''The Fall of Princes'' is a long poem by English poet

John Lydgate John Lydgate of Bury (c. 1370 – c. 1451) was an English monk and poet, born in Lidgate, near Haverhill, Suffolk, England. Lydgate's poetic output is prodigious, amounting, at a conservative count, to about 145,000 lines. He explored and est ...

. It is based on

Giovanni Boccaccio Giovanni Boccaccio (, , ; 16 June 1313 – 21 December 1375) was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so well known as a writer that he was somet ...

's work '' De Casibus Virorum Illustrium'', which Lydgate knew in a French translation by Laurent de Premierfait, entitled ''Des Cas des nobles hommes et femmes''. Lydgate's poem was written in the years 1431-38. It is composed of nine books and some 36 thousand lines. It is made up of

rhyme royal Rhyme royal (or rime royal) is a rhyming stanza form that was introduced to English poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer. The form enjoyed significant success in the fifteenth century and into the sixteenth century. It has had a more subdued but continuing ...

stanzas: Out of her swoone when she did abbraide, Knowing no mean but death in her distrèsse, To her brothèr full piteously she said, "Cause of my sorrowe, roote of my heavinesse, That whilom were the sourse of my gladnèsse, When both our joyes by wille were so disposed, Under one key our hearts to be enclosed.—Falls of Princes, Book I, at Luminarium.
/ref> The poem tells about lives and tragic deaths of many historical and legendary persons. A sixteenth-century poem ''

The Mirror for Magistrates ''The Mirror for Magistrates'' is a collection of English poems from the Tudor period by various authors which retell the lives and the tragic ends of various historical figures. Background This work was conceived as a continuation of the '' Fal ...

'' by various authors is a sequel to ''The Fall of Princes''.

References

External links

* scans of the version edited by Dr. Henry Bergen, published 1923-1927 for the

Early English Text Society The Early English Text Society (EETS) is a text publication society founded in 1864 which is dedicated to the editing and publication of early English texts, especially those only available in manuscript. Most of its volumes contain editions of ...

:
Part I (Introduction and Books I and II)

Part II (Books III-V)

Part III (Books VI-IX)

Part IV (Bibliographic Introduction, Notes, and Glossary)

e-text version
of the EETS edition (poem text only, without Dr. Bergen's introduction or notes) {{DEFAULTSORT:Fall Of Princes Middle English poems Adaptations of works by Giovanni Boccaccio