Homogeneity in Troilus and Criseyde [ 1st post ]

          Chaucer's purpose is the double sorwe of Troilus to tellen. Troilus is focal point, and the main action will evolve in his world--the besieged city-state of Troy. If one crosses the dividing line of war and compares Troilus's wooing of Criseyde with that of Diomede, a nominal homogeneity shared by the opposing states is distinguishable : courtly love procedure, phrases and postures. The loving suits are dissimilar in circumstance, which in turn alters relevant feature. Troilus operates in a nine-year-enclosed world, a society turned in on itself, to the extent that Troilus's suit for routhe goes hand-in-hand with an obsessive need for secrecy and night-time trysts. Diomede operates in the free air outside, he visits Criseyde at her father's tent in daytime, for all to see, and--a key difference on the day Criseyde intends to return to Troy--he mentions marriage. The homogeneity of courtly love amongst Greek and Trojan resolves into heterogeneous parts determined by circumstance, with their respectively diverse characters, and different attitudes in consequence.
        Paris's seizure of Helen caused this war, and her continuing retention prolongs it, i.e. love provoked and perpetuates it. What is the peculiar nature of Trojan love that can do this ? Troilus and Criseyde is an imaginative examination of it, complete from wo to wele, and after oute of joie. If we look at our trio of Trojan protagonists, again there is homogeneity. Of course they are of kynde, which applies to all Greeks and Trojans. More importantly, our trio are identical in not having experienced love : Troilus is the scorning virgin, Criseyde the widow untouched by love celestial and of kynde, Pandar the profligate who misswente. Their diversity is revealed in their converging curiosity about the nature of love.
        Pandar is of the same family with which Criseyde is often belaboured because of Calkas's defection, yet he seems immune to social opprobrium, perhaps because a male in this heavily male-dominated society is not exploitable, but more likely because he has the ear of the royal family. From his hopping alwey byhynde(II,1106) and his advice to Troilus to eschuw thow that(I,364), I read Pandar as homosexual, and the subsequent courtship of Criseyde seems to bear this out. Firstly, he seems always to make a point of going to bed alongside Troilus, as the right location for revealing his latest success with Criseyde. He savours  Troilus's burgeoning fyre of love by association. The problem in the wooing is that though Pandar is a ready volunteer and go-between, he has not experienced love with a woman, so his stratagems, however orderly and effective, have not met with woman's mutability. When this occurs(II,1142 ;III,181ff. ;III,797), Pandar is utterly taken aback, alternately by Criseyde's frowardness or forwardness. But each time he recovers and comes back with a new device, a new manoeuvre, to wear her down to a state of dulcarnoun, at my wittes end(III,931). Pandar is the master artificer, the artifice a compensatory incestuous sexual manoeuvre practised on Criseyde. The backdrop identification of nightingale ( Philomena ) with Criseyde, and swallow and Proigne with Pandar corroborates this, for the ladies in the myth were sisters. Pandar is queen of his self-devised petty kingdom. His satisfaction lies in control. He teases out the curiosity of Criseyde(II,224ff.) and of Troilus(II,9430ff).