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Defense of Criseyde

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Joseph S. Graydon
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Extract

Strange perversions of the story, tending to the disparagement of Criseyde, began almost in her creator's lifetime, and have been repeated and enlarged upon down to the present day. She has been accredited with a versatility in vice that matches the accusations of Catullus against bis lost Lesbia.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 44 , Issue 1: American Bibliography for 1928 , March 1929 , pp. 141 - 177
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1929

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References

Note 1 in page 141 Rollins, Hyder E., “The Troilus-Cressida Story,” PMLA, XXXII, 383.

Note 2 in page 141 Shakespeare's hand, in a way, was forced; making his first and, except The Tempest, his only experiment on a play that approximated the classic unities, he could allow no interval between the yielding to Troilus and the supplantacioun. He seems to have followed the observation of Aristotle that tragedies tend to confine themselves “to a single revolution of the sun, or exceed it very slightly.”

Note 3 in page 142 “The Character of Criseyde,” PMLA, XXII, 546.

Note 4 in page 142 Review of Root's The Booke of Troilus and Criseyde, (Saturday Review of Literature, N. Y. Dec. 4, 1926).

Note 5 in page 142 Spurgeon, Five Centuries of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion, Cambridge (1925), I, 71.

Note 6 in page 143 Spurgeon, op. cit., I, 110.

Note 7 in page 143 Conf. Amaritis; VIII, 2531-5.

Note 8 in page 143 PMLA, XXII, 546.

Note 9 in page 143 William, Godwin, Life of Chaucer (2nd Ed. Lond. 1804), I, 472.

Note 10 in page 144 G. L. Kittredge, Chaucer and his Poetry, Cambridge 1920, p. iv; Emile Legouis, Geoffrey Chaucer, tr. by L. Lailavoix, New York, 1913; B. ten Brink, History of English Literature, tr. by Wm. Clarke Robinson, London, 1901, II. p. 92; W. J. Courthope, History of English Poetry, London, 1919, I, 264; Henry Newbolt, A New Study of English Poetry, London 1917, p. 158.

Note 11 in page 144 Professor Skeat's note on mismetre, in 5.1793, is puzzling: “This shows that Chaucer was conscious of his somewhat archaic style, and that there was danger that some of the syllables might be dropped.” A contemporary of the author of Piers Plowman could not, unless through some uncanny power to foresee the future development of our language, be conscious that his style was archaic. In view of the fact that Chaucer, like everyone else, knew more about the past than the future, it would be more reasonable for him to fear that his lines would be misunderstood rather because of his innovations both in structure and words, than for any servitude to antiquity.

Note 12 in page 145 The Criseyde that Professor Cook presents is not Chaucer's, but anybody's, from Homer to Shakespeare.

Note 13 in page 147 Thomas R. Price, “Troilus and Criseyde,” PMLA, XI, 307.

Note 14 in page 148 II, IX, 48, 8-9 and 49, 1-5.

Note 15 in page 148 Chaucer and his Poetry, Harv. Univ. Press, 1920.

Note 16 in page 154 The sensible comment of “Matthew Broune,” (Chaucer's England I, 58) will suffice for the ordinary reader. Dorigen and her many predecessors in Indian, Persian and Italian sources are all held blameless in making the Rash Promise (see Originals and Analogues, W. A. Clouston; Chaucer Soc. 1886). No doubt the Breton lai, if we could find it, would also show her free from blame.

Note 17 in page 156 G. L. Hamilton (Chaucer's Indebtedness to Guido, p. 6) commenting on 2.1219, has a note: “On the frequency of this phrase and its equivalents, ‘shortly to tell,’ and ‘shortly to say,’ in Chaucer's poems, cf. T. R. Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, II, 95-96, 547-548. In T. and C. (3.548, 1117, 1156; 5.1009, 1826) except in the passage cited in the text such expressions are used as mere chevilles.”

Lounsbury, referring to the use of these expressions in the translation of R. de la R., says they are—“nothing but the addition by the translator of what had become to him merely a conventional formula of speech” (II. 96). In the collation in Lounsbury (II. 547) of the phrases “shortly” for “to say” or “to tell,” the expression “and shortly” (5.1032) is not mentioned. But the similarity between the phrases makes it clear that in no aspect does it suggest, either that the consolation of Criseyde was accomplished that “morwen,” or anything in regard to the time when it was accomplished.

Note 18 in page 157 It may appear ungracious to make use of Professor Root's text as a whole, and reject it in part. However, as he frankly states (Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, Princeton Univ. Press, 1926, p. lxxxiii) that “The punctuation has been supplied throughout the text in accordance with modern practice,” I feel justified in making my own guess in this particular instance.

Note 19 in page 158 Chaucer Soc. Pubs., 2nd Ser. No. 42, App. I.

Note 20 in page 160 H. M. Cumming, Indebtedness of Chaucer's Works to the Ital. Works of Bocc., p. 8: “Troilus in reality merely assumes a pretext of jealousy, after Pandarus has falsely declared to Criseyde that her lover is unhappy, because he suspects that she is favorable to the suit of one Horaste.”

Note 21 in page 167 One example will suffice: The conventional oath of the hopeful lover (Bernart de Ventadorn, Mas s'a lieys plazia) is: “But if it should please her that she should do me some benefit, I should swear to her, by herself and by my faith, that the benefit which she might do me would not be disclosed by me.” A strict observance of the promise of secrecy in respect to the benefit, if granted, would appear to be a quite reasonable requirement.

Note 22 in page 167 It is true that according to Dictys (IV, 14) she was betrothed to Euryphylus and was later added to the harem of Agammemnon (Dictys, V. 13; Benoit, VV 26195 ff.); but the fact that she had a lover who never married her, and was afterwards ravished, does not mitigate our condemnatory judgment, nor qualify her as a mediaeval amie. I have not gone to the trouble to trace back the sources of Heywood's assignment of one, “Chorebus a Prince, who came to the warres for the love of Cassandra” (Iron Age, Pt. II, Dramatis personae).

Note 23 in page 169 The only other account of Troilus having Criseyde watched, which I find, is in La Istorietta Trojana (ed. G. Gorra, Testi Inediti di Storia Trojana, Turin, 1887, p. 393), a thirteenth century abridgment of the Roman de Troie into Italian. The spy is described as uno ragazzetto, and even his name—Forolo—is given. As it seems seeems impossible to suppose that Chaucer had read the Istorietta, we must assume that he introduced the incident himself, as an element in his plan to place on Troilus the responsibility for the disastrous outcome of his aventure.