The scene between Arcite and Palamon when they see Emilie walking in the garden below their locked tower prison is one of the most lyrical and elevated scenes in all the Tales. Chaucer’s conventional description of Emilie uses a medieval poetic convention of imagistic associations: The lady is like a flower “that fairer was to see / Than is the lily upon his stalk green.” She is a beautiful creature of nature, at one with the garden and the spirit of May, but like nature itself, she has a radiance that suggests something beyond nature: “She sung like a heavenly Angel.”
In the senseless struggle between Arcite and Palamon, both complain of their fortune. And then suddenly, Fortune changes Arcite’s position. Through the earthly love of Perotheus and the compassion of Theseus, Arcite is released, but he is not pleased. In his formal speech loaded with dramatic irony, he wishes he had never known Perotheus and envies Palamon the “paradise” of his prison where he can see the beauteous Emilie every day. His thoughts cannot rise above his mere physical nature; thus, Arcite falls into the sin of despair — or, in medieval terms, the belief that God is merciless — and he rages against Divine Providence and Fortune, which have robbed him of the sight of Emilie.
