some apocryphal source. But it may be worth while to point out that there was, in the Orient at least, a widespread legend to the effect that Adam and Eve, when they were in Paradise, could see the angels in heaven. In the Book of the Secrets of Enoch, the so-called 'Slavonic Enoch,' God says in his account of the life of Adam in Paradise: "I made for him the heavens open that he should perceive the angels singing the song of triumph."48 This was taken over into the Book of Adam and Eve: "When we dwelt in the garden . . we saw the angels that sang praises in heaven."49 I quote further from the editor of the "Slavonic Enoch": "According to S. Ephrem, i, 139, Adam and Eve lost the angelic vision on their fall (Malan). Philo, Quaest. xxxii in Gen., believes, ‘oculis illos praeditos esse quibus potuerunt etiam eas quae in coelo sunt.'"'50 This vision, of course, is a somewhat different matter from the one in Genesis B. It is of the same nature, and it disappears after the fall, but it is of divine, not of diabolic, origin. And still it does not seem unlikely that a fragment of apocalyptic tradition of this sort should have got attached to the text, "Your eyes shall be opened" of Genesis, and thus have been drawn into the temptation story. The tradition would have to be followed much farther into the Occident before any claim for its influence on Genesis B could be set up. Gregory the Great seems to have known it.51 A later episode in the Book of Adam and Eve may also be cited. After the expulsion Adam and Eve are forced to take refuge in a dark cave. Satan and his followers appear as angels of light, and the cave becomes bright. Adam first thinks they are angels of God, but he has certain doubts, and prays for enlightenment. A true angel then comes, and shows Satan to Adam in his true form.52 The Rice Institute ALAN D. MCKILLOP 48 Oxford, 1896, trans. W. R. Morfill, ed. R. H. Charles, XXXI, 2. 49 Quoted by Charles in note to loc. cit. Cf. also the following passage, which I take from A. Dillmann's translation of this document: "So lange du in demütigem gehorsam standest," God said to Adam, "war die lichtnatur in dir, und deswegen sahest du die fernsten dinge; aber seit die lichtnatur dir entzogen ist, kannst du das ferne nicht mehr sehen." (Das christliche Adambuch des Morgenlandes, 1853, p. 17.) 50 Op. cit., p. 44. "Dialogues, Migne 57: 317. Das christliche Adambuch des Morgenlandes, pp. 28 ff. CHAUCER'S PORTRAIT OF CRISEYDE In an article published in Modern Language Notes for 1904 (XIX, 235) Professor G. P. Krapp inquires why Chaucer in Troilus and Criseyde (ed. Skeat, V, 813-4) should have been so ungallant as to bestow upon his otherwise beautiful heroine the single defect of knit eye-brows: "And, save hir browes ioyneden y-fere, Ther nas no lak, in ought I can espeyen." As Professor Krapp intimates, the question is pertinent not merely upon chivalrous but also upon artistic grounds. Mr. Krapp contends that as an historian, anxious only to preserve the truth of fact, Chaucer might well have pictured Criseyde as he has done but as a poet, intent solely upon an artistic ideal, his representation demands explanation. And this explanation the author of the article in question feels himself not in a position to supply. If we assume with Mr. Krapp that Chaucer is proceeding with an artistic ideal in view, then indeed we must admit that the poet has blundered. Even on general grounds we should expect an artist-particularly such an artist as Chaucer-to picture a beautiful woman and call her Criseyde rather than to paint Criseyde as she was, even though her ill-looks were limited to one feature only. Indeed the very singleness of the defect centers attention upon it. Still more should we expect him to refrain from gratuitous animadversion upon this im-` perfection. For an unbecoming feature, however slight, cannot fail to be conspicuous when attention is explicitly called to it. But it is not merely on general grounds that we should expect Chaucer to refrain from admitting any blemish in the appearance of his heroine. For, as Professor Kittredge has pointed out (Chaucer and His Poetry, pp. 128 ff.),' the poet is at evident pains to exonerate the erring Criseyde, to extenuate her faults, and to present her as an object for the utmost pity of the reader. This purpose, as Mr. Kittredge observes, A Notwithstanding the fact that two elaborate studies of the character of Criseyde had already been published, one by Cook, A. S., Publications of the Modern Language Association, XXII, 531 ff., and the other by Root, R. K., The Poetry of Chaucer, pp. 105 ff. Chaucer explicitly acknowledges in a passage that follows hard upon the one just quoted: "Ne me ne list this sely womman chyde (V, 1093-99.) Now if Chaucer feels thus tenderly toward his heroine, why should he endow her with a feature not calculated certainly to contribute to such a feeling on the part of poet or reader? We pity those we admire. Imagine an Effie Dean with squint eyes or still worse a Scott who should deliberately call attention to the fact! Elsewhere to be sure Chaucer realized the desirability of limiting himself to an exclusively complimentary representation of his heroine. The various references to Criseyde's good looks scattered throughout the Troilus amply bear out the poet's assertion that save for her eye-brows she suffered from no lack of comeliness. How gloriously does he everywhere enlarge upon her schedule of beauty! When she makes her first appearance in the poem we read: "In al Troyes citee Nas noon so fair, for passing every wight So aungellyk was hir natyf beautee, That lyk a thing inmortal semed she, As doth an hevenish parfit creature, That doun were sent in scorning of nature." (I, 100-105.) Again observe that Chaucer makes direct use of her physical beauty as a means of increasing our pity for her when she is forced to abandon Troilus: "Hir ounded heer, that sonnish was of hewe, She rente." (IV, 736-7) Moreover the detailed portrait of Criseyde, from which the passage under consideration is quoted, abounds, both before and after that passage, in complimentary descriptions: "Criseyde mene was of her stature, Ther-to of shap, of face, and eek of chere, Ther mighte been no fairer creature. And ofte tyme this was hir manere To gon y-tressed with hir heres clere Which with a threde of gold she wolde binde." (V, 806-12.) "But for to speken of her eyen clere, Strof love in hir, ay which of hem was more." (V, 815-19.) It cannot be gainsaid therefore that in attributing to Criseyde a feature avowedly unbecoming Chaucer has allowed himself to be betrayed into the admission of an attribute not only inconsistent with what he elsewhere says of his heroine but also singularly at variance with the purpose of the poem. Evidently from the aesthetic point of view Chaucer has, as Krapp alleges, committed an error and it remains to be seen whether we can discover a reason for that error. It cannot be pleaded in defence of the poet that he was misled by bad example and strayed from the path of art because those authors from whom he derived the materials of his Troilus, had so strayed before him. Boccaccio, his principal source, omits all mention of knit eye-brows in his portrait of Criseida in the first canto of the Filostrato (st. 27) as well as elsewhere in that poem. Joseph of Exeter, from whose portraits of Troilus (vv. 60-4), Diomedes (vv. 124-7), and Briseis (vv. 156–62) in the fourth book of his De Bello Trojano (ed. A. J. Valpy, Scriptores Latini, London, 1825) Chaucer has, as shown by Professor Root (Chaucer's Dares in Modern Philology, XV, 3ff.), extracted the larger portions of his personal descriptions of his three protagonists in the fifth book of the Troilus (vv. 799– 840), is in like manner completely silent as respects the married brows of Briseis. Of the four authors whom the English poet 'Root's suggestion that Chaucer's derogatory reference to Criseyde's eye-brows might be due to a misapprehension of Joseph's 'umbreque minoris delicias' whereby he understood 'the delights of lesser shadow' to mean 'a shadow of lesser delight' is, as he himself acknowledges, not at all probable. Neither the construction of the Latin words as they stand nor the context in which they occur—which demands either umbre (a genitive, as we have it) or umbras (an accusative plural)—would allow such a supposition. Nor would Root's parallel from Claudian allow it, in which the expression ‘umbra minor'— not 'umbra' alone-appears to mean eye-brows (i.e.) lesser shadow, as contrasted with 'umbra major,' greater shadow, i.e. hair of the head). consulted in composing his Troilus and Criseyde but two remain, viz. Benoit de Ste. More and Guido delle Colonne. Both these writers to be sure give Briseida knit eye-brows and both subjoin an adverse comment thereupon: "Mais les sorcilles li joignerent Que auques li mesaveneient" (Roman de Troie ed. L. Constans, vv. 527980), "Sed [briseida fuit] superciliis iunctis quorum iunctura dum multa pilositate tumesceret modicam inconuenientiam presentabat." (Historia Trojana, Strassburg, 1486, sig. e. 2, rect., 2, 16-8.) But it must be borne in mind that Benoit and Guido maintain towards their heroine an attitude diametrically opposed to that maintained by Chaucer toward his. Instead of attempting to condone her offence they reproach and upbraid her for it. Even before Briseida has left Troy both authors have so far guaged the fickleness of their heroine as to feel themselves already justified in predicting her defection to Diomede and in uttering in anticipation thereof a prolonged diatribe on the inconstancy of women. Again she has no sooner reached the Greek camp than she finds, they say, much that pleases her. Benoit allows her just three days in which to remain faithful to Troilus: "Anceis que [el] veie le quart seir N'avra corage ne voleir De retorner en la cité. Mout sont corage tost műé, Poi veritable e poi estable; Mout sont li cuer vain e muable. Por col comperent li leial: Sovent en traient peine e mal.”(Roman de Troie, vv. 13859-66.) Guido, who in the matter of moral censure always goes Benoit one better, claims that her change of heart began immediately: "Nondum illa [prima] dies ad horas declinauerat vesperas cum iam briseida suas recentes mutauerat voluntates et vetera proposita sui cordis et iam magis sibi succedit ad votum esse cum grecis quam fuisse hactenus cum troianis. Jam nobilis troili amor cepit in sua mente tapescere et tam breui hora repente sic subito facta volubilis ceperat in omnibus variari. Quid est ergo quod dicatur de constantia mulierum? Quarum sexus proprium in se habet vt repentina fragilitate eorum proposita dissoluantur et hora breuissima muta Roman de Troie, vv, 13429-56; Historia Trojana sig. i, 2, 27—vers. I, 7. |