The horses pulling like tired machines
Nothing from the men inside their armour.
II. 611–623
Prowess
The gloss of his bay running red
The prince still full richly dressed
Bows his head. His mangled helmet
Dangles by a thread like a piece of tin.
His shield tough with sinew, hide and horn
Is scored and hacked and arrow-pierced.
The people chant his name regardless.
II. 624–647
Troilus in defeat
She lets him sink softly into her heart
Drawn to her window by his name
She thinks herself the only one to notice
His cheeks burn. He looks to the ground.
He will not play to the crowd.
She thinks how urgently he needs to lie down
Somewhere quiet and warm among silk and feathers
And she blushes.
II. 645–650
Gently
This sight sets off in her
A gathering of all she knows.
His charms roll smoothly back and forth
But what comes to rest
Is herself as the cause of his distress.
She takes this in – so moved
That it starts to translate itself into love.
II. 651–665
A basis
You can hear the envious
Condemning this sudden change of heart
At the sight of him battle-scarred
But every love must find its start.
It’s only that she now feels more inclined
Towards him. Think of her as a fortress
Being slowly undermined.
II. 666–679
Angles
She takes up the matter
As if it were to be folded like paper.
I am my own woman. No longer wife
And at ease to be so. This is the right life
I am in. At home amongst women.
Yet he is the king’s son
And a place to rest my heart upon.
II. 694–764
Glare
Haven’t I seen what love does?
Like the sun it cannot help its brightness
And so blinds us.
A woman is exposed
While a man can stand in shadow.
His love came out of nowhere.
It will go there.
II. 778–798, 862–863
Criseyde anticipates
Courage
Come darkness things slip out of shape.
She dreams an eagle with bone-white feathers
Opens her chest with his long fingers
Removes her heart and puts in place his own.
She has no fear and feels no pain.
Heart for heart to keep.
Now let her sleep.
II. 905–932
Should he weep or sing?
Home from that day’s skirmish he wants only news
And takes nothing of all that’s brought to him.
He is told to eat, to rest. The net has been cast
And a promise has been drawn:
To be his loving friend.
What does that mean? I’m held by this as by a noose
And I am dangling.
II. 933–962, 985–987
Troilus asks
A frame
She stands at the window but turns away.
Every now and then she
Looks over her shoulder down towards where he
Waits. She knows he waits.
Her glance is neither proud nor punitive.
The greater hope, the greater love.
He will not move.
IF II. 82, 85
Criseyde shows herself
He is at first content with her courtesy
Seven years in a locked city
And each time she equals his gaze
He’s in a new place.
A thousand cities construct themselves
Within him. Avenues unfurl.
He turns each corner but meets only
Wall on wall on wall.
II. 977–978, IF II. 82, 85
He can live near her no longer
Till I have her in front of me again. Alight
I am forced back to the flame.
I must act.
Now is not the time.
Try to do what I say
Or charge someone else with your destiny.
II. 981–994, IF II. 89
Troilus insists, Pandarus obstructs
The art of poetry
If you must do something now write a letter.
I do not have the art and am sure to offend her.
Use fine words but don’t reiterate.
Neither too neat nor too ornate.
Don’t spin arguments or put on airs.
Use the right terms. This is love not war.
Let an inkblot fall – like a tear.
II. 1005–1043
Lines
Dear lady, the thought of you prowls through me
And hunts out any other that might bring to mind
Another. Or anything. You are so very
– he recalls the terms –
Pleasing, delightful, blissful, kind.
The cure for my pain.
I who am – he knows it’s a lie – unworthy.
II. 1065–1085, IF II. 99
Troilus finds the words
Like an oriental pearl
She inspires awe as much as desire.
Her charms so extreme
They make of her a stranger.
Made of what stuff?
Water or fire or earth?
What brought her here?
Few dream of holding her.
IF II. 108
A cage
He turns up at dawn waking everyone.
She begs him: Do not bring me this.
So he thrusts it into her breast.
She says aloud that she will not read these words
Then, folding it away, makes some excuse.
Her days are filled with talk of such tameness
That the prince’s words are lions.
II. 1128–1178
Pandarus delivers Troilus’s letter, Criseyde reads it
A door half open
She is told that she must offer words of her own.
Her uncle can provide them.
But she takes herself away from all scrutiny
And writes what she does not know she will say.
She thanks him for all he has well meant towards her.
She will not make promises or give up her liberty.
She offers herself as sister.
II. 1195–1225
Jasper
He settles himself among gold cushions
And starts to say that though a woman hard won
Is not easily forgotten
Now is the time.
He leans in.
Her fingers trace the flow of light and dark
Trapped in the stone beneath them.
II. 1227–1239
Though Criseyde has replied, Pandarus will not be gone
A veil
Her letter is in his hands.
His spirits rise and fall. And rise.
He decides that on balance she says yes
But that she does not yet know what to do
With what she feels.
To him her words are a veil.
He tries to read through them.
II. 1318–1328
Troilus interprets
Dice
He decides he has a fair chance
And writes each day.
She might be sweet, might be fierce
If she deigns to reply.
After such answer as he has
He writes again.
She says that she is now more his
than her own.
II. 1331–1341, IF II. 131, 136
An axe
She remains upright.
Her dignity
Is rigid and deep-rooted.
The prince is told to think of an oak
And how any fool might hack away.
What matters is the felling stroke
Then it’s all over in one great sway.
II. 1375–1386
Pandarus describes an approach
Prescriptions
The prince is instructed to fall ill
And then to take to bed.
He is anyway so evidently tormented, so pale.
Each of the guests knows what he needs:
A potion, an amulet, an incantation, certain herbs . . .
She says nothing. It pleases her
To know that she alone has the cure.
II. 1572–1582
A dinner is contrived at which they meet
A small room is easily warmed
He files his tongue smooth
And setting her somehow aside
From the company persuades her
To visit the prince in his borrowed chamber.
She should enter the curtains alone
So as not to strain the air.
He leads her deeper.
II. 1646–1681
Pandarus takes Criseyde to see Troilus
And inward thus
He takes up the hem of her sleeve
And says nothing as he guides her
Along dark corridors.
Enough pursuit, enough delay
He hopes this romance can now begin
And that she will waste no more time
On what others might think or see or say.
II. 1732–1750
BOOK THREE
Love on earth
It comes in a thousand forms.
A bull rises out of the sea.
A swan plunges. A gold rain falls.
Or a noble heart perceives in itself
Divine agency.
What else is life?
Seize it.
III. 1–21
A weakness
He has rehearsed his lines all evening
Yet when she lays a hand upon his arm
The words bolt
And his cheeks boil red.
He shakes.
He cannot speak.
And she adores this in him.
III. 50–88
Troilus prepares
What does he want?
I do not know what you want me to say
Or be. You ask for mercy
As if I’m inflicting some kind of punishment
When I offer pity
And have promised to be your loving friend.
I’m grateful for your protection
But it’s never been clear what you intend.
III. 76–77, 120–126
Criseyde tries to ask
Know my patience
Only that now and then
You turn those lovely eyes my way
And look upon me kindly
And that you trust in my modesty
My truth and diligence
And allow me to be your first resort in all things.
Seek my help at any hour for any reason.
III. 127–144
Troilus tries to answer
So far as is right
In good grace she accepts his service
Within the bounds of honour
And of such love as this is.
She will hold back nothing
That might him yet recover. She offers her lips
And all the bells of the city chime
In that little room.
III. 155–189
Bawd
I shall put you in her arms but tell no one.
There are a thousand stories of a woman’s reputation lost
Through a man’s boasts.
Were it known
What I have contrived . . . I would be
Condemned and she would lose her name.
She would be nothing. You would have won nothing.
III. 240–280, IF III. 10
Pandarus leads Criseyde back and returns alone
Green
Who can tell even half the delight he feels.
So parched had he become, so densely drawn
All hiding places.
Now each holt and hedge in him
Runs green again
Restored to the impulse
That had woken him in spring.
III. 344–356
He sees his lady sometime
They are careful
And barely speak when they meet.
He makes much of what little they have
And fights fiercely.
At night he turns on his pillow
Devising countless ways
To serve the one he dreams of seizing.
III. 451–459
Presence
She has no cause to request or refuse
Since he anticipates each command.
He places himself like steel between
Her and all she has found
So troubling.
She’s more relieved than afraid.
No one is asking her now to choose.
III. 464–483
Out of doubt
He evaluates each glance and gesture
Takes note, balances the books
And sees that the lovers need to consolidate
These rushed moments
And that this will require a place
Of which they can be certain.
A place to which only he can lead them.
III. 512–532
Pandarus concludes
Ordinance
He waits downwind
And hones his alibi.
If anyone asks why he spent the night away
He will allude to the temple
And how he must sit alone in vigil
Waiting for Apollo to speak in the trembling of the laurel
Of when to expect surrender.
III. 533–546
Troilus is kept informed
When lightless is the world
A scrape of moon in a heaped sky.
Despite the coming storm
She crosses town with full retinue, properly,
To dine with her uncle. He has insisted:
Come tonight or never again.
He lays on a feast.
Nothing that could have been hoped for is missing.
He sings, she plays, he tells the old stories.
III. 549–616
Pandarus commands Criseyde to dine with him
Black rain
This conjunction of the bent moon
With Saturn and Jupiter in the house of Cancer
Occurs once every six hundred years.
Crab weather: the world lagooned
And things forced sideways.
The streets unpassable. Wherever
You are tonight, stay put.
III. 624–644
As far as possible from the storm
She who lives in fear of getting caught out
Cannot get home. Her uncle offers her
The quietest place: an inner room beyond his.
Her ladies will occupy the connecting chamber.
Having taken care of proprieties
They drain the last glass
And she is put to bed.
III. 659–693
The lover in his hiding place
Her host is sure-footed. This is just
Another version of a dance he knows well.
He steps lightly – first to slide back the bolt
Behind which the prince has been concealed
In the stew. Hours in that rank closet
Yet this mouse has to be cajoled
(Too pitter-patter) into coming forth.
III. 694–737
The roar
He leads the quailing
prince to a little trap door
Then makes him wait while he slides himself into
Her chamber. She wakes, sees her uncle and moves
To fetch a chaperone.
His whisper stops her.
They would only reach the wrong conclusion.
Her life is a room within rooms.
Beyond – the wild wind.
III. 743–764
Pandarus delivers Troilus to Criseyde
How this candle in the straw has fallen
This is a most urgent and delicate matter.
Think of it as being rescued from a fire.
Your lover has broken into this house ablaze
With the rumour that you have extended a promise
To another. You must convince him otherwise.
Not in the morning. Now.
His mind is alight. Now.
III. 796–917
Pandarus persuades Criseyde to see Troilus
Tryst
Her heart turns cold in wonder