The Canterbury Tales and Other Works of Chaucer (Middle E...

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This is the opening of Book 2 of Chaucer's *Troilus and Criseyde* (late 14th century), a narrative poem in Middle English verse that retells the Trojan War love story drawn from Boccaccio. The book begins with Chaucer invoking Clio, muse of history, and disclaiming personal authority — he presents himself as a mere translator of Latin sources who speaks "unfelyngly" of love, deflecting both praise and blame onto his source. He also offers a notably explicit defense of cultural and linguistic relativism: customs of love differ across nations, and language itself changes so much over centuries that words once current now seem strange, making his own rendering of an ancient story inherently imperfect. The narrative then shifts to Pandarus, who wakes on a May morning nursing his own frustrated love, then goes to visit his niece Criseyde. He finds her with two companions listening to a maiden read aloud from a romance about the siege of Thebes — a pointed frame, since Troy's fate mirrors Thebes'. Pandarus deflects her from the book with increasingly elaborate hints that he holds a secret guaranteed to delight her, while strategically praising Troilus's battlefield valor and personal virtue to plant the seed before revealing Troilus's love for her. The excerpt ends mid-scene as Pandarus begins his careful rhetorical maneuvering, treating persuasion of Criseyde as a craft requiring precision and timing. The passage is distinctive for its self-conscious literariness — Chaucer's narrator keeps interrupting to comment on translation, authority, and the act of storytelling itself.

The Canterbury Tales and Other Works of Chaucer (Middle E...

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