The Fall of Princes

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The Fall of Princes is a long poem by English poet John Lydgate.{{cite EB1911|wstitle=Lydgate, John |volume= 17 |page= 156}} It is based on Giovanni Boccaccio'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.[http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199275014.001.0001/acprof-9780199275014 Nigel Mortimer, John Lydgate's Fall of Princes: Narrative Tragedy in its Literary and Political Contexts at Oxford Scholarship Online. ] Lydgate's poem was written in the years 1431-38. It is composed of nine books and some 36 thousand lines.[https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=909 J. Allan Mitchell, John Lydgate: The Fall of Princes at The Literary Encyclopaedia, which was inspired by Guidodelle Colome.] It is made up of rhyme royal stanzas:[https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Lydgate John Lydgate at Encyclopaedia Britannica.]

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.—[http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/lydgatefalls.htm Falls of Princes, Book I, at Luminarium.]

The poem tells about lives and tragic deaths of many historical and legendary persons. A sixteenth-century poem The Mirror for Magistrates by various authors is a sequel to The Fall of Princes.