For some time, I've known that I really need to read Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, but I've never seemed to have the chance to read it, or at least do so in a manner that did the text justice. Today I finally had the chance, as required for my exam reading, and I'm pretty blown away by just how generally good it is. I'm no new proponent of Chaucer and have been a fan of his texts since I began college (I remember very little of what I read in high school, which my five year break between public and higher education did not help), but Troilus and Criseyde might be the best structured of his texts. His use of Homeric similie is well placed and aesthetically pleasing, his invocation of multiple muses, or muse-like figures, in separate books marks tone shifts, and he generally just shows off in his construction of the poetry. I don't know how I've necessarily gone this long without reading this text, but I am very glad I have now.
Chaucer's characters in this text are interesting. In some ways, we seem to have relatively standard romance figures with Troilus, but I find Pandarus and Criseyde compelling in how they don't necessarily seem to fitting their respective molds. With Pandarus we have both an uncle who is supposed to be looking out for his niece's best interests, especially considering her father has abandoned the city and cast shame upon her, as well as a friend who is trying to see his friend out of depression and get him, for lack of a better term, laid. These roles seem as if they should be at odds with one another, as protecting one's niece should probably include not escorting guys into her room for long, private romance sessions. Yet, this seems part of Pandarus' larger moves to bend the truth, and reality, when it suits his goals. When it is necessary to conspire a socially acceptable reason to get Troilus and Criseyde into the same house, and get the Trojan royalty on Criseyde's side, Pandarus appears to invent an outside threat to Criseyde's household, or at least bring it up when it has had no previous context and when his previously expressed plans included nothing of the sort. Pandarus makes a similar move later when Troilus is hiding in his house for a chance at alone time with Criseyde, telling the latter that she is accused of loving another to put her on the defensive and make her more willing to be open with Troilus. In other words, Pandarus only really emphasizes his role as Criseyde's uncle when it is advantageous to his goals; otherwise he functionally operates as Troilus' wingman, more interested in his friend's happiness and romantic well-being than his niece's.
Criseyde, on the other hand, is something of a puzzle. She is at times aloof to romantic advances, yet expresses tears and all the other performative behaviors of a lover. As with other romances, Criseyde is the object of affection rather than its subject, providing a source for Troilus to obsess over instead of expressing great interest of her own. As with other romances, she has to be persuaded to love, with great words and acts from Troilus to engage her feelings, which seem to overflow once accessed (at least until she heads to the Greek camp). Unlike many other romances, however, Criseyde is a widow. It's interesting to consider how much of a role this status actually plays throughout the text. In fact, her status as a widow is only really emphasized in three parts of the text: when she is introduced wearing widow's weeds, when she tells Troilus she shall don these garments again when in the Greek camp, and when speaking to Diomedes about the possibility that she could love him. The latter involves the only real mention of her late husband, and even then no details about who he was are revealed. Despite this lack of emphasis, I felt that Criseyde's widowhood largely changed how I read her character. Her depression early on is as a woman who has lost both a husband and a father, left with nothing but her grief and shame. Her reluctance towards romance seems to make more sense then, as she knows the grief of losing a love. Looking back at the manner in which Troilus and Pandarus work to persuade her, it seems that a great deal of effort had to be put in to get Troilus out of her friendzone, involving a significant amount of emotional manipulation.
In addition to widowhood, marriage itself seemed to cast a shadow over the text for me. Having never read the text before, I actually thought that Troilus and Criseyde became married before political events forced their separation. Instead, they carry out an extended illicit affair in private, going to great lengths to prevent knowledge of its existence. Some of this comes out of Troilus' desire to not be called out for hypocrisy in love, and some to protect Criseyde's honor, but both of these effects would be either ameliorated or removed entirely if they had simply become married. I even read the initial emphasis on Criseyde's widowhood as preamble for why she was available for marriage now. Even the people's outcry to exchange Criseyde for Atrenos may have been delimited by a marriage between this lady and one of Troy's greatest heroes. This stood out as further odd when considering the treatment of Helen, who was another man's wife when taking in secret by Paris and is yet held in a fair amount of respect as Paris' wife. After the announcement of how Criseyde will be exchanged, Troilus and Pandarus discuss the various reasons why he couldn't simply take her for his own at this point, but they never actually discuss the possibility of marrying her, despite Pandarus' supposedly protective role.
In many ways, Troilus and Criseyde's relationship carried several of the aspects of medieval marriage. According to Green's lecture in a seminar last semester, medieval contracts contained
three parts: a ritual or exchange of oath, an exchange of a physical object symbolizing the contract, and witnesses to the making of the contract. According to Green, marriage ceremonies followed this process, with the exchange of vows, exchange of rings, and presence of witnesses to the wedding. Troilus and Criseyde swear oaths to be loyal to one another and exchange tokens of affection, but they fail to do so with witnesses. By keeping a relationship private that, if it had been brought into the proper public form, would otherwise have been socially acceptable, Troilus and Criseyde are unable to publicly challenge the threats to that relationship. In a way, illicit affairs in romance such as this are problematic because they ignore the necessarily social component of marital/romantic exchange, doomed to failure because of the employment of subterfuge. In short, If Troilus really liked it, he should've put a ring on it.
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