Chapter 67

And yet, when pity had thus completed the triumph of inconstancy, she made bitter moan over her falseness to one of the noblest and worthiest men that ever was; but it was now too late to repent, and at all events she resolved that she would be true to Diomede — all the while weeping for pity of the absent Troilus, to whom she wished every happiness. The tenth day, meantime, had barely dawned, when Troilus, accompanied by Pandarus, took his stand on the walls, to watch for the return of Cressida. Till noon they stood, thinking that every corner from afar was she; then Troilus said that doubtless her old father bore the parting ill, and had detained her till after dinner; so they went to dine, and returned to their vain observation on the walls. Troilus invented all kinds of explanations for his mistress’s delay; now, her father would not let her go till eve; now, she would ride quietly into the town after nightfall, not to be observed; now, he must have mistaken the day. For five or six days he watched, still in vain, and with decreasing hope. Gradually his strength decayed, until he could walk only with a staff; answering the wondering inquiries of his friends, by saying that he had a grievous malady about his heart. One day he dreamed that in a forest he saw Cressida in the embrace of a boar; and he had no longer doubt of her falsehood. Pandarus, however, explained away the dream to mean merely that Cressida was detained by her father, who might be at the point of death; and he counselled the disconsolate lover to write a letter, by which he might perhaps get at the truth. Troilus complied, entreating from his mistress, at the least, a “letter of hope;” and the lady answered, that she could not come now, but would so soon as she might; at the same time “making him great feast,” and swearing that she loved him best — “of which he found but bottomless behest [which he found but groundless promises].” Day by day increased the woe of Troilus; he laid himself in bed, neither eating, nor drinking, nor sleeping, nor speaking, almost distracted by the thought of Cressida’s unkindness. He related his dream to his sister Cassandra, who told him that the boar betokened Diomede, and that, wheresoever his lady was, Diornede certainly had her heart, and she was his: “weep if thou wilt, or leave, for, out of doubt, this Diomede is in, and thou art out.” Troilus, enraged, refused to believe Cassandra’s interpretation; as well, he cried, might such a story be credited of Alcestis, who devoted her life for her husband; and in his wrath he started from bed, “as though all whole had him y-made a leach [physician],” resolving to find out the truth at all hazards. The death of Hector meanwhile enhanced the sorrow which he endured; but he found time to write often to Cressida, beseeching her to come again and hold her truth; till one day his false mistress, out of pity, wrote him again, in these terms:

“Cupide’s son, ensample of goodlihead,* *beauty, excellence O sword of knighthood, source of gentleness! How might a wight in torment and in dread, And healeless,* you send as yet gladness? *devoid of health I hearteless, I sick, I in distress? Since ye with me, nor I with you, may deal, You neither send I may nor heart nor heal.

“Your letters full, the paper all y-plainted,* *covered with Commoved have mine heart’s pitt; complainings I have eke seen with teares all depainted Your letter, and how ye require me To come again; the which yet may not be; But why, lest that this letter founden were, No mention I make now for fear.

“Grievous to me, God wot, is your unrest, Your haste,* and that the goddes’ ordinance *impatience It seemeth not ye take as for the best; Nor other thing is in your remembrance, As thinketh me, but only your pleasance; But be not wroth, and that I you beseech, For that I tarry is *all for wicked speech.* *to avoid malicious gossip* “For I have heard well more than I wend* *weened, thought Touching us two, how thinges have stood, Which I shall with dissimuling amend; And, be not wroth, I have eke understood How ye ne do but holde me on hand; <87> But now *no force,* I cannot in you guess *no matter* But alle truth and alle gentleness.

“Comen I will, but yet in such disjoint* *jeopardy, critical I stande now, that what year or what day position That this shall be, that can I not appoint; But in effect I pray you, as I may, For your good word and for your friendship ay; For truely, while that my life may dure, As for a friend, ye may *in me assure.* *depend on me*

“Yet pray I you, *on evil ye not take* *do not take it ill* That it is short, which that I to you write; I dare not, where I am, well letters make; Nor never yet ne could I well endite; Eke *great effect men write in place lite;* *men write great matter Th’ intent is all, and not the letter’s space; in little space* And fare now well, God have you in his grace! “La Vostre C.”

Though he found this letter “all strange,” and thought it like “a kalendes of change,” <88> Troilus could not believe his lady so cruel as to forsake him; but he was put out of all doubt, one day that, as he stood in suspicion and melancholy, he saw a “coat- armour” borne along the street, in token of victory, before Deiphobus his brother. Deiphobus had won it from Diomede in battle that day; and Troilus, examining it out of curiosity, found within the collar a brooch which he had given to Cressida on the morning she left Troy, and which she had pledged her faith to keep for ever in remembrance of his sorrow and of him. At this fatal discovery of his lady’s untruth,

Great was the sorrow and plaint of Troilus; But forth her course Fortune ay gan to hold; Cressida lov’d the son of Tydeus, And Troilus must weep in cares cold. Such is the world, whoso it can behold! In each estate is little hearte’s rest; God lend* us each to take it for the best! *grant

In many a cruel battle Troilus wrought havoc among the Greeks, and often he exchanged blows and bitter words with Diomede, whom he always specially sought; but it was not their lot that either should fall by the other’s hand. The poet’s purpose, however, he tells us, is to relate, not the warlike deeds of Troilus, which Dares has fully told, but his love-fortunes:

Beseeching ev’ry lady bright of hue, And ev’ry gentle woman, *what she be,* *whatsoever she be* Albeit that Cressida was untrue, That for that guilt ye be not wroth with me; Ye may her guilt in other bookes see; And gladder I would writen, if you lest, Of Penelope’s truth, and good Alceste.

Nor say I not this only all for men, But most for women that betrayed be Through false folk (God give them sorrow, Amen!) That with their greate wit and subtilty Betraye you; and this commoveth me To speak; and in effect you all I pray, Beware of men, and hearken what I say.

Go, little book, go, little tragedy! There God my maker, yet ere that I die, So send me might to make some comedy! But, little book, *no making thou envy,* *be envious of no poetry* <89> But subject be unto all poesy; And kiss the steps, where as thou seest space, Of Virgil, Ovid, Homer, Lucan, Stace.

And, for there is so great diversity In English, and in writing of our tongue, So pray I God, that none miswrite thee, Nor thee mismetre for default of tongue! And read whereso thou be, or elles sung, That thou be understanden, God I ’seech!* *beseech But yet to purpose of my *rather speech.* *earlier subject* <90>

The wrath, as I began you for to say, Of Troilus the Greekes boughte dear; For thousandes his handes *made dey,* *made to die* As he that was withouten any peer, Save in his time Hector, as I can hear; But, well-away! save only Godde’s will, Dispiteously him slew the fierce Achill’.

And when that he was slain in this mannere, His lighte ghost* full blissfully is went *spirit Up to the hollowness of the seventh sphere <91> In converse leaving ev’ry element; And there he saw, with full advisement,* *observation, understanding Th’ erratic starres heark’ning harmony, With soundes full of heav’nly melody.

And down from thennes fast he gan advise* *consider, look on This little spot of earth, that with the sea Embraced is; and fully gan despise This wretched world, and held all vanity, *To respect of the plein felicity* *in comparison with That is in heav’n above; and, at the last, the full felicity* Where he was slain his looking down he cast.

And in himself he laugh’d right at the woe Of them that wepte for his death so fast; And damned* all our works, that follow so *condemned The blinde lust, the which that may not last, And shoulden* all our heart on heaven cast; *while we should And forth he wente, shortly for to tell, Where as Mercury sorted* him to dwell. *allotted <92>

Such fine* hath, lo! this Troilus for love! *end Such fine hath all his *greate worthiness!* *exalted royal rank* Such fine hath his estate royal above! Such fine his lust,* such fine hath his nobless! *pleasure Such fine hath false worlde’s brittleness!* *fickleness, instability And thus began his loving of Cresside, As I have told; and in this wise he died.

O young and freshe folke, *he or she,* *of either sex* In which that love upgroweth with your age, Repaire home from worldly vanity, And *of your heart upcaste the visage* *“lift up the countenance To thilke God, that after his image of your heart.”* You made, and think that all is but a fair, This world that passeth soon, as flowers fair!

And love Him, the which that, right for love, Upon a cross, our soules for to bey,* *buy, redeem First starf,* and rose, and sits in heav’n above; *died For he will false* no wight, dare I say, *deceive, fail That will his heart all wholly on him lay; And since he best to love is, and most meek, What needeth feigned loves for to seek?

Lo! here of paynims* cursed olde rites! *pagans Lo! here what all their goddes may avail! Lo! here this wretched worlde’s appetites! *end and reward Lo! here the *fine and guerdon for travail,* of labour* Of Jove, Apollo, Mars, and such rascaille* *rabble <93> Lo! here the form of olde clerkes’ speech, In poetry, if ye their bookes seech!* *seek, search

L’Envoy of Chaucer.

O moral Gower! <94> this book I direct. To thee, and to the philosophical Strode, <95> To vouchesafe, where need is, to correct, Of your benignities and zeales good. And to that soothfast Christ that *starf on rood* *died on the cross* With all my heart, of mercy ever I pray, And to the Lord right thus I speak and say:

“Thou One, and Two, and Three, *etern on live,* *eternally living* That reignest ay in Three, and Two, and One, Uncircumscrib’d, and all may’st circumscrive,* *comprehend From visible and invisible fone* *foes Defend us in thy mercy ev’ry one; So make us, Jesus, *for thy mercy dign,* *worthy of thy mercy* For love of Maid and Mother thine benign!”

Explicit Liber Troili et Cresseidis. <96>

Notes to Troilus and Cressida

1. The double sorrow: First his suffering before his love was successful; and then his grief after his lady had been separated from him, and had proved unfaithful.

2. Tisiphone: one of the Eumenides, or Furies, who avenged on men in the next world the crimes committed on earth. Chaucer makes this grim invocation most fitly, since the Trojans were under the curse of the Eumenides, for their part in the offence of Paris in carrying off Helen, the wife of his host Menelaus, and thus impiously sinning against the laws of hospitality.

3. See Chaucer’s description of himself in “The House Of Fame,” and note 11 to that poem.

4. The Palladium, or image of Pallas (daughter of Triton and foster-sister of Athena), was said to have fallen from heaven at Troy, where Ilus was just beginning to found the city; and Ilus erected a sanctuary, in which it was preserved with great honour and care, since on its safety was supposed to depend the safety of the city. In later times a Palladium was any statue of the goddess Athena kept for the safeguard of the city that possessed it.

5. “Oh, very god!”: oh true divinity! — addressing Cressida.

6. Ascaunce: as if to say — as much as to say. The word represents “Quasi dicesse” in Boccaccio. See note 5 to the Sompnour’s Tale.

7. Eft: another reading is “oft.”

8. Arten: constrain — Latin, “arceo.”

9. The song is a translation of Petrarch’s 88th Sonnet, which opens thus: “S’amor non e, che dunque e quel ch’i’sento.”

10. If maugre me: If (I burn) in spite of myself. The usual reading is, “If harm agree me” = if my hurt contents me: but evidently the antithesis is lost which Petrarch intended when, after “s’a mia voglia ardo,” he wrote “s’a mal mio grado” = if against my will; and Urry’s Glossary points out the probability that in transcription the words “If that maugre me” may have gradually changed into “If harm agre me.”

11. The Third of May seems either to have possessed peculiar favour or significance with Chaucer personally, or to have had a special importance in connection with those May observances of which the poet so often speaks. It is on the third night of May that Palamon, in The Knight’s Tale, breaks out of prison, and at early morn encounters in the forest Arcita, who has gone forth to pluck a garland in honour of May; it is on the third night of May that the poet hears the debate of “The Cuckoo and the Nightingale”; and again in the present passage the favoured date recurs.

12. Went: turning; from Anglo-Saxon, “wendan;” German, “wenden.” The turning and tossing of uneasy lovers in bed is, with Chaucer, a favourite symptom of their passion. See the fifth “statute,” in The Court of Love.

13. Procne, daughter of Pandion, king of Attica, was given to wife to Tereus in reward for his aid against an enemy; but Tereus dishonoured Philomela, Procne’s sister; and his wife, in revenge, served up to him the body of his own child by her. Tereus, infuriated, pursued the two sisters, who prayed the gods to change them into birds. The prayer was granted; Philomela became a nightingale, Procne a swallow, and Tereus a hawk.

14. Fished fair: a proverbial phrase which probably may be best represented by the phrase “done great execution.”

15. The fair gem virtueless: possessing none of the virtues which in the Middle Ages were universally believed to be inherent in precious stones.

16. The crop and root: the most perfect example. See note 29 to the Knight’s Tale.

17. Eme: uncle; the mother’s brother; still used in Lancashire. Anglo-Saxon, “eame;” German, “Oheim.”

18. Dardanus: the mythical ancestor of the Trojans, after whom the gate is supposed to be called.

19. All the other gates were secured with chains, for better defence against the besiegers.

20. Happy day: good fortune; French, “bonheur;” both “happy day” and “happy hour” are borrowed from the astrological fiction about the influence of the time of birth.

21. Horn, and nerve, and rind: The various layers or materials of the shield — called boagrion in the Iliad — which was made from the hide of the wild bull.

22. His brother: Hector.

23. Who gives me drink?: Who has given me a love-potion, to charm my heart thus away?

24. That plaited she full oft in many a fold: She deliberated carefully, with many arguments this way and that.

25. Through which I mighte stand in worse plight: in a worse position in the city; since she might through his anger lose the protection of his brother Hector.

26. I am not religious: I am not in holy vows. See the complaint of the nuns in “The Court of Love.”

27. The line recalls Milton’s “dark with excessive bright.”

28. No weal is worth, that may no sorrow drien: the meaning is, that whosoever cannot endure sorrow deserves not happiness.

29. French, “verre;” glass.

30. From cast of stones ware him in the werre: let him beware of casting stones in battle. The proverb in its modern form warns those who live in glass houses of the folly of throwing stones.

31. Westren: to west or wester — to decline towards the west; so Milton speaks of the morning star as sloping towards heaven’s descent “his westering wheel.”

32. A pike with ass’s feet etc.: this is merely another version of the well-known example of incongruity that opens the “Ars Poetica” of Horace.

33. Tristre: tryst; a preconcerted spot to which the beaters drove the game, and at which the sportsmen waited with their bows.

34. A kankerdort: a condition or fit of perplexed anxiety; probably connected with the word “kink” meaning in sea phrase a twist in an rope — and, as a verb, to twist or entangle.

35. They feel in times, with vapour etern: they feel in their seasons, by the emission of an eternal breath or inspiration (that God loves, &c.)

36. The idea of this stanza is the same with that developed in the speech of Theseus at the close of The Knight’s Tale; and it is probably derived from the lines of Boethius, quoted in note 91 to that Tale.

37. In this and the following lines reappears the noble doctrine of the exalting and purifying influence of true love, advanced in “The Court of Love,” “The Cuckoo and the Nightingale,” &c.

38. Weir: a trap or enclosed place in a stream, for catching fish. See note 10 to The Assembly of Fowls.

39. Nor might one word for shame to it say: nor could he answer one word for shame (at the stratagem that brought Cressida to implore his protection)

40. “All n’ere he malapert, nor made avow Nor was so bold to sing a foole’s mass;” i.e. although he was not over-forward and made no confession (of his love), or was so bold as to be rash and ill-advised in his declarations of love and worship.

41. Pandarus wept as if he would turn to water; so, in The Squire’s Tale, did Canace weep for the woes of the falcon.

42. If I breake your defence: if I transgress in whatever you may forbid; French, “defendre,” to prohibit.

43. These lines and the succeeding stanza are addressed to Pandarus, who had interposed some words of incitement to Cressida.

44. In “The Court of Love,” the poet says of Avaunter, that “his ancestry of kin was to Lier; and the stanza in which that line occurs expresses precisely the same idea as in the text. Vain boasters of ladies’ favours are also satirised in “The House of Fame”.

45. Nice: silly, stupid; French, “niais.”

46.”Reheating” is read by preference for “richesse,” which stands in the older printed editions; though “richesse” certainly better represents the word used in the original of Boccaccio — “dovizia,” meaning abundance or wealth.

47. “Depart it so, for widewhere is wist How that there is diversity requer’d Betwixte thinges like, as I have lear’d:” i.e. make this distinction, for it is universally known that there is a great difference between things that seem the same, as I have learned.

48. Frepe: the set, or company; French, “frappe,” a stamp (on coins), a set (of moulds).

49. To be “in the wind” of noisy magpies, or other birds that might spoil sport by alarming the game, was not less desirable than to be on the “lee-side” of the game itself, that the hunter’s presence might not be betrayed by the scent. “In the wind of,” thus signifies not to windward of, but to leeward of — that is, in the wind that comes from the object of pursuit.

50. Bothe fremd and tame: both foes and friends — literally, both wild and tame, the sporting metaphor being sustained.

51. The lovers are supposed to say, that nothing is wanting but to know the time at which they should meet.

52. A tale of Wade: see note 5 to the Merchant’s Tale.

53. Saturn, and Jove, in Cancer joined were: a conjunction that imported rain.

54. Smoky rain: An admirably graphic description of dense rain.

55. For the force of “cold,” see note 22 to the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.

56. Goddes seven: The divinities who gave their names to the seven planets, which, in association with the seven metals, are mentioned in The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale.

57. Assayed: experienced, tasted. See note 6 to the Squire’s Tale.

58. Now is it better than both two were lorn: better this happy issue, than that both two should be lost (through the sorrow of fruitless love).

59. Made him such feast: French, “lui fit fete” — made holiday for him.

60. The cock is called, in “The Assembly of Fowls,” “the horologe of thorpes lite;” [the clock of little villages] and in The Nun’s Priest’s Tale Chanticleer knew by nature each ascension of the equinoctial, and, when the sun had ascended fifteen degrees, “then crew he, that it might not be amended.” Here he is termed the “common astrologer,” as employing for the public advantage his knowledge of astronomy.

61. Fortuna Major: the planet Jupiter.

62. When Jupiter visited Alcmena in the form of her husband Amphitryon, he is said to have prolonged the night to the length of three natural nights. Hercules was the fruit of the union.

63. Chaucer seems to confound Titan, the title of the sun, with Tithonus (or Tithon, as contracted in poetry), whose couch Aurora was wont to share.

64. So, in “Locksley Hall,” Tennyson says that “a sorrow’s crown of sorrow is rememb’ring better things.” The original is in Dante’s words:- - “Nessun maggior dolore Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria.” — “Inferno,” v. 121. (“There is no greater sorrow than to remember happy times when in misery”)

65. As great a craft is to keep weal as win: it needs as much skill to keep prosperity as to attain it.

66. To heap: together. See the reference to Boethius in note 91 to the Knight’s Tale.

67. The smalle beastes let he go beside: a charming touch, indicative of the noble and generous inspiration of his love.

68. Mew: the cage or chamber in which hawks were kept and carefully tended during the moulting season.

69. Love of steel: love as true as steel.

70. Pandarus, as it repeatedly appears, was an unsucsessful lover.

71. “Each for his virtue holden is full dear, Both heroner, and falcon for rivere”:— That is, each is esteemed for a special virtue or faculty, as the large gerfalcon for the chase of heron, the smaller goshawk for the chase of river fowl.

72. Zausis: An author of whom no record survives.

73. And upon new case lieth new advice: new counsels must be adopted as new circumstances arise.

74. Hid in mew: hidden in a place remote from the world — of which Pandarus thus betrays ignorance.

75. The modern phrase “sixes and sevens,” means “in confusion:” but here the idea of gaming perhaps suits the sense better — “set the world upon a cast of the dice.”

76. The controversy between those who maintained the doctrine of predestination and those who held that of free-will raged with no less animation at Chaucer’s day, and before it, than it has done in the subsequent five centuries; the Dominicans upholding the sterner creed, the Franciscans taking the other side. Chaucer has more briefly, and with the same care not to commit himself, referred to the discussion in The Nun’s Priest’s Tale.

77. That have their top full high and smooth y-shore: that are eminent among the clergy, who wear the tonsure.

78. Athamante: Athamas, son of Aeolus; who, seized with madness, under the wrath of Juno for his neglect of his wife Nephele, slew his son Learchus.