ABSTRACT
Troilus has always had his defenders, which is as it should be, for he is surely to a man of common sense one of the most heart-warming and attractive of heroes. And the medieval audience must have contained plenty of men of common sense. Yet he has also had his modern impugners. Because he wept like Aeneas or Lancelot or any sensitive noble hero, he has often been called a milksop, an odd term for a man who fought like a lion. Though Troilus is a fresh, lusty and virile gentleman, with some of the blemishes of that degree and others that are common to us all, one wonders what a charitable pagan would be if it were not Troilus. Yet there is nothing to impugn the impression Troilus’ virtue has made on her.
