Canterbury Tales and Other Poems, Geoffrey Chaucer [good fiction books to read txt] 📗

y-blow too much spoken of*

Yields bitter fruit, although sweet seed be sow.

 

And, over all this, muche more he thought What thing to speak, and what to holden in; And what to arten* her to love, he sought; *constrain <8>

And on a song anon right to begin,

And gan loud on his sorrow for to win; overcome For with good hope he gan thus to assent resolve Cressida for to love, and not repent.

 

The Song of Troilus. <9>

 

“If no love is, O God! why feel I so?

And if love is, what thing and which is he?

If love be good, from whence cometh my woe?

If it be wick’, a wonder thinketh me

Whence ev’ry torment and adversity

That comes of love *may to me savoury think: seem acceptable to me*

For more I thirst the more that I drink.

 

“And if I *at mine owen luste bren burn by my own will*

From whence cometh my wailing and my plaint?

If maugre me,<10> whereto plain I then? to what avail do I complain?

I wot ner* why, unweary, that I faint. *neither O quicke death! O sweete harm so quaint! strange How may I see in me such quantity,

But if that I consent that so it be?

 

“And if that I consent, I wrongfully

Complain y-wis: thus pushed to and fro, All starreless within a boat am I,

Middes the sea, betwixte windes two,

That in contrary standen evermo’.

Alas! what wonder is this malady! —

For heat of cold, for cold of heat, I die!”

 

Devoting himself wholly to the thought of Cressida — though he yet knew not whether she was woman or goddess — Troilus, in spite of his royal blood, became the very slave of love. He set at naught every other charge, but to gaze on her as often as he could; thinking so to appease his hot fire, which thereby only burned the hotter. He wrought marvellous feats of arms against the Greeks, that she might like him the better for his renown; then love deprived him of sleep, and made his food his foe; till he had to “borrow a title of other sickness,” that men might not know he was consumed with love. Meantime, Cressida gave no sign that she heeded his devotion, or even knew of it; and he was now consumed with a new fear — lest she loved some other man. Bewailing his sad lot — ensnared, exposed to the scorn of those whose love he had ridiculed, wishing himself arrived at the port of death, and praying ever that his lady might glad him with some kind look — Troilus is surprised in his chamber by his friend Pandarus, the uncle of Cressida. Pandarus, seeking to divert his sorrow by making him angry, jeeringly asks whether remorse of conscience, or devotion, or fear of the Greeks, has caused all this ado. Troilus pitifully beseeches his friend to leave him to die alone, for die he must, from a cause which he must keep hidden; but Pandarus argues against Troilus’ cruelty in hiding from a friend such a sorrow, and Troilus at last confesses that his malady is love. Pandarus suggests that the beloved object may be such that his counsel might advance his friend’s desires; but Troilus scouts the suggestion, saying that Pandarus could never govern himself in love.

 

“Yea, Troilus, hearken to me,” quoth Pandare, “Though I be nice;* it happens often so, foolish That one that access doth full evil fare, *in an access of fever By good counsel can keep his friend therefro’.

I have my selfe seen a blind man go

Where as he fell that looke could full wide; A fool may eke a wise man often guide.

 

“A whetstone is no carving instrument, But yet it maketh sharpe carving tooles; And, if thou know’st that I have aught miswent, erred, failed Eschew thou that, for such thing to thee school* is. *schooling, lesson Thus oughte wise men to beware by fooles; If so thou do, thy wit is well bewared; By its contrary is everything declared.

 

“For how might ever sweetness have been know To him that never tasted bitterness?

And no man knows what gladness is, I trow, That never was in sorrow or distress:

Eke white by black, by shame eke worthiness, Each set by other, *more for other seemeth, its quality is made As men may see; and so the wise man deemeth.” more obvious by the contrast*

Troilus, however, still begs his friend to leave him to mourn in peace, for all his proverbs can avail nothing. But Pandarus insists on plying the lover with wise saws, arguments, reproaches; hints that, if he should die of love, his lady may impute his death to fear of the Greeks; and finally induces Troilus to admit that the well of all his woe, his sweetest foe, is called Cressida. Pandarus breaks into praises of the lady, and congratulations of his friend for so well fixing his heart; he makes Troilus utter a formal confession of his sin in jesting at lovers and bids him think well that she of whom rises all his woe, hereafter may his comfort be also.

 

“For thilke* ground, that bears the weedes wick’ that same Bears eke the wholesome herbes, and full oft Next to the foule nettle, rough and thick, The lily waxeth, white, and smooth, and soft; grows And next the valley is the hill aloft, And next the darke night is the glad morrow, And also joy is next the fine of sorrow.” *end, border Pandarus holds out to Troilus good hope of achieving his desire; and tells him that, since he has been converted from his wicked rebellion against Love, he shall be made the best post of all Love’s law, and most grieve Love’s enemies. Troilus gives utterance to a hint of fear; but he is silenced by Pandarus with another proverb — “Thou hast full great care, lest that the carl should fall out of the moon.” Then the lovesick youth breaks into a joyous boast that some of the Greeks shall smart; he mounts his horse, and plays the lion in the field; while Pandarus retires to consider how he may best recommend to his niece the suit of Troilus.

 

THE SECOND BOOK.

 

IN the Proem to the Second Book, the poet hails the clear weather that enables him to sail out of those black waves in which his boat so laboured that he could scarcely steer — that is, “the tempestuous matter of despair, that Troilus was in; but now of hope the kalendes begin.” He invokes the aid of Clio; excuses himself to every lover for what may be found amiss in a book which he only translates; and, obviating any lover’s objection to the way in which Troilus obtained his lady’s grace -

- through Pandarus’ mediation — says it seems to him no wonderful thing:

 

“For ev’ry wighte that to Rome went

Held not one path, nor alway one mannere; Eke in some lands were all the game y-shent If that men far’d in love as men do here, As thus, in open dealing and in cheer, In visiting, in form, or saying their saws; speeches For thus men say: Each country hath its laws.

 

“Eke scarcely be there in this place three That have in love done or said *like in all;” alike in all respects*

 

And so that which the poem relates may not please the reader —

but it actually was done, or it shall yet be done. The Book sets out with the visit of Pandarus to Cressida:—

 

In May, that mother is of monthes glade, glad When all the freshe flowers, green and red, Be quick* again, that winter deade made, *alive And full of balm is floating ev’ry mead; When Phoebus doth his brighte beames spread Right in the white Bull, so it betid happened As I shall sing, on Maye’s day the thrid, <11>

 

That Pandarus, for all his wise speech, Felt eke his part of Love’s shottes keen, That, could he ne’er so well of Love preach, It made yet his hue all day full green; pale So *shope it,* that him fell that day a teen it happened access In love, for which full woe to bed he went, And made ere it were day full many a went. turning <12>

 

The swallow Progne, <13> with a sorrowful lay, When morrow came, gan make her waimenting, lamenting Why she foshapen* was; and ever lay *transformed Pandare a-bed, half in a slumbering,

Till she so nigh him made her chittering, How Tereus gan forth her sister take,

That with the noise of her he did awake, And gan to call, and dress* him to arise, prepare Rememb’ring him his errand was to do’n From Troilus, and eke his great emprise; And cast, and knew in good plight* was the Moon favourable aspect

To do voyage, and took his way full soon Unto his niece’s palace there beside

Now Janus, god of entry, thou him guide!

 

Pandarus finds his niece, with two other ladies, in a paved parlour, listening to a maiden who reads aloud the story of the Siege of Thebes. Greeting the company, he is welcomed by Cressida, who tells him that for three nights she has dreamed of him. After some lively talk about the book they had been reading, Pandarus asks his niece to do away her hood, to show her face bare, to lay aside the book, to rise up and dance, “and let us do to May some observance.” Cressida cries out, “God forbid!” and asks if he is mad — if that is a widow’s life, whom it better becomes to sit in a cave and read of holy saints’ lives.

Pandarus intimates that he could tell her something which could make her merry; but he refuses to gratify her curiosity; and, by way of the siege and of Hector, “that was the towne’s wall, and Greekes’ yerd” or scourging-rod, the conversation is brought round to Troilus, whom Pandarus highly extols as “the wise worthy Hector the second.” She has, she says, already heard Troilus praised for his bravery “of them that her were liefest praised be” [by whom it would be most welcome to her to be praised].

 

“Ye say right sooth, y-wis,” quoth Pandarus; For yesterday, who so had with him been, Might have wonder’d upon Troilus;

For never yet so thick a swarm of been bees Ne flew, as did of Greekes from him flee’n; And through the field, in ev’ry wighte’s ear, There was no cry but ‘Troilus is here.’

 

“Now here, now there, he hunted them so fast, There was but Greekes’ blood; and Troilus Now him he hurt, now him adown he cast; Ay where he went it was arrayed thus:

He was their death, and shield of life for us, That as that day there durst him none withstand, While that he held his bloody sword in hand.”

 

Pandarus makes now a show of taking leave, but Cressida detains him, to speak of her affairs; then, the business talked over, he would again go, but first again asks his niece to arise and dance, and cast her widow’s garments to mischance, because of the glad fortune that has befallen her. More curious than ever, she seeks to find out Pandarus’ secret; but he still parries her curiosity, skilfully hinting all the time at her good fortune, and the wisdom of seizing on it when offered. In the end he tells her that the noble Troilus so loves her, that with