SOURCE: "Criseyde Becoming Cressida: Troilus and Criseyde and Troilus and Cressida," in The Swan at the Well: Shakespeare Reading Chaucer, Yale University Press, 1985, pp. 74-94.

In the essay below, Donaldson compares Chaucer's Criseyde to Shakespeare 's Cressida, and claims that "though in many ways dissimilar, [they are in some important ways alike; and have equally valid claims on our sympathy. "]

When in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida Ulysses utters his famous condemnation of Cressida,

 Fie, fie upon her!
 There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip,
 Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out
 At every joint and motive of her body,

[IV.v.54-57]¹

he seems to be responding to one of Chaucer's narrator's not very informative descriptions of Criseyde in the first book of his poem about the lovers:

She nas nat with the most of her stature,
 But all her limmes so well answering...