Much better burnt: Reading Arthur's return the light of troy

Both epigraphs recall the same literary event, the recovery of mutilated Arthurian texts. The first comes from Edmund Spenser's Arthurian epic The Faerie Queene and describes the library of Eumnestes as it appears to Prince Arthur and Sir Guyon. After entering this fabulous historical archive, Arthur discovers and immediately begins to read a mutilated history of Britain, "an auncient booke, hight Britonmoniments" The narrative starts in prehistoric savagery, includes the Trojan colonization, and ends abruptly, "[a]s if the rest some wicked hand did rend," just as Uther Pendragon's royal successor-the annoyed reader Prince Arthur-is about to be disclosed (II.ix.59; II.x.68). In what must be one of the most perverse scenes in Arthurian literature, we see an uncrowned Arthur reading an unfinished book which is recovered in an unfinished Arthurian epic.