The chief epic themes drawn from the antique were the Tales of Troy and Thebes and the story of Aeneas. In verse and prose they were retold in the vernacular literatures and also in mediaeval Latin.[334] We shall, however, limit our view to the primary Old French versions, which formed the basis of compositions in German, Italian, English, as well as French. They were composed between 1150 and 1170 by Norman-French _trouvères_. The names of the authors of the _Roman de Thebes_ and the _Eneas_ are unknown; the _Roman de Troie_ was written by Benoit de St. More. These poems present a universal substitution of mediaeval manners and sentiment. For instance, one observes that the epic participation of the pagan gods is minimized, and in the _Roman de Troie_ even discarded; necromancy, on the other hand, abounds. A more interesting change is the transformation of the love episode. That had become an epic adjunct in Alexandrian Greek literature as early as the third century before Christ. It existed in the antique sources of all these mediaeval poems. Nevertheless the romantic narratives of courtly love in the latter are mediaeval creations. The _Eneas_ relates the love of Lavinia for the hero, most correctly reciprocated by him. The account of it fills fourteen hundred lines, and has no precedent in Virgil’s poem, which in other respects is followed closely. Lavinia sees Aeneas from her tower, and at once understands a previous discourse of her mother on the subject of love. She utters love’s plaints, and then faints because Aeneas does not seem to notice her. After which she passes a sleepless night. The next morning she tells her mother, who is furious, since she favours Turnus as a suitor. The girl falls senseless, but coming to herself when alone, she recalls love’s stratagems, and attaches a letter to an arrow which is shot so as to fall at Aeneas’s feet. Aeneas reads the letter, and turns and salutes the fair one furtively, that his followers may not see. Then he enters his tent and falls so sick with love that he takes to his bed. The next day Lavinia watches for him, and thinks him false, till at last, pale and feeble, he appears, and her heart acquits him; amorous glances now fly back and forth between them.[335] To have this jaded jilt grow sick with love is a little too much for us, and Aeneas is absurd; but the universal human touches us quite otherwise in the sweet changing heart of Briseida in the _Roman de Troie_. There is no ground for denying to Benoit of St. More his meed of fame for creating this charming person and starting her upon her career. Following “Dares,” Benoit calls her Briseida; but she becomes the Griseis of Boccaccio’s _Filostrato_; and what good man does not sigh and love her under the name of Cressid in Chaucer’s poem, though he may deplore her somewhat brazen heartlessness in Shakespeare’s play.