Criseyde’s Choices

Criseyde's Choices Derek Pearsall Harvard University Ihad originally planned to ritl, this paper, as a matk of tesp,ct to two distinguished predecessors, "Reflections on the Use of the Nonadversative Coordinating or Copulative Conjunction in Chaucer's Trozlus and Cri­ seyde." This in fact is what it chiefly consists of, but I had the idea that if I announced the real subject in advance I might arouse improper expecta­ tions among some, which I should be bound to disappoint, and some very proper expectations among others, which I should have satisfied only too easily. It is not my practice, I must admit, to talk too much in publicabout Chaucer's language, that is, about what his words actually mean, since I have regarded this as rather a tricky business, where getting things just simply wrong is an ever-present possibility. I normally confine myself to talking about Chaucer's irony, where virtually anything goes, or to talking about Chaucercriticism, a subject which generally arouses a fair amount of wholesome mirth. However, in trespassing upon this difficult philological terrain, I comfort myself with the thought that I cannot go far wrong with the word and, and that, though but and for may have many hidden subtleties, and is pretty straightforward. So there is some comfort there; but I have to acknowledge another piece of foolhardiness in venturing to speak of Trot/us and Criseyde, and of all things of Criseyde, who has brought out the best in the best readers of Chaucer. I think of C. S. Lewis, E. Talbot Donaldson, and Elizabeth Salter, and, more recent, of Donald Howard, Alfred David, and Mark Lambert. 1 And I come after, gleaning 1 C. S. Lewis, The Allegory ofLove: A Study in Medieval Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1936), pp. 179-90; E. Salter, "Troilus and C1iseyde: A Reconsideration," in J. Lawlor, ed., Patterns ofLove and Courtesy: Essays in Memory of C. S. Lewis (London: Edward Arnold, 1966), pp. 86-106; E.T. Donaldson, "Criseide and Her Narrator," in his Speaking ofChaucer(London: University ofLondon: Athlone Press, 1970), pp. 65-83; E.T. Donaldson, "Chaucer and the Elusion ofClarity," E&S 25 (1972): 23-44; D. R. Howard, "Experience, Language, and Consciousness: 'Troilus and Criseyde,' II.596-931,'' in). Mandel and B. A. Rosenberg, eds., Medieval Literature and Folklore Studies: Essays in Honor of 17 FIFI'H INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS here and there, glad to find any stray ear that they have left, very conscious that they may have left it because it was not worth picking up. Criseyde, at first rather apprehensive about Pandarus's intentions in telling her ofTroilus's passion, and understandably reluctant to risk the security ofher paved parlor and entourage ofladies-a wonderfully evoca­ tive image offeminine enclosure and stability-gradually gets entwined in the circumstances ofhis report. She gets accustomed to the idea. But she does not wish to make any positive act ofacquiescence or to see herselfor to be seen to do any such thing, and when Pandarus unguardedly indicates that he thinks the proper response is love for love, and to seize what she can while she is still young, she bursts out in passionate remonstrance, re­ proaching Pandarus for a betrayal oftrust. Pandarus first threatens not to come and see for her a week but soon sees the wisdom ofpitching things a little higher and says that she has virtually sentenced himselfand Troilus to death. Here is Criseyde's response (2.449-62):2 Criseyde, which that we! neigh starf for feere, So as she was the ferfulleste wight That myghte be, and herde ek with hire ere And saugh the sorwful ernest of the knyght, And in his preier ek saugh noon unryght, And for the harm that myghte ek fallen moore, She gan to rewe, and dredde hire wonder soore, And thoughte thus: "Unhappes fallen thikke Alday for love, and in swych manere cas As men ben cruel in hemself and wikke; And if this man sle here hymself, allas! In my presence, it wol be no solas. What men wolde of hit deme I kan nat seye: It nedeth me fol sleighly for to pleie." Francis Lee Utley (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers...