Troilus and Criseyde

Prophetic dreams are a recurring motif throughout Troilus and Criseyde, illustrating The Tension Between Free Will and Divine Providence. Many of Chaucer’s poems employ dreams and dream visions to create ambiguity and doubt—with dream interpretation essentially paralleling the practice of textual analysis. Chaucer borrows a common medieval way of understanding dreams, having Pandarus caution Troilus that many dreams are merely the result of diet or external stimuli affecting the sleeping body, while Cassandra interprets the dreams as genuinely prophetic.

The first prophetic dream in Troilus and Criseyde occurs when Criseyde first learns that Troilus is in love with her. She falls asleep to the sounds of bird song, but the birds that appear in her dreams foreshadow the turbulence of her love affair:

[A]s she slep, anonright tho hire mette

How that an egle, fetherered whit as bon

Under hire brest his longe clawes sette,

And out hire herte he rente, and that anon,

And dide his herte into hire brest to gon (2.925-29).

The white eagle that tears her heart out seems to represent Troilus, as hunting raptors were often affiliated with the nobility. The transfer of her heart into the eagle’s breast represents how her heart literally belongs to him after she falls in love. However, the violence of this dream also hints at how turbulent, emotionally painful, and even deadly love can be.

The second significant dream in Troilus and Criseyde is the one that Troilus has after Criseyde has left Troy and returned to her father. In this dream,

[H]ym thoughte

That in a forest faste he welk to wepe

For love of here that hym these peynes wroughte;

And up and doun as he the forest soughte,

He mette he saugh a bor with tuskes grete,

That slepte ayeyn the bryghte sonnes hete (5.1234-39).

This image of Criseyde embracing a sleeping boar in the woods disturbs Troilus, as it implies romantic infidelity. While Pandarus interprets the boar as a symbol for Criseyde’s aged father, the prophet Cassandra informs Troilus that Diomede is affiliated with a boar due to his lineage as a descendent of Meleager. Cassandra’s interpretation is ultimately upheld by the text, as Troilus later finds physical proof that Criseyde has given a token of love to Diomede. These prophetic dreams suggest that the outcome of the narrative is the result of fate, as characters receive accurate forewarnings.