates on

the fact that, regardless of the origin of specific ideas, the execution of them on paper is what

truly matters and remains beyond the centuries. If not for Ovid’s compilation of Græco-Roman

myths, perhaps most of them would have been lost, seeing as they were originally oral stories.

The same can be said for Boccaccio who salvaged ideas from ancient Latin writers, and

Chaucer’s invented source who helped add authenticity to his work. Without it, maybe his

Troilus would have been ignored and discarded—a truly jarring prospective.

Works Cited

Boccaccio, Giovanni. Decameron. Penguin Classics. Translated by G.H. McWilliam, 2nd

edition, 1972;1995, 909p.

Boitani, Piero. Chaucer and Boccaccio. Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and
Literature, Oxford, 1977, 198p.

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. The Modern Library. Translated by Burton Raffel.
New York, 2008, 626p.

… Troilus and Criseyde. Translated by Barry Windeatt. Oxford World’s Classics. New York,
1998;2008, 196p.

Dryden, John, Fables; Ancient and Modern translated into verse, From Homer, Ovid,
Boccace, & Chaucer: with original poems. Printed for Jacob Tonson, London, 1700,
616p. Accessed 12 Dec 2019, https://archive.org/details/fablesancientmod00dryduoft.

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Kittredge, George Lyman. “Chaucer’s Lollius.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol.
28 (1917), pp. 47-133. Accessed 12 Dec 2019, https://www.jstor.org/stable/310641.

Radcliff-Umstead, Douglas. “Boccaccio's Adaptation of Some Latin Sources for the

Decameron.” Italica, Vol. 45, No. 2, Jun. 1968, pp. 171-194. Accessed 13 Dec 2019,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/478300.

Ovid, Metamorphoses. Penguin Classics. Translated by David Raeburn. London, 2004, 723p.

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