BkII:12 Thebes: They were listening to a reading from the Thebaid of Statius. The poet Publius Papinius Statius, born at Naples c 50AD, died there c 96AD. He lived at Rome in Vespasian’s and Domitian’s reigns, and dedicated his Thebaid to the latter, an epic about the War of the Seven against Thebes. His Achilleid, dealing with the Trojan War, was left unfinished. Act 5, scene 10 The rest of the Greek forces hear the shouts of the Myrmidons announcing Hector’s death.

Rhyme is an integral part of this form and may be important, but since every stanza has rhymes be careful not to over interpret their significance, especially if other features of that stanza do not support your reading. There are some words that are frequently used in rhyming position, bringing out thematic ideas throughout Troilus, such as destresse, peyne and smerte. There are also some cases where the same words are repeatedly rhymed together in Troilus creating meaningful associations. For instance, ‘the collocation of joie with Troye 31 times (23 times in the final couplet of the stanza) develops a particular resonance, ironic and poignant, as the narrative takes its course towards the unhappy end of Troy. The collocation of routhe and trouthe (19 times, 14 in the final couplet), as also of rewe and trewe, begins in the courtly context of Criseyde’s pity on the faithful integrity or trouthe of Troilus as a lover and develops through a sad transformation as Criseyde loses her own trouthe.’ (Windeatt, ‘Style’, pp.358) BkV:94 Lucina: A Roman title of Juno as moon-goddess (strictly Juno Lucetia) and goddess of light and of childbirth. Chaucer, Geoffrey, Troilus and Criseyde: A New Edition of the “Book of Troilus”, ed. Barry Windeatt (London: Longman, 1984) BkV:259 The Eighth Sphere: The sphere of the fixed stars above the orbits of the ‘planets’ (Greek for wanderers from their visually erratic positions relative to the fixed stars as viewed from Earth) in their seven spheres of the Ptolemaic scheme. (Earth, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn)Garrison, John, “One Mind, One Heart, One Purse: Integrating Friendship Traditions and the Case of Troilus and Criseyde,” in Medievalia et Humanistica 36 (2010), p.25–48. BkV:86 Juno and Thebes: Following Jupiter’s rape of Semele, daughter of Cadmus of Thebes, Juno pursued vengeance against the House of Cadmus ultimately leading to the war of the Seven against Thebes. See various parts of Ovid’s Metamorphoses for elements of her vengeance. See Aeschylus: Seven Against Thebes. Wallace, David. Chaucerian polity: Absolutist Lineages and Associational Forms in England and Italy. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. BkI:25 First Letter: A reference to Anne of Bohemia wife of Richard II, indicating the poem was written after their marriage in 1382. Troilus' philosophical monologue in Book IV is from Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, a book that was extremely influential to Chaucer.

BkIII:105 Herse, Diana, The Fates: One of the three daughters of King Cecrops. The most beautiful of the Athenian virgins and admired by Mercury. See Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book II:711-832. Mercury elicited the help of her sister Aglauros. Envy poisoned her heart and she was ultimately turned to stone. But knowing this will not get you very far in a commentary. Instead, you need to focus on analyzing how Chaucer exploits the main features of this form. BkIII:204: Alcmena: The daughter of Electryon king of Tiryns, wife of Amphitryon, and mother of Hercules by the god Jupiter, raped by Jupiter disguised as Amphitryon. BkIV:60 Zeuxis: Chaucer calls him Zansis. Zeuxis was a Sicilian artist fl 468BC. His paintings were noted for their realism. The remark here attributed to him actually comes from Ovid’s Remedia Amoris (462). Utz, Richard. Literarischer Nominalismus im Spätmittelalter. Eine Untersuchung zu Sprache, Charakterzeichnung und Struktur in Geoffrey Chaucers Troilus and Criseyde. Frankfurt: Lang, 1990.That night, Pandarus brings Troilus and Cressida together, and after they pledge to be forever true to one another, he leads them to a bedchamber to consummate their love. Meanwhile, Cressida's father, the treacherous Trojan priest Calchas, asks the Greek commanders to exchange a Trojan prisoner for his daughter, so that he may be reunited with her. The commanders agree, and the next morning—to Troilus and Cressida's dismay—the trade is made, and a Greek lord named Diomedes leads Cressida away from Troy. That afternoon, Ajax and Hector fight to a draw, and after Hector and Achilles exchange insults, Hector and Troilus feast with the Greeks under a flag of truce. As the camp goes to bed, Ulysses leads Troilus to the tent of Calchas, where the Trojan prince watches from hiding as Cressida agrees to become Diomedes's lover. Barry Windeatt, ‘Style’ in his Oxford Guides to Chaucer: Troilus and Criseyde (Oxford, 1992), pp. 314-59, esp. 354-59 BkV:46 Escalipho: Chaucer’s version of Ascalaphus. See Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book V:533-571. The son of Orphne and the River Acheron, he sees Persephone eat the pomegranate seeds, informs on her, and is turned into a screech-owl. Robinson, Ian. Chaucer's Prosody: A Study of the Middle English Verse Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971.

BkV:213 The Thebaid told by Cassandra: She recounts the events of Statius’s Thebaid. The poet Publius Papinius Statius, born at Naples c50AD, died there c96AD. He lived at Rome in Vespasian’s and Domitian’s reigns, and dedicated his Thebaid to the latter, an epic about the War of the Seven against Thebes.

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BkI:57 Lollius: Chaucer’s work was based not on the works of the fictitious Lollius, but on Boccaccio’s poem Il Filostrato, deriving some lines and words closely from the Italian and also from a French translation by Beauveau. BkII:8 The White Bull: The constellation and zodiacal sun sign of the Bull. The sun is in Taurus in May. It represents the white ‘Bull from the Sea’, a disguise of Jupiter when he carried off Europa. Its glinting red eye is the star Aldebaran one of the four Babylonian guardians of the heavens, lying near the ecliptic. (The others are Regulus in Leo, Antares in Scorpius, and Fomalhaut ‘the Fish’s Eye’ in Piscis Austrinus. All four are at roughly ninety degrees to one another.)

BkI:1 Tisiphone: One of the three Furies, The Eumenides, in Greek mythology. The Three Sisters, were Alecto, Tisiphone and Megaera, the daughters of Night and Uranus. They were the personified pangs of cruel conscience that pursued the guilty. (See Aeschylus – The Eumenides.) Chaucer invokes her as his Muse, and invokes her again in Bk IV:4 along with her sisters.omit the initial light syllable, producing a ‘headless’ line: ‘ Pandare, o- morwe, which that comen was…’ (8) BkII:15 Amphiaraus: A Greek seer, one of the heroes, the Oeclides, at the Calydonian Boar Hunt. He was the son of Oecleus, the father of Alcmaeon, and the husband of Eriphyle. He was present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt. Fighting in the war of the Seven against Thebes he was swallowed up alive by the earth, as he had foreseen, trying to hide from this fate he was betrayed by his wife Eriphyle and forced to join the war. J. H. Fisher Hornstein F/S Intended illustrations of Corpus 61 In J. B. Bessinger's Med. Studies NYUP 76 Meter may also play a part, though we should not be expecting a slavish adherence to the pattern of unstressed syllable, stressed syllable. It was possible to: