his enthusiastic acceptance of the transitory gifts of Fortune,” Joseph Salemi writes. Pandarus encourages Troilus by saying that Fortune must be smiling on him, and tells Criseyde that this is an “good aventure” (II.288).In Book IV, Pandarus again counsels Troilus on Fortune. However, now Fortune has turned her face away from Troilus. He says:“Who woulde have wende that in so litel a throweFortune oure joie wold han overthrowe?For in this world ther is no creature,As to my dom, that ever saugh ruyneStraunger than this, thorough cas or aventure.But who may al eschue, or al devyne?Swich is this world! Forthi I thus diffyne:Ne trust no wight to fynden in FortuneAy propertee; hire yiftes ben comune” (IV.384-92). He grasps that the very nature of Fortune is to take what she has given. No one can understand her fickle nature, except to know that she changes. Pandarus goes on to tell Troilus that he should seek a new love. Surely Fortune will smile on him in the form of a new ladylove! This is truly a Boethian philosophy. As Fortune spins her wheel, eventually the wheel will bring prosperity again (Consolation, II. Pr 1). Troilus has a completely different view regarding Fortune. He is much more like Boethius. “He [Troilus] and Pandarus represent two equally distorted views of Fortune: that of the opportunist and the fatalist,” says Joseph Salemi (219). Jefferson also agrees that Troilus is “the kind of fatalist that Boethius was in the Consolation…in the role which he assumes for himself in contrast to his consoler, Dame Philosophy, the man who cries out against Fortune, who cannot reconcile to his misfortunes” (123). So Chaucer has cast his Troilus in the role of Boethius. Troilus’s question at the beginning of his song in Book I does indeed echo that of Boethius:“If no love is, O good, what fele I so?And if love is, what thing and which is he?If love be g...
