“Thesiphone, thou help me for tendyte
Thise woful vers, that wepen as I wryte!”[187]
Throughout the poem he disclaims responsibility for what he narrates, saying that he is simply following his author and that, once begun, somehow he must keep on. In the proem to the second book he says:
“Wherefore I nil have neither thank ne blame
Of al this werk, but pray you mekely,
Disblameth me, if any word be lame,
For as myn auctor seyde, so seye I.”[188]
and concludes the proem with the words,—
“but sin I have begonne,
Myn auctor shal I folwen, if I conne.”[189]
When Fortune turns her face away from Troilus, and Chaucer must tell of the loss of Criseyde his heart bleeds and his pen trembles with dread of what he must write:
“But al to litel, weylawey the whyle,
Lasteth swich Ioye, y-thonked be Fortune!
That semeth trewest, whan she wol bygyle,
And can to foles so hir song entune,
That she hem hent and blent, traytour comune;
And whan a wight is from hir wheel y-throwe,
Than laugheth she, and maketh him the mowe.
From Troilus she gan hir brighte face
Awey to wrythe, and took of him non hede,
But caste him clene oute of his lady grace,
And on hir wheel she sette up Diomede;
For which right now myn herte ginneth blede,
And now my penne, allas! with which I wryte,
Quaketh for drede of that I moot endyte.”[190]
Chaucer tells of Criseyde’s faithlessness reluctantly, reminding the reader often that so the story has it:
“And after this the story telleth us,
That she him yaf the faire baye stede,
The which she ones wan of Troilus;
And eek a broche (and that was litel nede)
That Troilus was, she yaf this Diomede.
And eek, the bet from sorwe him to releve,
She made him were a pencel of hir sleve.
I finde eek in the stories elles-where,
Whan through the body hurt was Diomede
Of Troilus, tho weep she many a tere,
Whan that she saugh his wyde woundes blede;
And that he took to kepen him good hede,
And for to hele him of his sorwes smerte,
Men seyn, I not, that she yaf him hir herte.”[191]
And in the end for very pity he tries to excuse her: