Often called the first great English novel, Troilus and Cressida , a tragic love story set during the siege of Troy, is Chaucer’s masterpiece. Troilus, a valiant warrior, is scornful of love until he catches a glimpse of Cressida. With the help of his friend and her uncle Pandarus, Troilus wins Cressida over. But their happiness is destroyed when, summoned to a Greek camp, Cressida seeks the protection of one Diomede and ultimately betrays Troilus. “Chaucer’s greatest poem.”— C. S. Lewis Often called the first great English novel, Troilus and Cressida , a tragic love story set during the siege of Troy, is Chaucer's masterpiece. Troilus, a valiant warrior, is scornful of love until he catches a glimpse of Cressida. With the help of his friend and her uncle Pandarus, Troilus wins Cressida over. But their happiness is destroyed when, summoned to a Greek camp, Cressida seeks the protection of one Diomede and ultimately betrays Troilus. Often called the first great English novel, "Troilus and Cressida, a tragic love story set during the siege of Troy, is Chaucer's masterpiece. Troilus, a valiant warrior, is scornful of love until he catches a glimpse of Cressida. With the help of his friend and her uncle Pandarus, Troilus wins Cressida over. But their happiness is destroyed when, summoned to a Greek camp, Cressida seeks the protection of one Diomede and ultimately betrays Troilus. George Philip Krapp (1872–1934) was a renowned authority on Anglo-Saxon. Peter G. Beidler is a professor of English at Lehigh University and editor of The Wife of Bath and, with Elizabeth Biebel, Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale: An Annotated Bibliography . Cindy Vitto is a professor of English at Rowan University and author of The Virtuous Pagan in Middle English Literature and the co-editor of The Rusted Hauberk: Feudal Ideals of Order and Their Decline . Book I The Temple Door The double sorrow of Troilus to tell, Unhappy son of Priam, king of Troy, And how he fared, when first in love he fell, From woe to weal, then back again from joy, Until we part my time I shall employ. Tisiphone, now help me to endite These woful lines, that weep e'en as I write! On thee I call, Goddess malevolent, Thou cruel Fury, grieving ever in pain! Help me, who am the sorrowful instrument10 That lovers use their sorrows to complain; For truly this is not a saying vain, A gloomy man should have a gloomy mate, And faces sad, those who sad tales relate. For I to serve Love's servants ever try, Yet dare not seek, for my unlikeliness, The aid of Love, although for love I die, So far am I from prospect of success. But yet if this may make the sorrows less Of any lover, or may his cause avail,20 The thanks be his and mine this toilsome tale. But O ye lovers, bathed in bliss always, If any drops of pity in you be, Recall the griefs gone by of other days, And think sometimes upon the adversity Of other folk, forgetting not that ye Have felt yourselves Love's power to displease, Lest ye might win Love's prize with too great ease. And pray for those who suffer in the plight Of Troilus, as I shall tell you here,30 Beseeching Love to bring them to delight; And pray for me as well, to God so dear, That I may have the skill to make appear, In this unhappy tale of Troilus, How dark may be love's ways and treacherous. And pray for those that dwell in love's despair, From which they never hope to be restored; And pray for them who must the burden bear Of slanderous tongue of lady or of lord; Pray God that he the faithful may reward,40 And to the hopeless grant a quick release And bring them from unrest to lasting peace. And pray for lovers all who are at ease, That they may still continue to be so, And pray that they their ladies still may please And unto Love a reverent honor show; For thus I trust my soul in truth shall grow, Praying for those who Love's commands fulfill, And setting forth their fates in all good will, With pity and compassion in my heart,50 As though I brother were to lovers all. Now take, I pray, my story in good part; Henceforth I shall endeavor to recall What sorrows once on Troilus must fall In loving Cressida, who first returned His love, but for new love this old love spurned. Well known the story, how the Greeks so strong In arms, went with a thousand vessels sailing To Troy, and there the Trojan city long Besieged, and after ten years' siege prevailing,60 In divers ways, but with one wrath unfailing, Avenged on Troy the wrong to Helen done By Paris, when at last great Troy was won. Now so it chanced that in the Trojan town, There dwelt a lord of rank and high degree, A priest named Calchas, of such great renown And in all science such proficiency, That he knew what the fate of Troy would be, For at the shrine at Delphi he had heard Phoebus Apollo's dire forboding word.70 When Calchas found his priestly computation Confirmed the oracle Apollo s