They sleep, she wakes
I can withstand my father’s wishes but not the king’s.
I have to go but believe me that I can contrive
A way home. This will all die down
And every day there’s more talk of peace.
It’s half a day’s ride.
Meanwhile I’ll send news somehow.
I can be back in – what – ten days?
IV. 1275–1330
Ambiguities
We’re not yet on firm ground
Nor are we in deep water
And as for my father
I’ll persuade him the gods ordain my return
By finding a way to turn it into gold.
For now we’re neither here nor there
So breathe.
IV. 1394–1406
From leaf to leaf
He brings himself to believe her
Because he loves her
And both feel lighter.
They turn to small things
Like a pair of birds
Who flit from spot to spot of sun
And chirp of each green landing.
IV. 1432–1435, IF IV. 138
Fantasy
He cannot escape her leaving and fears
Her father’s sleight of hand
And fine talk from handsome men.
She will look back from among them
And see him as uncouth.
The city rough. She will not come home
And the siege will never be broken.
IV. 1470–1491
He runs away with himself
Why risk separation?
What fool gives up their very being?
Let’s steal ourselves away.
We may lose reputation and betray
The king but I have kin elsewhere.
If we turned up in our bare shirts
We’d still be honoured guests. We can afford this.
IV. 1503–1526
Shall she be cursed
We would find ourselves too free.
No. You must let me go. But believe this:
The river that runs like an arrow
Through our city and down to the sea
Shall turn back upon its source
Should I prove false. And by god and man
and good and bad and beast shall I be cursed.
IV. 1527–1554
Ten days
People would say it was not an act of love
But one of fear and desire. We are at war.
You would lose your honour and I my name.
Stay here where I will be again
By the time the moon has carried itself
Out of the ram and into the lion.
You are a prince: strong enough to endure.
IV. 1555–1596
Unquestionable
Long after dawn they lie tight pressed.
At last he makes himself dress
All the while looking upon his lover
As if upon his death.
When he understands what is going to happen
His spirit tears itself out of his chest.
He leaves the room.
IV. 1688–1701
BOOK FIVE
Circles
The sun moves through its signs.
The day of her departure comes. At dawn
Diomede stands full ready to receive her.
Why does Troilus not defy his father
Abandon his brothers, kill this man and grab her?
He answers himself that she might get hurt in the fray.
He joins the crowd at the gate.
V. 8–56
The Greeks arrive to collect Criseyde
Who would not trust her sadness?
When Criseyde is ready to be gone
She turns to Diomede as he takes her reins
And says with great coldness:
I have shown myself long enough.
Let us not dwell.
She bids her servants farewell
Otherwise no one.
V. 57–63, IF V. 8–9
A courtesy
Troilus is alongside.
One among many.
He raises a gloved fist
On which sits a hooded hawk.
They ride out beyond the valley at a slow walk.
He would remain with her every step of the way
But turn he must.
V. 64–70
He manages himself
From among the Greeks comes Antenor.
The Trojans cheer. The prince tries
But he is fixed on she who is leaving.
He takes her right hand in his right hand
With great formality and whispers
That she must hold to the tenth day or he will die.
To the man taking her reins he says nothing.
V. 71–87
Diomede
He observes the prince’s silence
The lady’s grief, their barely touching hands
And sees that there is something in this
For him. He will drive out the other man.
All he has to do is understand.
Where the prince might sing to himself
He reads her.
V. 92–105
So soon away
They fall into conversation.
He makes of her distress a question:
Is there anything he can do that might
Put her at ease? He interrogates
The immediacy of his devotion
So that she doesn’t. He will be her friend.
She needs one.
V. 100–140
Diomede leads
Enveloping
He waits till her father’s tent is in sight
Then says he can guess what weighs on her
And that even those on opposite sides
Worship at the same altar
When it comes to love. He repeats his offer
Then seals the conversation
By pointing out her new home.
V. 120–151
They arrive at the Greek camp
A bluff
Then he turns and blurts about having never
Met a woman who so pierced his heart
Keeping his words abrupt
As if this were sudden exposure.
He presents his feelings as a shock:
The discovery in himself of an outcrop
Across which he now stumbles.
V. 155–175
Disappearance
She has been sinking all the while
And hears what he says from underwater.
She catches some words – friendship, brother –
And being who she is
Thanks him as she slips from her horse
And steps as a child
Back into the house of her father.
V. 176–194
Inside the walls of himself
No one dares speak to the prince
On his return, his face set so hard
Such anger in his manner.
Alone at last he gives vent to the loss
Of his happiness. He blames his fate, his birth
All possible gods. He sees no worth
In anything they’ve created beyond her.
V. 197–210
Troilus returns to the palace
Where am I where she is?
Where are her arms that last night were here?
Where is her body where?
Is this pillow all that’s left for me to embrace?
How can I persevere?
Who right now stands in her presence?
To whom right now does she listen?
Who will speak for me right now in my absence?
V. 218–236
A pale horizon
There’s just the faintest line of day
When he sends for his so-called brother
Who swears he would have come before
Had he not been detained
on palace business.
He knows what to expect:
The prince sleepless, his woe endless.
The stars are still in the sky.
V. 274–291
At dawn Troilus summons Pandarus
I shall not see tomorrow
So let me tell you what I wish
By way of burial and inscription.
Do what you think best with my goods but of the pyre
The feast and the funeral games
Ensure that all is nobly done.
Place the powder of my burnt heart
In a gold urn and deliver it to her.
V. 295–315
Troilus makes arrangements
A diversion
We must drive these ten days ahead of us.
This city is full of pleasure pots. I know a place
Where every imaginable delicacy is served
And where all pleasing instruments
Are tuned to an ultimate sweetness.
The air has never been so provoked.
You will thrum like a plucked string.
V. 393–48
Pandarus attempts to restore Troilus
After three days
Troilus cannot stand to hear another tune.
Every woman there has been told his story.
He recites old letters as if they were prayers
And imposes her form.
He’s a locked room.
They ride for home. He starts to sing.
The key is elsewhere.
V. 456–504
As if in passing
They find themselves below her window:
Barred, tight shut. He feels a frost
And rides off before anyone can see in his face
That he is as this house
Once the best of all possible places.
Then he goes to the gates by which his life left
And replays it.
V. 525–607
Himself imagined
A loss of stature, a contorted face.
Spoken of in whispers as he passes. He knows
What they say: that he’s in the grip of the most
Tremendous hope and dread.
It looks to them like delusion.
He hides his subject in verse.
Long songs he sings to no one.
V. 617–637
With each day Troilus lessens
Guarded
Upon the other side remains Criseyde
With few women, among many men.
There is nothing to say to her father
That will obtain her release. If she escapes
She might be killed or raped and even if she made her way
Home – no one would be pleased.
Wouldn’t he have given up already?
V. 687–706, IF VI. 1
With each day Criseyde doubts herself more
Out of all cure
She gazes at the distant towers of the city.
How quickly her life
Has arranged itself in scenes
Distant as memory.
How to get back inside?
She had thought it a fortress
And so it is.
V. 710–733
In conclusion
Before she is ready to act
Someone will loosen the knot.
The closed city and her estranged love
Will pass through her mind
Without catch
Like the smoothest thread
Through the eye of a needle.
V. 750–770
Criseyde decides to try to escape but
Cast
They will say that Diomede was robust
And Troilus the very measure of a man. That Criseyde
Was known to bind with golden thread
The blonde braid that hung down her back.
That she had no like, no lack
Though much will be made of her sliding courage.
No one is sure of her age.
V. 799–840
A branch about to bud
He contrives to find her alone.
She serves spice cakes and wine.
When their conversation turns to the war
He asks for her opinion
And more: are Greek ways so foreign?
And why has her father not found her a suitor?
She doesn’t know what he means.
V. 841–863
Each day Diomede visits Criseyde
He bursts into blossom
Your father’s dreadful vision was so clear
That when I heard he had a daughter
I myself offered to bring you here
And now I must urge you to empty your heart
Of one who has no future.
Do not waste one quarter of a single tear.
V. 897–917
With these words he colours a little
He turns away, pauses, rouses himself
And looks straight at her as he speaks of
The kingdom that would be his
Had his father not been killed.
He says everything that can be said:
That there is a more perfect kind of love
And that this is his first such promise.
V. 918–940
Each of his points is met
I love the place where I was born.
There are men there who are your equal.
I pray things will not fall out as you predict.
I do not doubt you’d serve a lady well.
I had a husband who died
Since when my heart has been a shell.
Who does this lie protect?
V. 955–978
Criseyde omits
So it happens
I spend the time left to me in regret
While you, a man, are free to act
So let me at least say this:
If I see what I never thought to see
I might do what I never thought to do.
I do not say I will give you my love
And I do not say I will not.
V. 988–1004
Criseyde listens again
Twilight
All day they sit and when he rises to leave
He cannot resist a little more talk.
She knows him now a man made for women.
He presses his case gently enough
And when they part she gives him a glove
Which she tells herself she does
So as not to give him her hand.
V. 1009–1015
Rarely have the stars seemed so clear
She stands beneath the rising moon
As it leaves behind the sign of the lion.
Who’s counting?
From then on he speaks to her each day
And what he says draws out her pain
Bends her heart and turns her desire
From Troy (so far away now, so close to its end).
V. 1016–1036
Since there is no other way
Some say the Greek carried a pennant on his spear
Which she had sewn from her sleeve.
That he captured Troilus’s bay and gave it to her.
That she gave it back but washed his wounds.
That she gave up.
No one’s sure how long it took her to succumb.
If you’ve heard her name you know what she’s done.
V. 1037–1069
On the tenth day
They climb the city walls to look for her coming.
All manner of person who appears on the horizon
Has to be her. Until they are not. He studies
Each tree and grove and hedge, craning his neck.
There she is at last!
All his friend sees is a cart
Being hauled from place to place.
V. 1105–62
Troilus and Pandarus go to meet Criseyde
Turning for home
He decides she must be waiting for dark
And then when every star is out
That he has made a mistake.
What she really meant was that she’d be back
When the moon has passed beyond
The sign of the ram – which is when?
Next day up and down the walls again.
V. 1165–1194
Troilus reconfigures
He has lost the thing that gave his life its frame
Three, four, five, six days pass
And each day he recovers her promise
Only to feel it break again
And desire rise through his pain
And with it his tears.
He flees from company, from comfort, from life
As from fire.
V. 1199–1218
His manliness
The shame is crippling.
He uses a stick to stagger about
Exhausted.
The king, his mother, brothers and sisters
Beg to know what’s wrong.
He says he has a disease of the heart.
A defect that will kill him.