Octavian (Middle English verse romance)

Octavian is a 14th-century Middle English verse translation and abridgement of a mid-13th century Old French romance of the same name. This Middle English version exists in three manuscript copies and in two separate compositions, one of which may have been written by the 14th-century poet Thomas Chestre who also composed Libeaus Desconus and Sir Launfal. The other two copies are not by Chestre and preserve a version of the poem in regular twelve-line tail rhyme stanzas, a verse structure that was popular in the 14th century in England. Both poetic compositions condense the Old French romance to about 1800 lines, a third of its original length, and relate “incidents and motifs common in legend, romance and chanson de geste.” The story describes a trauma that unfolds in the household of Octavian, later the Roman Emperor Augustus, whose own mother deceives him into sending his wife and his two newborn sons into exile and likely death. After many adventures, the family are at last reunited and the guilty mother-in-law appropriately punished.

Copies of the Middle English version of Octavian are found in:

An incomplete printed copy by Wynkyn de Worde of the Northern Octavian, is found in Huntington Library 14615, early-16th century.

There are two Middle English versions of this romance represented by these surviving manuscripts, both of which condense the plot of the Old French original to about a third of its length. One of these is known from only one copy, British Museum MS Cotton Caligula A.ii, a manuscript copied sometime between 1446 and 1460 In this manuscript, Octavian precedes two Arthurian romances, Sir Launfal and Libeaus Desconus.Sir Launfal is known only from this one manuscript and is signed with the name Thomas Chestre. On grounds of style, mode of composition and dialect it is believed that the two romances flanking Sir Launfal, including Octavian, may be by the same author. This version of Octavian is known as the Southern Octavian.

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