Part 8 (1/2)
Chaucer had too keen a sense of humor, too sympathetic an outlook on life not to see the irony in the ceaseless spectacle of mankind das.h.i.+ng itself against the relentless wall of circ.u.mstances, fate, or what you will, in undying hope of attaining the unattainable. He saw the humor in this maelstrom of human endeavor--and he saw the tragedy too. The _Knightes Tale_ presents largely, I think, the humorous side of it, _Troilus and Criseyde_, the tragic, although there is some tragedy in the _Knightes Tale_ and some comedy in _Troilus_.
It was fate that Troilus should love Criseyde, that he should win her love for a time, and that in the end he should be deserted by her. From the very first line of the poem we know that he is doomed to sorrow:
”The double sorwe of Troilus to tellen, That was the king Priamus sone of Troye, In lovinge, how his aventures fellen Fro we to wele, and after out of Ioye, My purpos is, er that I parte fro ye.”[186]
The tragedy of Troilus is also the tragedy of Criseyde, for even at the moment of forsaking Troilus for Diomede she is deeply unhappy over her unfaithfulness; but circ.u.mstance is as much to blame as her own yielding nature, for Troilus' fate is bound up with the inexorable doom of Troy, and she could not return to him if she would.
There is no doubt that Chaucer feels the tragedy of the story as he writes. In his proem to the first book he invokes one of the furies to aid him in his task:
”Thesiphone, thou help me for tendyte Thise woful vers, that wepen as I wryte!”[187]
Throughout the poem he disclaims responsibility for what he narrates, saying that he is simply following his author and that, once begun, somehow he must keep on. In the proem to the second book he says:
”Wherefore I nil have neither thank ne blame Of al this werk, but pray you mekely, Disblameth me, if any word be lame, For as myn auctor seyde, so seye I.”[188]
and concludes the proem with the words,--
”but sin I have begonne, Myn auctor shal I folwen, if I conne.”[189]
When Fortune turns her face away from Troilus, and Chaucer must tell of the loss of Criseyde his heart bleeds and his pen trembles with dread of what he must write:
”But al to litel, weylawey the whyle, Lasteth swich Ioye, y-thonked be Fortune!
That semeth trewest, whan she wol bygyle, And can to foles so hir song entune, That she hem hent and blent, traytour comune; And whan a wight is from hir wheel y-throwe, Than laugheth she, and maketh him the mowe.
From Troilus she gan hir brighte face Awey to wrythe, and took of him non hede, But caste him clene oute of his lady grace, And on hir wheel she sette up Diomede; For which right now myn herte ginneth blede, And now my penne, allas! with which I wryte, Quaketh for drede of that I moot endyte.”[190]
Chaucer tells of Criseyde's faithlessness reluctantly, reminding the reader often that so the story has it:
”And after this the story telleth us, That she him yaf the faire baye stede, The which she ones wan of Troilus; And eek a broche (and that was litel nede) That Troilus was, she yaf this Diomede.
And eek, the bet from sorwe him to releve, She made him were a pencel of hir sleve.
I finde eek in the stories elles-where, Whan through the body hurt was Diomede Of Troilus, tho weep she many a tere, Whan that she saugh his wyde woundes blede; And that he took to kepen him good hede, And for to hele him of his sorwes smerte, Men seyn, I not, that she yaf him hir herte.”[191]
And in the end for very pity he tries to excuse her:
”Ne me ne list this sely womman chyde Ferther than the story wol devyse, Hir name, allas! is publisshed so wyde, That for hir gilt it oughte y-now suffyse.
And if I mighte excuse hir any wyse, For she so sory was for hir untrouthe, Y-wis, I wolde excuse hir yet for routhe.”[192]
We have said that Chaucer's att.i.tude toward the philosophical aspects of astrology is hard to determine because in most of his poems he takes an impersonal ironic point of view towards the actions he describes or the ideas he presents. His att.i.tude toward the idea of destiny is not so hard to determine. Fortune, the executrix of the fates through the influence of the heavens rules men's lives; they are the herdsmen, we are their flocks:
”But O, Fortune, executrice of wierdes, O influences of thise hevenes hye!
Soth is, that, under G.o.d, ye ben our hierdes, Though to us bestes been the causes wrye.”[193]
Perhaps Chaucer did not mean this literally. But one is tempted to think that he, like Dante, thought of the heavenly bodies in their spheres as the ministers and instruments of a Providence that had foreseen and ordained all things.
APPENDIX
I. Most of the terms at present used to describe the movements of the heavenly bodies were used in Chaucer's time and occur very frequently in his writings. The significance of Chaucer's references will then be perfectly clear, if we keep in mind that the modern astronomer's description of the _apparent_ movements of the star-sphere and of the heavenly bodies individually would have been to Chaucer a description of _real_ movements.