The Canterbury Tales [376]
that follow so *condemned The blinde lust, the which that may not last, And shoulden* all our heart on heaven cast; *while we should And forth he wente, shortly for to tell, Where as Mercury sorted* him to dwell. *allotted <92>
Such fine* hath, lo! this Troilus for love! *end Such fine hath all his *greate worthiness!* *exalted royal rank* Such fine hath his estate royal above! Such fine his lust,* such fine hath his nobless! *pleasure Such fine hath false worlde's brittleness!* *fickleness, instability And thus began his loving of Cresside, As I have told; and in this wise he died.
O young and freshe folke, *he or she,* *of either sex* In which that love upgroweth with your age, Repaire home from worldly vanity, And *of your heart upcaste the visage* *"lift up the countenance To thilke God, that after his image of your heart."* You made, and think that all is but a fair, This world that passeth soon, as flowers fair!
And love Him, the which that, right for love, Upon a cross, our soules for to bey,* *buy, redeem First starf,* and rose, and sits in heav'n above; *died For he will false* no wight, dare I say, *deceive, fail That will his heart all wholly on him lay; And since he best to love is, and most meek, What needeth feigned loves for to seek?
Lo! here of paynims* cursed olde rites! *pagans Lo! here what all their goddes may avail! Lo! here this wretched worlde's appetites! *end and reward Lo! here the *fine and guerdon for travail,* of labour* Of Jove, Apollo, Mars, and such rascaille* *rabble <93> Lo! here the form of olde clerkes' speech, In poetry, if ye their bookes seech!* *seek, search
L'Envoy of Chaucer.
O moral Gower! <94> this book I direct. To thee, and to the philosophical Strode, <95> To vouchesafe, where need is, to correct, Of your benignities and zeales good. And to that soothfast Christ that *starf on rood* *died on the cross* With all my heart, of mercy ever I pray, And to the Lord right thus I speak and say:
"Thou One, and Two, and Three, *etern on live,* *eternally living* That reignest ay in Three, and Two, and One, Uncircumscrib'd, and all may'st circumscrive,* *comprehend From visible and invisible fone* *foes Defend us in thy mercy ev'ry one; So make us, Jesus, *for thy mercy dign,* *worthy of thy mercy* For love of Maid and Mother thine benign!"
Explicit Liber Troili et Cresseidis. <96>
Notes to Troilus and Cressida
1. The double sorrow: First his suffering before his love was successful; and then his grief after his lady had been separated from him, and had proved unfaithful.
2. Tisiphone: one of the Eumenides, or Furies, who avenged on men in the next world the crimes committed on earth. Chaucer makes this grim invocation most fitly, since the Trojans were under the curse of the Eumenides, for their part in the offence of Paris in carrying off Helen, the wife of his host Menelaus, and thus impiously sinning against the laws of hospitality.
3. See Chaucer's description of himself in "The House Of Fame," and note 11 to that poem.
4. The Palladium, or image of Pallas (daughter of Triton and foster-sister of Athena), was said to have fallen from heaven at Troy, where Ilus was just beginning to found the city; and Ilus erected a sanctuary, in which it was preserved with great honour and care, since on its safety was supposed to depend the safety of the city. In later times a Palladium was any statue of the goddess Athena kept for the safeguard of the city that possessed it.
5. "Oh, very god!": oh true divinity! -- addressing Cressida.
6. Ascaunce: as if to say -- as much as to say. The word represents "Quasi dicesse" in Boccaccio. See note 5 to the Sompnour's Tale.
7. Eft: another reading
Such fine* hath, lo! this Troilus for love! *end Such fine hath all his *greate worthiness!* *exalted royal rank* Such fine hath his estate royal above! Such fine his lust,* such fine hath his nobless! *pleasure Such fine hath false worlde's brittleness!* *fickleness, instability And thus began his loving of Cresside, As I have told; and in this wise he died.
O young and freshe folke, *he or she,* *of either sex* In which that love upgroweth with your age, Repaire home from worldly vanity, And *of your heart upcaste the visage* *"lift up the countenance To thilke God, that after his image of your heart."* You made, and think that all is but a fair, This world that passeth soon, as flowers fair!
And love Him, the which that, right for love, Upon a cross, our soules for to bey,* *buy, redeem First starf,* and rose, and sits in heav'n above; *died For he will false* no wight, dare I say, *deceive, fail That will his heart all wholly on him lay; And since he best to love is, and most meek, What needeth feigned loves for to seek?
Lo! here of paynims* cursed olde rites! *pagans Lo! here what all their goddes may avail! Lo! here this wretched worlde's appetites! *end and reward Lo! here the *fine and guerdon for travail,* of labour* Of Jove, Apollo, Mars, and such rascaille* *rabble <93> Lo! here the form of olde clerkes' speech, In poetry, if ye their bookes seech!* *seek, search
L'Envoy of Chaucer.
O moral Gower! <94> this book I direct. To thee, and to the philosophical Strode, <95> To vouchesafe, where need is, to correct, Of your benignities and zeales good. And to that soothfast Christ that *starf on rood* *died on the cross* With all my heart, of mercy ever I pray, And to the Lord right thus I speak and say:
"Thou One, and Two, and Three, *etern on live,* *eternally living* That reignest ay in Three, and Two, and One, Uncircumscrib'd, and all may'st circumscrive,* *comprehend From visible and invisible fone* *foes Defend us in thy mercy ev'ry one; So make us, Jesus, *for thy mercy dign,* *worthy of thy mercy* For love of Maid and Mother thine benign!"
Explicit Liber Troili et Cresseidis. <96>
Notes to Troilus and Cressida
1. The double sorrow: First his suffering before his love was successful; and then his grief after his lady had been separated from him, and had proved unfaithful.
2. Tisiphone: one of the Eumenides, or Furies, who avenged on men in the next world the crimes committed on earth. Chaucer makes this grim invocation most fitly, since the Trojans were under the curse of the Eumenides, for their part in the offence of Paris in carrying off Helen, the wife of his host Menelaus, and thus impiously sinning against the laws of hospitality.
3. See Chaucer's description of himself in "The House Of Fame," and note 11 to that poem.
4. The Palladium, or image of Pallas (daughter of Triton and foster-sister of Athena), was said to have fallen from heaven at Troy, where Ilus was just beginning to found the city; and Ilus erected a sanctuary, in which it was preserved with great honour and care, since on its safety was supposed to depend the safety of the city. In later times a Palladium was any statue of the goddess Athena kept for the safeguard of the city that possessed it.
5. "Oh, very god!": oh true divinity! -- addressing Cressida.
6. Ascaunce: as if to say -- as much as to say. The word represents "Quasi dicesse" in Boccaccio. See note 5 to the Sompnour's Tale.
7. Eft: another reading