Abstract
The Roman poet Ovid (43 BC–17 AD) devoted the twelfth and thirteenth books of his Metamorphoses to the Trojan War. The piè;ce de résistance is the verbal contest between Ajax and Ulysses as they both lay claim to the fallen Achilles' armour. The dispute is won gloriously by the cunning and subtle Ulysses over the valorous man of action Ajax, who, in the end, takes his own life.
More than twelve and a half centuries later, Jacob van Maerlant includes this episode in his Historie van Troyen (ca. 1260), which was based on Benoîit de Sainte-Maure's Roman de Troie (ca. 1160). The medieval Dutch poet did not merely translate Ovid's Latin text, but introduced three adjustments: he simplified the language, he added explanations of mythologicaldetails and he eliminated the role of the supernatural completely. In the Historie van Troyen Maerlant gives an extremely unfavourable picture of the Greeks. By including this episode, Maerlant underlines once more than cunning and deceit (Ulysses) are valued higher by the Greeks than valour and bravery (Ajax).
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Jongen, L. And The Winner Is . . . : The Contest over the Arms of Achilles in a Middle Dutch Troy Romance. Neophilologus 87, 501–515 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025452732746
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025452732746