A Double Sorrow Read online

  The horses pulling like tired machines

  Nothing from the men inside their armour.

  II. 611–623

  Prowess

  The gloss of his bay running red

  The prince still full richly dressed

  Bows his head. His mangled helmet

  Dangles by a thread like a piece of tin.

  His shield tough with sinew, hide and horn

  Is scored and hacked and arrow-pierced.

  The people chant his name regardless.

  II. 624–647

  Troilus in defeat

  She lets him sink softly into her heart

  Drawn to her window by his name

  She thinks herself the only one to notice

  His cheeks burn. He looks to the ground.

  He will not play to the crowd.

  She thinks how urgently he needs to lie down

  Somewhere quiet and warm among silk and feathers

  And she blushes.

  II. 645–650

  Gently

  This sight sets off in her

  A gathering of all she knows.

  His charms roll smoothly back and forth

  But what comes to rest

  Is herself as the cause of his distress.

  She takes this in – so moved

  That it starts to translate itself into love.

  II. 651–665

  A basis

  You can hear the envious

  Condemning this sudden change of heart

  At the sight of him battle-scarred

  But every love must find its start.

  It’s only that she now feels more inclined

  Towards him. Think of her as a fortress

  Being slowly undermined.

  II. 666–679

  Angles

  She takes up the matter

  As if it were to be folded like paper.

  I am my own woman. No longer wife

  And at ease to be so. This is the right life

  I am in. At home amongst women.

  Yet he is the king’s son

  And a place to rest my heart upon.

  II. 694–764

  Glare

  Haven’t I seen what love does?

  Like the sun it cannot help its brightness

  And so blinds us.

  A woman is exposed

  While a man can stand in shadow.

  His love came out of nowhere.

  It will go there.

  II. 778–798, 862–863

  Criseyde anticipates

  Courage

  Come darkness things slip out of shape.

  She dreams an eagle with bone-white feathers

  Opens her chest with his long fingers

  Removes her heart and puts in place his own.

  She has no fear and feels no pain.

  Heart for heart to keep.

  Now let her sleep.

  II. 905–932

  Should he weep or sing?

  Home from that day’s skirmish he wants only news

  And takes nothing of all that’s brought to him.

  He is told to eat, to rest. The net has been cast

  And a promise has been drawn:

  To be his loving friend.

  What does that mean? I’m held by this as by a noose

  And I am dangling.

  II. 933–962, 985–987

  Troilus asks

  A frame

  She stands at the window but turns away.

  Every now and then she

  Looks over her shoulder down towards where he

  Waits. She knows he waits.

  Her glance is neither proud nor punitive.

  The greater hope, the greater love.

  He will not move.

  IF II. 82, 85

  Criseyde shows herself

  He is at first content with her courtesy

  Seven years in a locked city

  And each time she equals his gaze

  He’s in a new place.

  A thousand cities construct themselves

  Within him. Avenues unfurl.

  He turns each corner but meets only

  Wall on wall on wall.

  II. 977–978, IF II. 82, 85

  He can live near her no longer

  When she leaves my sight I cannot rest

  Till I have her in front of me again. Alight

  I am forced back to the flame.

  I must act.

  Now is not the time.

  Try to do what I say

  Or charge someone else with your destiny.

  II. 981–994, IF II. 89

  Troilus insists, Pandarus obstructs

  The art of poetry

  If you must do something now write a letter.

  I do not have the art and am sure to offend her.

  Use fine words but don’t reiterate.

  Neither too neat nor too ornate.

  Don’t spin arguments or put on airs.

  Use the right terms. This is love not war.

  Let an inkblot fall – like a tear.

  II. 1005–1043

  Lines

  Dear lady, the thought of you prowls through me

  And hunts out any other that might bring to mind

  Another. Or anything. You are so very

  – he recalls the terms –

  Pleasing, delightful, blissful, kind.

  The cure for my pain.

  I who am – he knows it’s a lie – unworthy.

  II. 1065–1085, IF II. 99

  Troilus finds the words

  Like an oriental pearl

  She inspires awe as much as desire.

  Her charms so extreme

  They make of her a stranger.

  Made of what stuff?

  Water or fire or earth?

  What brought her here?

  Few dream of holding her.

  IF II. 108

  A cage

  He turns up at dawn waking everyone.

  She begs him: Do not bring me this.

  So he thrusts it into her breast.

  She says aloud that she will not read these words

  Then, folding it away, makes some excuse.

  Her days are filled with talk of such tameness

  That the prince’s words are lions.

  II. 1128–1178

  Pandarus delivers Troilus’s letter, Criseyde reads it

  A door half open

  She is told that she must offer words of her own.

  Her uncle can provide them.

  But she takes herself away from all scrutiny

  And writes what she does not know she will say.

  She thanks him for all he has well meant towards her.

  She will not make promises or give up her liberty.

  She offers herself as sister.

  II. 1195–1225

  Jasper

  He settles himself among gold cushions

  And starts to say that though a woman hard won

  Is not easily forgotten

  Now is the time.

  He leans in.

  Her fingers trace the flow of light and dark

  Trapped in the stone beneath them.

  II. 1227–1239

  Though Criseyde has replied, Pandarus will not be gone

  A veil

  Her letter is in his hands.

  His spirits rise and fall. And rise.

  He decides that on balance she says yes

  But that she does not yet know what to do

  With what she feels.

  To him her words are a veil.

  He tries to read through them.

  II. 1318–1328

  Troilus interprets

  Dice

  He decides he has a fair chance

  And writes each day.

  She might be sweet, might be fierce

  If she deigns to reply.

  After such answer as he has

  He writes again.

  She says that she is now more his
than her own.

  II. 1331–1341, IF II. 131, 136

  An axe

  She remains upright.

  Her dignity

  Is rigid and deep-rooted.

  The prince is told to think of an oak

  And how any fool might hack away.

  What matters is the felling stroke

  Then it’s all over in one great sway.

  II. 1375–1386

  Pandarus describes an approach

  Prescriptions

  The prince is instructed to fall ill

  And then to take to bed.

  He is anyway so evidently tormented, so pale.

  Each of the guests knows what he needs:

  A potion, an amulet, an incantation, certain herbs . . .

  She says nothing. It pleases her

  To know that she alone has the cure.

  II. 1572–1582

  A dinner is contrived at which they meet

  A small room is easily warmed

  He files his tongue smooth

  And setting her somehow aside

  From the company persuades her

  To visit the prince in his borrowed chamber.

  She should enter the curtains alone

  So as not to strain the air.

  He leads her deeper.

  II. 1646–1681

  Pandarus takes Criseyde to see Troilus

  And inward thus

  He takes up the hem of her sleeve

  And says nothing as he guides her

  Along dark corridors.

  Enough pursuit, enough delay

  He hopes this romance can now begin

  And that she will waste no more time

  On what others might think or see or say.

  II. 1732–1750

  BOOK THREE

  Love on earth

  It comes in a thousand forms.

  A bull rises out of the sea.

  A swan plunges. A gold rain falls.

  Or a noble heart perceives in itself

  Divine agency.

  What else is life?

  Seize it.

  III. 1–21

  A weakness

  He has rehearsed his lines all evening

  Yet when she lays a hand upon his arm

  The words bolt

  And his cheeks boil red.

  He shakes.

  He cannot speak.

  And she adores this in him.

  III. 50–88

  Troilus prepares

  What does he want?

  I do not know what you want me to say

  Or be. You ask for mercy

  As if I’m inflicting some kind of punishment

  When I offer pity

  And have promised to be your loving friend.

  I’m grateful for your protection

  But it’s never been clear what you intend.

  III. 76–77, 120–126

  Criseyde tries to ask

  Know my patience

  Only that now and then

  You turn those lovely eyes my way

  And look upon me kindly

  And that you trust in my modesty

  My truth and diligence

  And allow me to be your first resort in all things.

  Seek my help at any hour for any reason.

  III. 127–144

  Troilus tries to answer

  So far as is right

  In good grace she accepts his service

  Within the bounds of honour

  And of such love as this is.

  She will hold back nothing

  That might him yet recover. She offers her lips

  And all the bells of the city chime

  In that little room.

  III. 155–189

  Bawd

  I shall put you in her arms but tell no one.

  There are a thousand stories of a woman’s reputation lost

  Through a man’s boasts.

  Were it known

  What I have contrived . . . I would be

  Condemned and she would lose her name.

  She would be nothing. You would have won nothing.

  III. 240–280, IF III. 10

  Pandarus leads Criseyde back and returns alone

  Green

  Who can tell even half the delight he feels.

  So parched had he become, so densely drawn

  All hiding places.

  Now each holt and hedge in him

  Runs green again

  Restored to the impulse

  That had woken him in spring.

  III. 344–356

  He sees his lady sometime

  They are careful

  And barely speak when they meet.

  He makes much of what little they have

  And fights fiercely.

  At night he turns on his pillow

  Devising countless ways

  To serve the one he dreams of seizing.

  III. 451–459

  Presence

  She has no cause to request or refuse

  Since he anticipates each command.

  He places himself like steel between

  Her and all she has found

  So troubling.

  She’s more relieved than afraid.

  No one is asking her now to choose.

  III. 464–483

  Out of doubt

  He evaluates each glance and gesture

  Takes note, balances the books

  And sees that the lovers need to consolidate

  These rushed moments

  And that this will require a place

  Of which they can be certain.

  A place to which only he can lead them.

  III. 512–532

  Pandarus concludes

  Ordinance

  He waits downwind

  And hones his alibi.

  If anyone asks why he spent the night away

  He will allude to the temple

  And how he must sit alone in vigil

  Waiting for Apollo to speak in the trembling of the laurel

  Of when to expect surrender.

  III. 533–546

  Troilus is kept informed

  When lightless is the world

  A scrape of moon in a heaped sky.

  Despite the coming storm

  She crosses town with full retinue, properly,

  To dine with her uncle. He has insisted:

  Come tonight or never again.

  He lays on a feast.

  Nothing that could have been hoped for is missing.

  He sings, she plays, he tells the old stories.

  III. 549–616

  Pandarus commands Criseyde to dine with him

  Black rain

  This conjunction of the bent moon

  With Saturn and Jupiter in the house of Cancer

  Occurs once every six hundred years.

  Crab weather: the world lagooned

  And things forced sideways.

  The streets unpassable. Wherever

  You are tonight, stay put.

  III. 624–644

  As far as possible from the storm

  She who lives in fear of getting caught out

  Cannot get home. Her uncle offers her

  The quietest place: an inner room beyond his.

  Her ladies will occupy the connecting chamber.

  Having taken care of proprieties

  They drain the last glass

  And she is put to bed.

  III. 659–693

  The lover in his hiding place

  Her host is sure-footed. This is just

  Another version of a dance he knows well.

  He steps lightly – first to slide back the bolt

  Behind which the prince has been concealed

  In the stew. Hours in that rank closet

  Yet this mouse has to be cajoled

  (Too pitter-patter) into coming forth.

  III. 694–737

  The roar

  He leads the quailing
prince to a little trap door

  Then makes him wait while he slides himself into

  Her chamber. She wakes, sees her uncle and moves

  To fetch a chaperone.

  His whisper stops her.

  They would only reach the wrong conclusion.

  Her life is a room within rooms.

  Beyond – the wild wind.

  III. 743–764

  Pandarus delivers Troilus to Criseyde

  How this candle in the straw has fallen

  This is a most urgent and delicate matter.

  Think of it as being rescued from a fire.

  Your lover has broken into this house ablaze

  With the rumour that you have extended a promise

  To another. You must convince him otherwise.

  Not in the morning. Now.

  His mind is alight. Now.

  III. 796–917

  Pandarus persuades Criseyde to see Troilus

  Tryst

  Her heart turns cold in wonder