Pandarus - the Sophist of Love?

What would Troilus and Criseyde do if he didn't play Cupid?

Hello, dear Reader.

For this post, I have returned to the love story of Troilus and Criseyde.

As I read through Books 2 and 3 this time around, something about their courtship really struck me.

Their courtship is really all Pandarus’ doing.

As Criseyde’s uncle, Pandarus, describes Troilus to her, he thinks to himself:

Thanne thoughte he thus, “If I my tale endite

Ought hard, or make a proces any while,

She shal no savour have therinne but lite,

And trowe I wolde hire in my wil bigile;

For tendre wittes wenen al be wile

Theras they can nought pleinly understonde:

Forthy hir wit to serven wol I fonde.” (267-273)

Pandarus and Criseyde

Pandarus is trying his very best to make the idea of Troilus and Criseyde into a reality. But he knows that, first, he must convince his niece that there is good reason to set on this path.

Pandarus’ argument is flowery and rich in a pathos-inducing flow; he says to her:

by my trouthe, I thoughte now if ye

Be fortunat, for now men shal it see.

For every wight som goodly aventure

Somtime is shape, if he it can receiven.

But if that he wol take of it no cure

Whan that it cometh, but wilfully it waiven,

Lo, neither cas ne fortune him deceiven,

But right his verray slouthe and wrecchednesse,

And swich a wight is for to blame, I gesse. (279-287)

Essentially:

Good fortune and adventure come sometimes; one should receive it, if they can. But if one ignores it? Chance or fortune has nothing to do with it. . . this would be a product of one’s own insolence, and the only person to blame would be them.

“I guess,” he adds cheekily to the end.

Whewww, that’s heavy.

I would say Pandarus’ rhetoric does a lot to slyly get under Criseyde’s skin––and this is before he inserts her directly as the individual who must seize their future:

Good aventure, O bele nece, have ye

Ful lightly founden, and ye conne it take.

And for the love of God, and eek of me,

Cacche it anon, lest aventure slake.

What sholde I lenger proces of it make? (288-292)

“What more is there to say?”; “Why spin more yarn?” Pandarus asks (I imagine with imploring, guilt-tripping-relative-puppy eyes).

“For the love of God and of me” consider talking to this man, Troilus. Twist my arm, Criseyde’s probably thinking.

The cherry on top?

He tells her to “Doth what you list to make him live or deye” (322). BUT–

But if ye lete him die, I wol sterve.

Have here my trouthe, nece, I nil nat lien,

Al sholde I with this knif my throte kerve.”

With that the teres breste out of his eyen,

And saide, “If that ye doon us bothe dien

Thus giltelees, thanne have ye fisshed faire.

What mende ye though that we bothe apaire? (323-329)

Um.

Dramatic but effective?

As a reader, this was surprising for me. I knew Pandarus had a certain sensational air to him, but this was an extreme stanza to read.

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What do you make of Pandarus’ stake in Troilus and Criseyde’s romance? His role?

As you all have read books 2 and 3 as well, I want to posit a question about how organic their love is; how viable their future is if so much of their foundation has been scaffolded by outside forces (mostly Pandarus but a little of Love-the god).

Criseyde is almost forced to consider a future with Troilus; rhetoric aside, a suicide threat is not an ultimatum that anyone would find easy to swallow.

How does this affect how we might perceive the durability, the sincerity of their relationship? How does our knowledge of the background orchestrations color our perception of their courtship?

Let me know, dear Reader. Until the next <3

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