Like everyone else who knew Derek Brewer, I feel extremely lucky to have done so, and I treasure the memory of all our conversations. In particular, I remember one that prompted considerable amusement for both of us. It was a discussion of Criseyde's joined eyebrows: Derek arguing with both learned authority and great humour that such a feature was not regarded as unattractive in the classical sources. Since then, I have often reflected on Criseyde's appearance, and on the function of beauty in Troilus and Criseyde, and have returned to Derek's foundational article: ‘The Ideal of Feminine Beauty in Medieval Literature’ (1955a). This, then, is the argument I would have liked to have put forward to Derek that day in Emmanuel and a development, albeit in a retrograde fashion, from the ‘ideal’ he made so necessary a part of the text to an ‘idea’ of beauty in Troilus and Criseyde.

Towards the end of Troilus and Criseyde, around 7,000 lines after we first encounter her, the narrator gives us his most sustained account of Criseyde's appearance: