s the catastrophe of the action, the falling away of Cressid from her
truth to Troilus, poetically explained? By an appeal--pedantically
put, perhaps, and as it were dragged in violently by means of a
truncated quotation from Boethius--to the fundamental difficulty
concerning the relations between poor human life and the government of
the world. This, it must be conceded, is a considerably deeper problem
than the nature of woman. Troilus and Cressid, the hero sinned against
and the sinning heroine, are the VICTIMS OF FATE. Who shall cast a
stone against those who are, but like the rest of us, predestined to
their deeds and to their doom; since the co-existence of free-will with
predestination does not admit of proof? This solution of the conflict
may be morally as well as theologically unsound; it certainly is
aesthetically faulty; but it is the reverse of frivolous or commonplace.

Or let us turn from Cressid, "matchless in beauty," and warm with sweet
life, but not ignoble even in the season of her weakness, to another
personage of the poem. In itself the character of Pandarus is one of
the most revolting which imagination can devise; so much so that the
name has become proverbial for the most despicable of human types.
With Boccaccio Pandarus is Cressid's cousin and Troilus' youthful
friend, and there is no intention of making him more offensive than are
half the confidants of amorous heroes. But Chaucer sees his dramatic
opportunity; and without painting black in black and creating a monster
of vice, he invents a good-natured and loquacious, elderly go-between,
full of proverbial philosophy and invaluable experience--a genuine
light comedy character for all times. How admirably this Pandarus
practises as well as preaches his art; using the hospitable Deiphobus
and the queenly Helen as unconscious instruments in his intrigue for
bringing the lovers together:--

She came to dinner in her plain intent;
But God and Pandar wist what all this meant.

Lastly, considering the extreme length of Chaucer's poem, and the very
simple plot of the story which it tells, one cannot fail to admire the
skill with which the conduct of its action is managed. In Boccaccio
the earlier part of the story is treated with brevity, while the
conclusion, after the catastrophe has occurred and the main interest
has passed, is long drawn out. Chaucer dwells at great length upon the
earlier and pleasing portion of the tale, more esp