7 The Idea of Feminine Beauty in Troilus and Criseyde, or Criseyde’s Eyebrow

Abstract

L ike everyone else who knew Derek Brewer, I feel extremely lucky to have done so, and I treasure the memory of all our conversations. In particular, I remember one that prompted considerable amusement for both of us. It was a discussion of Criseyde's joined eyebrows: Derek arguing with both learned authority and great humour that such a feature was not regarded as unattractive in the classical sources. Since then, I have often reflected on Criseyde's appearance, and on the function of beauty in Troilus and Criseyde , and have returned to Derek's foundational article: ‘The Ideal of Feminine Beauty in Medieval Literature’ (1955a). This, then, is the argument I would have liked to have put forward to Derek that day in Emmanuel and a development, albeit in a retrograde fashion, from the ‘ideal’ he made so necessary a part of the text to an ‘idea’ of beauty in Troilus and Criseyde . Towards the end of Troilus and Criseyde , around 7,000 lines after we first encounter her, the narrator gives us his most sustained account of Criseyde's appearance: Criseyde mene was of hire stature, Therto of shap, of face and ek of cheere, Ther myghte ben no fairer creature; And ofte tyme this was hire manere, To gon y-tressed with hire heres clere Doun by hire coler at hire bak byhynde, Which with a thred of gold she wolde bynde. And saue hire browes ioyneden y-feere, Ther nas no lakke in aught I kan espien; But forto speken of hire eyen cleere, Lo, trewely, they written that hire syen, That Paradis stood formed in hire eyen; And with hire riche beaute euere more Strof loue in hire ay which of hem was more. (5. 806-19)

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