Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, tr. by Nevill Coghill (Harmondsworth, England: 1971).
In choosing this work to read and comment on, I was motivated by two things. I very much enjoyed Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales when I was an undergraduate, and remember being told by my professor that Troilus and Criseyde was really his greatest work. So I figured I had to read it, even now some twenty-five years later. And I was interested in reading something that was not classical, but served as a good example of Nachleben. Though I am glad to have read the work, I must say that it didn’t do much for me.
First, though I generally enjoy alternate versions of stories (e.g. I found the novel and movie, Mary Reilly, fascinating because it told the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from the perspective of one of the servants in the house). Unfortunately, Chaucer’s Troy bore little resemblance to the Troy of Homer, or even of Vergil -- it was like reading something else altogether. The main figures of Homer and Vergil get almost no mention (Hector has a few stanzas devoted to him, but Achilles has only one or two, and just about every other major figure in the Iliad and Aeneid gets less than that), so that appeal of approaching familiar characters from a different angle was missing. In fact, when Hector is killed by Achilles, it’s all described in one stanza, with no set-up, so that if you blinked, you’d miss it, and that was the pinnacle of the action in the Iliad. Also the tone of the work was so very different from those great epics. Both the Iliad and Aeneid are tragic in a classical sense, with a great figure somehow cut down by his character and circumstances. In its place, we have here a domestic drama, a failed love affair, a love triangle (more like Troy 90210 than that of Homer). Consequently, the characters did not command much attention or interest.
Of the main characters, Troilus, Criseyde, and Pandarus, only Troilus gets mention in an ancient text. In Vergil’s Aeneid, the Trojan hero finds himself before the great doors of a temple to Juno in the North African city of Carthage. On the doors are various scenes from the Trojan War. The scene is important in the Aeneid because it lets Aeneas (and the readers) know that the Carthaginians will be welcoming towards their guests, as they are already sympathetic to the plight of Troy. On these doors, one panel shows the aftermath of the one-sided battle between Achilles and Troilus, one of Priam’s youngest sons. Troilus, hit by a spear, has fallen backwards in his chariot, and the spear point etches out a pattern in the dust as the horses wander the field, Troilus’ hair dragging in the dust. By the time of Chaucer, though, there had been various narrative poems written about Troy, and these tended to feature other characters, including that of Criseyde and Pandarus. These attempts, as well as Chaucer’s, do not aim to recapture the spirit of those ancient epics, but rather to present a medieval story (complete with ladies and knights) loosely cast in Trojan garb. In other words, the story of Troilus and Criseyde could just as easily have been told about some men and women in a French town besieged by English warriors. Only the names are ancient – the story, and its point, is medieval.
As aggravating as that may be, I found the largely one-dimensionality of the characters rather tedious. Troilus, at least after he falls in love, is a lot like Shakespeare’s Romeo, but not quite as interesting. With Troilus there are lots of sighs and great declarations of joy (and despair). There is nothing else there – we see no real development of character (which is not surprising in medieval works, but it still proved a disappointment). Criseyde is developed somewhat more, but she too is largely given to sighs and declarations and protestations, which grow tiresome after a while. Like Shakespeare’s Juliet, she is a bit more grounded than her lovesick boyfriend. She is fully aware of what the medieval code of conduct requires of a lady in a love affair – appearance is everything, and so she and Troilus must keep all secret. Only Pandarus, Criseyde’s uncle, knows about their love. And Criseyde is very careful to maintain all the important niceties, even at the risk of losing Troilus. The upshot of this is that she manages to keep her reputation, even though she violates the code (she takes up with another, the Greek warrior, Diomede), and her character, which cannot afford to go ga-ga to Troilus’ extent, appears a bit richer for that. But both do protest too much. To give a couple of examples:
... yet it is harder still for me
to look into the sorrow of his heart,
for that will be my death, as I foresee.
Yes, I shall surely die. (Criseyde speaking in Book IV, Stanza 130)
Sorrowful eyes that found their happiness
in gazing into hers that were so bright,
what are you good for now in my distress?
For nothing but to weep away your sight,
since she is quenched that was your only light!
In vain it is I have you, eyes of mine,
since she is gone that gave you power to shine. (Troilus in Book IV, Stanza 45)
That is just a bit too much, and variations of this occur whenever we hear from Troilus and often when we hear from Criseyde. To make matters worse, Chaucer himself, gets into the act on several occasions, where he protests that he almost cannot go on, for all the troubles of his characters. Here’s an example of that:
Who could have told, or fully have unfurled
his torment, his lament, his flow of brine?
No one alive or dead in all the world!
I leave you, gentle reader, to divine
that grief like his, for such a wit as mine,
is far too great, and I should work in vain;
to think about it cuts me to the brain. (Chaucer speaking for himself, Book V, Stanza 39)
The spirit does fit the topic, right enough. Young love is so full of ups and downs, and one is likely to be over the top in both joy and sorrow. And yet, though it may adequately capture those extremes, there is something downright tedious about seeing someone else in that state. Chaucer’s intent, at least in part, is to show the folly of our worldly goings-on, relative to the greater truth of God’s sublimity. At the poem’s end, when Troilus goes on a rampage after learning of Criseyde’s faithlessness, before he is finally stopped by Achilles, the spirit of Troilus goes up to heaven (or a reasonable facsimile – nothing like the ancient afterlife) and laughs to see everyone wailing for his fallen corpse – he is free of the whole emotional roller coaster and can see everything from the vantage point of eternity. Still, most of the poem consists of over-the-top statements from Troilus, Criseyde, and even Chaucer.
For me, it was the character of Pandarus, who proved the most interesting. Chaucer’s chief innovation in his rendition of Troilus and Criseyde, aside from his running commentary on the story, was his development of Pandarus. The character in Boccaccio’s Il Filostrato (the model for Chaucer’s poem) was Criseyde’s cousin, and Troilus’ mate. Chaucer made him Criseyde’s uncle, an older man, sympathetic to the lovers, but not fully caught up in the sickly sweet excesses. He has not yet become the cynical bawd of Shakespeare’s play, Troilus and Cressida, which is loosely based on Chaucer. There is a sense of the adventure in helping launch the romance of the two main characters, and he uses the excessive language of love talk effectively. At one point, he instructs Troilus on how to write a love letter – don’t show off with big words, or rhetorical devices; make sure you get lots of tears dripping on the paper; avoid medical terms (Book II, Stanzas 147ff.). He is a romantic himself, but retains an ironic distance. When Troilus faints at finally standing before Criseyde in her bed (which event Pandarus had engineered), he upbraids the young man for not being manly enough (Troilus has that Hayden Christensen quality – all sappy sentimentality or incessant whining, without the dark side to make him more interesting). Later, when the two are waiting to see if Criseyde will return from the Greek camp, Pandarus listens to all of Troilus’ excited jabbering, and then notes that it is more likely that Robin Hood will ride up into Troy than Criseyde (Book V, Stanza 168). At another point, Pandarus tries to counsel Troilus into getting over it, to get out to parties, and see other women. Good advice, seeing as he’s already been dumped. Chaucer juxtaposes Pandarus and Troilus to call more attention on the young man’s true and deep love. But Pandarus comes across as a far more interesting character.
Part of the problem, for me as reader, is that the work seemed too long. Where Chaucer dealt with a similar love story in his “Knight’s Tale” in his Canterbury Tales, he spent about 40 pages on the story. Given the lack of character development, and the lack of much to grab one’s attention, a shorter treatment seems appropriate. At 300 pages, the work is as long as Vergil’s Aeneid or close to it, and where Vergil is dealing with the great moment of the seed being planted that will become Rome, and all the pain and sacrificed required, Chaucer is presenting a domestic drama. At one point, when the story is about to take a bad turn, Chaucer calls upon the Furies to be his Muses and help him tell the sad story. When Vergil calls upon the Furies to help him, the Trojans and Italians are about to embark on an unnecessary war and there will be lots of senseless death – that’s the type of thing for the Furies to help tell. Chaucer was likely thinking of Vergil, or Statius (who also uses the Furies as Muses in describing an even more senseless and wasteful war), when he invoked them here, but it seems silly in a love story about to go triangle.
Still, I did find some of the philosophical musings interesting. I wondered quite a bit exactly how Chaucer envisioned Fortune, which features as an important background figure in the poem. Fortune was envisioned as a wheel, and the wise person knew, that if he was up (became king or some such great thing), it would not last, but the wheel would turn and he’d be down (“I will rule, I rule, I have ruled, I am without a kingdom” would be the words that would be at four points along the wheel). It is puzzling to me how Chaucer reconciles this view of Fortune with his sense of the Christian God and his sense of that God’s Providence. As far as I can tell, they don’t go together, but there was need to explain the uncertainty of life. Still, I get the sense in this work that Chaucer feels that Fortune “engineers” Troilus’ downfall in some way, and that runs counter to my sense of Fortune as Chance – sometimes you’re lucky and sometimes you’re not. Even accepting the Wheel of Fortune image, there seems to be no consciousness to Fortune – it’s pretty automatic.
I also enjoyed that part when Troilus is considering his situation now that Criseyde will be leaving Troy and may not return (Book IV, Stanzas 138ff.); he grows reflective about free will and Providence (God’s ability to see everything at once, and therefore to know what we’ll do before we do it). This was a big conundrum when I was in grammar school – I recall several discussions with different nuns and priests over the matter – it always ended with the priest or nun saying “it’s a mystery.” Even now as an adult, I don’t quite buy the idea of free will in the face of an omniscient God, so I still find such discussions interesting. Unfortunately, too little time was spent on such matters and too much, for my taste, on the weeping and wailings of Troilus and Criseyde.