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"Wher
is myn owene lady lief and dere,
Wher
is hir whyte brest, wher is it, where?
Wher
been hir armes and hir eyen clere,
That
yesternight this tyme with me were?"
"My
Troilus shal in his herte deme
That
I am fals, and so it may wel seme."
The following books will introduce you to Troilus and
Criseyde, who said these words in Chaucer's Troilus and
Criseyde, Book V, stanzas 32 and 100.
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characters.
- Chaucer, Geoffrey. Troilus
and Criseyde. Viking, 1995.
- Chaucer's poetic skills are turned to this moving
love story between Troilus, son of King Priam of
Troy, and Criseyde, the girl he loves and loses.
Those who only know his satirical side in The
Canterbury Tales should try this work, which
displays even deeper characterization.
- Chaucer, Geoffrey. Complete
Poetry and Prose of Geoffrey Chaucer. Holt, Rinehart
& Winston, 1989.
- Handsome edition with notes and glossary to help
with the Middle English (which really reads
pretty easily once you get used to quirks of
spelling).
- Shakespeare, William. Troilus
and Cressida (New Folger Shakespeare Library). Pocket
Books, 1988.
- Shakespeare's go at the Trojan War shows little
sympathy for Cressida (Criseyde), making her a
callous fallen woman.
- Gordon, R. K. (Trans.). The
Story of Troilus as told by Benoît de Sainte-Maure,
Giovanni Boccaccio, Geoffrey Chaucer, Robert Henryson.
University of Toronto Press, 1978.
- This excellent book, with its informative
introduction, collects the major medieval
versions of the story of Troilus and Criseyde,
each putting its own "spin" on the plot
and characterization. Benoît's 12th-cent. Roman
de Troie is the first version we know.
Boccaccio used Troilus's woes as a medium for
expressing his own grief over a lost love; his
poem, Il Filostrato ("the one
prostrated by love") is the raciest version,
in which Criseyde eagerly joins in the
lovemaking. Boccaccio also added Pandarus as the
go-between. Key books from Chaucer's poem are
included, as well as Henryson's Testament of
Cresseid (1490).
- Fiero, Gloria K., Pfeffer, Wendy, and Allain, Mathé
(Eds. and Trans.). Three
Medieval Views of Women. Yale University Press, 1989.
- Includes poems such as "The Vices of
Women" and "The Ways of Women,"
which illustrate the mistrust of women's virtue
characteristic of the period in which Boccaccio
and Chaucer wrote their poems on Troilus and
Criseyde.
- Hillman, Richard W. William
Shakespeare: The Problem Plays. Twayne, 1993.
- Deals with the Bard's hard-to-classify plays (Troilus
and Cressida, All's Well That Ends Well,
and Measure for Measure). Cressida's
culpability is one focus of analysis for that
work.
- Boccaccio, Giovanni. Filostrato
of Giovanni Boccaccio: A Translation with Parallel Text.
Octagon, 1976.
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