1

Huxtable

What Chaucer Did To Boethius’ The Consolation of Philosophy in his Troilus and Criseyde

(Unless otherwise stated, quotations are from (a) Boethius. The Consolation of Philosophy. Trans. V.E. Watts, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969. (b) Geoffrey Chaucer. Troilus and Criseyde. The Riverside Chaucer. Ed. Larry D. Benson. Oxford: OUP, 1987. 473-585.)

Overview

These notes work from the premise that Chaucer wrote his Troilus and Criseyde (c. 1385) having recently translated Boethius’ Latin The Consolation of Philosophy, (as Boece, c. 1382) and as such, followed the structure of the latter in forming his version of the Boccaccian story. Boccaccio’s Il Filostrato was formed from nine cantos whereas Chaucer imposed a five book structure on the material, which is thereafter a vital factor in his ability to redistribute the weight of the story into what many would agree is a more satisfying whole. Brewer (1969) writes,

“…(Chaucer) produces an almost perfectly symmetrical five-book structure, where the climax of joy and success comes in the middle book. This rise and fall represents the turn of Fortune’s wheel. Troilus climbs on the wheel in the first book, reaches its height at the end of the third, and is eventually utterly cast down in the fifth.” (p.xxii, Brewer, D.S. & Brewer, L.E.eds. Troilus and Criseyde (Abridged). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971.)

Although it has often been noticed that Chaucer’s works are deeply indebted to Boethius in the philosophical sophistication of his treatment of his characters, and on his thought in general, there has been less coverage of the potential for seeing the overarching formation of Chaucerian fiction in terms of its Boethian legacy. Specific instances of Boethian influence and borrowings can easily be pointed out, as in the following lines, (Jefferson, 1917), but the bigger picture can just as easily be forgotten:

“Troilus, especially, offered Chaucer opportunity for a practical study in real life of the working out of the Boethian teaching. In the tale as it was presented to him in the Filostrato of Boccaccio, he saw a capital example of the sudden reversal of Fortune’s wheel, and an unusually interesting example of human falseness or lack of steadfastness, of worldly felicity, and of human affairs directed to a predetermined end by a relentless fate; and it will be found that most of the extended passages gathered by Chaucer from sources outside the immediate original, itself influenced somewhat by the Consolation, concern these very things.” (p.120, Bernard L. Jefferson. Chaucer and The Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius. New York: Gordian Press, 1917, 1968.)

And a more specific example:

“The first visit of Pandarus to Troilus lying grief-stricken on his bed seems to recall to Chaucer the similar visit of Dame Philosophy to Boethius on his bed in prison.” (p. 124, Bernard L. Jefferson. Chaucer and The Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius. New York: Gordian Press, 1917, 1968.)

If one looks at Chaucer’s development of the story of Troilus in direct parallel with the development of Boethius’ autobiographical story and arguments in the Consolation, it is difficult not to see significant similarities in the manner of their unfolding. My purpose is simply to lay the two works side by side in the hopes that their paralleling will shed light upon the structure of Chaucer’s imagination in his writing of one of his greatest works. (It might at least be a way of understanding why Chaucer felt obliged to move from a four book tale to one of five books, having anticipated in the prologue to Book IV that he would have finished his work by the end of that book:

Thou cruel Mars eek, fader to Quiryne,

This ilke ferthe book me helpeth fyne,

So that the los of lyf and love y-fere

Of Troilus be fully shewed here.

Book I

(a) Boethius – Plot Summary:

The narrator (Boethius) is sheltering in ‘sad songs’, lamenting his fall from Fortune, when a Lady visits him. She rebukes the Muses of Poetry that surround his bedside and they leave shamefaced. Her attitude to them being that:-

Never do they support those in sorrow by any healing remedies, but rather do ever foster the sorrow by poisonous sweets. These are they who stifle the fruit-bearing harvest of reason with the barren briars of the passions: they free not the minds of men from disease, but accustom them thereto. (I.i.36.)

The Lady is Philosophy and she has come to console the narrator in his grief. However, our narrator is ‘dumbstruck’ – he has forgotten his true mind and does not recognize philosophy; hence his despair at the hands of mere Fortune. Philosophy wipes away his tears (that were blinding him with worldly cares) and states of his condition,

There is no danger: he is suffering from drowsiness, that disease which attacks so many minds which have been deceived. He has forgotten himself for a moment and will quickly remember, as soon as he recognises me. (I.ii.38.)

The Narrator sees at last that she is Philosophy. He asks if she has come to ‘suffer false accusation’ with him. She says she has indeed come to not desert him and cites others philosophers whom she has comforted when Fortune had led them to despair (Socrates, Anaxagoras, Zeno, Canius, Seneca, Soranus, etc.). She sees this as a typical condition for,

…it is no matter for your wonder if, in this sea of life, we are tossed about by storms from all sides; for to oppose evil men is the chief aim we set before ourselves. (I.iii.39.)

Philosophy seeks to find relief for Boethius’ suffering, but first must diagnose his complaint. He is asked to reveal his wound, which he does by recounting at length his false accusation and fall from wealth and power into imprisonment facing execution. His complaint, as such, is about Fortune, given that he has been unjustly treated:

Fortune should have blushed at the sight of innocence accused, or at least at the depravity of my accusers. (I.iv.43.)

…it is nothing short of monstrous that God should look on while every criminal is allowed to achieve his purpose against the innocent. (I.iv.44.)

For the very fact that I am steeped in your [Philosophy’s] teaching and trained in your morality seems to prove to them that I have been engaged in evil practice. (I.iv.46.)

The Narrator finishes his lament with an appeal in verse to God, which summarizes the ‘unfairness’ of Fortune:

O Thou who dost weave the bonds of Nature's self, look down upon this pitiable earth! Mankind is no base part of this great work, and we are tossed on Fortune's wave. Restrain, our Guardian, the engulfing surge, and as Thou dost the unbounded heaven rule, with a like bond make true and firm these lands. (I.v.48.)

Boethius echoes The Lord’s Prayer in its appeal that “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” and sees Fortune as the culprit blocking the rule of Heaven on Earth. Philosophy, in turn, notes that Boethius’ complaint is with Fortune and that in his emotional state is incapable of any but the lightest of treatments…

…with your anger flaring up against Fortune, and the bitter complaint that reward is not measured out according to desert… it is as if you had become swollen and calloused under the influence of these disturbing passions… (I.v.49.)

Philosophy questions the Narrator to begin disassembling his complaint against Fortune. It transpires that the ‘missing’ element in his thinking, that is causing his misery, is his forgetting of the ‘final cause’ – the good – an absence caused by the (understandable) shaking of his faith under the present circumstances. The ‘final cause’ needs to be remembered for peace to return to him, since without such a belief, the ups and downs of Fortune must be seen to happen haphazardly, and the wicked to have real, unaccountable power, etc. At this stage, given the heat of Boethius’ emotions, Philosophy can only stress (in verse) the need for mental clarity in order to see the truth, for emotions, be they + or – , cloud and chain the mind:

If thou wouldst see the truth in undimmed light, choose the straight road, the beaten path; away with passing joys! away with fear! put vain hopes to flight! and grant no place to grief! Where these distractions reign, the mind is clouded o'er, the soul is bound in chains. (I.vii.52-3.)

(b) Chaucer – Plot Summary:

Chaucer invokes the Fury ‘Tisiphone’ to aid him in his telling of a sorrowful tale. She represents, as such, his troubled conscience in telling a story in which right and wrong are weighed against Fortune and Providence. The Muses are not welcome here, perhaps because Chaucer takes Boethius’ Philosophy to heart – they cannot provide solace, only provoke emotion:-

The double sorwe of Troilus to tellen,

That was the king Priamus sone of Troye,

In lovinge, how his aventures fellen

Fro wo to wele, and after out of Ioye,

My purpos is, er that I parte fro ye.

Thesiphone, thou help me for tendyte

Thise woful vers, that wepen as I wryte!

(I.477. 1-7.)

Chaucer goes on to present for prayer all those who have experienced Love, be it well or no, in recognition of Troilus’ suffering in this regard. He is openhanded in his regard for human love as a phenomenon. His job is to tell a tale and leave the wondering to his readership.

For so hope I my soule best avaunce,

To preye for hem that Loves servaunts be,

And wryte hir wo, and live in charitee.

And for to have of hem compassioun

As though I were hir owene brother dere.

(I.477-8. 47-51.)

Chaucer proceeds to rehearse the matter of Troy such as it effects his planned story. It is set in terms of Fortune and Destiny – the destiny of Troy to fall (such that ‘wise man of foreknowledge’ Calchas flees, leaving his daughter Criseyde behind to face shame and then Troilus’ passionate embrace) and the Fortune of the Greeks and Trojans in experiencing their numerous ups and downs along the way (such that the destined Greek victory is ultimately produced via Fortune, but in accordance with their overall Destiny, so that all individual efforts towards that end are subsumed and demeaned). Finally the matter is left to other sources to tell (Homer, Darys, Dichtus, et al) since it is of little import for the fateful story about to be told, except to mark out a background involving exactly the same dilemmas (Fate vs. Fortune vs. Providence vs. Freewill) on a grander, more political, scale:

The thinges fellen, as they doon of werre,

Bitwixen hem of Troye and Grekes ofte;

For som day boughten they of Troye it derre,

And eft the Grekes founden no thing softe

The folk of Troye; and thus fortune on-lofte,

And under eft, gan hem to wheelen bothe

After hir cours, ay whyl they were wrothe.

But how this toun com to destruccioun

Ne falleth nought to purpos me to telle;

For it were a long digressioun

Fro my matere, and yow to longe dwelle.

But the Troyane gestes, as they felle,

In Omer, or in Dares, or in Dyte,

Who-so that can, may rede hem as they wryte.

(I.475. 134-147.)

Troilus falls in love with the attractive widow Criseyde and suffers for his concealed passion. He is (in this alone) like Boethius, caught on the horns of Fortune, and his lament gains gravity (via Chaucer) by infusion from the deeper concerns of Boethius’ Philosophy’s riposte to his complaint against Fortune:

So muche, day by day, his owene thought,

For lust to hir, gan quiken and encrese,

That every other charge he sette at nought;

For-thy ful ofte, his hote fyr to cese,

To seen hir goodly look he gan to prese;

For ther-by to ben esed wel he wende,

And ay the ner he was, the more he brende.

For ay the ner the fyr, the hotter is,

This, trowe I, knoweth al this companye.

But were he fer or neer, I dar seye this,

By night or day, for wisdom or folye,

His herte, which that is his brestes ye,

Was ay on hir, that fairer was to sene

Than ever were Eleyne or Polixene.

(I.479. 442-455.)

Troilus is clouded and chained by emotion and cannot see his way to satisfaction. His friend Pandarus consoles him and eventually gets him to ‘show his wound’ and allow him to begin finding its remedy. Troilus’ insensibility is likened to an ass hearing but not comprehending music – an image drawn from Boethius:

What? Slombrestow as in a lytargye?

Or artow lyk an asse to the harpe,

That hereth soun, whan men the strenges plye,

But in his minde of that no melodye

May sinken, him to glade, for that he

So dul is of his bestialitee?

(I.483. 730-735.)

Pandarus succeeds in raising Troilus from his bed of lovesickness by his hopeful advice – simply to find out her feelings and offer his service. As such Fortune is to be contested as the final mediator of reality. Where the Consolation’s Book I ends in appeal for clarity and calm to ‘remember’ why it is that Fortune cannot take away what is of true value, Troilus’ Book I ends with the recognition that what a lover values will come eventually from Fortune’s hand – but will peace follow?

Quod Pandarus, `Than blamestow Fortune

For thou art wrooth, ye, now at erst I see;

Wostow nat wel that Fortune is commune

To every maner wight in som degree?

And yet thou hast this comfort, lo, pardee!

That, as hir Ioyes moten over-goon,

So mote hir sorwes passen everichoon.

`For if hir wheel stinte any-thing to torne,

Than cessed she Fortune anoon to be:

Now, sith hir wheel by no wey may soiorne,

What wostow if hir mutabilitee

Right as thy-selven list, wol doon by thee,

Or that she be not fer fro thyn helpinge?