“For, if there sit a man yond on a see,* *seat
Then by necessity behoveth it
That certes thine opinion sooth be,
That weenest, or conjectest,* that he sit; *conjecturest
And, furtherover, now againward yet,
Lo! right so is it on the part contrary;
As thus, — now hearken, for I will not tarry; —
“I say that if th’opinion of thee
Be sooth, for that he sits, then say I this,
That he must sitte by necessity;
And thus necessity in either is,
For in him need of sitting is, y-wis,
And, in thee, need of sooth; and thus forsooth
There must necessity be in you both.
“But thou may’st say he sits not therefore
That thine opinion of his sitting sooth
But rather, for the man sat there before,
Therefore is thine opinion sooth, y-wis;
And I say, though the cause of sooth of this
Comes of his sitting, yet necessity
Is interchanged both in him and thee.
“Thus in the same wise, out of doubtance,
I may well maken, as it seemeth me,
My reasoning of Godde’s purveyance,
And of the thinges that to come be;
By whiche reason men may well y-see
That thilke* thinges that in earthe fall,** *those **happen
That by necessity they comen all.
“For although that a thing should come, y-wis,
Therefore it is purveyed certainly,
Not that it comes for it purveyed is;
Yet, natheless, behoveth needfully
That thing to come be purvey’d truely;
Or elles thinges that purveyed be,
That they betide* by necessity. *happen
“And this sufficeth right enough, certain,
For to destroy our free choice ev’ry deal;
But now is this abusion,* to sayn *illusion, self-deception
That falling of the thinges temporel
Is cause of Godde’s prescience eternel;
Now truely that is a false sentence,* *opinion, judgment
That thing to come should cause his prescience.
“What might I ween, an’* I had such a thought, *if
But that God purveys thing that is to come,
For that it is to come, and elles nought?
So might I ween that thinges, all and some,
That *whilom be befall and overcome,* *have happened
Be cause of thilke sov’reign purveyance, in times past*
That foreknows all, withouten ignorance.
“And over all this, yet say I more thereto, —
That right as when I wot there is a thing,
Y-wis, that thing must needfully be so;
Eke right so, when I wot a thing coming,
So must it come; and thus the befalling
Of thinges that be wist before the tide,* *time
They may not be eschew’d* on any side.” *avoided
While Troilus was in all this heaviness, disputing with himself in this matter, Pandarus joined him, and told him the result of the interview with Cressida; and at night the lovers met, with what sighs and tears may be imagined. Cressida swooned away, so that Troilus took her for dead; and, having tenderly laid out her limbs, as one preparing a corpse for the bier, he drew his sword to slay himself upon her body. But, as God would, just at that moment she awoke out of her swoon; and by and by the pair began to talk of their prospects. Cressida declared the opinion, supporting it at great length and with many reasons, that there was no cause for half so much woe on either part. Her surrender, decreed by the parliament, could not be resisted; it was quite easy for them soon to meet again; she would bring things about that she should be back in Troy within a week or two; she would take advantage of the constant coming and going while the truce lasted; and the issue would be, that the Trojans would have both her and Antenor; while, to facilitate her return, she had devised a stratagem by which, working on her father’s avarice, she might tempt him to desert from the Greek camp back to the city. “And truly,” says the poet, having fully reported her plausible speech,
And truely, as written well I find,
That all this thing was said *of good intent,* *sincerely*
And that her hearte true was and kind
Towardes him, and spake right as she meant,
And that she starf* for woe nigh when she went, *died
And was in purpose ever to be true;
Thus write they that of her workes knew.