Troilus and Criseyde

[1] Chaucer's version can be said to reflect a less cynical and less misogynistic world-view than Boccaccio's, casting Criseyde as fearful and sincere rather than simply fickle and having been led astray by the eloquent and perfidious Pandarus.

In historical editions of the English Troilus and Criseyde, Henryson's distinct and separate work was sometimes included without accreditation as an "epilogue" to Chaucer's tale.

Other texts, for example, John Metham's Amoryus and Cleopes (c. 1449), adapt language and authorship strategies from the famous predecessor poem.

Troilus and Criseyde are usually considered to be a courtly romance, although the generic classification is an area of significant debate in most Middle English literature.

[3] Calchas, a soothsayer, foresees the fall of Troy and abandons the city in favour of the Greeks; his daughter, Criseyde, receives some ill will on account of her father's betrayal.

She writes dismissively in response to his letters and on the tenth day accepts a meeting with Diomede, and listens to him speak of love.

The narrator, with an apology for giving women a bad name, bids farewell to his book, and briefly recounts Troilus's death in battle and his ascent to the eighth sphere, draws a moral about the transience of earthly joys and the inadequacy of paganism, dedicates his poem to John Gower and Strode, asks the protection of the Trinity, and prays that we be worthy of Christ's mercy.