and concludes the proem with the words,-- "but sin I have begonne, Myn auctor shal I folwen, if I conne."[189] When Fortune turns her face away from Troilus, and Chaucer must tell of the loss of Criseyde his heart bleeds and his pen trembles with dread of what he must write: "But al to litel, weylawey the whyle, Lasteth swich Ioye, y-thonked be Fortune! That semeth trewest, whan she wol bygyle, And can to foles so hir song entune, That she hem hent and blent, traytour comune; And whan a wight is from hir wheel y-throwe, Than laugheth she, and maketh him the mowe. From Troilus she gan hir brighte face Awey to wrythe, and took of him non hede, But caste him clene oute of his lady grace, And on hir wheel she sette up Diomede; For which right now myn herte ginneth blede, And now my penne, allas! with which I wryte, Quaketh for drede of that I moot endyte."[190] Chaucer tells of Criseyde's faithlessness reluctantly, reminding the reader often that so the story has it: "And after this the story telleth us, That she him yaf the faire baye stede, The which she ones wan of Troilus; And eek a broche (and that was litel nede) That Troilus was, she yaf this Diomede. And eek, the bet from sorwe him to releve, She made him were a pencel of hir sleve. I finde eek in the stories elles-where, Whan through the body hurt was Diomede Of Troilus, tho weep she many a tere, Whan that she saugh his wyde woundes blede; And that he took to kepen him good hede, And for to hele him of his sorwes smerte, Men seyn, I not, that she yaf him hir herte."[191] And in the end for very pity he tries to excuse her: "Ne me ne list this sely womman chyde Ferther than the story wol devyse, Hir name, allas! is publisshed so wyde, That for hir gilt it oughte y-now suffyse. And if I mighte excuse hir any wyse, For she so sory was for hir untrouthe, Y-wis, I wolde excuse hir yet for routhe."[192] We have said that Chaucer's attitude toward the philosophical aspects of astrology is hard to determine because in most of his poems he takes an impersonal ironic point of view towards the actions he describes or the ideas he presents. His attitude toward the idea of destiny is not so hard to determine. Fortune, the executrix of the fates through the influence of the heavens rules men's lives; they are the herdsmen, we are their flocks: "But O, Fortune, executrice of wierdes, O influences of thise hevenes hye! Soth is, that, under god, ye ben our hierdes, Though to us bestes been the causes wrye."[193] Perhaps Chaucer did not mean this literally. But one is tempted to think that he, like Dante, thought of the heavenly bodies in their spheres as the ministers and instruments of a Providence that had foreseen and ordained all things. APPENDIX