It’s a case of being almost too enjoyable to read without drawing some guilt. This is Chaucer, yet in a boldly modern translation that explores medieval psychology and customs in a smooth way while delivering a crackling good story. If only it felt less easy going down.
Nevill Coghill’s translation leans into the modern idiom, recasting the 14th century narrative poem with some 20th century expressions like “Nuts” and “that makes them tick.” At the same time, the poem’s rhythms and expressive discourse are recognizably direct from Chaucer, here coming into full form as the premier English writer of his time.
The bones of the poem remain: In ancient Troy a hero named Troilus and a widow maiden named Criseyde fall in love while their city is besieged by angry Greeks. After a period of pursuit and apparent despair by Troilus, the two achieve a blissfully erotic union only to find their romance becoming another victim of war.
In Coghill’s translation, Chaucer observes:
Think
that of Fortune’s sharp adversities
The
most unfortunate of all, at last
Is
to have known a life of joy and ease,
And to remember it when it is past.
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| Different stages of Troilus and Criseyde's relationship as depicted by Eric Gill for an edition of the poem published in 1927, at the moment when they become lovers and when they are parted for good. Image from https://www.classiceditions.com/troilus-criseyde-by-geoffrey-chaucer-eric-gill-deluxe-limited-edition/?srsltid=AfmBOopX3VUXOMZiEKDFuliF8qC8fiqXXzq5yEu_wVnfrSfONtUHx8Ui |
Comprising five books and more than 1,000 stanzas, Chaucer has at the concept of courtly romance both with his two main characters as well as Pandarus, Criseyde’s meddling uncle who wants to get the kids together. Pandarus is revealed as both wise man and fool at different points in the poem. As Troilus ponders his situation with the fair but remote Criseyde, Pandarus reminds him “joy is on the borderland of sorrow.” As the poem continues, we discover this is also true in reverse.
Despite its length, there isn’t a lot of actual story in Troilus And Criseyde. The poem is surprisingly heavy in dialogue, with many ideas about the fitness of romantic desire and how best to express it bantered over and over again. At the same time, pages go by with little change in where the characters are or what they are actually doing.
Despite the poem being set in a war zone, little action is described beyond the bedroom. Troilus and his fellows could just as well be jousting knights as clashing swordsmen; their activities are discussed as a kind of sport. Chaucer takes a long view:
And
things fell out, as often in a war;
With
varying chance for Trojan and for Greek;
At
times the men of Troy paid dearly for
Their
city, but at others nothing weak
Their enemies found them…
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| Geoffrey Chaucer as depicted in 1412, 12 years after his death. Troilus And Criseyde is identified by scholars as being from a middle period in the writer's career; in form and content signifying a maturity from earlier works like The Book Of The Duchess and The Parliament Of Birds. Image from https://aeon.co/ideas/chaucer-was-more-than-english-he-was-a-great-european-poet |
Individual books center around particular themes, like the rashness of Troilus mocking his infatuated comrades in Book I, the pathos of his own infatuation for Criseyde in Book II, and the couple’s lingering ecstasies in Book III. This expository approach might seem tedious in outline, but attentive reading quickly reveals depths in both the story and the characters to make it all come alive. There are a lot of wondrous details to be explored and enjoyed, if you read it less for story and more for character insights.
The fact we see the story almost entirely in Troilus’s subjective lens raises questions for the modern reader. Is Criseyde really in love with Troilus, or just marking time? Is Troilus mistaking youthful lust for something higher and purer? Is Pandarus an honest, well-meaning broker; ignorantly and obnoxiously out of his depth, or both?
Rather than clarifying these ambiguities, Chaucer leans into them, which is the bolder and, in the end, more satisfying choice.
Despite the epic backdrop, the cast is fairly small. Beyond the core three, there are a handful of other figures, some recognizable from other classics of pre-Christian literature. Troilus’s brother is the famous Hector, hero of Troy, while the Trojan princess Antigone, not the Sophocles character but like Troilus a less-central noble from Homer’s Iliad, delivers a long and beautiful soliloquy about love.
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| Another ancient who appears in Chaucer's play is Calkas, or Calchas (spellings differ) who in The Iliad is a Greek seer, seen above as the tall pondering figure at right. In medieval retellings like Chaucer's, he is recast as a Trojan defector and the father of Criseyde who eventually demands she be brought to him, forcing her exile from Troy. Image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calchas |
Antigone offers a kind of brief counter to Troilus And Criseyde’s main message:
But
I, with all my heart and all my might,
As
I have said, will love, unto my last,
My
dearest heart, my own beloved knight,
In
whom my soul has verily grown fast
As
his in me, and shall till Time is past.
I
feared love once, and dreaded to begin it;
Now I know well there is no peril in it.
Much later, the famous prophetess Cassandra is on hand to deliver a piece of bad news to an unbelieving Troilus:
‘Your
lady, wheresoever now she is,
Diomede
has her heart and she has his;
Weep
if you will, or not, for out of doubt
This Diomede is in, and you are out.’
Coghill’s translation often feels like it’s straddling time. To be fair, Chaucer also employed a lot of anachronisms in his original text, presenting his Trojans and Greeks as knights observing the rules of chivalry and Christianity to a point you don’t know which gods they are praying to. History is treated like a playpen by Chaucer, yet the poem doesn’t seem any the worse for this approach. Coghill merely replicates this effect in the language.
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| An Oxford professor, Neville Coghill was a member of the Inklings, a famous literary circle that included J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. In addition to Chaucer, Coghill specialized in another medieval English work, Piers Plowman, and also co-directed a cinematic adaptation of Doctor Faustus with Richard Burton. Image from https://www.curtisbrown.co.uk/client/nevill-coghill |
Where Chaucer wrote: But who may bet beguile, if that him list/Than he on whom men weenen best to trist? Coghill puts down: But who is better able to deceive/Than one in whom we hunger to believe. Coghill’s rhyming achievement throughout the translation is quite astounding, given the fact he had to get it to work line-by-line observing a complicated structure, but he pulls this off wonderfully.
I don’t want to argue Coghill’s translation is preferable to Chaucer’s original Middle English, which with some effort can be parsed well enough to be appreciated if not fully understood. Enthusiasts for the original often say something is lost by reading rather than reciting the verses and letting the fullness of Chaucer’s language wash over one. Without denying this, all I can say is the Coghill translation is something I enjoyed reading over and over; I can’t expect I would hang with unalloyed Chaucer nearly so long.
In his introduction to the Penguin Classics edition, Coghill calls Troilus And Criseyde Chaucer’s “greatest poem,” noting that unlike the later Canterbury Tales what we have here is a final product: “Troilus And Criseyde is complete, and, to the last Amen, in perfect unity with itself.”
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| In this depiction, Troilus and Criseyde find love in each other's arms while Pandarus happily looks on. The fact this artist chose to depict all this happening under an apple tree is no doubt suggestively intended. Image from https://davenanthall.com/product/chaucers-troilus-and-criseyde-as-christian-epic/ |
The ending is appropriately tragic and uplifting, the body of the work is balanced with dollops of humor and sympathy. Having read and disliked Troilus And Cressida, the tragedy by William Shakespeare, I found this to be far more engaging and enveloping. I don’t want to call Shakespeare’s work misogynistic, but there is a definite vitriol in the presentation which renders the central romance paper-thin.
In Chaucer, Criseyde has a basis for being aloof; widowhood has come to define her social station. She is heartlessly manipulated into the romance by Pandarus, who keeps making the point Troilus is in peril of killing himself if he can’t have her: “[Troilus] is so in love with you/That you must help; he’ll die unless you do./Well, there it is. What more am I to say?/Do what you like; but you can save or slay.”
However painful the situation becomes once she is forced to leave Troy, it is harder to blame Criseyde for making her own choices once the pressure is off and the needy Troilus distant. And unlike in Shakespeare, Criseyde takes some time before jumping into the arms of Troilus’s rival, Diomede. It just doesn’t seem like that much time, however.
Chaucer is deliberately, beguiling ambiguous:
And
truly it is written, as I find,
That
all she said was said with good intent,
And
that her heart was true as it is kind
Towards
him and she spoke just what she meant
And
almost died of sorrow when she went;
She
purposed to be true, as she professed,
Or so they write who knew her conduct best.
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| Criseyde, wearing her black gown of mourning as a widow, first catches Troilus's eye in this classic Warwick Goble illustration. Chaucer spends much time depicting Criseyde's beauty but also tells us she sports a unibrow. Troilus is still smitten. Image from https://www.mediastorehouse.com.au/fine-art-finder/artists/warwick-after-goble/geoffrey-chaucer-troilus-criseyde-colour-litho-22710012.html?srsltid=AfmBOorFVqeCPja4bWuBPcXGdrxgcA5pa7hFmiVvq--VosGxLNTxQgSQ |
This is a fascinating aspect of Chaucer’s poem. People today often use the term “meta” when an author intentionally exposes the artificiality of fictional construction, but here in the heart of the Middle Ages, Chaucer takes many timeouts to explain how the record he is consulting is fuzzy about this or that character’s motivations or truthfulness, in a way that winks to the reader from across the centuries.
His approach helps glide us past plot holes while offering charming reminders we are being told a story.
And
then, you know, the forms of language change
Within
a thousand years, and long ago
Some
words were valued that will now seem strange,
Affected,
even; yet they spoke them so,
And fared as well in love, for all I know…
The question of what is really learned by Troilus And Criseyde is hard to answer. Coghill sees a Christian message of resurrection beyond earthly cares in the poem’s final stanzas; Chaucer himself may have had a more secular view. What can’t be denied is the prevailing sense that love matters here in a way that defines, if not extends, a mortal life.
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