Chapter 31: Troilus and Cressida

[In several respects, the story of “Troilus and Cressida” may beregarded as Chaucer’s noblest poem. Larger in scale than anyother of his individual works — numbering nearly half as manylines as The Canterbury Tales contain, without reckoning thetwo in prose — the conception of the poem is yet so closely andharmoniously worked out, that all the parts are perfectlybalanced, and from first to last scarcely a single line issuperfluous or misplaced. The finish and beauty of the poem asa work of art, are not more conspicuous than the knowledge ofhuman nature displayed in the portraits of the principalcharacters. The result is, that the poem is more modern, in formand in spirit, than almost any other work of its author; thechaste style and sedulous polish of the stanzas admit of easychange into the forms of speech now current in England; whilethe analytical and subjective character of the work gives it, forthe nineteenth century reader, an interest of the same kind asthat inspired, say, by George Eliot’s wonderful study ofcharacter in “Romola.” Then, above all, “Troilus and Cressida”is distinguished by a purity and elevation of moral tone, thatmay surprise those who judge of Chaucer only by the coarsetraits of his time preserved in The Canterbury Tales, or whomay expect to find here the Troilus, the Cressida, and thePandarus of Shakspeare’s play. It is to no trivial gallant, nowoman of coarse mind and easy virtue, no malignantlysubservient and utterly debased procurer, that Chaucerintroduces us. His Troilus is a noble, sensitive, generous, pure-souled, manly, magnanimous hero, who is only confirmed andstimulated in all virtue by his love, who lives for his lady, anddies for her falsehood, in a lofty and chivalrous fashion. HisCressida is a stately, self-contained, virtuous, tender-heartedwoman, who loves with all the pure strength and trustfulabandonment of a generous and exalted nature, and who isdriven to infidelity perhaps even less by pressure ofcircumstances, than by the sheer force of her love, which will goon loving — loving what it can have, when that which it wouldrather have is for the time unattainable. His Pandarus is agentleman, though a gentleman with a flaw in him; a man who,in his courtier-like good-nature, places the claims ofcomradeship above those of honour, and plots away the virtueof his niece, that he may appease the love-sorrow of his friend;all the time conscious that he is not acting as a gentlemanshould, and desirous that others should give him thatjustification which he can get but feebly and diffidently inhimself. In fact, the “Troilus and Cressida” of Chaucer is the“Troilus and Cressida” of Shakespeare transfigured; theatmosphere, the colour, the spirit, are wholly different; the olderpoet presents us in the chief characters to noble natures, theyounger to ignoble natures in all the characters; and the poemwith which we have now to do stands at this day among thenoblest expositions of love’s workings in the human heart andlife. It is divided into five books, containing altogether 8246lines. The First Book (1092 lines) tells how Calchas, priest ofApollo, quitting beleaguered Troy, left there his only daughterCressida; how Troilus, the youngest brother of Hector and sonof King Priam, fell in love with her at first sight, at a festival inthe temple of Pallas, and sorrowed bitterly for her love; andhow his friend, Cressida’s uncle, Pandarus, comforted him bythe promise of aid in his suit. The Second Book (1757 lines)relates the subtle manoeuvres of Pandarus to induce Cressida toreturn the love of Troilus; which he accomplishes mainly bytouching at once the lady’s admiration for his heroism, and herpity for his love-sorrow on her account. The Third Book (1827lines) opens with an account of the first interview between thelovers; ere it closes, the skilful stratagems of Pandarus haveplaced the pair in each other’s arms under his roof, and thelovers are happy in perfect enjoyment of each other’s love andtrust. In the Fourth Book (1701 lines) the course of true loveceases to run smooth; Cressida is compelled to quit the city, inransom for Antenor, captured in a skirmish; and she sadlydeparts to the camp of the Greeks, vowing that she will makeher escape, and return to Troy and Troilus within ten days. TheFifth Book (1869 lines) sets out by describing the court whichDiomedes, appointed to escort her, pays to Cressida on the wayto the camp; it traces her gradual progress from indifference toher new suitor, to incontinence with him, and it leaves thedeserted Troilus dead on the field of battle, where he has soughtan eternal refuge from the new grief provoked by clear proof ofhis mistress’s infidelity. The polish, elegance, and power of thestyle, and the acuteness of insight into character, which markthe poem, seem to claim for it a date considerably later than thatadopted by those who assign its composition to Chaucer’syouth: and the literary allusions and proverbial expressions withwhich it abounds, give ample evidence that, if Chaucer reallywrote it at an early age, his youth must have been precociousbeyond all actual record. Throughout the poem there arerepeated references to the old authors of Trojan histories whoare named in “The House of Fame”; but Chaucer especiallymentions one Lollius as the author from whom he takes thegroundwork of the poem. Lydgate is responsible for theassertion that Lollius meant Boccaccio; and though there is noauthority for supposing that the English really meant todesignate the Italian poet under that name, there is abundantinternal proof that the poem was really founded on the“Filostrato” of Boccaccio. But the tone of Chaucer’s work ismuch higher than that of his Italian “auctour;” and while insome passages the imitation is very close, in all that ischaracteristic in “Troilus and Cressida,” Chaucer has fairlythrust his models out of sight. In the present edition, it has beenpossible to give no more than about one-fourth of the poem —274 out of the 1178 seven-line stanzas that compose it; butpains have been taken to convey, in the connecting prosepassages, a faithful idea of what is perforce omitted.]