Troilus and Criseyde is an epic poem by Geoffrey Chaucer which re-tells in Middle English the tragic story of the lovers Troilus and Criseyde set against a backdrop of war during the Siege of Troy. It was composed using rime royale and probably completed during the mid-1380s. Many Chaucer scholars regard it as the poet's finest work. As a finished long poem it is more self-contained than the better known but ultimately unfinished The Canterbury Tales. This poem is often considered the source of the phrase: "all good things must come to an end" .
“He helde about him alway, out of drede,
A world of folke.”
Book 3, line 1721
Troilus and Criseyde (1380s)
“Eek for to winne love in sondry ages,
In sondry londes, sondry ben usages.”
Troilus and Criseyde (1380s)
Context: Ye knowe eek, that in forme of speche is chaunge
Withinne a thousand yeer, and wordes tho
That hadden prys, now wonder nyce and straunge
Us thinketh hem; and yet they spake hem so,
And spedde as wel in love as men now do;
Eek for to winne love in sondry ages,
In sondry londes, sondry ben usages.
Book 2, line 22-28
Book 2, line 22-28
Troilus and Criseyde (1380s)
Context: Ye knowe eek, that in forme of speche is chaunge
Withinne a thousand yeer, and wordes tho
That hadden prys, now wonder nyce and straunge
Us thinketh hem; and yet they spake hem so,
And spedde as wel in love as men now do;
Eek for to winne love in sondry ages,
In sondry londes, sondry ben usages.
Book 5, line 1835-1841
Troilus and Criseyde (1380s)
Context: O yonge fresshe folkes, he or she,
In which that love up-groweth with your age,
Repeyreth hoom fro worldly vanitee,
And of your herte up-casteth the visage
To thilke God that after his image
Yow made, and thynketh al nis but a faire
This world, that passeth sone as floures faire.
“Oon ere it herde, at tothir out it wente”
One ear heard it, at the other out it went
Book 4, line 434
Troilus and Criseyde (1380s)
Book 3, line 1625-1628
Troilus and Criseyde (1380s)
Book 5, line 1793-1798
Troilus and Criseyde (1380s)
Book 2, line 645-651
Troilus and Criseyde (1380s)
Book 2, line 1335-37
The earliest known near-usage in English of the proverb "Great oaks from little acorns grow."
Troilus and Criseyde (1380s)
