ll.1201-1300

1204 Thus sundry peynes bryngen folk to hevene: what are the implications of describing the lovers’ experience in relation to heaven and the heavenly in this third book?

1210-11 ‘Ne hadde I er now … Ben yolde, ywis, I were now nought heere!’: (‘If I hadn’t surrendered before this, I wouldn’t be here now’). The poem has not presented this earlier decision of Criseyde’s: are there other moments in Criseyde’s thoughts that you suspect the poem has also not depicted, and with what effect on assessment of her character?

1212-13 heled for to be / As of a fevre: what is the role of the language of sickness and cure in this third book of T&C?

1224 take every womman heede: what is the effect of this rare address to a female audience?

1227 As she that juste cause hadde hym to triste: whose thought is this?

1229 Whan she … his clene entente wiste: this poem frequently mentions ‘entente’ (see below, 3.1239) – but how revealing is it in explaining the characters’ intentions?

1233-46 And as the newe abaysed nyghtyngale: in these two stanzas Criseyde is likened to a nightingale, at first startled by people then reassured, and Troilus to a condemned man suddenly rescued from death – how do these comparisons fit with your larger readings of both the lovers?

1254-5 ‘O Love, O Charite! / Thi moder ek, Citheria …’: if love’s mother here is Venus (called Cytherea after her birthplace in Cyprus), then Troilus is invoking Cupid, but what does the poem suggest by having Troilus set ‘Love’ alongside ‘Charite’? (Charity is normally understood as Christian loving kindness, love in its fullest Christian implication?)

1258  ‘And next that, Imeneus, I the grete’: [and after that, I greet thee, Hymen]. What is the significance of Troilus’s hailing the classical god of marriage when he finds himself in bed with his lover for the first time?

1261 ‘thow holy bond of thynges’:   where else do you find the language of binding and bond in the poem?

1262-7   ‘Whoso wol grace … But if thi grace passed oure desertes’: Troilus’s prayer is closely modelled on a prayer by St Bernard to the Virgin Mary in the last canto of Dante’s Paradiso (33.14-18), in which St Bernard refers to Mary’s role as intercessor with God on behalf of humanity. Should this affect your reading of the stanza, and if so, how?

1271 ‘And me bistowed in so heigh a place’: numerically, this ‘high place’ is actually the middle line of the whole poem (the 4120th of the poem’s 8239 lines) – have you noticed any signs that Chaucer does exploit numerological structures and proportions?

1277-1302   ‘Now wolde God I wiste …’: how would you interpret the logic of Troilus’s speech here to Criseyde, with its religious references, its performance of humility, and its language of serving and deserving?

1282 mercy passeth right: ‘mercy surpasses justice’. A commonplace about God’s forgiveness of mankind despite man’s guiltiness in original sin, but what effect does its inclusion have here, in Troilus’s speech about his relationship with Criseyde?

1296-1302   ‘wommanliche wif … unto youre wommanhede’: how do you read the references here and elsewhere to Criseyde’s womanliness?