transforms the whole drama and makes room for the
grosser realities of life, by altering the character of Pandarus. He
makes of him a man of mature years devoid of scruples, talkative,
shameless, wily, whose wisdom consists in proverbs chosen among the
easiest to follow, much more closely connected with Moliere's or
Shakespeare's comic heroes than with Musset's lovers. Pandarus is as
fond of comparisons as Gros-Rene, as fond of old saws as Polonius; he is
coarse and indecent, unintentionally and by nature, like Juliet's
nurse.[511] He is totally unconscious, and thinks himself the best
friend in the world, and the most reserved; he concludes interminable
speeches by:

I jape nought, as ever have I joye.

Every one of his thoughts, of his words, of his attitudes is the very
opposite of Cressida's and her lover's, and makes them stand out in
relief by a contrast of shade. He is all for tangible and present
realities, and does not believe in ever foregoing an immediate and
certain pleasure in consideration of merely possible consequences.

With this disposition, and in this frame of mind, he approaches his
niece to speak to her of love. The scene, which is entirely of Chaucer's
invention, is a true comedy scene; the gestures and attitudes are
minutely noted. Cressida looks down; Pandarus coughs. The dialogue is so
rapid and sharp that one might think this part written for a play, not
for a tale in verse. The uncle arrives; the niece, seated with a book on
her knees, was reading a romance.

Ah! you were reading! What book was it? "What seith it? Tel it us. Is it
of Love?" It was of Thebes; "this romaunce is of Thebes;" she had
secured as it seems a very early copy. She excuses herself for indulging
in so frivolous a pastime; she would perhaps do better to read "on holy
seyntes lyves." Chaucer, mindful above all of the analysis of passions,
does not trouble himself about anachronisms; he cares nothing to know if
the besieged Trojans could really have drawn examples of virtue from the
Lives of the Saints; history matters little to him: let those who take
an interest in it look "in Omer or in Dares."[512] The motions of the
human heart, that is his real subject, not the march of armies; from the
moment of its birth, the English novel is psychological.

With a thousand precautions, and although still keeping to the vulgarity
of his role, Pandarus manages so as to bring to a sufficiently serious
mood the laughter-lovin