The Assemble of Goddes

In this startling late-fifteenth-century dream vision, an anonymous author transports readers to a divine parliament where the classical gods themselves stand trial for their excesses. The narrator, snatched from sleep by Morpheus, witnesses Pluto preside over an assembly of deities each representing different facets of human desire and cosmic order. Diana and Neptune voice their grievances against the volatile Colus, whose reckless actions have disrupted the natural and divine realms. But beneath this mythological spectacle lies something more radical: a moral allegory that places Virtue and Vice in direct conflict, interrogating how divine powers and human choices alike shape the fate of kingdoms. The poem's attribution to John Lydgate has long been questioned, and contemporary scholars increasingly suspect a woman's hand, which would make this one of the earliest known English works by a female author. The result is a fascinating document where classical pagan narrative becomes a vehicle for medieval moral instruction, and where the chaos of the gods mirrors the instability of a world grappling with questions of justice, power, and accountability.