Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.
THE MYTHICAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ACCORDING to the earliest accounts, Albion, a giant, and son of
Neptune, a contemporary of Hercules, ruled over the island, to which
he gave his name. Presuming to oppose the progress of Hercules in
his western march, he was slain by him.
Another story is that Histion, the son of Japhet, the son of Noah,
had four sons,- Francus, Romanus, Alemannus, and Britto, from whom
descended the French, Roman, German, and British people.
Rejecting these and other like stories, Milton gives more regard
to the story of Brutus, the Trojan, which, he says, is supported by
"descents of ancestry long continued laws and exploits not plainly
seeming to be borrowed or devised, which on the common belief have
wrought no small impression; defended by many, denied utterly by few."
The principal authority is Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose history,
written in the twelfth century, purports to be a translation of a
history of Britain, brought over from the opposite shore of France,
which, under the name of Brittany, was chiefly peopled by natives of
Britain, who from time to time emigrated thither, driven from their
own country by the inroads of the Picts and Scots. According to this
authority, Brutus was the son of Silvius, and he of Ascanius, the
son of AEneas, whose flight from Troy and settlement in Italy will
be found narrated in "The Age of Fable."
Brutus, at the age of fifteen, attending his father to the chase,
unfortunately killed him with an arrow. Banished therefor by his
kindred, he sought refuge in that part of Greece where Helenus, with a
band of Trojan exiles, had become established. But Helenus was now
dead, and the descendants of the Trojans were oppressed by
Pandrasus, the king of the country. Brutus, being kindly received
among them, so throve in virtue and in arms as to win the regard of
all the eminent of the land above all others of his age. In
consequence of this the Trojans not only began to hope, but secretly
to persuade him to lead them the way to liberty. To encourage them
they had the promise of help from Assaracus, a noble Greek youth,
whose mother was a Trojan. He had suffered wrong at the hands of the
king, and for that reason the more willingly cast in his lot with
the Trojan exiles.
Choosing a fit opportunity, Brutus with his countrymen withdrew to
the woods and hills, as the safest place from which to expostulate,
and sent this message to Pandrasus: "That the Trojans, holding it
unworthy of their ancestors to serve in a foreign land, had
retreated to the woods, choosing rather a savage life than a slavish
one. If that displeased him, then, with his leave, they would depart
to some other country." Pandrasus, not expecting so bold a message
from