Troilus and Criseyde

The final book of Troilus and Criseyde uses Troilus’ discovery of Criseyde’s betrayal as the pivotal dramatic moment of the narrative. Chaucer builds tension as Troilus slowly realizes that she will not return. By offering a window into Criseyde’s thoughts leading up to this betrayal, Chaucer complicates the conventional, misogynistic picture of Criseyde as a selfish and untrustworthy woman, instead offering a story of Women’s Agency in Patriarchy. In Book 5, Criseyde learns what her father has known all along: that the destruction of Troy is inevitable. By entering a new romantic partnership with Diomede, she takes the only available path to ensure her survival.

As Troilus suffers in Criseyde’s absence, Chaucer shows his escalating grief, hysteria, and pain in contrast with Pandarus, who seeks to soothe his anxieties. In a sequence that mirrors their conversation in Book 1, Pandarus finds Troilus so miserable that he is contemplating his own death. After Criseyde fails to return in 10 days as she promised, Troilus begins to morbidly plan his own funeral, telling Pandarus,

The poudre in which myn herte ybrend shal torne

That preye I the thow take and it conserve

In a vessell that men clepeth as an urne

Of gold, and to my lady that I serve,

For love of whom thus pitouslich I sterve,

So yeve it hire, and do me this plesaunce,

To preyen hire kepe it for a remembraunce (5.309-15).

This dramatic gesture conveys The Paradox of Love: Troilus sees his heart as totally belonging to Criseyde, and the source of his greatest joy has now also brought him the greatest possible pain. Pandarus attempts to fix the situation using rhetoric, distraction, and examples from other stories, but this time, his attempts are unsuccessful. He cannot convince Troilus to move on from Criseyde or become interested in any other woman.

Troilus’ dream further increases the tension and once again indicates how Pandarus continues to try the same tactics that worked in the earlier books to no avail. After Troilus dreams of Criseyde embracing a boar, representing Diomede, Pandarus attempts to reinterpret the dream as a sign that Criseyde is only delaying her return out of devotion to her aging father. He tells Troilus,

It may so be that it may signifie

Hire fader, which that old is and ek hoor,

Ayeyn the sonne lith o poynt to dye,

And she for sorwe gynneth wepe and crie,

And kisseth hym, ther he lith on the grounde (5.1283-87).

While Pandarus was able to verbally manipulate both Troilus and Criseyde in the earlier books, his attempt is subverted when Cassandra the prophet contradicts his interpretation. In the end, Troilus eventually finds physical evidence—a brooch—that confirms to him that Criseyde has taken Diomede as her new lover. At this point, Pandarus no longer attempts to rectify the situation, accepting that the schemes he used to unite the lovers cannot prevent their disastrous separation.

After this final confirmation that Criseyde has betrayed Troilus, the poem concludes with a shift to Christian spirituality. Although the poem is set in ancient Greece and features characters worshipping pagan deities, Chaucer concludes by asserting that these are false gods. By extension, he characterizes romantic love itself as a false idol, a distraction from divine love. The end of the poem depicts Troilus realizing the error of any human who places too much emphasis on earthly love, underscoring Chaucer’s message to turn all love toward Christ. After Troilus’ death in battle, the poem depicts him rising into the heavens and seeing the Earth from a distance:

And down from thennes faste he gan avis

This litel spot of erthe that with the se

Embraced is, and fully gan despise

This wrecched world, and held al vanite

To respect of the pleyn felicite

That is in hevene above (5.1814-19).

The physical smallness of the Earth causes Troilus to realize the insignificance of all earthly things, including his love for Criseyde. The ending is therefore not just a tragedy, depicting a man’s downfall after he loses his love. Instead, the ending presents the end of the love between Troilus and Criseyde as a difficult but necessary step on the path to true, divine love that can overcome the challenges of temporal, material existence. Numerous critics have speculated on the incongruous nature of this ending, which seems to reject the entire preceding story as trivial and meaningless. Some have argued that it may represent a concession to the censorious moral climate of Chaucer’s era. Stories of romantic love were immensely popular in the late 14th century, and the powerful Catholic Church viewed the popularity of such stories as an unacceptable distraction from the contemplation of God—or, more cynically, as an unacceptable competitor to the Church’s monopoly on story and meaning. Having written a story in which romantic love, not love of God, determines the course of two young people’s lives, Chaucer may have sought to avoid trouble by adding an ending that conforms to Church dogma.