o love is now for her a question of being
or being not. Troilus, who from the start had most awful presentiments,
feeling that, happen what may, his happiness is over, though yet not
doubting Cressida, writes the most pressing letters, and signs them in
French, "le vostre T." Cressida replies by little short letters (that
she signs "la vostre C."), in which she excuses herself for her brevity.
The length of a letter means nothing; besides she never liked to write,
and where she is now it is not convenient to do it; let Troilus rest
easy, he can count upon her friendship, she will surely return; true,
it will not be in ten days; it will be when she can.[521]

Troilus is told of his misfortune, but he will never believe it:

"Thou seyst nat sooth," quod he, "thou sorceresse!"

A brooch torn from Diomedes which he had given her on the day of
parting,

In remembraunce of him and of his sorwe,

allows him to doubt no more, and he gets killed by Achilles after a
furious struggle.

As we have drawn nearer to the catastrophe, the tone of the poem has
become more melancholy and more tender. The narrator cannot help loving
his two heroes, even the faithless Cressida; he remains at least
merciful for her, and out of mercy, instead of letting us behold her
near as formerly, in the alleys or on her balcony, dreaming in the
starlight, he shows her only from afar, lost among the crowd in which
she has chosen to mix, the crowd in every sense, the crowd of mankind
and the crowd of sentiments, all commonplace. Let us, he thinks,
remember only the former Cressida.

He ends with reflections which are resigned, almost sad, and he
contemplates with a tranquil look the juvenile passions he has just
depicted. Troilus, resigned too, beholds, from heaven, the field under
the walls of Troy, where he was slain, and smiles at the remembrance of
his miseries; and Chaucer, transforming Boccaccio's conclusion like all
the rest, addresses a touching appeal, and wise, even religious advice,
to you,

O yonge fresshe folkes, he or she,
In which that love up groweth with your age.[522]

This return to seriousness is quite as noteworthy as the mixture of
everyday life, added by the poet to the idea borrowed from his model. By
these two traits, which will be seen again from century to century, in
English literature, Chaucer manifests his true English character; and if
we wish to see precisely in what consists the difference between