Exeter and
others, seem to be thinking merely of the Briseis whom we know from
Homer as the mistress of Achilles, and do not connect her with
Calchas, much less with Troilus. What may be said with some confidence
is that the confusion of Briseida with the daughter of Calchas and the
assignment of her to Troilus as his love originated with Benoit de
Sainte-More. But we must perhaps hesitate a little before assigning to
him quite so much credit as has sometimes been allowed him. Long
before Shakespeare received the story in its full development (for
though he does not carry it to the bitter end in _Troilus and
Cressida_ itself, the allusion to the "lazar kite of Cressid's kind"
in _Henry V._ shows that he knew it) it had reached that completeness
through the hands of Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Henryson, the least of
whom was capable of turning a comparatively barren _donnee_ into a
rich possession, and who as a matter of fact each added much. We do
not find in the Norman _trouvere_, and it would be rather wonderful if
we did find, the gay variety of the _Filostrato_ and its vivid picture
of Cressid as merely passionate, Chaucer's admirable Pandarus and his
skilfully blended heroine, or the infinite pathos of Henryson's final
interview. Still, all this great and moving romance would have been
impossible without the idea of Cressid's successive sojourn in Troy
and the Greek camp, and of her successive courtship by Troilus and by
Diomed. And this Benoit really seems to have thought of first. His
motives for devising it have been rather idly inquired into. For us it
shall be sufficient that he did devise it.

By an easy confusion with Chryses and Chryseis--half set right
afterwards in the change from Briseida to Griseida in Boccaccio and
Creseide in Chaucer--he made his heroine the daughter of Calchas. The
priest, a traitor to Troy but powerful with the Greeks, has left his
daughter in the city and demands her--a demand which, with the usual
complacency noticed above as characterising the Trojans in Dares
himself, is granted, though they are very angry with Calchas. But
Troilus is already the damsel's lover; and a bitter parting takes
place between them. She is sent, gorgeously equipped, to the Greeks;
and it happens to be Diomed who receives her. He at once makes the
fullest declarations--for in nothing did the Middle Age believe more
fervently than in the sentiment,

"Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?"

Bu