Volu m e II - Purdue University Calumet

evocation of God also proves to be a common thread to the framework and content of the Consolation, if not
a nearly omnipresent theme. In Philosophy‟s discussion with Boethius about the attainment of happiness,
she states, “We must allow that the highest God is totally full of the highest and perfect good… so true
happiness must reside in God” (Boethius 58). Boethius acknowledges and agrees with this statement, and it
can be assumed that Criseyde would, as well. She proves to be the only character in Troilus and Criseyde who
considers her relationship with God and her devotion to her faith to be of the utmost importance, a theme
that is implicit in the Consolation.
Furthermore, Criseyde also echoes the Boethian concept that worldly joy is transitory in her response
to Pandarus‟ claims that she is causing Troilus much distress. She laments, “„O God, so worldly
selynesse,Which clerkes callen fals felicitee, Imedled is with many a bitternesse! /… / O brotel wele of
mannes joie unstable! / With what wight so thow be, or how thow pleye, / Either he woot that thow, joie,
art mutable, or woot it nought; / it mot ben oot of tweye‟” (Chaucer III. 813-815, 820-823). In this
moment, Criseyde demonstrates her recognition of the difficulties and fleeting nature of worldly joy, or
“fals felicitee.” She also identifies that earthly sexual love, the kind that Troilus possesses for her, is too false
and therefore cannot last. In this speech, with its myriad implications that the world of chivalric romance is
replete with falsities and transience, Criseyde serves as Chaucer‟s voice. He wants to make clear, through
Criseyde, his unfavorable opinion of courtly romance and its shallow conventions.
In the W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. edition of Troilus and Criseyde, Stephen A. Barney writes,
“Many of Criseyde‟s thoughts about the limitations of worldly happiness, „false felicitee,‟ replicate those of
Boethius in the Consolation of Philosophy, which Chaucer may have translated shortly before writing Troilus
and Criseyde” (178). Her speech here, indeed colored with Boethian ideology as Barney claims, is a rebuttal
to Pandarus‟ pleas for her submission to Troilus‟ lust. In Book Two, Lady Philosophy explains the woes
that befall men who attempt to achieve worldly happiness. She asserts, “The man who embarks on this
transitory happiness either knows or does not know, how can he be happy in his state of blind ignorance? If
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