nere wight in som degree?And yet thow hast this comfort, lo, parde,That, as hire joies moten overgon,So mote hir sorwes passen everecho.For if hire whiel stynte any thyng to torne,Than cessed she Fortune anon to be.Now, sith hire whiel by no may sojourne,What woostow if hire mutabiliteRight as thyselven list wol don by the,Or that she be naught fer fro thyn helpynge?Paraunter thow hast cause for to synge” (I.841-54).The same points of argument are reiterated here in Chaucer’s own words. Pandarus is saying the exact same things as Lady Philosophy’s argument. Fortune is the same to every man. The joys she brings may pass away, but so will the sorrows. Her wheel cannot stop. She would cease to be fortune. The reader can see the direct correlation between Boethius’s work and Pandarus’s words. Fortune in Troilus and CriseydeChaucer gives Pandarus a clear understanding of Lady Fortune. It is his character who leads Troilus and instructs him, as Lady Fortune did Boethius. Camargo insists that it was important for Chaucer that his readers see the correlation between the opening of the Consolation and the opening of Troilus and Criseyde. “Because it was important to Chaucer that his readers recognize the analogies between Troilus and Boethius and Pandarus and Philosophy from the outset, he took special pains in Book I to recall the Consolation’s vivid opening scene” (Camargo, p. 215). Just as Lady Philosophy found Boethius under the sway of the muses, so Chaucer begins this scene with Troilus singing alone in his room. He also comes to him and upbraids him for his confusion about Fortune as noted in the passage from Book I cited above. However, Pandarus is truly an opportunist when it comes to Fortune. He tells Troilus and Criseyde to take the opportunity presented to them by this love. “By turning Lady Philosophy’s lesson into a veiled carpe diem, Pandarus demonstrates...
