In spite of its pastoral title, Sir Philip Sidney’s _Arcadia_ (c. 1583) has a different pattern. Though it has incidental pastoral, its design is that of the long, loose, complicated, melodramatic tales of Alexandria known as the Greek Romances. These decadent Greek prose stories had wide circulation in the Renaissance; and one, the _Daphnis and Chloe_, is both better organized than most of them and clearly reminiscent of pastoral. Since its vogue was increased by the French translation of Amyot, it may be counted among Renaissance pastoral influences. For pastoral has appeared again and again not as the main intention of a whole work, but as an incidental interest. Though Renaissance imitation was thus sometimes of style, sometimes merely of decoration, it was also quite clearly the study of an ancient literary form. Chapter V ROMANCE Sixteenth-century poetic has no specific relation to Renaissance development of verse narrative. The more pervasive counsels and habits of imitation agree in exalting Vergil. Vergil did, indeed, guide the narrative sequence of Tasso; but narrative sequence is not a general Renaissance concern. Malory, Boiardo, Ariosto, Spenser, seek other narrative values. What they have in common preoccupation and common achievement is romance. Romance in a period of classicism, romance written in spite of humanism and sometimes by humanists—what should it be? It was response to the special audience of the courts; for, whatever humanism might say, the courts liked romances. It was response also to the wider audience steadily increased by printing. The response, both in medieval continuance and in distinctive Renaissance direction, constitutes an important chapter in literary history. 1. THE ROMANTIC CONTRAST The good old times recreated by poetry for refuge and inspiration were found by Malory and Spenser at the court of Arthur; by the Italian romancers, at the court of Charlemagne. These, of course, are the two main medieval fields of romance, _matière de Bretagne and matière du roi_; and into either of them may enter incidentally the matter of Troy with the progeny of Aeneas or “Hector’s arms.” Though the Charlemagne tradition may be somewhat more distinct with its twelve paladins and its one traitor, the two are essentially alike in being, for the actual world out of joint, kingdoms of chivalry. Thither the Renaissance turned from the Wars of the Roses or the hired soldiers of Italy. Gunpowder had abolished single combat; feudalism was gone; chivalry had been reduced to ceremony. Therefore romance was out of date. No; the fact that romance survived the Renaissance shows that it has no date. The romantic _therefore_ is that poetry must once more revive ideals. Sinister violence in Warwickshire or Ferrara denies chivalry; romance revives it. This fundamental motive strikingly unites the two fifteenth-century soldier romancers Malory and Boiardo.