Abstract
Chaucer's intimate familiarity with biblical diction and imagery is well known, and his artful and frequently subtle appropriations of biblical themes and images are likewise established critical commonplaces. The present note identifies an oblique Chaucerian allusion to an important biblical web of visual imagery—falling rocks and millstones—hitherto not noticed. When Pandarus invokes falling “rokkes” and “milnestones” to convince Troilus that his chances for success in loving Criseyde are good (Tr, II, 1384), Chaucer is undercutting Pandarus's sanguine advice by implicitly adverting to repeated biblical imagery that associates falling rocks and millstones with death and destruction—e.g., Matthew 18:6, 21:44; Apocalypse 18:21; Judges 9:51–54; etc.
